32. Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Two

" H ow do I know you're not gonna shoot me?" Junior called out, stalling for time. If only his sluggish brain would think . He stared blindly at the door trim, wondering what the hell to do. This was different from capturing a known criminal, a stranger. Inside was a man he'd once risked his life for. A friend who now had a vendetta against him.

"I'm not gonna shoot you. Can't get answers from a dead man, can I?" Randal's voice was just as affable now as it had been years ago. "I'll make it easy on you. I swear on my dead brother's grave that I won't shoot you when you come in."

"That doesn't mean a damned thing to me." It was out before Junior could stop it. Like in a dream, he saw a small figure on the dirt, illuminated by hot, yellow firelight. Leti .

I'd do it all again , Junior thought wildly, that old hate rising like bile. Would that I could go back and do it sooner to spare them.

Randal must have sensed the animosity exuding from Junior from the doorway; he didn't speak for a long spell. Then, "Alright. I won't swear on him. You saved my life once. How about you come in, talk to me, and I leave? Then we'll call it even."

Junior pictured Isa shaking her head at him, eyes shooting citrine sparks of warning. He thought of Ben and his unflinching bravery, his steady calm.

He uncocked the hammer.

"I'll come in." He said it so quietly it may not have reached the kitchen.

But Randal heard. "I'm sitting at the table, both hands in plain view."

Junior peeked around the doorframe as if he were on the wrong side of a bounty-hunting exchange. It was as Randal had said; the man sat at the breakfast table, lit by the window over the dry sink. He looked frail. Old. His hands lay flat on the tabletop, so Junior holstered his pistol and strode in. Seeing Randal in his house was like encountering a missing pet, one who had disappeared for several days and returned with evidence of rabies. Was Randal the same man he'd been two years ago? Or was he all twisted up inside, inclined to bite?

Hands mindfully on the tabletop, Junior sat at the table. Seeing Randal in a suit instead of cowboy attire was off-putting. The suit was blue. Oil shone in his styled brown hair, and his mustache was combed, curling at the ends.

"It's not real safe to keep your door unlocked," Randal said conversationally, analyzing Junior with similar intensity and lingering on the bruises.

"I left in a hurry yesterday."

"It's been a trial to find you," Randal continued. "I've been all over Texas. Couldn't remember where you said you was from—you never talked much about your family, you know that? You come from good stock. Not like me and Bill. We came from a boy's orphanage in Dallas."

"I remember that." Junior's teeth clenched at this second mention of Bill Talbot.

"I always figured you were raised in the same squalor as us. Don't know why. Maybe it was the way you worked, the way you talked." Randal rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "Imagine my surprise when, after asking around for you in Huntsville, someone pointed me in the direction of a ranch the size of Rhode Island."

Junior said nothing.

"Then I talked to your pa and understood. He's a mean sumbitch, ain't he?" A hint of the old Randal appeared, familiar as a set of old woolen socks. "Thought he'd blow a hole right through me when I asked questions about you. I s'pose you never told him what happened?"

Mouth dry, Junior shook his head.

"Not an easy thing to tell your family."

More silence.

"Almost as hard as hearing it from the other side. In a hospital bed. Not able to walk. Not able to do a damned thing for months until you learn to use a pair of crutches and walk and ride again." Old Randal was gone. New Randal pinned hard brown eyes into the man opposite him. "I didn't find out what happened until Captain Havelard came back. He wanted to tell me in person. I'd been fightin' gangrene for weeks. Felt like my stump would never heal."

"I'm sorry you had to hear that way," Junior forced out. Guilt and righteous anger sparred with one another.

"You're sorry." Randal chuckled. "What I don't understand is why you never just told me yourself."

Incredulously, Junior met the other man's gaze. How could he ask that? "You'd have shot me on the spot before I'd had a chance to speak my piece."

"I wasn't as hotheaded as all that," Randal scoffed. But there was a fire in his eyes, a burning. Not a vengeful flame—a righteous one. "I deserve answers, Stone. Havelard's story didn't add up. There were holes the size of Texas in it, and once I was discharged, the bastard moved east. When I approached his superiors, I was shut out as surely as a beggar on the street. No one would tell me anything."

The hurt in his old friend's voice was harder to stomach than the indignation. If Junior had been in Randal's shoes, if something had happened to Ben, he would've stopped at nothing to learn the truth. Nothing. He straightened in the chair and nodded once, his lips compressed and pale. "I'll tell you everything."

And he did.

Not a single detail was spared.

At first, Randal peppered questions at him like birdshot. What did Junior mean, Bill was leading the rogue Rangers? How was anyone confident Bill was impersonating a captain? Captain Havelard had only mentioned Mexican-American casualties, not fatalities. That didn't sound like Bill. No, that sure didn't sound like him at all.

But the more Junior recited everything calmly and with absolute certainty, the more Randal's questions tapered off until he sat in his chair, unmoving. Unspeaking. When Junior expressed his own anger at himself for trusting Paulson not to get involved after leaving for El Paso, Randal looked at his hands. And when the reopened wound of Leti's demise made an appearance in the tale, Randal's hands covered his face. Junior tried to keep his account of what he did to Bill Talbot clinical, but Randal still held a hand up. Stop .

It was too late for that. Junior completed his account, ending it with his court-martial, his dishonorable discharge, and bounty hunting for the state. He didn't think mentioning the years of secrecy and avoiding his family were necessary.

Several minutes of quiet passed before Randal revealed a countenance that had aged a decade. He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't. Instead, he nodded once, grabbed his cane, and walked out of Junior's kitchen.

Junior suspected he wouldn't see Randal Talbot again, so he walked to the window and watched the man awkwardly mount a horse behind the barn and ride away. A noise startled him, and Junior reflexively whipped his .45 out. Ben was walking through the kitchen doorway, holstering his pistol.

He'd been in the hallway, gun drawn, the entire time.