Page 107 of Ransom
"Don't thank me. Thank Sierra. I'm just a stubborn old bastard without him."
The first drop of rain hit my hat brim.
"There it goes," Rafe said looking up. "About damn time."
He let me go, stepped back, and picked his hat up off the rail. "Go on. Get in out of this. I'll see you at breakfast."
The screen door banged on the porch behind him. "Rafe Fernando Lujan, you come up here right now or I swear on my mother."
Rafe gave a short laugh. "Coming, mi vida."
He clapped me on the shoulder on his way to the porch steps. Sierra held the screen door for him and waved at me across the yard before he pulled it shut.
I stood at the rail and let the rain come. It came the way New Mexico rain does in monsoon, no easing into it, just a wall of water hitting the dirt all at once. The dust came up brown. Thesmell of wet creosote rose off the flat in a way you could taste. I was wet through inside thirty seconds.
I pushed off the rail.
The cat was on the casita step where she always was, hunched up, soaked, glaring at me like the weather was a thing I'd done to her on purpose.
"Sorry, mama."
I pushed the door and stepped over her. Winston was sitting in my chair. The cat shoved past my boots, made for the bed in three jumps, flattened herself on the pillow, and chirped at me. Then she shut her eyes and made a point of ignoring me.
Winston laughed under his breath and stopped because his ribs caught him.
"That your alarm clock?"
"Landlord. You forgot this." I held out his hat.
"Thank you kindly, cowboy."
"You're welcome, Ranger."
I shut the door. The casita looked like I'd left it. Dust on the windowsill. Flowers on the nightstand finished dying. Chance's photo right side up where Winston had set it that first night. I hung the wet hat I'd carried in beside Winston's, and the two of them sat there next to each other dripping.
"Looks good up there next to mine," I said. "Don't you think?"
"I think they're a matched pair. Always were. Now, are you gonna come over here," Winston said behind me, "or you gonna stand at the door admiring our hats?"
I went to the stove and got the towel off the hook.
"Arm."
"Ransom, it's fine."
"Arm, Winston."
"Yes sir."
He held the bad arm out from where he sat in the chair. I crouched in front of him and rolled the wet sleeve up past thewrap. My hands were colder than I'd realized. Coyote's wrap had soaked through, dark from rain on the outside and darker than that on the inside from whatever had been seeping under it since the cab. I started unwinding it, one hand under his forearm, the other working the cloth. His skin was warm under my palm. The warmth went up my wrist and into my chest and stayed there. He watched me and didn't say anything.
The wrap came off. The stitches were tight. The wound was closed. The skin around it was hot and the slow seep was the kind that meant healing and not the kind that meant trouble. Coyote did ugly work but Coyote did work that held.
"Stitches held," I said.
"Yeah."
"Doc Oliver looks at it tomorrow."
