Lucy had been showing off a little these last few days, and she was starting to make him nervous. She wasn't doing anything real serious to unsettle Longarm's mind, but she'd begun sleeping closer to him at night and asking him to scratch her back and help her change her blouse. Things like that made it tough for a good lawman to keep from being distracted. There had been times when he'd even wished she was fat or ugly. That would have made the job far less taxing.
"Well, Longarm," the liveryman, whose name was Frank, said, "I've seen you with a lot of handcuffed prisoners, but I never saw one as pretty as this!"
"Thank you," Lucy said, smiling and batting her long eyelashes. "You are certainly a flatterer."
"Aw, shucks," the liveryman said, blushing deeply. "You're easily the prettiest thing I ever seen wearing handcuffs. What kind of a crime could a beautiful young woman like you have done?"
"She is accused of murdering her husband," Longarm stated quite bluntly. "And while the lady is definitely beautiful, I'm treating her just as I would any dangerous prisoner in transit. I need you to board and take care of our horses."
"For how long?" Frank asked. "They look right done in."
"They are," Longarm agreed.
"And I can see right now that they need new shoes. They're gonna throw 'em in the mountains if you don't let me tack on new ones."
"How much?"
Frank scratched his jaw. "For the two?"
"That's right."
"I could do both for... oh, twenty dollars."
"Fifteen," Longarm said. "That's the most they'd charge in Denver."
"is that a fact?"
"It is."
"Then fifteen is good enough," Frank said, "even though we have to pay more for shoes and nails and such than them big boys up in Denver."
"I'll give you a dollar extra on the board bill if you grain both animals heavily."
"Now, that would be just fine!" Frank said. He looked at Lucy. "May I have the pleasure of helping you down, miss?"
"Of course," she said, shooting a disapproving glance at Longarm. "It's nice to know that chivalry still exists."
Longarm felt the insult and let it go. He dismounted, stiff from the long hours he'd spent in the saddle. He untied his saddlebags and bedroll, then removed his Winchester carbine and turned to Frank.
"Is the Buckboard Hotel still the best for the money in this town?"
"That it is," Frank said. "But I don't know if they're going to be too happy about your bringing in a female prisoner. Especially one so pretty."
"They're going to have to bend their rules and trust me," Longarm said, "because I'm not about to let Lucy out of my sight."
"She's slippery, is she?" Frank asked, eying Lucy with a bold and approving eye.
"She can be, yes," Longarm told the old liveryman. "She made a break for it in Denver and almost broke my nose in the process. I don't trust her anymore."
"Well for gawd sake don't shoot her if she makes another break for it," Frank pleaded. "Be a terrible waste of beauty. Be like stompin' on a pretty bird or butterfly or something'."
"Right," Longarm said. He took Lucy's arm firmly in hand. "Come along, Mrs. Ortega. We'll get a room and deposit our belongings, then we'll find something to eat."
"That would be nice," she said in a tart voice. "Your cooking leaves a lot to be desired. Everything is either scorched on the outside and raw on the inside, or else it's dripping in grease."
Frank chuckled. "Why didn't you let her cook, Longarm?"
"Maybe I will from now on."
"I'm sure that Marshal Putman would like you to put her up in his jail," Frank said, winking at Longarm.
"Yeah, I guess he probably would," Longarm agreed. "Maybe that is the simpler thing to do all the way around."
"Oh, no!" Lucy cried. "I'm not going to spend a couple of days rotting in some stinking jail cell while the marshal and his deputies leer at me."
"Marshal Putnam is a family man," Longarm said. "I think maybe that would be the better arrangement, providing you don't have to share a cell with more than one or two other prisoners."
Lucy took a step back and knotted her fists. "You just try and dump me in with a bunch of prisoners and I swear that I'll kill you before we get to Yuma."
"Like you did Don Luis?" he asked mildly.
Lucy couldn't throw a punch with her hands manacled together, but she did aim a wicked kick toward his crotch. Longarm was expecting that and he easily dodged the blow, grabbed Lucy around the waist, and gave her a rough shove toward the street.
"All right," he said, "we'll try the Buckboard Hotel. But if you give me the slightest bit of grief, I'll see that you're tossed in Putnam's jail until it's time for us to push on to Yuma."
"Why's she going to Yuma?" Frank asked, hurrying after them.
"Go back and take care of your business and let me take care of mine," Longarm ordered.
"But your business looks a whole lot more fun than mine!"
"Shoe our damned horses!" Longarm called over his shoulder as he marched Lucy to the hotel, avoiding the curious stares of everyone they passed.
"Marshal Long!" the proprietor of the Buckboard said in greeting as they entered the hotel. "What a pleasure to see you and your... what?"
Longarm watched the man's smile of greeting evaporate, and then slowly reappear under the warmth of Lucy's smile. "This is my prisoner, Mrs. Lucy Ortega. We need... a room."
"One?" the man asked, eyes lifting in question.
"Yes, one," Longarm said. "I don't dare let her out of my sight."
"What did she do, cause some man to walk into a wall and brain himself?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Marvin," Longarm snapped. "Lucy is under arrest for a far more serious charge than that."
Marvin boldly measured Lucy until he felt Longarm's hot, disapproving eyes, and then he gathered his wits and said, "I have a room on the second floor. Room Twenty-eight. Two single beds. I hope that will be suitable."
"It will," Longarm said. "Give me the key."
Marvin gave him the key, and Longarm didn't even bother to thank him as he led Lucy up the stairs and found their room.
"Spartan," Lucy said when they moved inside, "but at least it's clean."
"And with two single beds," Longarm said, pitching his saddlebags and bedroll onto the bed nearest the window.
"I need a bath," Lucy said. "I feel like I'll never be clean again."
"I need one too," he said, "but even more, I need to get something to eat and drink."
"First," she insisted, "the bath."
Longarm thought that he probably ought to put his foot down hard and show her who was in charge here, but he was too tired to get into an argument, so he went back outside into the hallway and shouted down the stairs. "Hey, Marvin! We need a hot bath up here right now!"
"Two?" came the reply.
Longarm knew that two baths would cost him a full dollar. "No," he yelled, "one will do." Longarm thought that he heard giggles from downstairs, but just when he had decided it was time to have a private word with the man, Marvin yelled, "One bath, coming right up, Deputy Longarm!"
"I'm going to need you to remove these handcuffs," Lucy said inside the room. "Otherwise, I can't get my blouse off."
When he hesitated, Lucy added, "Come on! I can't bathe in my clothes."
"Yeah, but..."
"You've seen a woman bathe before, haven't you?"
"Sure! But..."
"And you're an officer of the law, sworn to uphold federal law and not inflict yourself on prisoners in your custody, isn't that right?"
"Yeah, but..."
"And I can trust you to be honorable, can't I?" she asked as she began to unbutton her blouse.
"Well sure you can, but..."
"Then let's not waste any more precious energy worrying about proprieties," she said abruptly. "We've been sleeping together now for several nights and nothing has happened."
"This is a little different, though," he muttered.
"Why?"
"'Cause I haven't had to be around you when you were taking a bath, dammit!"
"Aw," she said, dismissing his concerns, "just stretch out on the bed and close your eyes. Pretend that I'm your usual uncouth male prisoner. It'll be easy."