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ostentatiously attired captain strode toward him, officiously puffing out his chest, he said, “Yes, indeed, dear, I’ve been stationed at Fort Riley for the past year, but fortunately I was able to obtain a two-week furlough to come visit you. I was going to write but decided to make it a surprise. However, I was the one to be surprised when, only seconds after my stage pulled into Jawbone, I was told of the unfortunate turn of events at the bank and your kidnapping at the hands of the vile road agents led by Heck Gunn and Orlando Cruz.”
    He stopped in front of Longarm, squared his shoulders, clicked his heels together, ringing the jinglebobs on his spurs, and offered his long, pale hand. “Marshal Long, I will be forever in your debt for everything you’ve done for my fiancée, Miss Sackett.”
    Longarm shook the man’s hand and glanced around the mustachioed dandy at his shrewdly beaming future bride. Or so the little bitch thought. If Lacy Sackett thought she was going to finagle her way out of being arrested, however, she had another think coming.
    â€œOh, I reckon it wasn’t nothin’ Marshal Beamer shouldn’t have done,” Longarm said, shaking the man’s hand. The captain wore a gold ring inset with a green stone etched with two numeral eights. “The Double Eight Connected,” Longarm said, releasing the man’s hand. “That’s a sizeable spread near Jawbone, ain’t it? Run by a family of Shafters?”
    â€œOh, indeed, it is, Marshal,” said Captain Shafter. “My father, Ezekial Shafter the Third, moved his herd up from eastern Texas just before I was born. I was raised out at the Double Eight Connected.” He turned to smile at the smiling Lacy. “And I aim to raise my own family there, as well . . . once I’m out of the army and Lacy and I can be married, as we’ve intended since April of last year.”
    â€œYou have, have you? Miss Lacy never told about no future weddin’.”
    â€œWhy would I?” Lacy said, chuckling as she walked over and wrapped both her arms around one of Captain Shafter’s. “I mean, we hardly know each other, Marshal. Now, since Dickie . . . I mean, Captain Shafter and several of his most capable men from the Double Eight Connected are here to see me safely back to Jawbone, you can go after Hell-Bringin’ Heck Gunn and his gang, and retrieve the money they stole from my father’s bank.”
    It was Longarm’s turn to chuckle, which he did as he picked up his hat and set it on his head at the angle he preferred, tipped a little over his left eye. “Oh, you think so, do you, Lacy . . . er . . . Miss Sackett? Well, I got me another idea.”

Chapter 5
    â€œWhat idea is that, Marshal?” asked Captain Shafter. “I would think you’d want to run those owlhoots to ground. Why, if it weren’t for my wanting to see Miss Lacy safely back to Jawbone, I’d go after them myselves. Bring them kicking and screaming back to Jawbone to hang from Beamer’s gallows!”
    Longarm almost chuckled at the dandy’s ire, not to mention at the purple ostrich plume jouncing atop his hat.
    â€œYes, that’s exactly what you should do,” Lacy said, staring at Longarm, her green eyes and sharp and determined. “Marshal Long, you should go after those men and bring them to heel after what they did to me.” She crossed her arms on her all-but-exposed breasts, then quickly glanced at her chosen one. “I mean, what they
nearly
did to me . . . and certainly would have done when they got to Mexico.” Her cheeks colored a little as she held her gaze on Longarm, the only one in the group who knew she was lying. Brazenly lying. The only one who knew that she’d used her heavenly body on Heck Gunn in similar fashion to how she’d used it on Longarm.
    To get what she wanted.
    But why