Catch Like Hell's Light, Part 2
Part 1
Raylan walks up toward the steps of an old church and thinks hard about who he was twenty years ago. A kid just getting comfortable with his magic. It was losing that terrifying feel and becoming interesting, like knives do when a boy gets his first switchblade. He didn’t have responsibilities then, just ran on moonshine and coffee and hating his daddy and the town he grew up in. Making friends with Boyd, finding another wizard his age hating his own daddy just as much, was a revelation.
But Raylan’s changed, and he’s got to stop thinking Boyd hasn’t. He blew up a church, for Christ’s sake.
The man himself hops down the steps, arms out, baring his teeth in that way he has, where maybe he means it and just never learned what a real smile feels like. “The prodigal son returns to Harlan, I see. Raylan Givens, look what you’ve made of yourself.” His eyes meet Raylan’s like they’re magnetic.
They clasp hands, step in close so they have to look away or get their faces too near. Boyd rests his other hand on Raylan’s shoulder and Raylan slaps his back. They step apart and assess each other.
“See, this is how you wear a hat, all casual,” Boyd tells one of his minions, “not down ‘round your goddamn ears like you do.”
He’s locked gazes with Raylan again. Raylan can see that glimmer in his eye of Boyd hiding something with a half-truth. He knows Raylan’s hat, must remember the long hours they spent working charms and defenses into it. They’d both needed a way to rein their magic in, and they took the shortcut of enchanting things to do the work instead of learning control their own damn selves. Raylan’s hat and Boyd’s ring had nearly identical spells on them, twenty years back.
Boyd notices Raylan’s attention flicker down to that same ring on his finger, because the glimmer’s gotten that much more knowing when Raylan looks back up.
“Heard you called on Ava,” Boyd says next. “My boy Dewey says he had to run you off.”
“You believe that?” Raylan asks, eyebrows going skeptical. Somehow, it’s the right thing to come out of his mouth after not seeing Boyd in so long.
And Boyd’s smile changes - gets more real, less frozen. “Not if you say it ain’t so.” Something in the way his head moves on his neck to the rhythm in the words - almost teasing, not quite - reminds Raylan of Ava’s flirting. Ingratiating, that’s what it is. “Devil, get us a jar and two glasses. This party’s just for Raylan and me.”
Devil’s beside the church door, looking how most criminals look around law enforcement officers. Like he’s trying to figure out how to teach Raylan a lesson without getting himself put in jail. But he goes when Boyd looks at him, head down and avoiding Boyd’s stare. Must know about soulgazing.
Raylan wonders what Devil’s going to say to the rest of Boyd’s minions about how they’ve been staring at each other. Raylan’s thirty years of not looking people in the eye seem to be up in smoke. It’s got to be up in neon lights that they soulgazed a long time ago.
They’re left alone, standing on green Kentucky grass, still staring. Then Boyd chuckles, low and pleased, and leads the way inside.
Raylan looks around the former church while Boyd pours moonshine out of a mason jar. He suspects he’s witnessing a desecration. The walls are covered in shit from the Racist Asshole section of the Third Reich’s army surplus store. Swastikas overlapped by Union flags. He doesn’t really make an effort to keep the judgment off his face; if he’s reading Boyd so well, there’s a fair chance Boyd’ll see straight through his usual tricks.
Most days, Raylan’s an inscrutable character, but there was a time when he and Boyd knew each other inside and out.
Boyd has them toast to old times. Raylan feels the ‘shine right in his lungs, blinks hard. Yeah, he remembers teaching himself to hold ‘shine down, how to drink properly so he wouldn’t go through the rookie stage in public view. May as well be fourteen again, the way it brings him back.
When he’s cleared his throat, Raylan says, “That Dewey Crowe. Please tell me you’re not the one that’s been teaching him.”
Boyd grimaces, maybe ashamed for Dewey or to be seen with him, but he smoothes it out like it never happened. “Dewey’s a tad misguided, but I’m hoping to correct that with time. He’s only recently come into our gathering and has yet to learn about proper application.”
“Well, he’d better be able to call up a proper spell the next time he tries to threaten me. It’s embarrassing for everyone when he can’t remember the words.”
There’s a beat, a quiet second, where Boyd’s lips do this thing where maybe he does know what a real smile is. Then he asks, “You seen your daddy yet?”
Raylan’s eyes narrow and he doesn’t say much for a while.
Boyd’s always liked having silences to fill up. Raylan’s listening to the words with one ear, but the real meaning’s in Boyd’s eyes. Raylan keeps thinking of questions and seeing Boyd’s answer before he can get around to asking. Is he bullshitting with all this racist shit? Yeah. Is he the one using magic against mundane humans? Definitely, and his conscience has never so much as twanged. Has he been breaking Laws? Just the mundane ones.
The mundane ones are what Raylan’s here to discuss. He turns around in a pew to Boyd in the one behind him, interrupting a fascinating discourse on the Bible as interpreted by experts, and chides, “Come on, Boyd. You don’t really believe any of this master race bullshit. You like blowing shit up with your magic, fine. I can understand that.”
“But Raylan,” Boyd protests, all innocence and wounded trust, “what kind of wizard would I be if I turned my power on the regular folk out there?”
Raylan drills his eyes into Boyd’s. The sadistic bastard kind, he thinks as loud as he can. He knows Boyd hears it because he sets his jaw and glares back, and there’s this period of just hating each other. It crackles in the air.
Raylan says lightly, “There’s witnesses from the black church that burned to the ground. None of them saw a weapon. All they heard was some asshole calling ‘fire in the hole’ and producing the aforesaid fire from his hands.”
“That could be anyone. I hope those malcontents are apprehended with all due speed,” Boyd says virtuously. He’s that kind of intelligent where he can use that language and only sound a little like a smartass.
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Raylan agrees with a smirk. “That’s why there’s going to be line-up at the courthouse in Lexington tomorrow, and you’re going to be in it. Just to make sure you’re not the wizard we’re looking for.”
Boyd drops the act like shrugging off a coat. Gravely, he asks, “You think you know me? Well I know you, Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens. I know you like to round up wizards for the Council, even though you’re no Warden. I know you pick and choose between wizard rules and mundane ones so you can get your own kind of justice. How much of that,” and he leans forward in his pew, too close to Raylan’s, slow and strong enough that Raylan can’t lean back or else forfeit something. Boyd goes on, quieter, “How much is because your daddy made deals that a human has no business making? How much is because seeing magic used for greed just pisses you the fuck off?”
Raylan keeps their stare going, keeps his temper under control. It’s a hard thing to hold onto, and he’s sure it shows. He hates that Boyd’s won that reaction out of him. Now Boyd knows he can still cut through Raylan’s boundaries easy as slicing a pie.
Raylan stands, repeats, “Lexington, noon. Be there, or we’ll come and get you.”
Boyd cranes his neck - Jesus, they still can’t look away from each other. “Hey, Raylan,” he says, that act back up, plain curiosity all over him. “You think you’d be able to kill me?”
Raylan doesn’t have to consider it. He’s spent twenty years doing that, and it’s never been far from his thoughts since he heard Boyd Crowder’s name all over again. Maybe it would be anyone’s game if they faced each other with magic; Raylan couldn’t say with certainty that he’d walk away from that. But he tells Boyd, “You make me pull, I’ll put you down,” because he’s never had qualms about killing the mundane way.
He walks away, pretending he can’t see that same almost-real smile.
--
The black priest of the burned-down church doesn’t identify Boyd in the line-up.
When they’re dismissed, Boyd keeps his eyes on the two-way mirror and smiles right where Raylan is hidden back there. Can probably sense him, the way Raylan knew the minute Boyd walked into the courthouse.
Then all the lightbulbs burst for three rooms around them. Computers start smoking, cell phones that aren’t turned off for a courtroom’s silence are out for good. It’s as effective as the EM pulse of a nuke.
Raylan finds his way in the sudden dark and loud confusion, cheating a little by calling some light to his fingertip. He gets to the group of men from the line-up standing in a confused knot. The officer in charge of letting them go has a flashlight; he’s explaining, “Just a tripped fuse or something. I’ll return your accessories and you can go.”
Right. Identifying accessories like jewelry are removed, so a witness doesn’t pick the first guy with a matching facial piercing on accident. And that will mean rings, too.
Raylan waits until Boyd’s got his things and escorts him to the corridor, where there are at least windows to let the light in. It’s strange, walking shoulder-to-shoulder where they can’t lock eyes. Raylan forces his expression to stay neutral as he growls, “You are a smug motherfucker, Boyd Crowder.”
“The polite young officer asked me for my ring,” Boyd defends himself mildly. “Without it, I can’t rightly control how my magic works. And you know how it interferes with electronics.”
“And how is it nothing went wrong till you knew you’d gotten one over on the law?”
Boyd has an answer for that, too, and Raylan can hear his pleasure about it. “Well, I was greatly relieved to be proven innocent. Magic responds to strong emotions.”
Raylan shakes his head and stops walking in the foyer, people milling all around. There are lights on out here, but one or two courts’ll be in recess till things are repaired.
“It’s always good to see you, Raylan.” Boyd goes on for several steps, then turns and comes back. He looks thoughtful, playing like an idea’s just occurred to him. Close enough to lower his voice, he asks, “Is it true you gave that warlock in Miami twenty-four hours to get out of your territory?”
“That’s right,” Raylan confirms, seeing something coming.
Boyd shows his teeth. “What would you say if I made you the same offer?” His face sets into stone, and he murmurs, “Get outta Harlan County by tomorrow noon, or I’ma come lookin’ for you. Does that sound fair?”
Raylan smiles, his cheeks so tight he thinks they might tear under the tension. “Now you’re talkin’.”
Boyd steps backward, eyes on Raylan’s face, with his almost-smile. If he doesn’t stop looking so pleased about them killing each other, Raylan might be forced to become concerned.
--
He runs into Ava not long after that. She smiles at him, sweet and surprised, make-up and hair done nicely. It sharpens her up a little, like she needs a few things in between herself and the world today. She explains, “I was waiting to get called up in fronta the judge, but then that fuse blew.” She looks him up and down, her smile stretching to something clever. “Come with me while I smoke?”
So Raylan goes outside with her.
She lights up and inhales like she’s not as calm and accepting about the mess with Bowman as she’s been showing. She says, “My lawyer says I probably won’t have to go to prison. It’s funny how I didn’t think about this part when I decided the whole thing. Either way, it was worth it.”
Raylan watches her face, the purse of her mouth, the lines at her eyes becoming wrinkles. Finding the places where her resolve is rubbing raw against the rest of her nature. He doesn’t encounter many people who think about killing that way. About only killing when it’s necessary, and not regretting it afterward. It’s the way he thinks about it, and he respects it in her. She found herself helpless and helped herself.
She goes on smoking and watches him back, getting frustrated when he avoids meeting her eyes and she remembers. She tells him, “I don’t think a fuse blew. Something magic happened, didn’t it?”
“Don’t you bother yourself about it,” he answers, confirming and withdrawing any details.
“It really don’t ever frighten you?” she asks, in an urgent voice. “You’re never afraid that magic’s going to go out of control or something?”
He leans against the stone railing of the balcony with his hips and elbows, looking inside the glass doors at all the mundane humans baffled and defenseless against one practical joke with magic. He says, “It’s like handling a gun. You have to respect it, because it can turn the world inside out if you don’t.” He presses his lips together, resisting the urge to explain that there are rules for when you don’t respect it enough. Even that might get his life ended by the Council.
But he does tell her, “You remember how my momma used to pick things from her garden and bake food into every casserole dish she owned? Half the families in Harlan ate her cooking for a week every year, at least.” His tongue ties up, then, remembering how he’d missed her funeral.
“I remember,” Ava says, softly encouraging.
He slides a glance at her from the edge of his vision, measuring. “She put spells in ‘em. All through planting and growing and preparing them, she’d put in things to ward off sickness and strength a threshold. Help a wife get pregnant, if she was trying, or keep a baby strong if she already was. She spent all her time bringing the right remedies to the families that needed them.” Raylan tips up his chin so he can see the sun from under the brim of his hat, give him an excuse for blinking so often. “That’s who I learned magic from.”
Ava takes a deep breath, like coming up from underwater. Her filter’s smoldering, so she puts it out, and she says, “You could come over tonight and show me how magic ain’t always so bad. I’ll make biscuits and gravy, and some great fried chicken.”
He tries to keep the way he’s drooling off his face, but she’s laughing at him already. Instead, he says, “I shouldn’t. There are rules about US Marshals having dinner with women about to plead to manslaughter.”
She raises her eyebrows at him and puts her pack in her purse, ready to go back in. “You’re a wizard, Raylan. If you want to come over, there’s no power in Heaven or Earth that can stop you.”
--
“Let me get this straight,” Art says slowly, speaking a little under the diner’s general volume, “you’re a wizard. Crowder’s a wizard. Therefore, you can’t fight each other with magic?”
Raylan’s getting annoyed with needing to sidestep the Laws with mundanes. Art knows just enough about magic to get by, and that’s mostly because there was a section of Glynco trying to figure out how to deal with Raylan, the first admitted wizard in that line of law enforcement. He says, “We can’t fight to the death with magic. Have to use guns for that.”
“So he’s stuck killing you the old-fashioned way. That doesn’t just mean guns. He’s criminal scum, even if he did blow up that church through other means. He’ll get his hands on normal explosives somehow. You should check under your car before you turn the key.”
Raylan shrugs, mind drifting. There’s a lot that Boyd could do to him with magic without killing him or breaking any of the other rules. That touching spell Bowman put on Ava was perfectly allowed, in the Council’s eyes, and Bowman must have learned it somewhere. Raylan’s skin prickles in gooseflesh and he tries not to imagine knives under his skin wherever Boyd feels moved to put them. And that’s only the start. If Boyd finds a creature hungry enough, Raylan will be in pieces before he knows to duck.
Better hope he sticks to guns, then.
Art grins at him. “Think of it this way. We know Crowder’s making trouble, but we don’t have any proof. We have to catch him in the act. And we know exactly where he’s planning to be acting.” He points his fork at Raylan’s heart like Boyd’s drawn a bull’s-eye.
--
The Marshals are camped out in Raylan’s shitty motel room, calling each other assholes over cards and telling Raylan how shitty his motel room is. He hopes he won’t die tomorrow, because this would be a terrible last night on Earth. Stuck in Kentucky with Tim, grumbling about staring out the window at Boyd’s idiots parked outside, Rachel, primly commenting that it’s a shame betting’s illegal because she’d have the whole pot by now, and Art, who is just enough of an asshole to be a passable boss. And they’re on duty, so they can’t even have some beer.
The old phone rings, a landline that holds out a little better against Raylan’s magical sabotage. Rachel snorts at it. “Look at you, it’s like you live in the fifties. You don’t have a cell phone, you don’t have a computer-”
“At least he hasn’t broken ours,” Art interrupts her. He’s going to have to tell Rachel and Tim the bare bones, at least, if they stick around Raylan long enough.
Raylan gets the phone to his ear and answers, “Givens.”
Ava’s voice comes through, stretched and warped like taffy on the struggling wires. “Just repeating my invitation about dinner. It’ll be ready by the time you get here.”
“Right,” Raylan says - and the call cuts out. It’s not unusual for him. Phones die in his hand once a month. But this time, he hears a dial tone. His phone wasn’t the one that cut.
He remembers seeing Ava’s wireless phone set up; a little too delicate to have around wizards. And hers died.
Raylan sighs. “Boyd’s at Ava’s.”
Art looks up at him, doesn’t even ask how he knows. He sighs, just like Raylan did. “Well, shit.”
--
“We know Tweedledee and Tweedledum are out there,” Art says, as they saddle up and ride out. “We’ll deal with them. Raylan, just get to Ava’s. If we need something, we’ll-shit, we’ll use morse code or flares or something. Go.”
All three of them get Raylan into his car, and go to Tim’s to follow behind. They don’t make it before they take fire.
But Raylan has to get out of there and assume the Marshals will know what to do.
It’s not a short drive, and it doesn’t take that long for Raylan to notice the beat-up grey sedan sneaking around with its headlights off. In between trees there are flashes of moonlight, and Raylan recognizes Dewey Crowe’s car. When he’s coming up on the house, he gets ahead of them, pulls over, and climbs out, cursing the delay.
They stop behind his car. He walks up to the driver’s side to Dewey, Devil in the passenger seat. They shift a little under his stare. Raylan gets in the back, shoving Dewey’s ridiculous staff over till it’s wedged against the window’s frame. “So, tell me. What’s goin’ on?”
They’re quiet. Guilt-quiet.
Raylan puts his first two fingers together, gathers enough energy at the tips to make a light. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you guys.”
Devil thinks he’s the smart one. “Ain’t nothing goin’ on, alright?”
Raylan points his fingers at the rear-view mirror. He uses fire and force, but overshoots it a little. The windshield gets a hole.
The men scream at the noise and heat as it passes. Then Devil, mundane and a little more nervous around magic, says, “He just wants to have a word with you, is all.”
“Told me he was gonna shoot me,” Raylan objects.
Dewey whines, “Then what’re you asking us for, asshole?”
Raylan cold-cocks him. He’s running out of patience, but that doesn’t mean he’s gonna attack Dewey with magic first. Threatening is one thing, of course.
At least Boyd won’t have these two for back-up. Levels the playing field a little.
--
Ava opens the screen door for him as he’s walking up the stairs, face crumpled up. Her voice is still strong as she begins, “I swear, Raylan-”
“I know,” he tells her, climbing toward the door with a purpose.
She says, “Come inside,” oddly formal.
He nods at her. The threshold isn’t much, doesn’t affect most of his magic to keep him out. But entering with an invitation makes a difference, and if Boyd’s in there with all his power, Raylan doesn’t have to face him with any less of his own. He ducks inside.
Boyd’s there in the dining room, gun trained on the doorway when Raylan appears in it, Ava just behind. “Raylan,” he greets pleasantly.
“Boyd,” Raylan answers. He pulse picks up like it will when a gun’s pointed at you.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to remove your hat,” Boyd says. “Can’t have you playing tricks on me here.”
Raylan doesn’t move. “What with you having your ring, that hardly seems sporting of you.”
Boyd’s speaking with that smoothness, that false teeth-bared smile. “Well, Raylan, if I were hosting this meeting, I’d decide to keep it on. But seein’ as we’re imposing on my sister-in-law, I guess I’ll have to play fair.” Holding the gun as steady as he can, Boyd works the ring off his right third finger. He lifts it up with his left. Watching Raylan, he says, “Ava. Come here and take this offa me. Get Raylan’s hat on your way to the porch and leave them both there.”
She steps into the dining room, movements jerky and almost uncoordinated with hatred. When she goes to pluck the ring away, he closes his hand and grins harder, looking at her with all his heavy, aggressive attention.
“Now, don’t go doing something unwise, like throwing this out into the holler hard as you can. I can see those thoughts in your eyes, Ava Crowder, and you’ll resist them. Because I can work magic without this ring and then you’ll find out how important it is to have this ring controlling it.”
Her face is away from Raylan, but she locks up at her married name and makes a cornered animal noise at the threat of magic toward her. Whatever he sees in her, Boyd opens his hand, and Ava starts jerkily toward the front door.
“Raylan’s hat,” Boyd reminds her delicately.
She doesn’t look at Raylan, just holds out her other hand.
Raylan takes off his hat and passes it over, feeling the cloak of shield-spells and mesh netting holding him in lift off like spider-webs, abruptly insubstantial. He murmurs, “Don’t throw it,” to her, and if she hears it, there’s no sign.
She disappears for a moment, and Boyd sets the gun down on the table. He gestures to the chair at the other end of the table from his own. Raylan sits down, slow and apprehensive, moving like molasses as though taking ten seconds instead of seven will make the difference in the Marshals arriving before shots are fired.
Ava’s back in the doorway. Boyd says, “Ain’t there something you can do in the kitchen?” like it’s not a question. So she goes.
That leaves Raylan looking at Boyd over a chicken dinner. Raylan hasn’t shaved clean in a week, leaving him scraggly and too open without his hat. He can see small impact points in the wall over Boyd’s shoulders, where shotgun pellets missed Boyd’s brother not a whole four days ago. Raylan didn’t look to see if Ava got that bloodstain out of the carpet.
Boyd, never one for tense silences, talks about the dinner and invites Raylan to eat, like reaching for his plate doesn’t put his hand within inches of that gun. Then he turns to how it was when Raylan killed Buckley. Was there food like this. What had Raylan carried. How did he know when to pull.
Raylan picks up a chicken leg with his left hand, greasing up his fingers. He leaves his right down at his hip. He can see how this will go. He speaks promptly, casually. He’s more relaxed, knowing he’s quick, knowing he can put a bullet in Boyd Crowder before he gets one himself. He answers that his gun was holstered, that Buckley pulled first.
There’s no way out of this. It’s trundling forward, inevitable, like they’ve been on the tracks to this point ever since they climbed side-by-side into a mine cart. They’re watching each other so hard it might open wounds. Boyd can’t let Raylan keep after him. Raylan can’t leave him alone. They’re at an impasse.
Boyd’s smiling, arranging details like he’s planning a wedding. Boyd’s gun on the table, Raylan’s in his holster, Boyd pulls first. They see who’s still standing at the end.
Raylan can feel his expression hardening like wax. He’s never noticed every flicker of Boyd’s body before, never tried so hard. His nerves are pulled taut like a bowstring, and any second he’ll see Boyd start to move. He’ll probably see the decision in his eyes.
Boyd smiles when it’s all settled out, raises his voice. Doesn’t break the tension none. “Should we just do us a shot of Jim Bean? Just for old times’ sake? Ava, bring-”
A shotgun pumps and Ava steps around the corner, almost over Raylan’s shoulder. Shotgun fixed on the center of Boyd’s mass. “Do you know what Bowman said when he looked up and saw me with his deer rifle?” she asks him.
“God damn, woman,” Boyd says, not all that upset, “you only shoot people when they’re eating dinner?”
“He had his mouth stuffed full’a sweet potatoes. He said, ‘What’re you doing with that?’” Her voice is high and strained, her knuckles white on the barrel and stock. Her eyes are going wild and desperate.
Boyd loses his smile, watches the wide open bore of Ava’s shotgun pointed at him.
Raylan looks hard at Boyd, with an uncanny knowing of what is about to happen.
Boyd’s hand moves. Raylan brings out his gun, squeezes the trigger before Boyd gets a grip. Boyd’s chair tumbles over and Ava nearly knocks herself down when she shoots the wall, a new bloom of scattered holes in her wallpaper.
Raylan gets around the table, kneels by Boyd’s shoulder. His blood is mixing with his brother’s on the carpet, but his eyes are open. He’s breathing. There’s a lot of blood, but Raylan missed the heart.
“You really, you did it, you did, you did it,” Boyd stutters out, struggling for it.
“I’m sorry. But you called it.” Raylan stays over him, but he tells Ava, “Get out of this house and get an ambulance down here.” He hears her go sprinting without putting on her shoes, heavy thuds on the planking of the porch and then swallowed by the grass.
Boyd’s swallowing, over and over, but Raylan doesn’t see blood in his mouth. He presses his palm into the wound, a small ragged hole, and there’s no sucking wind. Missed the lungs, too. But there’s a knot of arteries and veins, and if Ava doesn’t hurry…
Boyd’s frowning at him, and it’s like they’ve never set eyes on each other.
Raylan’s applying pressure, but blood’s seeping through the spaces of his fingers. He says, “It’s a toss-up whether you live, I’m guessing. If you’ve got a death curse in mind, maybe hold onto it till you’re sure you’re slipping.”
“That why, you sent,” Boyd chokes out.
Raylan loosens up, just a little. Softens his scowl into a frown. “Didn’t want you puttin’ anything worse on her. She’s borne enough from you Crowders.”
Boyd seems paralyzed by the pain and the blood and the fear, but then his right hand reaches clumsily and wraps around Raylan’s wrist, keeping his palm to his chest. A warmth suffuses Raylan’s hand, his magic mixing in with Boyd’s.
“I’m no good with healing,” Raylan huffs, but he takes Boyd’s power in and tries some aimless poking around. He doesn’t have any words to direct it, and he wishes one of them had their focus point. He tells Boyd so: “Should have kept that goddamn ring,” he says, grinning with all his teeth. That’s picked up from Boyd.
Boyd’s parts do whatever they want to with the power Raylan pushes into them. He can only assume they’ll use it to stitch their torn parts together, but what the hell does he know. Maybe it’s completely the wrong thing to do. Maybe Boyd will get to the hospital and the doctors will have to cut everything up again to get to the bullet.
But maybe he’ll get to the hospital.
Boyd says, “You had my, my Name, once,” like that does them any fucking good now. Knowing how a person speaks their name binds them to you - but then time passes. Boyd doesn’t say his name the way he did at nineteen. That’s the thing about growing up.
“Names change,” Raylan tells him, stern and pissed off all of a sudden. What right did Boyd have to plan all this and then be the one on the floor? He pushes down harder, can feel the convulsions as Boyd breathes. There’s a curious blankness over his face, and Raylan supposes that’s what his own shows, too.
Killing when it’s necessary. Not regretting it afterward. Wizards live a long time, and if Raylan goes another four hundred years, he’ll remember his icy certainty that Boyd Crowder meant to put him in the ground tonight. He’ll remember it every day.
That’s when the sirens start up, distant and echoing in the holler. Ava comes back, panting and dirty up to her shins, nice pink dress mottled with grass stains where maybe she fell. She stands over their tableaux, Boyd not making any more sounds, Raylan watching him realize he’s going to live.
Her voice is loud in the quiet. “Before I left, you told him you’re sorry. Why’d you say it like that?”
“Boyd and I dug coal together,” he says, and that’s about all the claim they each hold over the other.
--
In the rush to tape Boyd up and get him into that ambulance, Raylan goes outside. There’s his hat, sitting on the nice cushioned bench on the porch, safe and waiting for him. He puts that on.
The ring’s not with it. Ava must have thrown it out, after all.
Raylan steps onto the grass, blocking out the urgent voices and the bright flashing lights. He tries to feel, to spread out a little, looking for the magical touch of a thing deeply embedded in Boyd’s power. He paces and paces and finds it fifty yards away. He picks it up in two fingers, and it’s heavy and wrought out of iron. The black stone glimmers up at him in the starlight.
He goes back. They’re just wheeling Boyd out, half-conscious and breathing from those bag-and-mask setups. He has them pause, takes Boyd’s right hand, and slides the ring on.
The paramedic scolds him, “Take that thing away. If his heart stops and we have to defibrillate, that ring might give him a burn. No reason to risk it.”
“It won’t,” Raylan tells her. “This has to be left on him. I’m in earnest, now: if you take it off, the whole hospital will have a power outage.”
She stares at him, then asks, “Aren’t you the one that shot him?”
“Are you hearin’ me?” Raylan demands. “Write that down on his papers or something. Don’t take that ring from him till he’s released and healthy.”
Art comes up to them, looking like he’s been in a gunfight and still has a long night to go. He tells the paramedic, “Write it down. We’ll follow up with his doctors or guards or whoever’s in charge of him tomorrow.” When they’re loading Boyd in, Art puts his hand on Raylan’s arm and leads him back to sit on the porch’s bench. He says, “No magic, huh?”
“Bullets. The old-fashioned way,” Raylan confirms.
Art blows out a breath, pushes his Marshals ball cap up his bald head and rubs there. “Okay, I’m deferring to your expertise, here. He needs that ring for what, exactly?”
Raylan, incredibly, feels almost disloyal giving away Boyd’s secrets. “It’s like my hat. Keeps his magic in, no matter what he’s feeling. Otherwise he might take out every life support machine and the back-up generator, just by accident.”
“And he won’t use it to break out the minute he wakes up?”
“So take it from him before he’s able to walk. They’ll have trouble hooking him up to a heart monitor as it is, Art. He’s not going to be skipping around anytime soon.” Raylan stops and hears his voice ringing too loud.
Art’s watching him. “I understand your being upset, son. That’s nothing strange. But you stay here until someone has your full statement, and you don’t come into the office before you have the weapons discharge report in your hand.”
Raylan nods. Art goes off, and Tim shows with his notepad. “So,” he starts, running ragged and losing the rush of action, “I shot a guy, too. Wanna write our reports together?”
During all the statements and the documenting, Raylan leaves Ava to herself, shivering in her mother’s embroidered quilt and unwilling to move off the top step of her staircase. She’s just sitting and speaking, looking ready to face a new round of enquiries about her reasoning. Raylan can see it all through her like coal veins: everything was justified.