Page 41 of Ransom
I waited.
"He operated in Texas fifteen years ago. Different name. Same kind of outfit. Horses, land, the right people in the right offices." He turned the flask. "Same kind of work, too. Broke men the way he broke animals. When the law caught up, he —"
He stopped.
"Took the fall the way men like him take falls."
"Meaning he didn't."
He looked up. "Meaning my daddy did. Five years in Young County."
The room went quiet except for the cat purring on the bed.
"He did the five and came home and..." Winston rubbed his thumb along the edge of the flask. "I had a whole way I was going to tell you this part. Practiced it on the drive up."
He shrugged.
I didn't say anything.
"He drank. Drank until his liver quit. Three months ago." His jaw worked. "Rex came across the state line. New name. Bought himself a dinner theater. Bought half the politicians inthis county before anybody noticed. My captain doesn't know I'm here. There's no case file. No authorization." He set the flask on the floor between his boots, slowly, like he was afraid of dropping it. "I crossed state lines on my own time and my own gas money to find the man who killed my daddy."
"So you're not here for justice."
"Vengeance is justice of a sort," he said, looking at me. "That's it. That's the whole thing. I came up here to kill the man who ruined my father."
I believed him.
"Your turn," he said.
"My turn?"
"On the highway, you asked me why I was here. I just told you." He looked up. "Now I'm asking you something. In the desert, when you took me to Coyote. Were you going to kill me?"
The answer sat in my chest like a coal.
"I don't know," I said, and I meant it. "I think I wanted you dead."
He didn't flinch. He just looked at me, steady, waiting for the rest.
I sighed. "But I didn't know if I could do it. I didn't know if I should do it. Rafe is…" I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "Look, it's not personal. It's what I do. That's what Rafe built me to do. Someone threatens this place, I make them gone." I held his eyes. "You were a threat, but…"
"Were you unsure before or after I got on my knees for you?"
"Before," I admitted. "But don't let it go to your head. It was the boots that made me hesitate. Not your pretty face, Ranger."
The cat jumped off the bed, padded to the door, and scratched at it. Neither of us moved to let her out.
"Well," Winston said. "Ain't we a pair."
He stood up from the chair and left his hat on the seat. He crossed the room and stopped in front of me, close enough thatI could smell Sierra's soap on his skin and the whiskey on his breath and something underneath both that was just him.
"I came here so you could fuck me," he said. "In case that wasn't clear."
"It was clear when you showed up with flowers."
"Good." He brought his hand up and put his thumb on the bruise under my left eye, light, barely pressure, just enough to sting. "Because I've been thinking about it since the highway. Standing out there with your hands all over me, hard as a goddamn rock. And you just pulled away like it was easy."
I grabbed his wrist. "It wasn't easy."
