by Mel Odom
Don chose to believe that God gave each of his teachers their own burdens to carry. He also believed that God gave them each the strength and tools to deal with those burdens.
All things considered, Don loved living in Fort Davis, keeping church there, and raising his sons and daughter on the baseball and softball fields. He’d been to the big cities and hadn’t seen anything there that he couldn’t live without.
Shel, on the other hand, seemed bound and determined to see the whole world.
Not see the world, Don amended. Just get off the ranch and stay away.
During his service as a youth minister, as choir leader, and finally as preacher of The Blessed Word Church in Fort Davis, Don had handled everything God had ever put before him to do. By all counts, he’d been successful doing God’s work, and he gave thanks every day that he could make a difference.
But there was one man whose heart Don felt he’d never touched the way God would want it touched. Don had failed time and again, but through God’s grace he had never given up.
And maybe, Don sometimes thought, hoping that he wasn’t being irreverent, I haven’t given up because of that stubbornness I got from Daddy. Maybe his own bloodline will be the end of his reluctance about accepting God.
Tyrel McHenry, his daddy, was the most stubborn man Don had ever met. And Don was there tonight to make another stab at getting through to the man.
7
>> Tawny Kitty’s Bar and Grill
>> South End
>> Charlotte, North Carolina
>> 1737 Hours
“Don’t know why you feel you gotta come on all hard and everything, Victor. We’re all friends here.”
Gazing across the table at Thumper, Victor knew that the man had been in tight places before. He knew how to handle himself. Not just with guns and fists, but with words and emotions as well. He didn’t panic at the first sign of trouble.
That was good and it was bad. The fact that he’d weathered the initial blast meant he had backbone. Now it remained to be seen if he had any brains.
“You don’t like it, maybe you should leave.” Victor kept his voice flat and neutral.
Wraparound shades kept Thumper’s eyes hidden, but Victor knew the man was assessing and reassessing the situation in seconds. The first thing Thumper had to be worried about was how much danger he was in.
Guys that went deep undercover knew from the moment that choice was made that they didn’t have a friend left to them in the world. If they were found out by the gang or organization they were infiltrating, they were dead. If they turned dirty while they were under, unless they had really good evidence to the contrary, they were incarcerated with the same people they had started out trying to lock down. If they forgot for a moment where their loyalty—and ultimately their safety—lay, their lives were worth less than nothing.
Thinking about the situation an undercover agent would find himself in, Victor reflected that it wasn’t far removed from looking for Charlie in the bush. It took nerves of steel to play the game.
Or drugs to mute the fear.
If Thumper had been legit, he should have gotten up from the table and walked out. No biker worth his salt took an insult straight up like that. He’d have been into the wind or he would have busted Victor in the chops.
Unless you figure you’re sitting right next to what you want and you won’t pick up your cards from the table because you think you’re going to win, Victor thought. He was about to disabuse Thumper of that notion.
The biker’s face hardened a little, but it was all for show. Thumper just didn’t know that yet.
“I don’t know what you’re trippin’ on, dude,” Thumper said, “but I don’t appreciate it.”
“I’m gonna lay somethin’ down for you, man, and you can decide if you want to pick it up or if the weight’s too much for you.” Victor’s eyes never left those of the other man.
Thumper glanced away. He didn’t bother to meet Fat Mike’s gaze either.
Victor wondered if Thumper’s cop buddies were listening to the conversation. He didn’t think Thumper was stupid enough to wear a wire, but there had been plenty of time to wire the tavern before the meeting took place. Frankly he didn’t care.
“I know you’re a cop,” Victor stated. For a moment, the accusation hung in the air.
>> 1741 Hours
Thumper turned back to Victor and proved just how good he was at playing the role. He laughed. And he sounded like Victor had just told him a really good joke.
“Dude, I seriously don’t know what you been smoking, but if you got any of it left, I want some.”
“You went to school, right?”
After a brief hesitation, Thumper smoothly nodded and tossed in a devil-may-care shrug. “Sure. Before I got old enough for juvie. After that, it was splitsville for me and the public school system. I was just a product of the state.”
“Is that so?” With his free hand, Victor reached into his jacket pocket and took out a few photographs. He noted that Thumper reached a little more deeply under his own jacket.
From the way Fat Mike moved in his seat, Victor knew that he had his sawed-off shotgun out under the table and leveled at Thumper’s midsection. If the man made a wrong move, Fat Mike was going to blow him in two.
“You ever hear of an East Coast motorcycle chapter called the Iron Goblins?”
Thumper’s face seemed frozen. No emotion showed. “Lots of chapters out there now,” Thumper countered.
“You see, I went to school,” Victor said. “I learned to add, and I learned when things don’t add up. And you? You don’t add up.”
“Maybe I should just call it an afternoon,” Thumper suggested. “I got things to do and places to go.” He slid his chair back.
“If you leave before I’m through talking to you,” Victor stated, “you aren’t going to live to see morning.”
Thumper tried to cover his nervousness by reaching into his jacket for a cigarette.
Fat Mike eased the hammers back on his shotgun. The clicks sounded ominous and loud enough to be heard over the music.
“Chill, bro.” Thumper’s voice sounded strained and brittle. “I’m just going for a packet of cigarettes.”
“Leave your hands on the table where we can see them.” Victor leaned back in his seat and fished out his own cigarettes. He slid the pack across to Thumper, then added his Zippo lighter. “Smoke one of mine. Keep it friendly.”
Thumper took the pack, shook a cigarette out, and lit up. He almost looked calm. Except for the fact that his hands were shaking as much as a man going through the DTs. He breathed out a thick plume of smoke.
“You guys are waaaayyyy too intense, bro,” Thumper said.
Victor smiled, but the effort was cold and calculated. There were people who’d seen that smile who never walked the earth again. He thought he could stop short of that with Thumper. In fact, Thumper—if he could be reasoned with—could make other things much simpler.
If Victor had not been able to figure out a way to use Thumper and his cop connections, he and Fat Mike would have buried the guy tonight. In fact, Fat Mike had been happier with that idea than with what Victor had in mind.
Thumper made a show of smoking calmly. “I’m starting to feel offended. I have to tell you that. That business we’ve been talking about doing? That’s pretty much over at this point.”
“Guess what, genius,” Victor said. “Once I figured out you were a Fed, whatever business you and I might have had was taken off the table.”
Thumper’s eyes hardened. “We were talking about a supply of meth.”
“I got to be honest with you about that,” Victor said almost pleasantly. “That was just me and Fat Mike setting you up. We were just yanking your chain.”
Thumper glowered at him. “Setting me up for what? To rip me off?”
Listening to the desperation in Thumper’s voice, Victor knew that someone was monitoring the encounter. Maybe Thumper hadn’t worn the wire
to the meeting, but that didn’t mean he’d arrived without any backup.
“We got hookups,” Victor said. “You want something, we know a guy who can get it for you. We just take our cut out of the middle.”
Thumper looked at Victor, then at Fat Mike, then back again. “You guys have got cooks working for you.” He was referring to meth cooks.
Victor fanned the photographs in his big, callused hands. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Thumper snarled a curse that was loud enough to draw the brief attention of two bikers at a table only a short distance away. Victor looked at the men for a long, hard minute and they looked away.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Thumper stated angrily. “You garroted Hobo Simpson. Garroted him and dropped him into a hole somewhere out in the woods.”
Victor smiled coldly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“If you got proof of that, then arrest me.” Victor shoved his hands out in front of him. He hadn’t planned the move and it caught Fat Mike by surprise too. Fat Mike shifted uneasily and for a moment Victor thought he was going to bring the shotgun into play.
“I ain’t no cop.” Thumper sounded sullen.
“Yeah, you are.” Victor spread the photographs across the desktop in a move so smooth it would have done a riverboat gambler proud. “Got you a six-pack here, Thumper. Isn’t that what the cops call mug shots?”
“Don’t know.”
“If you’ve been arrested and held for questioning, you’d know that.” Victor delighted in turning the knife a little, letting Thumper know he wasn’t thinking straight enough to keep himself out of trouble.
“Okay. Maybe I heard it called that.” Thumper’s eyes never went to the photographs.
“Take a look,” Victor said in a soft voice. “See what I see.”
“I ain’t here to play games,” Thumper said. “I got people who are gonna be all up in my grill if I don’t hook them up with the meth I promised them.”
“The meth won’t be a problem,” Victor stated. “Like I said, I know a guy who knows a guy.” Passing on information about someone selling drugs wasn’t illegal. Not as long as he didn’t ask for money. “Look at the pictures.”
After a moment, Thumper did. As soon as he recognized the people in the pictures, he froze. Then he called Victor a vile name.
Victor knew that the undercover cop had recognized the people immediately. They were his ex-wife, son, and sister.
“Where did you get those?” Thumper demanded in a hoarse voice.
“Chill, dude. They’re just pictures.” Victor turned the photographs over, then spread them again.
“They’re of my family,” Thumper said.
Victor knew the name Thumper had called him was a tell. He’d known it as soon as Thumper had said it, and he knew they weren’t going to finish their conversation alone.
Victor left the photographs lying facedown on the table. He passed a magazine he’d brought with him to Fat Mike, who got up and walked away without a word. From here everything was a gamble, a desperate roll of the dice. The kicker was that the club had an excellent attorney on retainer, and Thumper had recognized his family.
Quietly Victor sipped his beer and waited. Less than a minute later, FBI agents in black riot gear burst through the doors with guns drawn. They started shouting at once. There was a brief flurry of activity as some of the bikers tried to escape. The agents put them down with stun batons, then screwed the muzzles of their weapons into the base of those men’s skulls.
Victor finished his last sip of beer and put his hands in the air. He didn’t resist when one of the men grabbed him out of the chair by his hair and made him drop to his knees.
“He had pictures of my family,” Thumper said to a grizzled guy wearing glasses. “I wouldn’t have blown cover if he hadn’t.”
Victor just grinned.
Without a word, the grizzled agent reached for the photographs on the table and flipped them over one by one. Victor laughed as he saw the surprised look on Thumper’s face. The pictures—each and every one of them—showed Thumper drunk and drugged out with other members of the Purple Royals. None of the pictures, though, were of Victor or Fat Mike.
He’d made sure they weren’t compromised.
Thumper picked up the photographs. “I don’t understand. I saw them! I swear I did!”
The grizzled agent swung his attention to Victor. “Like to think you’re cute, don’t you?” the agent asked.
“Cute enough,” Victor responded. “And about to get cuter. Me and you, we gotta talk. Now that I got your attention.”
8
>> Four-Mile Tavern
>> Outside Fort Davis, Texas
>> 1648 Hours (Central Time Zone)
Seated at one of the small round tables that dotted the floor in the tavern’s TV room, Tyrel McHenry looked like he’d been carved from stone. He was sixty-three years old. Age and a lifetime of hard work had eroded the excess flesh from his lean body.
He was not quite as tall and broad-shouldered as Shel was, but looking at the two of them together, a person would know where Shel had gotten his build.
Don had always thought—though he would never mention it to either one of the other men in his family—that his daddy and Shel were more alike than they were different. If anyone didn’t fit into that family, Don felt certain it was him.
Tyrel’s hair had finished going iron gray a few years back. Long exposure to a blistering sun and harsh winters had bronzed his skin. Permanent wrinkles wreathed his cold blue eyes and pleated his leathery cheeks, which he kept smooth and shiny with a straight razor he used every morning and every evening if he was going to go out.
He wore straight-legged jeans tucked into cowboy boots. Tyrel had always maintained that the difference between a working ranch hand and a drugstore cowboy had been whether the jeans were worn on the outside of his boots or tucked in. A ranch hand tucked them in so they didn’t catch in the stirrups or get caught on anything while he was working.
The black Western shirt was carefully pressed and had white pearl snaps. Tyrel’s high-crowned black cowboy hat sported a silver hatband etched with Native American symbols. Don’s mama, part Lipan Apache, had made the hatband for her husband and marked it with signs that she’d claimed would bring him peace.
Though his mama had been a devout Christian woman who went to church every Wednesday and Sunday, she’d also held on to some of the old ways because she hadn’t wanted the culture to disappear. And if her husband was dead set against believing in the works of the Good Lord, maybe he’d have been a little more open to something else. Anything that would have brought him peace.
Tyrel smoked an unfiltered Camel cigarette and kept his gaze focused on the baseball game on the big-screen TV on the wall. A handful of other men sat quietly and watched the game as well.
Don approached his daddy and stood nearby. Even as a grown man, he’d never walked up to his daddy without being acknowledged first.
“What do you want, boy?” Tyrel asked in his coarse voice. He never turned his gaze from the TV.
“I came to see you, Daddy,” Don said.
“I thought you just did come to see me.”
“Yes, sir. But that was back in May.” Don’s mother had succumbed to her illness on May 12, and Don always visited on that anniversary so his daddy wouldn’t have to be alone.
“You came out to put flowers on your mama’s grave.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tyrel nodded in quiet satisfaction. “She’d have liked that. You looking after her like that.”
“Yes, sir.” When he’d arrived at the grave, Don had discovered a woven flower blanket that covered his mama’s final resting spot. His daddy made them himself. At least, Don hadn’t ever found out if anyone else did them. And the braiding was similar to the rope mending his daddy had taught him to do.
“Well, you planning on standing ther
e all night?” Tyrel asked. “I thought you had a church to run.”
“You don’t exactly run a church, Daddy,” Don said. “It’s not a business.”
“Seems to me you get paid by people who go there. That’s a business.”
Don knew his daddy was deliberately baiting him and avoided the old argument. “People go there to be with God. They leave money so they have a house to do that together in. And to help out people in the congregation that aren’t able to fend for themselves.”
Tyrel flicked ash from his cigarette in annoyance. He took another draw on the Camel and breathed out a cloud of smoke.
“You say toe-may-toe; I say toe-may-tah.”
Don had long since given up trying to caution his father about smoking. Tyrel McHenry wasn’t a man much given to listening to advice he didn’t want to hear.
“Don’t you gotta get back to that church soon?” Tyrel asked. “Must be an evening prayer or something you gotta give.”
“We’re not having service tonight till seven,” Don said. “I wanted families to have time to spend the day together.” He paused. “Do you mind if I sit with you, Daddy?”
Tyrel hesitated for a moment, and Don thought he almost looked over. “Suit yourself. You’re a grown man.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, Daddy.” Don took a chair beside his father. As he looked at Tyrel, he realized that the years were marking him harder. Don couldn’t help wondering how much longer his daddy would be with them.
Then Don felt miserable because his daddy had never truly been with any of them.
That’s not true, he reminded himself. Daddy was always there for Mama.
All throughout the time he was growing up, though, Don couldn’t remember much softness between his parents. Tyrel had worked from sunup to sundown, and he’d been early to bed after he’d washed the supper dishes for his wife.
