Nolan: Return to Signal Bend

by Susan Fanetti

  As usual, Nolan didn’t get to enjoy most of the fair. He was in charge of security, so the best he got was a meal or two and an engrained knowledge of the fairway. Iris had been working as well, though, so he’d enjoyed taking these little moments and watching her, or, when he could, pulling her behind her tent and having a private minute or two.

  She was dressed today in a way that had him distracted—and a little bit worried, too. The sun was going down, and when it did, the Fest would shift to a less family-oriented party. People who’d been drinking all day started to feel it. The music got louder. The little kids and their parents headed home, and the bikers let their hair down.

  Iris was over there, being friendly and sweet and bubbly, wearing a tiny little pair of denim shorts, her bright red cowboy boots, and a snug black beater with a little red checked shirt closed over it with a knot a couple of inches above her waist. Her hair was in pigtails, for fuck’s sake.

  She looked unbelievably cute and hot. That beater was tight and low over her truly stellar chest. The red lace of her bra peeped above the neckline.

  Sometimes, Iris would make an offhand comment that suggested she thought she was plump. She was not plump. Her body was sex on a platter—beautiful tits, slim waist, round hips, sleek thighs. And all of it on display in what she was wearing today.

  Nolan had seen men notice her all day, and the attention had ranged from casually appreciative to downright predatory. What Nolan hadn’t seen, Show had complained to him about. Between the two of them, they were trying to keep eyes on her all day. The whole Horde was, in fact.

  Except Kellen. After Nolan had beaten the shit out of him, breaking his eye socket and a couple of ribs, Kellen had apologized profusely to him and Iris, and to Show. Since then, he kept a respectful distance.

  Nolan had known that Showdown had truly accepted that Iris was his when the old man had stood down and accepted his handling of the situation. He hadn’t come up behind him, demanding his own justice.

  The old biker couple walked off down the fairway, and Iris’s eyes wandered up and down the way. She saw him and gave him a sweet little wave and a smile. He headed over.

  Before he could get to her, he heard his name and turned as Darwin trotted to him. “We got some trouble by the petting zoo, brother.”

  The B&B ran the petting zoo, with Len and Lilli and Gia in charge. Bo, Ian, Joey, and Henry had been helping out. That was a lot of kids around trouble.

  “What kind of trouble?” He was already heading toward it.

  “Bo had one of his things and lashed out at some guy, and now Lilli and Gia are at a standoff with the guy and his buddies.”

  Adolescence sucked for everybody. Nolan guessed it must suck triply bad for somebody with Asperger’s. Bo was coming up on thirteen, and he’d started, on rare occasions thus far, to act out with some violence. This was a really shitty place for that to happen.

  “You left them? Why the fuck didn’t you use your damn phone and call me?”

  Darwin gaped at him. He was their youngest, and not their brightest, patch. “I didn’t…Lilli…she said…”

  “Fuck! Go to the booth. Get everybody you can. NOW.” Nolan ran toward the petting zoo, wishing like fuck he still carried as a matter of course. But none of the Horde wore their pieces anymore. Things were safe and quiet now.

  There was firepower at the booth, though.

  The petting zoo was just a couple of temporary corrals, one with about a dozen lambs and baby goats, and the other with four ponies lent to the Horde by one of the Signal Bend families, for the Spring Fest. With the dusk, they’d been closing up, and this side of the fair was nearly deserted, so there were no bystanders to witness the trouble—or to get caught up in it. For that, Nolan was glad.

  What he found in the near-dark was Lilli and Bo wedged up against one of the rails of the pony corral, and Gia off to another side. The ponies were all trained to ground-tie, and they stood in a wary group where their leads lay.

  Four men surrounded Lilli and Bo. One had Gia. Bikers of the unaffiliated variety, a gang of wannabe tough guys. The worst.

  The metal fencing of the corral rattled rhythmically, and it took Nolan a second to understand that Bo, behind his mother, was slamming his back against the fence.

  No one had seen Nolan yet. He pulled his blade from its sheath on his thigh. That weapon, at least, he had. But at least one of these assholes had been carrying—he’d seen the glint of it in the shine of the portable spotlight that was the only illumination back here. The gun was on Lilli and Bo.

  Jesus. They could be facing Armageddon back here. Isaac would lose his fucking mind.

  Unobserved as yet, and alone, Nolan pulled up his patience and examined the scene. From the way the guy who had Gia was standing, and her corresponding defensive posture, Nolan decided that that guy had a knife—and also that he thought he was pulling easy duty, terrorizing a young girl. But Gia was Lilli Lunden’s daughter. She’d been getting self-defense training for years.

  There was at least one gun on Lilli and Bo, and Nolan would assume that wasn’t the only one. He’d also assume they’d all have knives.

  He held still and listened. Over the metallic clanging of the shaking fence, he heard Lilli say, her voice clear and firm. “Just back off, and we’ll all go on about our night.”

  “Fucking retard hit me. You need to leash that thing. If you can’t control him, I’m gonna.”

  One of the other men said, “He’s just a kid, Jeb”—or some name like that; Nolan hadn’t made it out exactly—“let it go, man. Let’s just let the lady and her weird boy go. We’ll go to Moe’s.”

  Nolan sensed his brothers coming up behind him and didn’t need to turn to know they’d come in force. With backup arriving, and knowing that he needed to try to turn this tide before Isaac just ran in and started shooting the idiots threatening his family, he stepped forward, finding the one spot where Lilli might be able to see him through the wall of assailants.

  “Backing off is a real good idea, boys. The hole you’re in is deep enough already.”

  Surprised to hear him, all the men reacted, all at once. The guy who had Gia tried to grab her, but she kicked him, and he yelped—and then yelped again. The men on Lilli and Bo turned, momentarily distracted, and Lilli went for the guy with the gun—it looked like there was only one gun after all. She did some weird ninja move, and then she had the gun in her own hand, and the guy was on the ground.

  Nolan had leapt the fence, and one of the other men ran at him, armed with a knife as big as his own eight-inch hunting blade. But then the guy drew up short and threw his hands up, and Nolan knew his brothers had arrived, and they’d brought heat.

  The scene froze, and Nolan looked around. The guy who had been on Gia was on the ground, holding his crotch. Gia had his knife. Isaac went through the gate—he couldn’t have climbed the fence—and hurried to his daughter. Len went with him.

  There was still danger; the fourth man had taken Bo in the fracas and now had him in a headlock. Bo couldn’t stand to be touched except by a short list of people he trusted, and he had gone rigid, as if he were a robot that had been shut down.

  Lilli was on the man who’d apparently started this mess, and she had his own gun aimed at his head. With her eyes fixed on that douchebag, she said, “Bo. Listen to me. Listen to my voice. You are okay. You be calm, and this will be over, and when we get home, you and I will play Scrabble for one hour. Just be calm and wait until I say it’s okay.”

  Nolan didn’t know if Lilli was aware that Bo had hit pause—which was what they all called it when he tuned out. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the guy on the ground at her feet. Nolan assumed, though, that she had a clear sense of her surroundings.

  Still in charge, he approached the guy who had Bo. When the guy brandished the knife at Bo’s throat, Nolan stopped. He sheathed his knife and put his hands up. “What’s your endgame here, dude? You see the men behind me? The people you went at are our family. You t
hink you take another breath if you hurt that boy? You think your own family will ever be safe again?”

  Looking like he sincerely regretted coming to the fair with his buddy Jeb, the guy said, “You gonna let us walk out of here if I let him go?”

  Without checking with his brothers, Nolan nodded. “Yeah. My word. You let him go right now, and you can all just leave. We’ll escort you off the grounds, and you can go on and enjoy your night someplace else.”

  Nolan got no argument from any of his brothers or from Lilli, and he felt a rush of pride. They trusted him.

  “My word as Horde, man. You let him go, right now, and you will walk away from this fair with no more hurt than you’ve already got.”

  The guy took his arm from Bo’s neck. Bo simply stood in exactly the same place, so the guy, giving him a funny look, stepped away himself.

  Finally, Nolan looked around the corral and saw that nearly the entire club had come back—everyone but Bart, Dom, and Kellen, who were likely keeping people away from the trouble.

  “Cox, Saxon, Tommy, Mel. Walk these men to their rides.” All four nodded and shoved guns into their waistbands. Everyone who’d shown up behind him had brought firepower along.

  When it was only the Horde and Lilli and the kids in the corral, Isaac stalked up to Nolan, his arm still tight around his daughter’s shoulders. Gia looked fine—a bit wide-eyed, but fine. “I didn’t get in your way, but you fuckin’ better not think this is done.”

  It wasn’t done. The bastards would pay. “I didn’t want that scene here in town. Right? They’ll be at Moe’s. One of them said they’d go there.”

  “He’s right, Isaac,” Lilli said, standing now with a still-rigid Bo. “I heard that, too.”

  “So we go to Moe’s,” Showdown said.

  Double A nodded. “Moe’s has a metal detector. That son of a bitch will have to set his piece away, too.”

  Len barked a laugh. “God damn, it’s been a while since we got a chance to teach some assholes a real good lesson!”

  “Take your family home, Isaac,” Badger cut in. “Make sure they’re all okay. Darwin, help Bart, Dom, and Kellen close up here. Double A and Thumper, keep the town. Isaac, Show, Len, Nolan, we’ll meet at the clubhouse in an hour. I’ll catch Tommy and Saxon on their way back and tell ‘em to join us. We’ll give these assholes a show.”

  ~oOo~

  Tommy and Saxon knew their targets’ rides and were able to point them out in the line of bikes outside Raider Moe’s.

  Isaac stormed straight for the door, but Badger grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Easy, brother. We start something in there, we’ll have the whole place in a riot. Better to wait until they come out.”

  “Fuck!” Isaac yanked his arm free of Badger’s grip. “They went for my family!”

  Nolan stepped up. “He’s right, man. There are women in there. We wait.”

  He wasn’t entirely sure that Isaac could be calmed. The big man radiated rage like a nuclear wave. His hands clenched into rock-hard boulders, and his chest heaved.

  “Isaac.” Show’s voice was calmer than anyone’s. “Easy. They’ll pay.”

  Isaac stared at the entrance to Raider Moe’s. Then he stared at the bikes lined up in a tidy row.

  He stalked over to them, brought his massive leg up, and kicked the shit out of the first bike in the row. He set off the domino effect he’d been going for, and at least ten bikes crashed to their sides.

  They were going to have to fight more than just the assholes who’d been at the fair.

  “Hey!” A random guy headed into the bar called out in protest, then pulled up short when he saw Isaac and his kutte, and his brothers nearby. His courage bobbled, and he took a step back.

  Isaac grinned at him—and it wasn’t the kind of expression that eased a mind. “Somebody better let them know inside that there’s an asshole out here trashin’ their bikes.” When the guy just stood there, gaping like a fish, Isaac stomped the bike again and nodded toward the door. “Go on, now.”

  The guy went in. The Horde got ready, forming an arc around the front door.

  It was only a minute or two before the doors burst open and the bikes’ owners surged out of the bar. Isaac charged forward with a roar and went right for the guy he most wanted. Nolan hadn’t even seen the guy yet, but he saw him double over and then fly back as Isaac hit him with his classic opening combination: left jab to the solar plexus and right uppercut to the chin.

  The guy—Jeb, or Jed, whatever—flew backward, and Isaac dropped down and continued the beating. Nolan couldn’t pay any more attention, though—he barely ducked a punch, so his focus shifted, and he got busy with his own battle.

  ~oOo~

  It didn’t last long. Nolan and Badger were able to back off the bikers who’d been collateral damage in Isaac’s burst of impatient inspiration by offering, between punches and ducks, to pay for any damage—and then to explain why they were after the other guys. That turned the tide, and the douchebags from the Spring Fest became far outnumbered.

  Within maybe fifteen minutes, if that, those five, torn and bloodied, were on their knees on the parking lot, and Isaac prowled back and forth in front of them. Nolan suspected that the former President had forgotten, in this event, that he was former. He hadn’t deferred to Badger since they’d been standing in the corral earlier.

  “You laid hands on my family.” He roared. “My kids.” He aimed a kick at Jed/Jeb’s knee, and the asshole howled in agony. “You put a gun to their heads. And you”—he snarled at one of the others—“you held a knife to my girl. Motherfuckers. I should end you all right here.”

  “Isaac.” Badger’s voice had the timbre of someone trying to soothe a beast. “Your family is okay. We need to be reasonable here.”

  Isaac seemed to ignore their President, and Nolan wondered if they were going to have a very big problem. They could not kill five men on the parking lot of Raider Moe’s, in front of two dozen witnesses. Nobody had called law yet, and it wasn’t likely anyone would—unless there were dead bodies at the end of this.

  Then somebody among the onlookers stepped up. Nolan didn’t know him, and a quick glance at his brothers suggested that the man was a stranger to them all. “I know these lowlifes. They hurt your kids?”

  Nolan did not want anything to get hotter than it already was. “We got this handled, friend.”

  The guy nodded at him, acknowledging that he’d heard, then turned back to Isaac. “Got a hammer in my truck. Don’t think anybody here would say you don’t have a right to some Old Testament justice.”

  Isaac considered his new friend for long, tense seconds. Then, recollecting Badger’s authority at last, he turned to the President.

  Who turned to Nolan. “What d’ya think, SAA?”

  “Sounds right. Yeah. Break their hands.”

  ~oOo~

  “You are drunk,” Iris said when Nolan tried to pull her onto his lap as he sat on a barstool.

  “Mm-hmm. Celebratin’. Get up here.” She struggled against his hold, and he frowned. “What’s wrong, babe?”

  “You will drop me off your drunk lap, and I don’t think that will be fun. Come on, let’s go back to your room.”

  “Are we gonna fuck?” He tried to kiss her, but she danced out of his reach again. She was slippery tonight—but she’d come right to the clubhouse when he’d called. “I beat people up! You like it when I do that.”

  “If you can get it up, and not puke or pass out, there is a chance you will get lucky, yes. I’m not holding out much hope, though. And first we need to fix your hands.”

  “My hands are good. They just need you.”

  “Okey dokey. Come on. Let’s go.” She pulled on his arm, and he slid off the stool and almost flattened her. Damn, he was drunk.

  “You have to help, honey. You’re too big for me to carry.”

  “I got him.”

  Was that her dad’s voice?

  “Where you want him? The dorm?”

 
; Yeah, that was Show.

  “Hey, Show. Your daughter’s beautiful. I love her. I’m gonna marry her.”

  “Shut up, shithead,” Show grumbled, and then the room flipped upside down, and Nolan felt really sick.

  “Oh, fuck,” he moaned as saliva flooded his mouth. How’d he get upside down?