Free Longarm on the Overland Trail by Tabor Evans

enough to back his loco notions. I'd like to get my hands on the range instructor who taught him to handle guns so good. But they ain't sending me after him. It's your kid brother the law wants, and you can't come along to reason with anyone so unreasonable. I got enough on my plate with just having your family to worry about. I'd never forgive myself if you both wound up shot."
    She raised the glass and downed the drink with a heroic effort before she put it on his lamp table and began to unbutton her bodice again. He put his own drink aside. "Just what do you think you're doing? I've already seen your bruises."
    She smiled up at him sadly and said, "I can't go home, with those awful men tramping about my house. If you won't take me with you, couldn't I at least stay here with you tonight?"
    She must have been able to read his thoughts, despite his valiant attempt at a poker face. For as she exposed her pretty little breasts to the lamplight she said, "It's not as if either of us are virgins, you know."
    He said, "Speak for yourself. How pure I might or might not be is not the question. I ain't in a position to compromise myself as an arresting officer."
    She smiled up at him archly. "Heavens, what are you planning to arrest me for, Custis?" she asked.
    He said, "Indecent exposure and cruelty to animals. It ain't going to work, Miss Flora. I admire your devotion to kin, but we both know what you're trying to do. You're just upsetting us both to no avail."
    She gathered her duds together more tightly and started to cry. Her tears were real. He sat down beside her and buttoned her bodice back up as he said, "You can't stay here, for I know what any lawyer worth his salt could make of that in court. Pull yourself together and I'll take you over to a hack-stand I know of in this neighborhood. It's too late and dark out to send a lady back across Cherry Creek on foot alone."
    She didn't argue. She acted sort of numb until he had them both downstairs and walking quietly and awkwardly toward the lit-up corner where, with luck, he'd be able to find a ride home for her.
    As he spotted an empty hack tethered in front of Maria's Cantina he said, "There you go. I'll put you in and chase that fool driver out of that dive so's he can carry you home, or to a hotel if you'd rather. Do you need any money?"
    She sobbed, grabbed hold of him, and buried her face against his chest as she cried, "Oh, I feel so cheap and low, now. Whatever must you think of me?"
    He patted her back. It felt nice as he soothed, "I think you acted like a lady in desperation. The Lord gave you gals mighty unfair weapons. Had I thought you meant it, I might have taken you up on your cruel temptation. But it still wouldn't have stopped me from doing whatever I may have to do, later, and think how awful you'd feel if you gave your all to save your kid brother and we still wound up shooting it out."
    "Isn't there any other way, Custis? I know Joseph is a killer, but he's sick. It's not really his fault!"
    "I know that. He acted crazy the first time I laid eyes on him. I don't want to hurt him, Flora. I know that if I can bring him in alive they'll send him to the asylum, not the gallows or even prison. I know that if I fail, and live through it, you'll never forgive me. But that's the way it has to be."
    He knew, later, as he watched her drive away, that his mind had done the right thing, no matter how mad the rest of him was sure to feel before he ever got to sleep in a lonesome room still haunted by her faint perfume.

CHAPTER 6
    The U.P. Combination rolled into Julesburg late in the morning and stopped just long enough to let Longarm and his possibles off before rolling on to more important places. In its day Julesburg had rated a population close to two thousand, and a killing a day. But since the rails had replaced the Overland stages and freight wagons the population had dropped considerably. The town had become a sleepy little county seat and railroad juncture,