Page 96 of Ransom
"Then they finished the drag. Otis put a nine in the back of his head, and they dropped him on Pae Saco land. Courtesy. Rafe Lujan had been needing a reminder about courtesy for some time. About what happens to men who eat at his table and not mine."
The yard outside went quiet. A carpenter laughed at something, and the hammering started again.
"You done?" I said.
"Hardly, Ranger."
"I worked Roy's body in the morgue. I read the autopsy. You haven't told me anything I didn't know before."
"You knew it. You didn't know it from me." Rex tapped ash. "Different thing."
I gave him nothing. But my hands shook in the rope, small, where he couldn't see, and my back teeth locked together hard enough to ache. I knew exactly what Roy had felt while it was happening to him, and I couldn't put that knowledge back where it had come from.
A phone rang in Rex's pocket. He pulled it out, looked at it, held up a finger to me, and took the call.
"Yeah." Pause. "I told you. Doors stay closed tonight. The whole place." Pause. "I don't care how many reservations are on the books. Refund 'em or don't, I don't care. Send the kitchen home. Send Bee home. Keep the gate boys and the bar boys, that's it." Pause. "Because tonight is private, Cassidy. Private. You hear me?" He hung up.
He put the phone away.
The gallows had a crossbeam now. Three men lifted it on a rope while a fourth steadied.
Rex stood, walked to the doorway, and looked out at his carpenters with his back to me, the white suit catching the sun on the brim of the Stetson.
"Your daddy," Rex said.
"Don't," I warned. "Don't you dare say his name."
"I knew your daddy in the Young County days. We worked the same circles. Cattle off the books, paper that didn't always balance. He was good at what he did. Better than me at the time."
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."
