Page 85 of Ransom
He went back to the road.
The road in front of us was two lanes of cracked asphalt cutting through desert scrub and sand, with no cars ahead of us and no cars behind us. The sun was a flat white thing burning everything to powder. Might as well have been hell on earth. Shit, maybe it was. Land of Enchantment, my ass. Land of entrapment was more like it.
The sudden explosion of both front tires threw me against the door. The truck lurched sideways, and smoke came up from the wheel wells. Metal shrieked on asphalt while Ransom fought the wheel. My hand was on my weapon before I'd thought about it, and I knew. I just knew something bad was about to happen. I'd been a cop too long not to know what a coordinated stop felt like.
We slid to a halt in a cloud of dust.
Fuck.
"Spike strip." Ransom was already unbuckling. "Stay in the truck."
"The hell I will."
He looked at me with no expression, nothing moving in his face. "Winston. Stay in the goddamn truck."
I opened my mouth to argue, and that was when the first man stepped out from behind the rocks. Then a second. Then four more.
Well, I thought. Here we go.
There were six of them, on both sides of the road. Boots crunched on gravel. The man closest to me had a pistol low along his thigh, finger on the frame, not the trigger.
The older one with the shotgun stepped up to Ransom's window and drove the butt of it through the glass. The window shattered, and Ransom reached for the gun he was packing.
The shotgun barrel came through the broken frame and pressed against his temple. "Go on, Ransom," Otis said. "Give me a fucking reason."
"You boys are a long way from Bonney Ranch," I mused.
Then my door ripped open and someone dragged me into the dirt.This is going bad fast.
They hauled me upright by the arms. I twisted hard, like I'd been taught and like I'd practiced. A fist drove into my liver and Jesus Christ, did that hurt. The world went gray at the edges. Nausea climbed up through me looking for somewhere to go that didn't exist. My legs quit. Two of Otis's welcome party held me up between them. I couldn't get the leverage to break their grip no matter what I tried.
Ransom's door opened. They dragged him out and put him face-first against the side of the truck. The sound of him hitting it cracked across the road.Motherfuckers!I lunged forwardagainst the men holding me with no plan and no leverage, and got nowhere. A gun went to the back of his head, and I had the cold realization that they were going to make me watch.
"No," I said. "No, goddammit, you want me, I'm right here, you don't need him. Point that thing at me, you son of a bitch!"
Otis walked over and handed the shotgun off to one of his men.
"Leave him alone, Otis," Ransom shouted. "He doesn't know anything! Otis!"
Otis didn't even turn his head. "You don't give orders here, Lanza." He spat into the dirt at my feet. "Rex doesn't care for people sticking their noses where they don't belong. Especially not Texas Rangers operating outside their jurisdiction."
"I don't suppose you'd let me speak to your manager, would you?" I said dryly.
"This is a message," Otis said. "For you. For your bosses back in Texas. For anyone else who thinks they can come up here and dig around in Rex's business."
The first punch landed in my gut and put me on my hands and knees in the dirt with my mouth open and nothing in my lungs. The second punch caught me in the ribs. I doubled over and vomited.
They pulled me upright by the hair. Otis stood in front of me with his fist cocked. His eyes had gone somewhere else. His mouth hung a little open, and he breathed through his nose, slow, between hits. Twenty years of this work had taken everything out of his face that wasn't the work itself.
"You listening, Ranger? This is the part where you learn to stay in Texas."
He drove his fist into my face, and my nose broke with a sound I felt more than heard, a wet pop that traveled up through my skull and out behind my eyes. Blood came hot and fast down my upper lip and into my mouth, copper and salt, more of it thanseemed reasonable.Mama always said I had her nose. Sorry, Mama.Then he drew a knife.
It was a folding knife with a thumb stud and a four-inch blade, and he flicked it open one-handed without looking. He waved it in front of my face, saying something about me, my Mama, my dick. I don't know. I didn't care. My ears were full of my own heartbeat. Couldn't hear much of anything else.
I raised my arm, and the blade sliced through the fabric and skin. There was a moment of cold that became hot like a brand pressed in, and then my whole arm was wet with blood.
Otis raised the knife like he was going to stab me in the throat.
