She turns back to the sink and I take the plate.
The back bedroom is dark except for the night light Marlena keeps in the hall plugged in for Cal.
I set the plate on the dresser and stand in the doorway looking at her.
Dakota is asleep on her side facing the door.
Her braid is coming loose on the pillow.
The gauze on her wrist is fresh—Marlena or Grace must have rewrapped it—and her hand is on top of the quilt with the wrap visible in the night-light glow.
Spur in small black letters under the cotton. Her pulse moving slowly under it.
I sit on the floor next to the bed and eat the plate Marlena made me.
Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans she canned herself last summer.
The food's still warm, and I eat every damn bite.
I set the plate down and pull my boots and pants off, place my cut on the chair, and put my Glock on the dresser within reach.
Boxers and shirt stay on because tonight isn't the night to be naked in another man's house.
I climb into the bed beside her, careful of her wrist.
She doesn't wake. She turns toward me in her sleep and her wrapped wrist comes up and rests over my heart.
I look at the ceiling of Phantom's house in the dark and I can’t fucking sleep.
All I can do is think about the cigarette.
I've been trying to think about what is so familiar about this damn cigarette.
But I need to stop trying.
I need to get some fucking sleep, so I’m as sharp as I need to be in the morning.
I lie there with Dakota's wrist over my heart and her breath even at my collarbone and I let my mind go quiet. After a while, a memory comes to the forefront of my mind.
A bar.
Outside Abilene. Many years ago.
I was twenty-five, still prospecting at Sharp, still wearing a bottom rocker that didn't have my road name yet.
Phantom had taken his three brothers out for a drink because Roan had just finished his prospect year and was about to patch in.
The Lyle brothers were ranging between their early-thirties to forties then.
Holt the first Prez at Abilene already.
Cash the second at San Antonio.
Roan still at Sharp, on the cusp of his patch.
Roan had a friend with him that night.
A man he'd brought around as another potential prospect.
