Page 12 of Coyote

"The Javelinas had him fighting hogs for money. I killed the ones who wouldn't back off and took him."

The kid looked past Coyote to the motorcycle lying in the scrub, then to the tusks wired to the handlebars. The color drained out of his face. "Tell me that isn't Zaroff's bike."

Coyote glanced at it like he'd forgotten it was there. "It's Zaroff's."

I'd never heard the name. The kid had, and it moved through his face fast enough that I got an elbow under me.

"You crazy bastard. You didn't just rob the Javelinas." The kid kept looking back at the bike like it might go off. "You robbed Zaroff. In front of his whole crew. Are you trying to start a war, or is it a hobby?"

Coyote shrugged. "Rafe will sort it. He always does."

The kid looked at me. "I'm Linc, by the way. Welcome to Pae Saco Ranch."

"John."

"Yeah, I gathered." He nodded toward Coyote. "Watch that one. He bites."

Coyote growled.

Linc gathered the reins. "You'd better get him to the main house before Rafe hears about this from somebody else." He turned his horse back toward the trail and rode ahead.

Coyote held a hand down to me. "Up, big man. We're going to see the man who owns all this."

I took his hand and stood. The world tilted. He caught my arm and held me steady until it came back.

"Who's Rafe?" I asked.

"He owns the land, the animals, the water rights, the road they dragged you in on, and most of the people standing on any of it." Coyote looked up at me. "He's going to want to know why I came back with four men dead, a stolen motorcycle, and a stranger the size of a barn."

"And if he doesn't like it?"

"Then it stops being my problem and starts being yours." He almost smiled. "Come on. He hates being kept waiting."

I had my fist knotted in the back of Big John's shirt, walking him across the yard by it.

Stupid place to hold a man his size. He could have planted his feet, torn loose, and left me standing there with a fistful of cotton. He didn't. Instead he let me steer him, leaning back into the pull a little, testing how far I meant to take him. My gut drew tight and stayed there.

"¡Híjole!" Cruz came off the bunkhouse step with his phone already up and pointed at us. "Coyote. Bro. What is that? Is that a person?"

"Put the phone down."

"Mateo!" he shouted over his shoulder. "Get out here. You have to see this."

John stood a head and shoulders over everybody in the yard, bleeding through his bandages and looking like he owed them an apology for taking up so much room. Whatever he was sorry for, he could be sorry about it to me.

Mateo came out still dragging a faded band shirt down over his stomach. He stopped. "Okay," he said. "That's a big one."

"That's Goliath," Cruz said, filming again. "Linc says Coyote took out a whole biker gang and stole him."

"His name's John. Say it right."

Cruz lowered the phone enough to look at me over it. "That doesn't make this less weird."

John shifted his weight, and both of them stepped back. Then he laughed. The sound came up low in his chest and changed his whole face. I decided right there I'd be doing whatever it took to hear it again.

"Sorry about them," I said. "They're feral."

Cruz pointed at me. "That is rich coming from a guy with a snake around his neck."