Nodding, he asked, “What do you have to do to start the process?”
Laughing again, Deke said, “Hang around. Kinda like you did last night.”
“Oh.” That sounded easy, too easy. He paused a minute, then asked, “You said members vote on the prospect, how does that happen?” This secret society idea was interesting; it was like a subculture hovering along the edges of things. Like secret fraternities, with dress standards, behavior requirements, and secret handshakes. Oorah. For a moment, he thought he heard Kincade, and glanced around with a frown as he listened to Deke.
“All full-patch members have an equal voice. We might give a long-time member the courtesy of speaking first…or longest, unless they’re a bastard.” He laughed. “But when we sit for church, all members are equal. Officers are drawn from the member ranks, and they have a different set of responsibilities.” He paused again and stared at Lane. “Tell me why you are so interested.”
“Like I said, the connection between the members I met last night was…it felt comfortable. That’s the only way to describe it. I was easy in a way I haven’t been since I stepped foot off base nearly two years ago. What is the clubhouse?” He had many more questions, but already experienced an eager excitement at the idea of trying to join this group.
“It’s our base of operations in town. The Fort Wayne chapter has the one; some chapters have two or more, depending on the size of their territory. The clubhouse has rooms for members to crash in, or for some to live in, depending on individual situations. There're a kitchen and a meeting room or two, business offices, that kind of thing. We have parties nearly every week.” He shook his head, crushing the paper from his lunch in one hand. “There’s one planned for Saturday night, in fact. Are you thinking you want to explore this?” Deke pinned him with that stare, again making Lane uncomfortable.
He thought about it for a minute. Did he want to go down this path? This was his boss, and if things went south outside of work, he could lose his job. Fuck the job, he thought. I want what they showed me last night.
“Yeah. I am,” he said with conviction, and Deke nodded.
“Okay. At the end of today’s shift, come find me.” He stood, and Lane copied his actions, grinning as Deke looked up at him, chuckling. “You are one big motherfucker, aren’t you?”
***
“Kincade.” He laughed, tossing the canteen over to the man seated on the cot opposite him. “Keep your gear straight from mine.”
The big, blond Swede grinned back at him, his sky blue eyes glinting humorously as he reached up, grabbing the canteen in midair, inches from his face. “But Robinson, if I keep my things to myself, what would a Cajun boy like you have to complain about?”
Bending over to lace his boots, Robinson shook his head. The two of them had been side-by-side since Parris Island, climbing on and off transports together and working as a team. Lane could track patterns and puzzles; he could look at things and see the path through the obstacles. That was his gift. Kincade? He noticed things. He was a watcher, and he got off on seeing what people didn’t want him to see.
It made his day when he could uncover a secret. Like Lane lying to the Staff Sergeant that first night of basic on Parris Island. Not wanting to admit how alone he was, he had told the man in charge he read the scripted announcement about arriving safely to his loved ones, when in reality, he didn’t have anyone to call back in Houma. Kincade recognized his panic when the Staff Sergeant had paused, smelling a lie, and had distracted the man with a question. From those first moments in the Corps through the last day of basic, Kincade had taken him under his wing and tried to buffer things for him.
Basic had been hard as hell, because the drill instructors all seemed to take his size as a challenge. It was Kincade who first explained something he should have already known: as long as he continued to react emotionally, the instructors would keep digging and pushing and pulling at him, working to break him down. So, the two of them had conspired to train Lane to an impassive expression, staring patiently straight through the DIs, even when they were nose-to-nose with him. ‘Sir, yes, sir,’ the only phrase passing his lips.
It had done the trick, and soon, the two of them were excelling, successfully leading their ranks through tough and competitive exercises. After the Island, their continuing education took them both into Recon, and then eventually to Camp Chesty, their current deployment in the sand wars.
He straightened, stamping his heel firmly down into his boot, and looked back to see Kincade lying crossways, draped awkwardly across his cot. “Come on, man. We got to get a start on this one,” he said, reaching down to slap the bottom of his friend’s boot. Instead of a solid thump, there was a softer thud, and he looked up in time to see a quarter-sized piece of Kincade’s cammies high on his left shoulder swell outwards and then fall back in on itself.
He stared, waiting, filled with the sense he had walked into a rerun of a frequently watched scene. Lane had paced through this particular puzzle before, treading to the finish, and he knew what was coming. After a few seconds, a small, concentric ring of red appeared on the right side of Kincade’s chest. He nodded in recognition, watching as the ring quickly grew until it covered half the visible area.
Squeezing his eyes shut, as he did every time, he tried telling himself it was a dream, but the scent of blood was thick in the air, dark and rich, underscoring the reality of what he was witnessing. Shaking his head back and forth, he muttered, “Already asked and answered. Radio is sharp and clear, five-by-five.” Bending over to lace his other boot, he stoically listened to the steady drip of a thick liquid, sounding crimson as the splintered sun rising over the mountains in the east. The dripping echoed, sounding as thick as the roux his granny done made for gravy a month ago, gelled and covered by a thick skim of cold, cooked flour, plopping by starts and fits into a sticky puddle. Even with his eyes closed tightly, he thought he could see it growing, covering the floor. “Standard and routine. Lace ‘em up, boys. Roll in five,” he said to the room in general.
He lifted his head, startled by a rapidly growing loud whine. Instinctively looking up at the ceiling, he stared at the metal-covered planks and beams firmly holding the walls together, stalling what would be an unavoidable collapse if the concealing roof were removed, exposing the contents of the room to inspection from above. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head from side to side, attempting to get a bearing on the noise. It seemed to be coming from close by, but where…
With a start, he sat up in bed, reaching out to slap his palm down on the radio alarm, pushing the button to silence the strident sound. The air in the room was chilly on his sweat-covered shoulders and back, and he realized he was panting for breath, struggling to stay in his own skin. The nightmare brought emotions and fears swelling to the top of the dark water of his memories, and he fought to free himself from them before they pulled him down.
This was one of the other pieces of being a soldier, the one people didn’t like talking about, the things that happened out of sight, in the dark…because everyone knew being a soldier meant you left parts of yourself behind. After being overseas, stationed for months in a stress-filled environment, men sloughed off the trappings of civilization in so many ways. Innocence, belief in humanity, trust—those were things cast aside during deployment in a hostile land.
What most people did not realize was when you came home, when you left the battlefield behind, sometimes you brought things back with you, too. Tipping his head to one side, out of the corner of his eye he looked at the chair beside the bed, relieved when it was empty today.
***
Lane pulled up in front of the house, heeling down the kickstand and sitting astride the bike for a minute. Looking through the large windows into the living room, he saw Winger sitting in his recliner, his wife DeeDee perched on his lap, her hand affectionately resting on his chest. Winger had a tolerant smile on his face as he looked towards the door, and Lane suspected it was because his daughter stood ju
st on the other side. At an unexpected noise behind him, he twisted from the house, fluidly swinging off the bike and moving into a crouch, yanking a knife from its holster in his boot. “Lane,” he heard his name, and recognizing the voice, closed his eyes, trying to moderate his breathing and heartrate. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, taking a step backwards, instinctively trying to give him room to recover.
“Little sister,” he said, his voice gruff as he shoved the knife back into place before unfolding and standing upright. “No worries, honey. I just didn’t hear you coming up behind me.” The easy feeling he had from watching the small family, comfortable in their home, was gone, leaving behind the shaky quiver in his gut that the fight response typically brought. He looked down at the woman, struggling to bring a smile to his face for her. Melanie was Winger’s daughter’s best friend, and frequently around the club. Her parents were useless as tits on a boar hog, and she got all her mothering from DeeDee, making them both happy for a variety of reasons, secure in their knowledge that family wasn’t always restricted to relatives.
The front door opened behind him, spilling light across the yard and walk and he saw a wet glint in Melanie’s eyes. “Everything okay, little sister?”
With a laugh, she shook her head. “I just love you, ya know?” Her statement surprised him, made his throat tighten with an unfamiliar emotion. Unable to respond, he nodded, watching as she lifted a hand to wipe at her cheek.
He never had siblings; Kincade was as close as he came to family once he left Louisiana behind, but with Lockee, Winger’s daughter, and Melanie, he had found an easy comradery that he believed simulated the experience and feeling of having sisters. The two were thick as thieves; you seldom saw one without the other, with Lockee most often leading the charge towards some outrageous adventure. To prove this point he heard another bike coming up the street, and looked up without surprise to see PBJ rolling up alongside where his scoot was parked. When one rode, both rode.
Loud laughter preceding her, Lockee skipped down the steps of the house, headed for their little group. She had decided earlier today that she wanted to take a run, and Winger, never able to tell her no for long, had indulgently arranged to have two Rebels come pick up the girls. Swinging a leg over his ride, he reached back to give Melanie a hand onto the back of his bike. “Ready?” Lockee’s bright voice sounded over the rack and ring of the bikes’ exhaust pipes and he nodded at PBJ. She kept talking as she climbed onto the back of PBJ’s bike. “Did you see Daddy’s new bike, Lane? He got it from that shop on the east coast, it’s beautiful. We rode back from Chicago last weekend, and I got to ride with Bear.”
He had heard all about the trip already, listening to some of the brothers in the clubhouse bitching about how she and Melanie had hung all over the citizen who—he was a little peeved—had somehow already earned a road name. “So I heard,” he said, steadying the bike between his legs, fingers holding the front brake tight while Melanie settled on the seat behind him. “We going to ride, or talk?”
Lockee laughed again, “Both.” PBJ twisted the throttle on his bike and took off smoothly, leaving peals of Lockee’s laughter trailing behind him up the street.
Lane slipped his brake, twisting the throttle and quickly moving from first to second gear, following PBJ out of the neighborhood. Turning his head, he asked Melanie, “Know where we’re headed?”
She leaned up, chin on his shoulder as she said, “Nope, I think she just wanted some wind therapy, but Winger wouldn’t let her get on her bike after dark.” He nodded, shifting to third, and then jolted when she said, “I’m glad he called you, Lane. You look like you needed a run, too. You’re doing okay, right?” Yeah, brother, you doin’ okay? That last was Kincade’s voice, and he jolted again at hearing it in his ears.
Seemed Melanie was perceptive tonight, or he wasn’t doing a good enough job to tamp down his fears. In response, he nodded, then turned his head and said, “Yeah, little sister. I’m doing just fine. Hold on.” With that small warning, he cranked the throttle open, quickly pulling even with, and then passing PBJ and his passenger. Without caring what the original destination was, he drove into the night, threading through streets and traffic, aware of the cargo he bore, both good and bad.
***
She curled into a tight ball on the floor, trying not to shiver at the chill in the air. Cold for Florida, the temperature would dip below forty tonight, but she knew better than to close the bedroom window, open to capture the breeze off the orange groves as it threaded through the metal rods stretching across the opening. Her heart beat faster when the crunching of gravel came from outside, small pieces of rock grinding against each other, fracturing and fragmenting by minute amounts as they were placed under pressure. The deep rumble of a car’s engine abruptly shut off, leaving stillness in its wake.
Counting slowly, she measured time as she waited for him to come in from outside. In her mind, she imagined watching as he opened the driver’s door, mentally seeing him stand and stretch out his back before turning to pull a bag from the passenger’s seat. Rewarded with the quiet crumping concussion of the car door closing, she imagined him walking around the front of the vehicle, approaching the dark house.
When she came to the bedroom at precisely eight o’clock, there were no lights left burning behind her. That quiet clicking of switches plunging the house into darkness had stirred the fresh memory, striped into her back, of a howled, “You think I’m made of money?” She heard the clunk of the key in the lock, which opened only from outside, heard the knob twist and turn in the wood, the tongue of the solid latch scraping along the edge of the doorframe.
“Place?” he called the inquiry, and she immediately responded, letting him know she was where she was supposed to be; she was, as so often instructed, waiting. “Dinner?” That was the next question, and in a struggling voice, she indicated where his plate had been stored. She knew she had a fifty-fifty chance of picking wrong. Some nights, selecting the refrigerator over the warm stove was all it took to tip him to violence.
Violence, she thought with a silent laugh. Raised around the controlled violence of hockey, attending her brothers’ games, she remembered thinking at the time that slashing and tripping, hooking and boarding were the worst things in the world. They were the wickedest her teenage self could imagine. Now she knew differently, having learned the lesson time and again.
Slowly counting again, she waited for him to say something, anything to give her an idea of how the evening would go. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen… Maybe tonight will be one of the sweet ones, she thought. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four… Maybe tonight he’ll ask, ‘Baby, why are you on the floor?’ Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty… Or he’ll say, ‘I’m so sorry.’
Precisely at thirty-five, the crash of crockery sounded, and she recognized the sound of a plate dropping to the kitchen floor. Over the sounds of breaking dishes came his voice, barely audible to her ears, but wounding as if it were the lashing of the sound barrier, a clap of thunder, or the tearing sound of metal peeling back from a car’s frame. Not her name, not this time, no more than the hated single word uttered in a tone that caused a terror so visceral it manifested physically as all the hair on her body raised in a futile defense. Clasping her hands together at the back of her head, she tucked her bent elbows tightly against her temples, leaving her ears uncovered so she could hear her fate approaching.
3 - Appearances aren’t reality
“Prez.” The word held a lifetime’s weight of responsibility and respect wrapped into a single syllable. Mason waited a beat before responding, to see if the caller would continue to speak, and was eventually rewarded for his patience. “It’s Deke, man. Bingo was asking about officer candidates and said I needed to call you before nominating Robinson. You had questions about my guy?”
“Fuck. Yeah, I have questions,” he said, leaning back in the office chair, looking at the Chicago skyline out the window behind the desk. He let his eyes lose focus, narr
owing his attention to the sounds coming from the phone, the ringing ratchet of air-driven power tools in the background, far away chatter from deep, male voices. The noises echoed in what seemed to be a large space, and he knew Deke was most likely at one of the club’s bike garages in Fort Wayne. “You hanging out, or wrenching today, brother?”
With laughter in his voice, Deke told him, “Wrenching. Robinson got a couple of sweet buys at a local auction. I picked one of them up off him and I’m working to strip it down. He looked about ready to puke when he saw what I was doing. Chop shop city, man.”
“So you get along with him okay? I don’t know much about the man, not anything really. That’s an odd place for me to find myself, especially when someone’s putting a member up for vote as an officer.” Mason scrubbed his hand along his jaw and then wrapped it tightly around the back of his neck, using thumb and fingers to rub and massage the tight muscles there. “I need to understand what it is you see in the man no one else seems to be able to dig out.”
The noise level dropped and he knew Deke must have gone into the office of the garage; the soft huff of breath was probably him sitting down on the couch in the waiting area. “Mason,” the words came softly, but the voice was steady, “I’ve never seen a man with as much want as Robinson has. From the moment he learned about the club, he pursued it with single-minded determination. He went from hangaround to prospect in about five weeks. Not because he schmoozed members or tried to make people like him, but because he made the club better. Little things, like noticing a toilet was broken, so he called a plumber. Or brothers were always bitching about the coffee pot being empty, so he got a bigger one. Dude’s been a member for several years now, and he still sees things like that all the time. Unlike some of the guys, he doesn’t take shit for granted, or seem to become blind to things like the rest of us. Knowing what I know about the Fort Wayne chapter, I think he could aim his focus a little higher than if there’s a rip in the felt on a pool table, or if one of the boys is too drunk to ride out.”
Gunny (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 5) Page 3
