Page 4 of Ransom
"Back at the ranch. Just me and Faye."
I grunted and dismounted. "I know a place."
Winston swung down from Faye in one motion. He had an inch on me, maybe two, and was lean through the chest and shoulders. He was built for running and riding rather than hard labor, and that made him even more of a problem.
Getting Roy Castillo across Galahad's back was ugly work. Winston took the legs without being asked. I took the shoulders. The first try put all three of us in the mud. The second try took.
Galahad turned his head and looked at me.
"Like you could do better," I said.
He looked away.
We walked, Winston with Faye's reins in one hand and Castillo's boots under one arm, and me guiding Galahad. The Ranger didn't say a word the whole way. Neither did I. I was busy arguing with myself about whether it would've been kinder to pull the trigger from the ridge, or if I should do it in the shack. Maybe I wouldn't have to do it at all. Maybe he'd turn out to be one of the good ones who'd take a bribe and not look too closely at the bodies that disappeared around Pae Saco.
And maybe Galahad would sprout wings and fly.
The shack had a lean-to on the south side. I got the horses in and Roy Castillo into the corner under the overhang. Winston pulled the tarp off the hay bale and covered him without being asked, then stood there with water running off his hat brim.
"Should we say anything?" he asked, like this were a wake and not a pit stop in a monsoon.
"Why? He's dead." I grunted and adjusted my hat. "Mind the door. It's low."
Winston took his hat off and ducked through.
The shack smelled like wet pine and old creosote and the faint sour of Roy Castillo seeping in from the lean-to. The woodstove took a few tries to catch. I fed it until it did, and woodsmoke pushed back against the rest of it. I kept my eyes on the stove while Winston peeled off his jacket and wrung it out. Wet leather hit the floor followed by the slow drag of denim.
I stayed crouched in front of the stove with my hands extended, soaking up the warmth.
Twenty-six today. The number sat in my head and didn't move. Up at UNM, machines kept the count for him.
"You'll catch your death of cold in that," he warned, and I wanted to punch him. My grandma used to say shit like that.
But he was right. Wearing wet clothes never did anybody any good.
I pulled my own shirt over my head and hung it on the nail by the door. Then I stripped off the boots, belt, and jeans. I pulled the spare set from the shelf. The shack was small enough that I was aware of him without looking. The air in the room had changed. It carried wet wool, rain, and warm skin that'd done hard, sweaty work.
"Nice ink."
I glanced over my shoulder. He had his wet shirt still in his hand and his eyes on my back, on the knight tattoo, on the scar that ran through it, on a story nobody but me and my half-dead brother knew.
"Thanks." I turned around and shrugged on the spare shirt.
When I turned back around, Ranger Winston had pulled up a chair and sat in it like a throne, the dead judge's boots on the floor beside him. He picked one up and slid it on. Damn things looked like they fit like a glove.
"You know what people say about this ranch," Winston said.
"People say a lot of things."
"They say you bring your problems here and a few weeks later your problems stop breathing." He slid on the second boot.
"I didn't have no problems with Judge Castillo. Nobody did."
"Well, I'm sure the couple dozen felons he sentenced over the years might disagree with you, but that's neither here nor there." He put his feet down and tested the boots. "I don't think he was your problem. Which makes you either the solution or the complication. I haven't decided which."
The rain came down. I thought about Rafe, the boys in the bunkhouse, Coyote out there in the storm who always knew before I did when something wrong had arrived. My mind went to Winston on that ridge with a scope on him, the long time I'd spent not pulling the trigger, and those careful hands.
I'd liked him before he opened his mouth. I'd liked him more after. Somewhere up on that ridge, between his Stetson and his good hands and the thought I hadn't meant to have, I'd already decided I was keeping him. He didn't know it yet. Didn't matter. He'd been mine since he turned his face up to the ridgeline and I didn't pull the trigger. Whether he was mine to kill or mine to keep, I hadn't decided.
