"A coral snake?"
"Yes," Billy said, clearly pleased with the analogy, "because they are very beautiful but also very deadly."
"I'll try," Longarm said, eyes dropping back to the newspaper picture.
"Do better than try, Longarm. Do much better or you will most certainly be poisoned."
Longarm scowled, and then turned on his heel and went back to the door.
"Oh, Custis?"
"Yeah?"
"I forgot to ask. Did you put in an expense sheet on that Hollaway business?"
"Not yet. Hell, Billy, I just got back into town a few minutes ago, for crying out loud."
"They're waiting in our financial department," Billy said, his blue eyes dropping to regard a memorandum on his desk. "And they are not too happy with the way you tallied up the expenses for your last assignment. You need to keep receipts and better records."
Longarm's eyes widened and his lips pulled back from his teeth. "I'll talk to them in the financial department," he growled, "and I'll enjoy the looks on their faces when I tell those paper-pushers where I'm going to deposit my receipts and records from this last trip."
Longarm slammed out of the door and left Billy Vail chuckling.
CHAPTER 2
"She's all yours, Deputy Long," the jail guard said, stepping aside so that Longarm could get his prisoner.
Lucy Ortega was not at her best. Her hair was tangled and her dress soiled and torn, indicating to Longarm that she had probably resisted arrest. The cell she occupied was dank and dingy and the light poor, but Longarm could still see that Mrs. Ortega was a beautiful woman. Her skin was flawless and her hair was either black or a very deep mahogany brown. She was tall, at least five-foot-ten, with strong features.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Ortega," Longarm said by the way of introduction. "My name is Deputy Marshal Custis Long and I've been assigned to escort you to Yuma."
Lucy sat on a hard metal bench that also served as a bed. She glared at Longarm without saying anything, and did not even attempt to come to her feet.
"I guess you don't have much in the way of belongings," Longarm said, looking around the jail cell and seeing nothing. "The bailiff has your handbag and the coat you were wearing when you were arrested. We might as well go."
Lucy just glared at him.
"Ma'am," Longarm said, stepping closer. "I want you to know that I'm not real happy about going to Yuma either. Fact of the matter is, Yuma is one of my least favorite places. But you're part of a prisoner swap and neither one of us has any choice about going."
"Go away," she ordered in a deep, harsh voice. "Just get out of here, Marshal, and neither one of us will get hurt."
Longarm frowned. He had handled women prisoners before, but had never felt very comfortable doing so. He decided to be more firm with this woman. "Now, Mrs. Ortega, I..."
"Lucy! My husband is dead and my name is Lucy."
"Sure," Longarm replied, nodding his head and wondering if Lucy was a little crazy. "I don't care what I call you. But we do have to go to Yuma."
"I'm not going back to Arizona," she said in a flat, no-compromise tone of voice.
"You got that wrong," Longarm told her. "I've been ordered to take you to Yuma via Prescott."
Her hard expression changed and she came to her feet.
"We're going to Prescott?"
"Yes," he said, "something about witnesses and evidence. I don't know, but I expect someone will be waiting to tell us everything we need to know. Anyway, we've got to get started while the day is still young. It's a long ride to Prescott, even a longer one to Yuma."
"No train or stagecoach?" she asked.
"Nope," Longarm said. "The way we're traveling, they would take us far afield. I've rented us a pair of good saddle horses."
Longarm stared at the woman. "You can ride a horse, can't you?"
"Of course," she said.
"Then let's go, Miss... I mean Lucy."
She thought about that for a moment, as if going or staying was her decision alone, then made up her mind. With a nod of her head, she came towards him, forcing Longarm to back out of the cell.
"Now, Lucy," he said, removing a set of handcuffs from his belt, "I'm afraid that I'm going to have to ask you to wear these."
She came right up to him and said, "You're afraid of me?"
"No, of course not!" He cleared his throat. "It's just federal regulations that all prisoners wear handcuffs. if you were a man, I'd also slap a pair of leg irons on you, but..."
She stuck out her wrists and squeezed them together. "Go ahead, put them on and then put on the leg irons."
"Won't need to do the latter," Longarm said, handcuffing her.
"No," she insisted, reaching down with her manacled wrists and tugging up her dress to the knee as she thrust a shapely calf forward. "Put them on!"
"I didn't even bring the damned things," he said, losing patience. "Now just follow me."
Longarm wouldn't have turned his back, even on a woman prisoner, except that she had riled him and he wanted to show her that he was not in the least bit afraid of her hurting him or trying to escape. He led her to the jail officer's desk, where Lucy Ortega collected her handbag and meager belongings, then escorted her out of the jail and into the street.
"Ready to ride?" he said, untying their waiting horses.
"It would help if I had a riding skirt," she told him. "How am I supposed to ride in a full dress with a petticoat?"
"Hike it up," he said, grabbing Lucy by the waist and lifting her up into the saddle with more effort than he'd expected. Lucy Ortega was not a willowy woman. She was full-bodied and strong. Longarm made a mental note to himself to remember that, with a weapon in her hand, Lucy would be quite formidable.
Lucy reached down and gathered up her reins. Longarm looked back over his shoulder and saw several of the jail guards grinning at him.
"You boys see something funny?" he asked in a challenging voice. "Because if you do, why don't you let me in on it so I can grin like a fool too?"
The jail guards disappeared back inside. Longarm climbed onto a tall, rangy sorrel gelding that he called Duke and had used on many occasions.
"What is this mare's name?" Lucy asked.
"I don't know. First time I ever rented her." Longarm studied the pretty roan. "You can call her anything you want."
"I'll call her Strawberry," Lucy said, stroking the mare's sleek neck.
"Good enough," Longarm said, noting how Lucy's hardness melted a little as she stroked the mare's coat. "I can see that you like horses. Are the stirrups long enough?"
"Not really," she said, hiking the dress up to her thighs. "Would you be kind enough to lengthen them?"
"Sure," he said, dismounting. "We've got a long ride ahead of us and I'll buy you a riding skirt at the mercantile before we leave town."
She smiled and kicked her feet out of her stirrups. "That would be very kind of you."
Longarm had to unlace the stirrup in order to lengthen it, and that took several minutes. While doing so, he had the woman's pretty bare leg right next to his face, and it occurred to him that Lucy Ortega had lovely calves.
"There," he said. "Try that."
"Perfect," she said.
"One more," he said, moving around the horse to the off stirrup. He quickly unlaced it, and was starting to pull the stirrup down when Lucy suddenly jammed her foot back into the stirrup and kicked him in the face.
"Ya!" she cried, whirling the mare around, grabbing Longarm's own horse by the reins, and making a break for it down the center of the street.
Longarm swore and clutched at his bleeding nose. Maybe Lucy Ortega had broken it, but there was no time to find out because she was disappearing in one hell of a big cloud of dust. Up and down the street people were scattering in an attempt to avoid being run over.