"Spur."
"Dakota. Get in the room. Now."
She gets in the room.
I take the paper off the wiper. Don't unfold it yet. Walk it inside, soaking by the time I'm at the door, and she's standing in the middle of her motel room with her arms crossed.
Her face is ghost white and her phone’s in her hand.
I close the door behind me and unfold the note.
Same block letters. Same notebook paper. Same Sharpie.
He can't watch you every second.
I read it once. I look at her. I read it again.
She doesn't ask what it says. She knows what it says by my face.
"Show me."
I show her.
She reads it. The color does the same thing it did in the tack room, which is leave her face for a full second and come back as anger instead of fear.
"He was here."
"Yeah."
"He was here in Stephenville. He drove. He drove from Sharp, or wherever the fuck he’s from."
"Or he was already here."
She looks at me. "He was waiting for me here."
"Maybe."
"Spur…"
"Yeah."
"Find him."
"I'm going to."
I say it the way Pops taught me to say things you mean.
Flat. No heat in the voice. Just the fact spoken once so the woman across from you knows it's done.
She believes me.
I see it land. Some of the tension in her shoulders goes out and a different kind of tension takes its place.
I’ve seen this in horses I have worked with. The shift from fear to trust isn't softening.
It's a redirection. The body is still wound. It's just wound around something else now.
I take out my phone and call Phantom.
