Chapter 13 #2
The food's still warm, and I eat every damn bite.
I set the plate down and pull my boots and pants off, place my cut on the chair, and put my Glock on the dresser within reach.
Boxers and shirt stay on because tonight isn't the night to be naked in another man's house.
I climb into the bed beside her, careful of her wrist.
She doesn't wake. She turns toward me in her sleep and her wrapped wrist comes up and rests over my heart.
I look at the ceiling of Phantom's house in the dark and I can’t fucking sleep.
All I can do is think about the cigarette.
I've been trying to think about what is so familiar about this damn cigarette.
But I need to stop trying.
I need to get some fucking sleep, so I’m as sharp as I need to be in the morning.
I lie there with Dakota's wrist over my heart and her breath even at my collarbone and I let my mind go quiet. After a while, a memory comes to the forefront of my mind.
A bar.
Outside Abilene. Many years ago.
I was twenty-five, still prospecting at Sharp, still wearing a bottom rocker that didn't have my road name yet.
Phantom had taken his three brothers out for a drink because Roan had just finished his prospect year and was about to patch in.
The Lyle brothers were ranging between their early-thirties to forties then.
Holt the first Prez at Abilene already.
Cash the second at San Antonio.
Roan still at Sharp, on the cusp of his patch.
Roan had a friend with him that night.
A man he'd brought around as another potential prospect.
The friend was sitting at the end of the table drinking whiskey and watching the Lyle brothers like a man waiting for something.
He smoked Camel Wides. Two long drags. Hold. Third drag down to the filter.
I watched him do it three times across the bar that night because something about the way he watched the Lyles wasn't right.
I was twenty-five and didn't have the language for it then, but I had the eyes, the instinct.
Roan called him by name across the table.
The name comes whole.
Kane.
I sit up.
Dakota stirs, but doesn't wake all the way.
Her hand comes off my chest and finds the pillow. I get out of the bed carefully. Boots, jeans, cut.
I leave the Glock on the dresser because I'm walking to the kitchen, not the property.
She murmurs something against the pillow. I bend down and kiss her temple. "Go back to sleep, baby."
She does, and I head down to the kitchen.
Phantom is at the kitchen table with a coffee and a Bible open in front of him.
Phantom doesn't sleep when one of his daughters is hurt.
He looks up when I come in. "You figured it out?"
I sit down across from him. "Kane."
He goes still, sets the coffee down slowly. "Kane."
"The man who used to come around with Roan years ago. The friend Roan brought up to Sharp to prospect. The one you—"
"The one I voted no patch on."
"Yes, Prez."
He closes the Bible and sets it aside. He's quiet for a long second. The kitchen clock ticks. The refrigerator runs. Somewhere in the back of the house Cal makes a small sleep noise and settles.
"About ten years if my math is correct," Phantom says.
"Yes."
Phantom looks at the wall behind me for a long time. "He wants me to know it's him."
"Yes."
"He's been carrying this for ten years and he wants me to know."
"Yes."
He stands up, goes to the coffee pot, pours a second mug, and slides it across the table to me.
He sits back down. "I figure neither of us are getting any damn sleep tonight. Tell me what you remember."
"Roan brought him to Sharp to prospect. I was still prospecting myself.
Kane was at the table for six months. He drank too much and lied too easily.
The brothers didn't trust him, but Roan vouched for him because Roan was his friend.
You watched him for the whole prospect year.
You called church before he could patch in and put it to a vote.
The vote went your way. No patch. You told Roan to drop the friendship. "
"Roan dropped him."
"Yes, Prez."
"And Kane left Sharp."
"He left Sharp."
Phantom drinks his coffee. Sets it down. "I haven't thought about that man since I kicked him to the curb."
"He's been thinking about you, Prez."
"He has."
"The grudge is yours. He's coming at her to come at you. He picked the youngest Lyle on the rodeo circuit because hurting her hurts you the worst."
"Yes." Phantom looks at me. "You did good tonight, Spur."
"It came when I stopped chasing it."
"That's how memory works."
He stands up, walks to the kitchen outlet ,and pulls his phone off the charger. "Let’s get Roan on the line."
I stand up too.
He dials and puts the phone on speaker on the table between us.
It rings four times. Roan answers on the fifth.
His voice is rough. Phantom woke him. "Phantom?"
"Roan."
"What time is it?"
"Two in the morning. Wake the fuck up. This is important."
"I'm awake."
Phantom takes a breath. "Kane."
The line goes dead quiet. Then Roan, awake all the way: "What?"
"He's the man who's been hunting Dakota. Over a month of stalking. Photo at the property. Cinch cut at Abilene yesterday."
"Phantom."
"Yes?"
"Dakota's all right?"
"She rode through it."
"Of course she did. Damn wild child."
He’s quiet for a bit. I can hear Roan breathing on the line. "I dropped him when you told me to. Haven’t spoken to him since."
"I know you did."
"He never reached out. I never saw him again."
"I know."
"Phantom."
"Yeah?”
"Let me come down. I'll bring two of my men. I want to be there when we put him in the ground."
"You're sure, Roan?"
"He went after my niece."
"I know."
Phantom looks at me across the table. I look back at him. "Get on the road. I want you here by sundown."
"On it."
"Roan."
"Yeah?"
"It's not your fault."
"I know it isn't, Phantom. But I'm coming anyway."
The line goes dead. Phantom sets the phone down on the table between us.
The sky outside the kitchen window goes from dark to gray while we sit there.
Phantom drinks the rest of his coffee and I drink the rest of mine.
Neither of us says anything for a long time.
The house is quiet. Hell, the whole property is quiet.
Around five-thirty, headlights swing into the gravel drive. Phantom stands up. Looks out the kitchen window. "Holt."
I stand too.
Phantom puts his hand on my shoulder before he walks to the door. Squeezes once. "You found him, Spur."
"I found a name, Prez."
"Same thing."
He walks to the front door, and I follow him. The screen door opens. Holt comes through with the dust of the road still on his boots and his hat in his hand.
Same dark hair. Same blue eyes. He goes to Phantom first. The brothers embrace—short, hard, both arms. "Brother."
"Brother."
Then Holt looks at me. He doesn't speak yet. He waits.
Phantom answers for both of us. "Spur found him. Kane."
Holt closes his eyes, opens them. "Fuck. I haven’t heard that name in a long time. That son of a bitch."
"Yes."
"So you let Roan know?"
"Yes. He’s on his way down. Bringing two of his men with him."
"Cash?"
"Sweeping the southern corridor. I'll call him around six."
Holt nods slowly and sets his hat on the kitchen table. "Tell me you got some goddamn coffee."
Phantom pours him a mug, and the three of us sit down at the table. The sky is coming up pink behind the kitchen window.
Holt looks at me across the table. "Spur."
"Yes, Holt?"
He looks at me for a long time, the way he looked at me in the parking lot of the Hampton in Abilene.
Same Lyle eyes. Same weight. "My brother says I owe you a conversation."
"Whenever you want it, Holt."
"Now's fine."
Phantom stands up and picks up his coffee. "I'll be on the porch."
He walks out. The screen door bangs once behind him. It's just me and Holt at the kitchen table. The sun is coming up.
Dakota’s still asleep in the back bedroom. The Lyle family is closing around the property from every direction.
Holt looks at me. "Tell me what you're going to do for my niece, Spur."
"Everything, Holt. From now until I'm in the ground."