Page 35 of Ransom
Otis ignored Winston and stared at me. "Mr. Rawlins wanted to talk to you after the show," Otis said.
"We'll catch him next time."
"He's real busy."
"I'm a Texas Ranger investigating a murder," Winston said. "So I hope he's not too busy to answer a summons."
Otis glanced at him for the first time, slow, like Winston was a fly that had landed near his plate.
"Texas Rangers don't have jurisdiction in New Mexico." He didn't smile when he said it. He didn't need to. "Makes you a tourist with a gun. We get tourists with guns out here from time to time. They don't usually leave with their guns."
The two behind him drifted wider, quiet, hands near their weapons.
I clenched my fists.
"We don't want trouble," Winston said.
Otis stepped closer. "We're just having a conversation. Making sure you boys understand that Mr. Rawlins is a respected member of this community. A pillar. And when somebody comes sniffing around his business, asking questions about a dead judge..." He shrugged. "Well. People notice."
"Noted," Winston said. "Now, if you'll excuse us."
Otis stepped in close enough that I could smell the chew under his lower lip and the bay rum on his neck and the gun oil on his hands.
"You tell Rafe," he said, quiet now, just for me, "that he should be more careful about who he lets onto his property. Pae Saco's a beautiful piece of land, son. Wood-frame bunkhouse. Old wiring in the main barn. Be a damn shame if a hot wind came through and somebody's space heater decided to misbehave around two in the morning." He kept his voice cold. "You wouldn't even make it out the back door." His eyes flicked past me, toward the building, toward the table we'd left. "And your boy back there in the hat. Be a shame about him too."
A man threatens what's yours, you put him down. That was the rule. Rafe had a hundred operational doctrines and one of them was that the ranch did not absorb threats to the base, ever, not from neighbors and not from cops and not from cartel and not from a man in a Bonney Ranch tactical vest in a parking lot where people were watching. But it wasn't the bunkhouse that moved my hand. It was your boy back there in the hat, said in the same voice he'd used about the space heater, and Winston was sitting at our table with a milkshake and a chocolate revolver, not knowing he'd just been added to the list.
I cocked my fist back and punched him square in the jaw, and he fell into the dirt.
The others went for weapons and somebody shouted. Somebody grabbed my shoulder, and I spun, ready to swing again.
Otis was already getting up. Blood ran down his chin where his lip had split on his teeth, and he wiped it on the back of his hand and looked at the smear.
"All right," he said and came at me swinging.
His fist caught me in the nose, and the world went white. The crack came sharp, then the hot rush of blood. Then I was on my back in the dirt with the taste of copper in my mouth and somebody yelling.
A gunshot split the air.
Everyone went still.
I blinked through the blood and the pain. Winston stood over me with his service weapon drawn, pointed at Otis.
"That's enough." Winston's voice was dead calm. "He got you. You got him. We're done."
Otis stared down the barrel of Winston's gun.
"Put the gun down, Ranger," one of the others said. His hand was on his own weapon. "You just pulled on private security in a public lot."
"I pulled on a man who broke another man's nose." Winston didn't lower the gun. "I don't care what color your vest is. You step toward him again, I put one in you. We're going to walk. You're going to let us walk. And then you're going to tell your boss whatever story keeps you employed."
Otis spat blood into the dirt. He didn't take his eyes off Winston while he did it. "Stand down," he said to his men, without looking at them. "Mr. Rawlins is gonna want to hear about this. About all of it."
Slowly, carefully, they stepped back.
Winston didn't lower his weapon. "Ransom. Get up."
I rolled onto my side and pushed myself up. I found my feet, and the world tilted sideways. Blood poured from my nose. It felt like somebody had split my head open.
