by Mark Kelly
“Why don’t you leave it there?” she asked him.
“Leave it where?”
“There,” she said, pointing to the tarp covering the trailer. “We do not go very fast. If you lay the solar blanket on top and tie it so it does not fall off, the phone can charge while we are traveling.”
He frowned and stared at the trailer. “I don’t know if that will work.”
“Of course, it will work,” she said impatiently. “It is not going to rain today and the sun will charge the phone. Is that not how it is supposed to work?”
He smiled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing…nothing at all.” Still grinning, Baker folded his arms across his chest and said, “Any suggestions on how to keep it from falling off?”
“No, but a smart man like you should be able to figure something out. Time to use the brain muscle instead of the arm muscle.” She patted him on the back and said, “I will pack up the stove and clean the dishes while you solve the problem.”
When she returned, he appeared pleased with himself. The solar panel and phone were strapped to the top of the trailer using a series of bungee cords he had found in one of the boxes of supplies.
“Good idea. That is what I would have done,” she said, “but it took you a long time to figure it out.” She turned away before he could see the smile on her face.
6
I guess we’re staying
It was the third truck stop they had seen since entering the highway three days earlier, but even from a distance, the difference was unmistakable. The first two had been empty and burnt to the ground. But this one had people—and a lot of them.
“Let’s check it out,” Baker said when Lucia pulled up beside him. He pushed his kickstand down with the heel of his foot, hopped off his motorcycle and walked around to the back to hide the satellite phone and solar charger under the tarp. “Keep your eyes open and be ready.”
She didn’t need the warning. Wherever there were people, there was almost always trouble.
They drove off the highway towards an armed man who leaned against a car parked on the side of the exit road leading to the truck stop. He had heard them coming and was waiting with a shotgun cradled in his arms. Lucia and Baker brought their motorcycles to a stop in front of him.
He paused momentarily when he saw they were armed. “We don’t want any trouble,” he said to Baker, glancing at the trailer and then running his eyes over them both.
Behind him, near the gas pumps and the shell of a fast-food restaurant, a crowd of people milled around a cluster of wooden picnic tables. Upon taking a closer look, Lucia realized there were actually two separate groups.
The larger group, about twenty people, formed a lazy line in front of a fire-pit manned by a man and woman. A teenage girl with her arms full of firewood, dropped the wood by the fire and then returned to fetch more from a pile.
“What is this place?” Lucia asked.
“McDonalds,” the man said with a laugh. “Can’t you read.” He pointed to the charred letters on the side of the restaurant’s wall. When she didn’t join in his joke, he frowned. “It’s a meet-up for folks who are walking the highway. They hang around here until there are enough people.”
“Enough for what?”
“Enough to form a walking party. It isn’t safe to be on the road in small groups. Usually, they don’t leave until they’ve got at least thirty.” He glanced at the crowd near the fire-pit. “Probably be another day or two. You here to join up with a group?” he asked, casting a dubious eye over them.
Baker shook his head. “No, we’re traveling alone.”
“I thought so,” the man said with a nod. “You two look like you can take care of yourselves, but you’d best be careful. I don’t know what you’ve got in that trailer, but there are plenty of folks here who would like to take a look if you know what I mean.”
“Thanks for the heads-up. We’ll be careful.”
The smell of meat cooking wafted through the air. Lucia shut her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose, luxuriating in the smoky scent. When she opened her eyes, Baker and the guard were both staring at her.
Baker smiled. “Hungry?”
She shrugged at the exact moment her stomach growled. Hungry was an understatement.
“If you can pay, you’re in for a treat,” the guard said. “They bagged a deer yesterday.” He looked at the tarp covering the trailer. “The stuff under there for trading?”
“Not all of it, but we have things to trade,” Baker replied cautiously.
“Like what?”
“Liquor…vitamins…homemade soap—”
“Toilet paper?” the man asked longingly. “I’d give just about anything for a roll of toilet paper.”
“Sorry, no toilet paper. Haven’t seen any in months.”
“Figured as much,” the guard said, disappointed. He motioned them forward with a flick of his head. “Go on up there by the tables, get in line and they’ll fix you up with something to eat.”
Before they could slip the bikes into gear, he held his hand out to stop them and asked, “By the way, which way did you come?”
“That way,” Baker replied, pointing vaguely to the west.
“Did you see any bikers? No offence, but I don’t mean on the kind of bikes you’re riding. I’m talking about the big ones—Harleys and what not.”
Baker glanced at Lucia. She got the hint. Keep quiet about last night.
“No,” Baker replied, “the only people we saw were on foot—why?”
“There’s a rumor the head honchos from the big gangs in Toronto and Montreal are getting together for a pow-wow.”
“Pow-wow about what?”
“Territory, I suppose,” the man said with a shrug.
“Any idea where they’re meeting?” Baker asked.
The man shrugged again. “We heard it might be somewhere around these parts, but they must still be on the road. No one has passed by in either direction in days.”
His face filled with concern, Baker suddenly cranked his handlebars hard to the left and said, “Let’s go. It’s later than I thought and we still have a long way to go today.”
Sensing his concern, but unsure what he was worried about, Lucia nodded and started to turn her bike around.
“Hey, I thought you wanted something to—”
The guard’s voice trailed off as he looked down the road in the direction she and Baker had just come from. A group of five motorcycles was weaving its way around the vehicles littering the highway. The rumbling monsters were minutes away.
They must have pulled off the highway at some point during the night and she and Baker drove right past them without even knowing it.
Baker revved his bike’s engine and yelled, “Let’s go. Now.”
Lucia twisted the throttle and spun her bike around, pointing it east and up the highway in the opposite direction, only to see another group of motorcycles coming down the road towards them. They were caught between the two gangs.
They were screwed.
Baker came to the same conclusion. He turned his bike’s handlebars back towards the truck stop.
“I guess we’ll be staying to eat after all.”
7
Petit Henri
They raced past the guard and up to the truck stop where they pulled in between two abandoned semi-trucks on the far side of the parking lot. Baker turned off his ignition and hopped off his bike. He motioned at Lucia to do the same.
“Come on, hurry,” he said, removing his helmet and hanging it from his handlebars. “We can’t stay here. If we do and they find us, it will be obvious we were hiding. The best thing we can do is try and blend in.”
“What about the bikes and the trailer? Someone might steal them.”
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take.”
They dashed across the parking lot and merged into the fringes of the crowd. Their arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed but other than a pair
of men who stole furtive glances at the spot where the bikes were parked, the crowd, transfixed by the arrival of the motorcycle gangs, mostly ignored them.
Lucia slipped over to where the two men stood. When they glanced at her, she spoke in a low voice. “If you touch our motorcycles or our supplies, I will kill you.”
Startled, both men went rigid. The younger one recovered and found his courage first. He placed his hand on the handle of the large bowie knife tucked in a leather sheath hanging from his belt.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady, but I don’t like being called a thief.”
“I did not call you a thief,” Lucia said. “I said I would kill you if you touched our supplies.” She patted her holster to reinforce her words. “Do you understand me?”
The younger man sneered at her threat, but his friend didn’t. “We understand. We were just looking.
She gave them one last icy stare and turned away.
“What was that all about?” Baker asked when she returned to his side.
“I told them you would kill them if they touched our supplies.”
“What?”
She cracked a smile. “Do not worry. You won’t have to. They are frightened of you.”
Baker opened his mouth to speak, but with a crescendo of ear-shattering noise, the two gangs revved their engines and drove up the road and into the parking lot side by side.
A show of respect, Lucia thought. Neither group would move in front of the other.
On the right were the Bikers who had passed by their campsite in the night, and on the left was the gang from the east led by a giant with a long bushy black beard. Seemingly immune to the cold, the giant biker wore a sleeveless black leather vest and sat on a Harley with handlebars as high as the top of his head. A blue flag with three yellow symbols resembling candlestick holders flew from the back of his motorcycle.
“What is the flag?” Lucia whispered to Baker.
“It is the fleur-de-lys,” a man standing behind them answered in French-accented English. “It means the rider is the main man of the Chevalier de Montréal.”
“What’s the Chevalier de Montréal?” Baker asked.
“You are not from here?”
“Down south.”
The man nodded as if that explained everything. “Les Chevalier de Montréal are…I do not know how to say it in English…they are the Knights of Montreal. They are the bosses of the city.”
Baker turned away and studied the bearded giant sitting on the Harley a few dozen feet in front of them.
“And he’s the boss of the bosses?”
“Yes, he is Petit Henri.”
“Petit Henri?”
“Little Henry.”
“Doesn’t look very damn little to me,” Baker mumbled under his breath.
Lucia agreed. The leader of the Montreal Biker gang was just short of seven feet tall and must have weighed close to three hundred pounds. His tattoo-covered arms and biceps were the size of her thighs, and with his meaty fists, he could have popped her head like a grape.
Surprisingly spry for a man of his size, he threw his right leg over the back of his Harley and climbed off in a single fluid motion. He ran his eyes over the crowd, stopping briefly to size her and Baker up. Then he turned away when the leader of the Toronto gang approached.
Both men brought their arms up, clasped hands and patted each other on the back. After exchanging greetings, they stepped apart. The Toronto gang leader spoke in a loud voice full of forced cheer.
“Welcome to Ontario. You have a good ride?”
“Pas mal,” Petit Henri answered, and then in English. “But not as long a ride as yours.”
“Long is an understatement,” the biker from Toronto said. “It took us two fucking days to get here. Could have made it faster, but we stopped for some R and R.”
“R and R?” Petit Henri raised an eyebrow.
“Rest and recreation. We stopped for some sweet meat if you know what I mean.”
Lucia tensed. It took every ounce of her willpower to not walk over and wipe the smirk off his face. She knew without the tiniest bit of doubt whatever fun he had had was one-sided.
She felt Baker brush up against her. He touched her lower arm with the tips of his fingers and whispered, “Easy now. We have bigger fish to fry.”
She clenched her teeth and forced herself to exhale.
The leader of the Toronto gang slapped Henri on the back. “Come on, let’s talk while we eat. Big man like you needs his food. You must be hungry, I know I sure as fuck am.”
“Get those piss-ants out of the way,” he shouted to his men as he turned towards the fire-pit.
Using their hands and fists, the bikers pushed the malnourished and slower-moving people out of the way. With his path now clear, the Toronto gang leader marched towards the fire-pit where the man and woman running it stood frozen in place, fear pasted on their faces.
“What the fuck is this?” he asked, pointing to a big chunk of meat roasting over the open fire.
“Deer,” the man answered timidly.
“Looks like dog to me,” the Toronto gang leader scoffed. “A big fucking dog.” He turned to Petit Henri who had joined him in front of the fire-pit. “You okay with dog? Never mind, stupid question. That gut of yours looks like it doesn’t give a shit what you put in it.”
Petit Henri’s face tightened at the insult. He frowned but said nothing.
Unsure what he should do, the man at the fire-pit nervously glanced at the two gang leaders. “It’s deer and it’s fresh. I bagged it yesterday.” Using a long carving knife and a cooking fork, he sawed off a chunk of charred meat and dropped it onto a plastic camping plate the woman beside him held out.
“You first,” the Toronto gang leader said to Petit Henri with an exaggerated bow. “But leave some for me. I may be half your size, but I still gotta eat.”
Petit Henri’s men tensed at the second insult, but he held up a hand and motioned them back. Then with his other hand, he accepted the plate he was offered and nodded a quick thank you to the woman who had given it to him.
The Toronto gang leader stuck out his arm and pointed at the teenage girl stacking firewood.
“I want her to serve me.”
She shook her head.
“Get over here and do as he asked,” the man at the fire-pit said. He sawed at the carcass and placed a chunk of meat on a plate. The woman beside him took it and offered it to the Toronto gang leader.
“Her—I want her to give it to me,” he growled, pointing at the girl who hadn’t moved.
Lucia tensed. She felt Baker brush up against her. His closeness was a warning. Don’t do anything stupid.
“If he touches her, I will kill him.”
She thought she had spoken the words in her head, but the people standing near her moved away.
The biker beckoned to the girl. “Come here, darling. I don’t bite.”
The girl dropped the piece of wood she was holding and took the plate of meat. Her hands shook as she offered it to him.
“Now, that wasn’t too hard, was it?” he said, laughing. “But I am.” He grabbed his crotch and gave it a squeeze. Then using the same hand, he brushed her long blonde hair away from her face.
“Don’t,” Baker warned as Lucia started to take a step forward. “He’s a pig, but he hasn’t hurt her.”
Not yet, Lucia thought, shaking free. But he would, she could feel it in her bones.
“Let’s eat,” Petit Henri said in an irritated voice. “We have business to conclude and you have a long ride back to Toronto.”
The Toronto biker blew an exaggerated kiss to the girl and grabbed his crotch again. “Later, darling. I’ll make sure to leave room for dessert, but me and the big man have to figure out who owns what first.”
The two leaders, followed by their men who formed a protective ring around them, walked to a picnic table and sat down. They began to eat, arguing in between bites of food.
“Now, we wait,” Baker said to Lucia. “If we’re lucky, they’ll finish up quickly and leave without causing any trouble.”
Lucia didn’t feel lucky. Luck wasn’t something she had much experience with in her life.
After a lengthy and occasionally angry discussion, the two bikers stood and shook hands. Neither looked particularly happy. They walked back to the crowd and stood side by side. The leader of the Toronto gang stepped forward. He raised both hands in the air.
“Shut the fuck up,” he shouted at the chattering crowd.
When they quieted, he said, “Spread the word. Tell everyone you see that Les Chevalier de Montréal and the Cyclones stand united in brotherhood. To challenge one of us is to challenge both of us.”
Perhaps unsure what they should do, the people in the crowd stood in mute silence. Seemingly disappointed by their reaction, the leader from Toronto scowled. His voice turned ominous as he continued to speak.
“The big man and I also agreed to split our territory. From today onward, everything west of Highway 416—including this shit-hole—is the property of the Cyclones. That means you belong to me.”
“Search them and take everything of value,” he shouted at his men. Then he turned to Petit Henri. “You got a problem with that?”
Petit Henri shrugged. “Ca ne fait rien. C'est votre territoire.”
“Speak fucking English!”
The corner of Petit Henri’s mouth turned up in a smirk. “I said it doesn’t matter. It is your territory now.”
“Damn right it is.”
Baker pulled Lucia closer, yanked the pistol out of her holster and spoke in an urgent voice as he handed the pistol back to her.
“Stick it in your pants and pull your shirt over it. If they find it, they’ll take it. Give me your holster—quick, hurry before they see it. I’m going back to the trailer to guard our supplies. Stay here, but please don’t do anything stupid. If they search you and find the gun, let them have it. We can replace the gun, but we can’t replace you.”
Before she could say anything, he slipped backward away from the crowd and casually made his way to where the motorcycles and trailer were hidden. Seconds later, she felt herself being pushed along as the bikers herded everyone into one spot to be searched.
