Page 11 of Sinful
He's wearing jeans and a button-down with thesleeves rolled up, Shotgun Saints president patch on his cut, even though we're at his house.
Some men wear the patch because they have to.
Phantom wears it because it's who he is, has been for more than thirty years.
"Yeah." I take the offered beer, the cold glass almost painful against my palm after hours in the heat.
"Thanks." He settles into the chair beside me, both of us facing west where the sun's putting on its final show.
The sky is streaked with purple now, mixing with the orange and red to create colors that don't have names.
For a while, we don't talk.
Just drink and watch the day die.
That's something I appreciate about Phantom—he doesn't need to fill silence with noise.
Spent enough time alone on this ranch to understand that sometimes silence says more than words ever could.
He learned that from his father, who learned it from his father before him.
Cowboys understand silence.
Understand that some things don't need explaining.
A coyote yips in the distance, and another answers.
Not Los Coyotes, just the regular kind.
The ones that belong here, that were here long before cartels took their name.
"Blaze is running late," Phantom says finally, hisvoice rough from years of cigarettes and Texas dust. "Heifer got stuck in the creek. Had to pull her out."
"Ranch work never stops."
"No, it doesn't." He takes a long pull from his beer, and I watch his throat work as he swallows. "My grandfather used to say the land doesn't care about your plans. Doesn't care if you're tired or busy or dying. It needs what it needs when it needs it."
"Smart man."
"Stubborn man. But yeah, smart too." Phantom sets his bottle on the wide arm of his chair, where rings from decades of other bottles have stained the wood. "You know why I called this meeting?"
"Los Coyotes."
"Los Coyotes," he agrees, and something in his voice hardens. "Specifically, the fact that Miguel died last week."
Miguel "El Juez" Reyes. The Judge.
The man who'd held Los Coyotes together for fifteen years through sheer force of will and reputation.
The one who made deals and kept them, who understood that sometimes peace was more profitable than war.
He wasn't good—there's no such thing as good in our world.
But he was predictable. Reasonable. A man whose word actually meant something, which is rare enough to be valuable.
"Lung cancer," I say. "Heard it was quick."
"Two months from diagnosis to grave. Probably smoked three packs a day since he was twelve."
