Page 62 of Coyote

Sarah turned back to the window. Coyote stood beneath the light near Winston's cruiser, Nimue around his neck and both hands in his pockets. He watched the road instead of the office, but he had tracked the movement behind the glass.

Sarah followed my gaze. "Is that one of the people from the ranch?"

"His name is Coyote."

"The one who found you?"

"Yeah."

She studied him through the window. "He looks like he's waiting for somebody to try taking you."

"He is."

Her eyes came back to me. "Should I be worried about him?"

I thought about the report crackling in Coyote's pocket while I told him I wanted to see her. I thought about his knife against the cinch, and about him staying where I put him when everything in him wanted to close the distance.

"Not for the reason you think."

"That isn't reassuring."

Sarah came back to me and crouched between my knees. She pressed two fingers beneath my chin, turning my face toward the light the way she used to when I came home from school with a split lip. Her hand smelled like the lemon lotion she kept beside her kitchen sink. She looked at the fading bruise near my temple, then opened my shirt again. She held her fingers above the dressing without touching it.

"How far is this ranch from a hospital?"

"Far enough that you wouldn't approve."

"I already don't approve." She stood and picked up her purse from beside Winston's desk. She pulled her keys out of the front pocket. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"Home."

My stomach pulled tight.

The last time I slept at Sarah's house was the week after Little John's funeral. She put me in the guest room and left the hall light on like I was a child afraid of the dark. I lay awake under the ceiling fan, reaching toward an empty space that had never held him, and I hated it. I hated lying in a bed that didn't smell like him, living in a house without his things, letting her nurse me.

I could see that room better than the one I sat in. The blue quilt. The clock with numbers bright enough to reach the opposite wall. Sarah moving quietly in the hallway because she thought I was asleep.

I put both hands on the arms of the chair. "I'm not going to Socorro."

Sarah stopped with the strap of her purse over one shoulder. "You need a bed."

"I have one."

"At the ranch?"

"Yeah."

"Near the man outside?"

I looked through the window. Coyote had moved closer to the building. He stood near the edge of the light, watching the road with one hand resting on his knife.

"Next to him," I said.

Sarah followed my gaze. Her hand closed around the keys.

"You have fresh stitches, no phone, and nothing with you except the clothes you're wearing." She looked down at my boots. Dirt from the cave had dried around the soles. "I found you less than an hour ago, and you expect me to watch you leave with people I've never met."