Chapter 22 #2
Rex turned and looked at me through the smoke.
"He had something going at a feedlot operation out of Olney.
Big something. The kind of something that gets a man out of the small leagues.
I wanted in. He told me no three times. So I went and found a play, and the play was him.
Took some doing. Couple of receipts in the right glove box.
A statement from a man who needed his statement to be true. He got a knock at six in the morning."
"Statement from a man who didn't make it through the year, I bet."
Rex tipped his head. "You bet right."
"I've known your name for nine years, Rawlins. Took me a while to get here."
I was off duty in El Paso when the call came.
By the time I got back to Young County, my daddy was already in custody, and my mama was on the porch with a wet dish towel still in her hand and nothing to say.
I'd known half the deputies on the warrant by name.
Not one of them would look me in the eye for a year after.
"Five years in Young County Jail. Died in May.
Liver. Found the obituary in the Graham Leader.
Sent a wreath and a sympathy card. Anonymous.
White roses. I knew you'd come after that.
" Rex tapped ash. "His boy. Texas Ranger.
The whole damn cliché. Took you a hell of a lot longer than I thought it would, though. "
"Yeah, well. I've been busy."
Rex laughed, low and pleased with himself.
"Speakin' of busy. Had a man on the cattle guard since before sunup.
Soon as your truck turned down that road, I got the call.
Otis was in position before you hit the third gate.
Sierra County's a small place, Ranger. Half the courthouse drinks at my bar.
You think I didn't know the day you crossed the state line? "
The hammering outside had reached a steady rhythm. The crossbeam was up, and two men were nailing it home.
"There it is," he said softly.
Rex let me have a minute and smoked. The hammering went on.
Rex stood, paced two steps, and turned. He gestured at the gallows with the cigarillo.
"We start at five. Carpenters are ahead of schedule, bless 'em.
Place'll be empty by then, just my men and the gate.
No civilians. This is between me and Lanza, and I want him to walk into a quiet yard and see exactly what he's coming for.
Then we bring you out. Hood on, hands tied, the whole picture.
I'll do the announcement myself. Just for him.
Texas Ranger. Sniffing where he didn't belong.
Found himself on the wrong side of the law in New Mexico.
Drop is six feet. Quick if it's done right.
Slow if I tell the hangman to do it slow.
I haven't decided yet. I'll decide when I see Lanza's face. "
Rex tilted his head to one side. "Then we'll do your cowboy."
I closed my hands around the rope and held them there.
"Now Ransom Lanza. Rafe's pet. Rafe's killer. The boy is tough, I'll give him that. But Lanza will come for you. They always do. The ones in love. He'll come tonight with whatever Rafe lets him bring, and Rafe's barn just burned. Won't be much."
"You don't know him."
Rex's eyes came to mine.
"You're picturing some lovesick cowboy riding in alone. That's not what you're getting." I held his eyes and leaned forward. "Hell itself is about to ride up on your doorstep, Rex, and when it gets here, won't be a prayer in creation that can save you."
The cigarillo had burned down to the band. Rex stubbed it out on the sole of his boot.
"Let me make somethin' clear, Ranger," he said, and stood. "I've won. I won six months ago. Hell, I won this the day I framed your daddy. You can't outthink me. You can't outplay me. You and your cowboy and the whole damn ranch never stood a damn chance."
"I'm going to enjoy watching you die," I said, and that got a reaction out of him. He hadn't expected me to say it.
Rex brushed invisible crumbs from his tie. "Well, anyway, you sit here and you think on that. The show must go on."
He walked to the door, stopped at the threshold, and looked back at me, framed against the hallway light.
"Your daddy would be so proud," Rex said.
"My daddy would put a bullet in your back the second you turned, and you know it. That's why you waited till he was dead."
Rex held my eyes. Then he tipped his hat to me and walked out.
The door closed, and the lock turned.
The hammering kept going. The sun crossed the doorway by inches. The carpenters laughed sometimes, but there wasn't much noise otherwise.
Fuck. I hoped Rex was wrong about Ransom. The smart play for Pae Saco would be to sit this out, wait for Rex to fuck up again. Letting me die here tonight was the smartest thing they could do.
But I didn't want to die. Maybe once I did, or at least I'd have been okay with it. I'd made my peace with death up until death was actually on the table. Suddenly, I had a lot of reasons to live, and Ransom Lanza was at the top of that list.
I made a sound I didn't mean to and pushed my forehead against my own shoulder until I could breathe again.
I turned my head against my collar and found the place on my neck where his mouth had been in the cave last night, and I pressed it against the cloth and held it there.
Come anyway.
I wanted him through the door with the Colt out and the look on his face he got right before walking Rex into the yard Rex built, putting him on the steps Rex paid for.
I wanted to be on the porch when the trapdoor went, close enough to hear it, close enough to see Ransom's hands on the lever, and I wanted him to look across the yard at me afterward and know I'd watched and know I'd loved him for it.
My whole body went hot as the realization sank in.
I was in love with Ransom Lanza.
I'd watched my mama love my daddy through five years of prison and more years of him drinking himself dead, sitting on the porch with a dish towel in her hand and her mouth set, and somewhere in there I'd decided I was never going to love another person enough to be ruined by it.
Turns out I was wrong about that. Turns out I am.
I tried to picture his face and couldn't exactly.
I could see his jaw under the lamplight in the shack the first night.
I could feel the pulse in his neck the first time I put my lips there, and the rough callouses of his hands dragging over my skin.
If I listened hard, I could almost hear him saying Ranger in that fondly irritated way he liked to say it.
The pieces weren't enough. I needed the man. I needed him through that door for me, and I needed him to come out of it on the other side.
I rolled my right wrist against the rope to find the knot. It was on the underside of the chair arm, three turns and a half hitch, snug. I worked my thumb against it. Old hemp gets stiff, but it gives if you keep at it, and I started to keep at it.
My ribs lit up with every flex, and the stitches in my arm tore a little wider against my sleeve.
The knot didn't move on the first pass. It didn't move on the tenth.
But I kept at it because the alternative was sitting here being ready to die, and I had decided, somewhere between Rex Rawlins walking out the door and now, that I wasn't.
I was going to get this rope off, find Ransom Lanza, and tell him I loved him while the man who built this gallows bled out at his feet.