Page 73 of Ransom
"If it is, you'd better say so now," Rafe said, giving Winston a hard look.
Winston took a long pull of his coffee. "If the badge has any opinions on the matter, it can keep them to itself. I ain't here for the badge. I'm here for me."
"We're in agreement, then." Rafe pushed the legal pad away. "We do this the Pae Saco way."
"I'm just here for the finale," Winston said.
Rafe looked at me. "I want you on this property until it's done, Ransom. No more overnights. No more drives up to Albuquerque. You're here."
"Yes, sir."
"Good."
Joe scraped his fork through the last of his potatoes. "How's your brother, Lanza?"
The kitchen kept moving. The coffee pot sighed on the stove. Sierra didn't turn around.
"Breathing. Same as yesterday." I set my fork down. I picked it back up. I put a bite in my mouth I didn't taste.
"You'll keep your stories about Lanza inside your own head for the duration of your stay at my table, Joe," Rafe said.
"Yes, sir."
"Good."
Sierra set a fresh pot of coffee in the middle of the table between Joe and me. The pot smelled like cinnamon. He'd thrown a stick in it.
"Drink your coffee, boys."
A plate of eggs, potatoes, and sausage landed in front of me, then Winston. Sierra put another in front of Joe.
I picked up my fork. "How's the nose?"
"Hurts."
"Good."
Joe put his head down and ate.
Back when we ran with Dolano and his gang, Joe taught me how to hotwire a truck. He drove the truck the day Chance got hit by lightning while I worked on my brother in the bed. He'd called me a pussy until I was old enough to stop being one, and then he stood in the doorway of Dolano's office while I beat Dolano's head in with a tire iron, and he never asked me about it after.
I owed him for some of that. He owed me for the rest. I supposed we were about even, then.
The screen door banged, and the boys came in off the south fence in a wave of dust and noise. The wave broke when it saw Joe. Mateo took the lead, looked at Joe's face, registered exactly what kind of face it was, and didn't say a word.
The Cruz kid behind him did.
"Aw, hell. What happened to you?"
"Cruz," Sierra said from the stove mildly.
"Sorry, Sierra. But seriously."
Joe scanned the boy from head to toe.
"Prison happened to my face," Joe said. "You should be thankful you wound up here instead of there."
"Which prison?"
