Page 102 of Ransom
Ransom stood by the driver's door and didn't look at me.
"Where's Rafe and Sierra?" I asked.
Ransom didn't turn around. "Not here."
"They know you're here?"
He didn't answer.
I lowered the rag from my bloody lip. "Can you go back?"
"Don't know."
That makes two of us, I thought.
Coyote tied the rope to the trailer hitch and tested the knot with one slow pull. He tied off the other end in a loop, big enough to go around a man's ankles twice, and laid the loop flat in the dirt so the rope wouldn't bind when the truck pulled.
"You ever done this before?" I asked.
Coyote looked up at me from the knot. "Drug a man behind a truck? No, Ranger. First time."
"You tie a real pretty knot for a first-timer."
"I tie a real pretty knot, period." He gave the loop one more tug and stood up, dusting his hands on his thighs. "Mama taught me knots before she taught me reading. She had her priorities."
"What'd she think of reading?"
"Overrated."
Nimue lifted her head off Coyote's collarbone like she agreed.
"Ready," Coyote said.
Linc and Mateo brought Rex out of the gift shop on his good leg, with the bad one dragging. Rex had stopped talking somewhere around the second time he'd asked me to call my captain. He'd pissed himself a second time on the carpet when he'd figured out the conversation was over. The smell came off him in a wave when they got him out into the night air. Linc made a face. Mateo didn't.
"Ranger," Rex pleaded. "Ranger, you're a lawman. You can't let this happen."
I leaned my elbows on my knees on the tailgate. "I'm taking the night off."
Mateo and Linc walked him to the back of the truck. Coyote crouched and slipped the loop around Rex's ankles and pulled it snug. He worked the knot like he worked everything: quick fingers, tongue between his teeth. Rex tried to kick him. Coyotepinned his knee, humming through it. The knot settled flush against Rex's anklebone and stayed there.
"That'll hold, Rex," Coyote said. "I do good work."
I slid off the tailgate.
My ribs protested, and the right knee buckled when I put weight on it. I told them both to hush. I walked around to the driver's side where Ransom was standing, favoring the leg.
"You sure about this?" he said.
"I'm sure."
"This ain't going to undo it."
"I know."
"Your daddy's still going to be where you left him."
"I know that, too."
