Page 18 of Ransom
Rafe took point. Ransom fell in behind him, and I brought up the rear. Coyote vanished into the trees without a word, and I had the unsettling feeling he'd be tracking us the whole way back, just out of sight.
We rode in silence.
The moon was up, half-full, throwing enough light through the pines that I could see the trail. My head pounded with each step Faye took, and I kept my eyes on Ransom's back ahead of me. He rode straight-spined with his hat pulled low, shoulders set like a man who'd made a decision and was living with it whether he liked it or not.
Forty minutes of his back. Forty minutes of his shirt pulling tight across his shoulders every time Galahad shifted under him. Forty minutes of the small adjustments his hips made to the saddle, automatic, the kind of thing a man only learned by riding since he was a boy. I watched all of it. I couldn't stop. There was a name for what was wrong with me, and it wasn't a kind one. The badge on my hip was supposed to keep me alive. The wanting was going to do the opposite if I didn't get a handle on it.
The trees thinned. The trail opened up, and the ranch spread out below us in the valley. Main house, bunkhouse, barn,paddocks, all of it dark except for a light burning in the main house window. The land around it stretched out flat and empty under the moonlight, running all the way to the mesa on the horizon.
It looked like the kind of place you could disappear into and never be found.
We rode down into the yard. A man came out of the main house onto the porch, backlit by the lamp inside, with a dog at his side. He was tall and lean, moving with the easy grace of someone who knew his way around a kitchen and a crisis.
Rafe dismounted. "Sierra."
"See you found them." Sierra came down the steps. The blue heeler at his hip stopped when he stopped, ears up, watching me. Sierra took in the scene: me on the horse with sand still stuck to my clothes and my hat back on my head, Ransom refusing to look at anyone. "This the Ranger?"
"Winston Valverde," Rafe said. "He'll be staying with us for a bit."
"Staying how?"
"As a guest."
"That's a polite word for it."
Before Rafe could respond, two figures emerged from behind the barn. Young men, maybe early twenties, moving in sync like they'd choreographed it. The taller one carried a flashlight. The shorter one had his hands in his pockets and walked like his bones didn't quite fit right.
They stopped beside Galahad, where Roy Castillo's body was still lashed across the horse's back.
"We can take him," the taller one said. "Got the west plot ready."
"No," I said before anyone else could respond. "Body stays where it is."
The taller one looked at me. The shorter one tilted his head.
"He's evidence," I said. "Murder investigation. He goes to the county morgue for an autopsy, not into the ground."
The shorter one crouched beside the body anyway and tilted his head, studying the judge's face in the lantern light. Then he reached out and touched the dead man's hand where it hung loose against Galahad's flank.
"Don't worry," he said softly, like he was comforting a child. "They'll be gentle with you. They usually are." He looked at the taller one. "Root cellar?"
The taller one nodded. "Coldest place we've got."
"I'll stay with him," the shorter one said. "Keep the coyotes off."
"Fenix," the taller one started.
"He shouldn't be alone." The shorter one looked at me. "You'll come get him in the morning? For the morgue?"
"First thing," I said.
He nodded slowly, like I'd passed some kind of test. "Good. He deserves that much." He touched the dead man's hand again. "Don't worry. I'll keep you company. Being dead's not so bad once you get used to it."
I'd watched a kid in a Midland holding cell do exactly this once, talking softly to nothing and looking comforted by it. He'd hung himself before the day shift came on. My hand wanted to go for the badge on my hip, and I made it stay where it was.
Ransom's voice came from behind me, low. "Don't look at him like that."
I looked over at him.
