Page 95 of Ransom
The door opened. One set of boots came in, heels on the hardwood, spurs ringing.
"There he is," Rex said. A chair scraped. "Sit tight, Ranger. I want to look at you a minute. Been a long time coming."
My daddy used to say something about men who liked the sound of their own voices. You didn't have to feed them. They fed themselves.
"Boys did a job on you." His chair creaked. "Otis was thorough. God rest that good man."
"Otis is dead because Ransom Lanza put a knife through his skull," I said. "You can pray for him. Won't help."
He didn't answer right away.
"Now Otis. Otis worked for me twenty-two years, son. Twenty-two years. A man works for you that long, you start to think you know what he is. Then somebody puts a knife in him and, well." He clicked his tongue. "Lord giveth, the Lord taketh. We will miss him."
His chair scraped back. He was savoring this. I'd heard plenty of men savor a small win. Rex Rawlins didn't deal in small wins.
His hand came down on the top of the hood.
"Let's get you a look."
He pulled the hood off slowly.
The light hit me, and I had to close my eyes. When I opened them, I was looking through a wide doorway, eight feet across, framed in raw lumber. The yard beyond it was packed dirt, and on the dirt five carpenters worked a structure of new pine, sap still wet on the cut ends. Two posts were up and a crossbeam lay in the dirt waiting. A man on his knees squared a trapdoor frame with a level. Sawhorses, two-by-fours, and a coil of fresh rope sat on a workbench off to the side.
It took me a second to understand what I was looking at. When I did, my stomach dropped, and the fear that had been sitting in my chest since the truck bed climbed up into my throat and settled there.
"Well now, ain't she pretty," he said. "Local boys. Good carpenters. I told 'em historical accuracy, and they took to it. Same kind of gallows they hung Tom Ketchum off of in 1901. Different kind of show tonight." He pulled his chair around so he could look at me and the gallows at the same time. "Crowd's gonna love it. The crowd loves a classic."
"All this for me? I'm flattered."
His lips pulled back in a wide grin. "Now we're talkin'."
Rex pulled a pack of cigarillos from his suit pocket, set one between his teeth, and lit it with a kitchen match struck off his thumbnail.
"Let's start with Roy Castillo," he said.
I closed my fists on the rope.
"Now, Roy Castillo. I tried to buy that man for eight years, son. Roy wouldn't take a coffee on the house. Wouldn't take a cigar at Christmas. Wouldn't sit at my table if I had three open booths and a comp ticket in my hand. Roy ate at Rafe Lujan's table."
"That tracks," I said. "Roy had taste."
The saw outside cut through pine and stopped.
"And the water rights case came down to Roy. Twenty thousand acre-feet a year between Bonney and Pae Saco, and Roy on the bench. He'd been holding that decision for three months. Called me a week ago and said he wanted to take a meal at the dinner theater. Just the two of us. I knew what was coming."
Rex tipped ash onto the floor.
"Roy walked in on a Tuesday. Alone. Cassidy seated him. He told her he'd been meaning to come see the show for a year and finally had a free night for it. Ordered the Billy burrito and a coffee. Two-pound burrito. You finish it, your picture goes on the wall. Said he wanted the picture."
Rex drew on the cigarillo.
"So I came, and I sat down with him and made him a final offer. Roy didn't say no. Roy said something polite and tried to wave it off. I asked him again. I said the number this time. The real number. And Roy looked at me like a man who'd been holding his temper for eight years and didn't have any temper left to hold. Then he told me he was ruling for Pae Saco. Said it was a clean case, and the law was the law. Said it like he hadn't meant to say it and now couldn't take it back. Then he ate the burrito anyway. Every bite. Took his picture on the way out and walked into the lot like the world was his."
He blew smoke into the air.
"Now Roy. Roy didn't fight. Sixty-one years old, and he'd lived a long time. Otis got him into the truck bed and drove him toward the back pasture. Rope went on his ankles. Truck went into gear. Roy went along behind it for about a quarter mile of caliche road. Otis stopped at the halfway point to check him. Said Roy quoted scripture at him. Couldn't remember which. I told Otis. I said, Otis. It don't matter."
Rex waved the cigarillo around, trailing ash.
