Free Longarm and the Horse Thief's Daughter by Tabor Evans Page B

cop tried to smash his nightstick into the small of Longarm’s back, aiming for the kidneys, but Longarm’s chained wrists got in the way.
    Even so, the pain drove Longarm to his knees, and he worried that perhaps his right wrist had been broken.
    â€œSon of a bitch,” the cop barked and struck with the nightstick again.
    Longarm considered turning around and knocking the dumb bastard down the flight of stairs. With luck he would break his miserable neck.
    But that would only make matters worse, dammit. Very reluctantly he held his tongue. But it was not easy.
    More of the cops came down the stairs. They grabbed Longarm by the arms, turned him around, and hustled him down to the ground floor. They were not very gentle about it, but at least they did not push him down the stairs. He supposed he should be grateful for that.
    â€œOutside,” one of them ordered. Not that he had any choice about complying. The bunch of them duckwalked him out the door.
    A Black Maria was just pulling up to the front of the building with more cops in it. They must have the entire police force on hand, Longarm thought.
    The driver’s helper jumped down and opened wide the doors at the back of the prisoner wagon.
    â€œGet in,” a voice behind him snapped.
    The police very helpfully assisted him in climbing into the Maria. They were so very helpful that he hit the floor hard and skidded all the way to the front of the wagon, the breath knocked out of him and perhaps some bruises added to the others he’d recently collected.
    The doors slammed shut. He heard the rattle of locks and then felt the wagon box sway as the helper climbed back onto the driving seat. He heard the driver call to his team. Felt the outfit lurch into motion.
    Longarm did not know where they were going, but he hoped it was someplace reasonably within the public view and not to some convenient killing ground. Such things were not entirely unheard of. He could handle a beating if he had to. After all, he was no virgin when it came to such. But a bullet in the back of the head would be a little harder to deal with.
    â€œWhoa,” he heard the driver call after a very short journey on the streets of Fort Collins.
    Then the doors were flung open and Custis Long was dragged bodily out of the Maria.

Chapter 31
    Longarm woke up. He wished he hadn’t.
    If there was a place on his body that did not hurt, he could not identify it.
    He had been kicked and pummeled and thoroughly beaten. He had been hit with nightsticks, fists, and boots. His balls ached, and his eyes were swollen closed to mere slits. Hell, his hair hurt! It had been, he had to admit, a first-class beating.
    The good thing was that he had not been there for much of it. Repeated blows to the head had put his lights out fairly early in the game.
    Now he wished he could fall unconscious again until, say, next Thursday or so. Jesus, he hurt.
    He heard a grinding of metal on metal and the clang of a cell door being opened.
    â€œAll right, you. Out,” a voice growled.
    Longarm lay still. Actually he was not sure he
could
move, was not sure if important parts had been broken by the beating.
    He tried to open his eyes, but the best he could manage was a hazy image of light and dark.
    â€œOut, I said.”
    He felt the toe of a boot in his ribs. Better there than his balls, he reasoned with himself. One of them had been fond of kicking the balls, and a man who is handcuffed and thrown on the floor can do little to protect those important parts.
    â€œUp, damn you.”
    He tried. This time he did try to get up. He got as far as his knees, but that was the best he could manage. And that pissed him off. The thought that the son of a bitch jailer might think Custis Long was kneeling to him was too much.
    That galvanized him into motion and brought him the rest of the way onto his feet.
    He was swaying and unsteady but at least he was upright. The bastards were not going to see him on