He's leaning against my truck with a coffee in his hand and that look on his face that says he knows.
"Spur."
"Banshee."
"Where we going?"
"Llano. There's an old man named Whitley. Did my grandmother's ring sixty years ago. I want him to clean it and resize it before I put it on Dakota."
Banshee takes a drink of his coffee and nods slowly. "Damn, brother."
"Yeah?"
"It's about goddamn time."
Some people would say it’s too soon, but I agree with him. "I know it is."
We get in the truck.
Banshee sits beside me in the passenger seat with his boots up on the dash while I drive.
The drive to Llano is forty minutes through the Hill Country on the back roads.
The bluebonnets are mostly gone from the fence lines. The Indian paintbrush is open red. The cattle are starting to move to the higher pastures the way they do this time of year. The Llano River flashes green and shallow when we cross the bridge at Kingsland.
I call Holt from the truck on the speakerphone in the dash. He picks up on the third ring.
"Spur," he says. There's wind on his end of the line. He's outside somewhere—on his porch in Abilene, probably.
"Holt."
"Tell me, brother."
"Tonight."
"Tonight what?"
I keep both hands on the wheel. "Tonight I'm asking her, Holt."
The line goes quiet a second. Then he laughs. Loud, real, the laugh that sounds like Phantom's would if Phantom let himself loose that way. "It's about goddamn time."
"That's what your brother said," I tell him.
Banshee, in the passenger seat, lifts his coffee in a small salute to the dashboard speaker.
"Banshee in the truck with you?" Holt asks.
"Yeah, he's right here."
"Hey, Holt," Banshee says toward the dash.
"You boys go get the ring?" Holt asks us.
"Have one, but getting it cleaned up in Llano," I say.
"You tell Phantom?"
"Last night."
