Chapter 2
I had the Ranger in my scope for a long time before I figured out I didn't want to shoot him, and longer still before I figured out why.
He rode up along the fence line and moved around Judge Roy Castillo's body like he'd done it a hundred times. I tightened on the trigger as he squatted next to it, then eased off.
The Ranger's hat was a genuine Stetson, not some cheap imitation, not some expensive showroom version. A working hat, one that'd seen blood and sweat and dust and come out the other side.
Galahad nosed the back of my neck, and I pushed him away. He'd been up my ass all day, ever since we'd ridden out to check the fence.
Today was Chance's birthday. Galahad didn't know that, but he knew something was off. Horses were like that. Intuitive to a fault.
He nosed me again.
"Fuck off," I muttered and shoved his muzzle gently.
He retaliated by biting the air next to my head.
The Ranger stood and turned north, working the ridgeline. I put my cheek to the stock and held still as his gaze fell right on me. Or I could keep him.
What the hell? I shook my head. It was the lack of sleep getting to me. Or it was the day. He had to show up on Chance's birthday of all days. That's all it was. I shoved the thought away and elbowed Galahad's muzzle out of my face.
Then he turned back to the corpse and unceremoniously yanked off the dead man's boots.
Son of a bitch.
I lowered the rifle. You're a naughty boy, Ranger. Question is… how naughty?
Galahad huffed.
"Yeah," I said. "Okay, I'm up."
I stowed the rifle, mounted Galahad, and let him pick his way down the east face at his own pace, because making a lawman wait on my land was one of the few pleasures I had left on a day like today.
The Ranger turned while we were still descending, adjusted his hat, and waited. He was pretty enough for a Ranger, with pale green eyes, a day's worth of stubble, bottom lip chewed raw on one side. With a face like that, he was trouble for somebody.
I took my finger off the trigger entirely.
"Howdy," he said.
"You're trespassing on private land."
"Your boss knows I'm out here. Winston Valverde. Texas Rangers."
I frowned. "You're pretty far from home."
"Not as the crow flies. El Paso's only a few hours due south."
Not that the distance mattered. Rangers could go where they pleased, when it pleased them. Then again, the boots said maybe this one couldn't. His presence was a problem either way.
His horse whinnied and reared. He put a hand on her neck, clicked his tongue, and ran his fingers through her mane. "Easy, Faye. Easy there."
He had good hands.
"You one of Rafe's boys?" he asked.
"I work for him." Galahad shifted under me. "I ain't nobody's boy."
"My mistake."
I jerked my chin at the body. "What got him?"
"Wasn't a heart attack."
"No shit."
"Wasn't here either."
I glanced down at Roy. Dirt ground into the front of his shirt, the back of it clean. Rope marks on the wrists. Skin missing from one side of his face. Flies buzzed around a small, dark hole at the base of the skull.
"So they roped him, dragged him, and shot him in the back of the head," I said.
"Something like that."
Thunder rolled overhead. We both looked up. The sky had gone green and ugly while we were talking. That was New Mexico's monsoon season saying hello. The first drop hit the brim of his hat, then mine, and then it came down for real.
"Need shelter," I said. "Your truck nearby?"
"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.
And now I was going to have to give him to Coyote.
God dammit. Why'd you have to go and run your damn mouth, Winston? I sighed and glanced at his hat. At least it'd go with the boots.
"Cartel would've taken the boots," I said. "Robber would've too. Whoever did this wasn't hungry."
"No," he said. "They weren't. I know that much." He leaned forward, elbows on the table, water still in his eyelashes, and I looked at the boot in my hands instead. "What I don't know is why you care."
"Who says I do?"
"You put a dead man on your horse and carried him all the way here," he pointed out.
I sighed. "This is my land. Somebody crossed a line and left a message on it. I don't like people leaving messages on my land."
"And."
"And I liked the judge. He wasn't a good man. But he was a fair one, which is rarer." I held his gaze. "Whoever killed him is going to find out this land has a long memory."
Winston broke into a wide grin. "Rafe said you'd be helpful. He wasn't wrong."
"Thanks."
"He neglected to mention you were handsome."
"Rafe's half blind in one eye," I said.
He laughed, just a little, just enough. "At any rate, I appreciate the hospitality. Could do with a worse view."
I snorted.
"Come on. That was a good line."
"It ever worked before?"
"First time I tried it."
"Well, you better work on it," I said and dropped into the only other chair in the building.
The rain came down. The stove ticked. I looked at Winston Valverde across the table and thought about the Glock on the shelf behind him, three feet from my hand and four from his. I could have it before he stood up. I didn't move.
It was such a shame he couldn't keep his damn nose out of Pae Saco's business.
A damn cryin' shame.