by Ryder Dane
“She said this place was a repo, so soon enough you’ll be tilled under the weeds and shit. Or maybe the people who buy the place will fence it off and get some livestock to shit all over. Who knows man, whatever happens, I know you’ll be in my thoughts for a while. You can stop this fuckin’ rain though, I won’t be able to get the chopper out of the damned mud if it keeps up like this.” The thunder boomed again and another lightning strike sounded like it hit the barn behind him. He turned to look, but the rain pelting down on his head was hard to see through. He looked toward the sky and muttered, “Asshole.”
Dutch got to his feet and took a step right into a muddy hole, barely saving himself from snapping his ankle. “Alright you son of a goat fucker, I don’t plan on dying out here in this field, so fuck you very much.” He pulled his foot out of the hole with a squelch and began sliding his boots in a shuffle, until he reached the relative safety of the barn. He ducked inside of the building and shivered from his wet clothing and the still cold air in the shelter.
He looked around and saw a lot of junk. Old farm equipment from throughout the last century was scattered throughout the place, and in the corner was what was left of a Moonshine still if he wasn’t mistaken. Next to the big sliding door was a rat bike that was even worse than the ones at the clubhouse that the brother’s used to play on during what they called a biker rodeo. This was death waiting to happen to anyone riding the damn thing. There were cords showing through the slick skinned rubber, and from the smell, he’d bet it leaked gas as fast as it used it to run. The plate on the back was a pretty good forgery from a distance, but up close you could see the brush strokes in the paint used to change the expiration date. He looked around the rest of the barn, even in the basement dug out, and saw nothing else that could be used as transportation.
The rain had let up a little, so he decided to make a run for it to the house. Maybe he could dry off there and check the weather to see when this deluge would let up. At the door of the barn, he could see smoke rising from a lean to next to the house and could vaguely make out a moving figure, so he ran towards the smoky enclosure.
Chapter 2
Kylie watched the biker slide in the wet clay as he made his way to where she stood under the dilapidated shelter. The food was almost done, so at least his timing was good. She stood on the opposite side of the fire bowl with the old butcher knife close at hand, just in case he turned out to be dangerous, but she didn’t anticipate trouble from him. She was overly cautious about any stranger. But big guys like this one seemed to take what they want and not stick around for the consequences. The only reason she wasn’t ready to stab this one through the heart was that he was not a member of the Bayouz Biker Boyz MC, or the fanatical inbreeds’ calling themselves The Swamp Kings MCC. Both groups were scary enough on their own, but talk was that they were negotiating an affiliation between them.
So far, since she’d been at the farm, two Swamp Kings and one Bayouz Boy had been absorbed into the swamp down the road. The Bayou brother had found her one day while she was hunting truffles in the woods behind the house. The evil bastard had given her a healthy hatred of all things Bayou related, including a black eye, split lip, a broken arm, and a venereal disease, when she was a young teenager. She’d only been on the farm for three years before it happened, and she begged Naomi to contact Billy at the time. That was when she found out that he was too busy for her petty problems, and wouldn’t come for her. The words, “girl, he don’t want nothing to do with you. He dropped you out here so you wouldn’t get in his way and interrupt his life. He won’t help you no matter who tries to get him to. Me and Job are all you got and you might as well get used to the idea.”
Once Job saw what the man had done, he made her watch when he laid the baseball bat on the back of the bastards skull the next time he showed up to get the normal supply of meth. “You need to watch and learn that you have to be tough in this world Kylie, he ain’t dead yet, but you’re gonna show this fucker what a little girl can do to a big man.”
That day she learned to skin a man. It was obvious that the guy, whose name was Brindle, was an ass. First he tried to get sympathy from her, by the time they were finished, she learned to gut a man and watch him bleed out with no emotion at all. She found the secret to hurting a man for the rest of his short life. The only true satisfaction she got from the experience was to become numb when you had to eliminate an enemy.
When the club brother’s showed up looking for him after a few days, Job told them that he gave the absent biker the meth, and was still waiting to be paid for the products. The one that chased her into the barn had straight up brothers that paid for the meth the buddy left with. It only worked once that Kylie knew about, but the lesson was to always be a victim. As Job told her, “we’re a bunch of innocent sonsabitches, and don’t ever forget that.”
She’d hid out each time while the scouting bikers visited the farm looking for the three men, and even Naomi was staying out of sight as much as possible at those times. No one wanted to face the consequences if one of the missing men’s remains had been found on the farm.
Someday they might drain the swamp and find the remains of the men and the bikes, but for now, she was safe. Once she left the area, it didn’t really matter what happened. There was no evidence linking the farm or people that lived there. The swamp was a good three miles down a dirt road that nobody lived on. It was where people dumped all kinds of stuff, tires, old appliances, and yeah, who knew how many dead bodies.
Now she had to leave the safety of the farm, and she was scared. She eyed the biker, Dutch, and decided to pump him for information on the club Billy belonged to. If she was subtle enough maybe he would tell her where they could be found.
“You can go in the house and dry off if you want. The electric isn’t working, but there is a five gallon jug of water in the bathroom for washing up or flushing the toilet. It’s clean water. I’ll have this meat and corn ready to eat in about ten minutes, you’re welcome to eat with me if you like. It isn’t much, but it will fill your belly.”
Dutch nodded his head and said, “thank you, I’ll take you up on that offer. Is it supposed to rain all night? I didn’t even listen to a weather report before I took off almost a week ago, so I wonder how rough the ride back is going be. This road is shit, and looks like it’s gonna be a lot worse before too much longer. How do you manage to get anywhere from out here?”
He was smiling at her, but she sensed that he had deeper concerns than her well being. He didn’t push for her answer. He turned around, and headed into the house. She turned the meat over for the last four minutes of cooking time and pulled the four small cobs of corn off of the grill. It was a poor meal, but if the electricity was on, it would have lasted her three days. Now she had to leave in the morning. There was no other choice open to her.
She pulled the meat off of the grill and slid it into the bucket with the corn, put a plate over the top to keep the rain off of the food, and made a run for the back door. She lost a flip-flop in the sucking clay, but didn’t bother to try to retrieve it, she wouldn’t need the sandals on the road, and the extra space might come in handy in her backpack.
Dutch was just coming out of the bathroom with his wet clothing in his hand and a towel wrapped around his hips. The towel barely covered his privates, but the exposure didn’t seem to phase him at all as he draped his jeans and t-shirt over the wooden bench close to the wood burning Round Oak firebox. His leather chaps and colors were laid over the backs of two chairs. The big boots and socks were on the floor as close to the wood burner as possible, and as she catalogued the clothing, she noticed there was nothing that looked like it might be underwear amongst the drying clothing.
Seeing the mass of muscle and tattoos were enough to make her wish the circumstances were different, but she wasn’t suicidal. Getting cozy with this guy would not be good. She set the bucket on the small table and walked into Job and Naomi’s room. When she emerged, she h
anded Dutch a pair of Job’s basketball shorts and an over sized Saints jersey to wear. He gave her a lopsided smile and stood up, dropping the towel, as she blushed and turned her back to him to go into the kitchen and get plates and serving ware.
The shirt was tight over his shoulders, but the shorts fit him pretty well. Anything was better than watching him for the rest of the evening and wondering when the knot on his hip would give way and drop to give her the full effect of his muscular body.
She cut a third of the meat off and took two pieces of corn for herself and put the remainder on a plate for Dutch. “Here’s your dinner. The ice is probably melted by now, but I’ll check in a minute or two and we can hope there’s enough left for our tea.” She sat down and began eating. She hadn’t eaten since just before the electric went out and was hungry, and not about to let the meal grow cold because she couldn’t pry her eyes away from a man. Even a man that made her want to snuggle on his lap and stay there.
Dutch wondered if the girl was of legal age or not. She was socially awkward, but had manners at the dinner table, and those extended to making sure that her guest got the lion’s portion of the food, even when it was obvious to him that she needed it far worse than he did. She ate her meal in tiny bites as if she was trying to prolong the ritual while he ate, so she would finish around the same time he did.
She tried to make small talk, awkwardly stating, “I’m leaving here tomorrow, so I sure hope the rain lets up for a while.” And “did you get your friend situated okay?” Sounded stupid as soon as the words left her lips. So she shut down and chewed her food rather than further embarrassing herself.
As he chewed his delicious, but slightly tough, unidentified meat, he studied her features. Her hair was a thick mass of blonde that hung down her back in a low ponytail. The color was almost the same as Roark’s white blonde, but two or three shades darker. Her eyes were jeweled blue with dark eyelashes and her eyebrows had a natural wing shape to them. From the casual attitude, to the texture of her skin, he’d bet good money that she rarely wore make-up. Her cheekbones stood out, and a tiny scattering of freckles dotted across her nose and spilled on those prominent bones. Her lips, well, it was best if he didn’t look at them for any length of time. They were those ‘suck me, fuck me’ kind of lips that made a man’s dick wake up and hope for the best.
Her neck was small and delicate looking, and from what he could now see with the t-shirt clinging to her tits he had been correct in his assessment of her endowments. He could count most of her ribs, especially with the material clinging to her body, and that made him feel guilty for eating her food. When she stood up and walked to the small deep freezer to check on the ice situation, he adjusted his prick. Her hips were wide, but there was very little flesh for a man’s hands to grab a hold of. Her jeans sat on her hipbones, but were baggy, even in the ass. He sighed, he was partial to a nicely padded ass on his fuck me girls. Maybe she’d fill out with a few good meals.
She wasn’t his usual type of bedmate, but his dick didn’t seem to care. She returned with two glasses of iced tea, and he noticed that his glass had a few chips of ice in it, while hers didn’t. He had to admire her, she had class.
“Thank you, the meal was delicious, I don’t know what kind of meat that was, but it went down good.”
That simple compliment got him a shy smile and he felt something melt in the region of his gut. He needed to get out of here, away from her, or he was going to be in deep shit before he knew what hit him. “So tell me something, what are you doing out here in the sticks with no transportation, and no one to talk to besides that flea infested cat?” He waved his hand sideways when he saw that she was giving him a narrow eyed look.
“Before you tell me that you plan to ride that piece of shit in the barn, you should know that the back tire is flat and from the smell of the barn, the gas that was in the tank leaked out. I didn’t check the thing over, but I would lay a fifty down on you not getting two miles on that thing without breaking down or killing yourself.”
The narrowed eyes from his first invasive question gave way to the look of surprise, and then despair as he kept talking. He felt like a low down kitten killer as he watched her expressions. She obviously planned to leave on the rat bike, and now he had to burst her bubble and the tears he knew she hadn’t wanted to shed were drowning her eyes. She ran for the back door and out into the rain, heading towards the barn.
Dutch thought about following her, but decided to stay inside where it was dry and wait for her to come back. He poked around the house, snooping in places that he had no right to, but he was curious, and from the look at his first question, he was sure she wouldn’t be gushing her personal information without duress.
He found a lone can of soup in the back of a tall cabinet, and opened it into a small pan and set it on top of the wood burner. He also had a thin towel and fleece blanket waiting for her to reappear. Once he’d seen her backpack sitting by the back door, and checked the contents, he knew she was planning on leaving soon. He was glad that she volunteered the information on her own. He hated to admit it, but he knew he couldn’t get on his scoot and leave her sitting on this back woods road by herself. She had no way to a grocery store, no electricity, and not so much as a pistol for personal protection. He figured that it was a miracle that she’d lasted as long as she told him that she had.
Kylie saw that Dutch spoke the truth. She checked the gas tank and found the leak on the bottom of the tank itself. The weld where the indent for the support bar of the frame was had rusted apart. There was no hope for that tire. The threads were showing just like he’d also said. Now she was as good as fucked.
She was glad he hadn’t followed her to the barn, because right this minute there was no power on earth that would prevent her from bawling her eyes out over this one. She went to the corner where the old hand tools sat in their wooden box and grabbed them one by one, tossing them at the bike. The mini sledge knocked it off of the kickstand, and the three quarter inch wrench busted the tail light that she’d fixed yesterday. “Everything has gone wrong dammit, Job and Naomi, me stuck here with nothing but the food in the place and a fucking mortgage that I didn’t know anything about. My own brother left me here, fuck this, just fuck it.” She ended her screaming at the bike with the last tool, a screwdriver that stabbed straight into the gas tank that was empty, as empty as she felt.
The thunder and lightning masked her crying until she was out of tears. Well, there was only one way out of here that didn’t involve walking and hitchhiking. All she had to do was to gather her pride and guts and ask Dutch if he could take her to her brother, or at least to the town where he got his mail. She would offer to pay him, even if it meant that she would loose her small nest egg.
The worry that he might want other kinds of payment nagged at her, but right now, she’d agree to anything to leave this place. At least he looks good, and hopefully he’d be patient with her inexperience. She hadn’t been a virgin since that day Brindle had beaten her so badly, and even though Naomi told her that sex was only supposed to hurt if you liked it that way, she was still nervous.
Her mind was made up, and she had to alter her plan slightly, but this was doable. All she needed was his cooperation.
When she came back, he was waiting for her and handed her the towel. She looked so pitiful that he wanted to hug her and tell her that everything would work out. She took the towel and left him standing, wondering what she was planning to do now. He half expected her to ask him to help her, but she hadn’t said a thing.
She came out of the bedroom in long johns and a thin cotton robe. There was nothing sexy about her clothes or the hair that was still wrapped in the towel, but his dick was interested. He shook his head at his body’s reaction to the girl. She looked so young and vulnerable, but the predator in him was scenting prey and he wanted her. He had to ask her, “How old are you?”
She was surprised at his question. Did it matter how old she was
? She shrugged, “I’m twenty two. My name is Kylie Moon.” She looked down at her stocking clad feet. “How old are you?”
So she wanted to make small talk, did she? Okay, he would play the game. “I’m thirty, and the name’s Dutch, that’s it.” He reached his hand out into her line of sight to shake hers. She hesitated for a second, but took his hand. He pulled her gently to the table and gave her a small push to sit in the chair. The pan of soup was hot, so he poured it into the big mug that sat on the counter. He rummaged through a drawer and stuck a spoon in the hot liquid and took it to the table to set it in front of her.
“I ate most of your dinner, but I found this lonely can of soup and you need to warm up. While you eat, you can tell me about yourself.”
Well, who’d have thought he could be so nice? She didn’t know what to say, but she thanked him anyway. She wasn’t used to anyone waiting on her. Naomi was not the motherly type. And Job, well, if he’d ever had manners, he’d forgotten them way before she had been dumped off.
She slurped a few spoonfuls of the salty broth before she spoke. “I don’t know what you want to know about. I’ve been here for a long time, but now that Job and Naomi are gone, I need to make a life for myself.” She looked up to see what his mood might be when she asked him for help.
“Have you ever heard of the MC group called the Burning Bastards? They wear a patch that’s a brown skeleton.” He nodded his head, and she smiled. “I have a brother, I didn’t know that he was my brother. When my parents were killed, Billy showed up and told me he was my brother, and he brought me here to stay with Job and Naomi. I just found out that he has been paying them to keep me here for the last twelve years.”
