by Cora Brent
The flashing lights should have been expected. It was a stolen car, after all, and they were all wasted and trespassing. After he unwillingly gave his fingerprints, he was confronted by his brother. Jensen was furious with him. Jensen had been angry with him countless times in the last eighteen years but this was a more base and rancorous emotion than he’d ever received from anyone. Mad’s older brother called him a no good fuck and smacked him around as the other officers laughed.
Maddox didn’t fight back. Jensen was a police officer and anyway, he scarcely noticed the blows. He was consumed with terror. Gaby. He had to talk to Gaby.
Jensen wasn’t in any mood to be indulgent. As he tossed Maddox into a cell, Mad noticed his brother’s wild expression. He knew Jensen wasn’t really in his right mind these days. His eyes were hooded from sleeplessness and too much drinking. He was trying to keep their father from pitching overboard while assuming the role of responsible adult. Still, Maddox had to try.
“I need to make a phone call,” he told his brother.
“Fuck you,” Jensen growled. “I’m your fucking phone call. You’re gonna sit your sorry ass in there until you grow some decency.”
Maddox sat bleakly in a corner as Jensen left him alone. Chaz was retrieved by his parents within an hour and the girls were at the medical center for suspected alcohol poisoning. Maddox listened to the hours tick past and waited. Priest didn’t come for him. Jensen didn’t return. Finally an older officer named Romero opened the door and told him to get the hell out. They were done holding him. Maddox glanced at the clock on the station wall before hurrying outside. Ten hours had passed. Anything could happen in ten hours. And anything did.
As Maddox watched the world continue to darken from a nameless peak in the Scorpion Mountains, his mind was dark as well. He remembered it all; arriving home to find his father passed out on the back porch again. Then he opened a door only to see his girl in his brother’s bed. The two of them were sleeping with their limbs wound together as if they’d always been lovers. They were startled when he howled with rage. He hated them and told them so. Gaby was still furiously hurt, calling him all kinds of dirty names as it became apparent she’d listened to everything she’d been told. The hell with her. She didn’t even bother to talk to him before opening up her legs and fucking his brother.
Jensen had been quiet throughout the tirade and there was deep pain in his face when he tried to approach Maddox.
“I have no brother,” Maddox coughed, pushing him away. Then he turned to Gabriela, who was standing in the middle of the room with a sheet against her naked body, tears streaming down her face. “And you’re nothing but a filthy slut after all.” Her sob of agony might have made him pause if he hadn’t already turned to stone.
He couldn’t endure them. He moved into Chaz Colletti’s basement and no amount of Priest’s entreaties would force him back under the same roof with Jensen. On the day of his high school graduation, which he refused to attend, Priest came to him and quietly divulged the fact of Gaby’s pregnancy.
All those things couldn’t be undone. Maddox didn’t hate them anymore. He wondered if he ever really had. He’d spent so long wandering through a fog of angry hurt, numbing it with sex and hard living. If his mother had lived she would likely have forced a reconciliation far sooner. But now Priest’s death was forcing it.
Maddox made his way carefully down the mountain in the dark. His bike was exactly where he had left it as he’d known it would be. He drove slowly down to the streets he’d grown up on and found his way back to Priest’s house once again. The lights were all on and a red Ford pickup was parked in the driveway. He almost walked right past the woman. She was standing in the shadows, beyond the reach of the dim porch light.
“So you’re Maddox.” She moved into the light and his eyes went reflexively over her body. She had a nice body. She noticed the attention and smiled.
“I don’t remember you,” he said honestly.
“We’ve never met,” she admitted, taking a drag from a cigarette. She appeared to be an unnatural blond but her figure was fine and to Maddox she looked pretty damn good standing there blowing smoke on his father’s porch. Then he heard Jensen’s voice inside the house and instantly he knew her name.
“Casey,” he remembered. “That right?”
Jensen’s wife grinned at him. “It is.” She didn’t miss a beat when it came to looking him over and moving just a few inches too close. “So you’re the bad boy biker brother I’ve heard so much about.” She was being coy. Mad was suddenly wary of her. He didn’t like coy women. Their intentions were usually mixed up in things he didn’t want to deal with.
“Glad to meet you,” Maddox said mildly.
“Are you?” she asked with false shyness. She shifted purposely so his gaze would travel to her long legs. The red skirt she wore was barely decent.
Even as his dick rose with involuntary interest Maddox felt a strong dislike for her. Forget the fact that she was his sister-in-law; this was his father’s house and his father was inside gasping his last breath.
Jensen appeared on the porch. With one look Maddox could tell he was already half wasted. Jensen didn’t seem especially irked by his presence, so Maddox figured Gaby must not have told him about their argument earlier. Casey appeared annoyed by her husband’s intrusion but Maddox just pushed past his brother and entered the house.
He saw Miguel seated at the kitchen table stacking dominoes. Maddox remembered those things. They’d been his once, his and Jensen’s. His nephew smiled nervously at him.
“Hi, Uncle Maddox.”
“Hey, kid. You got my permission to call me plain Mad.”
“Mad,” Miguel said thoughtfully and then shrugged. “Okay.”
He found Gaby in Priest’s room. She was leaning over the bed talking to his father in a soft voice which tore at him.
“No,” she shook her head. “He didn’t leave. He’ll be back soon.” She looked up and relief flooded her face when she saw him in the doorway. “See? Here he is.”
Priest’s head creaked painfully in his direction. His voice was weak and rough as sandpaper. “Hey, boy.”
Maddox sat carefully on the end of the bed. He didn’t look at Gabriela. “Hey, Dad.” As his hand sought the old man’s, he tried not to openly grimace when he found little more than bone. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”
A spasm overcame Priest and his face twisted into a mask of pain. Then, just as quickly, it relaxed. “You stay out of them mountains, Maddox. Your mom, she worries.”
Maddox’s head dropped. Priest was in the past again. “I will, Dad.”
Priest’s eyes closed and he frowned. “And Mad, you keep close to your brother,” he whispered and then fell into unconsciousness.
Gaby checked his pulse and then gently tucked the sheet around him. “He’s just asleep,” she told Maddox.
Mad nodded silently but he was having trouble with all of this. Priest McLeod had served in Vietnam. He had endured horrific conditions as a POW and returned to the states to find a country vastly changed from the one he had left. He was one of the original road hogs born out of a time of rebellion and a quest for elusive freedom. Decades later, when Maddox was a boy, Priest’s bike occupied a shrouded retirement in the garage. Occasionally Priest would roll it out and tend to it lovingly, sometimes taking one son or the other on a fleeting coast around town. But it was always brief and benign. Maddox knew his mother had something to do with Priest leaving that era behind. Sometimes old friends, those who remained hard road warriors, would show up in Contention and Priest would turn to tough talk and alcohol for a few hours as Maddox watched with fascination. But Priest always waved goodbye to those pieces of his past, returning to his family and his plumber’s tools without any visible regret.
“Dad,” Maddox whispered with grief and touched his father’s frail forehead. He heard a stirring in the doorway and saw Jensen standing there with an anguished look on his flushed face. H
is brother held a bottle in his hand and he took a long drink before shaking his head and shuffling away.
Maddox jerked his head to the spot where his brother had been standing. “How long has that been a problem?”
Gabriela looked sad. “A while. Started getting bad after the shooting three years ago. Since Priest started sliding downhill it’s gotten worse. He used to be able to hide it from Miguel.” She paused, looking uncomfortable. “He can’t seem to hide it anymore.”
Sharp female laughter echoed from the living room and Maddox glared in the direction the noise had come from.
“And what about her?”
Gaby’s face darkened and Mad could read her dislike for Jensen’s wife. “Casey’s a piece of work. I don’t get into their business but it doesn’t seem like a good deal.”
“No, it doesn’t,” agreed Maddox. Then he figured if his brother was dumb enough to put a ring on trash then he probably deserved what he got.
Gabriela had crossed her arms and was watching him. There was a challenge in her face which he remembered well. She seemed to be waiting for him to mention the harsh words spilled earlier in the afternoon, but he wasn’t going to address that here. He answered her gaze, silently telling her to go to hell if that’s how it was going to be.
Gaby’s face changed and she suddenly seemed soft. He saw her begin to reach out a tentative hand but he didn’t want that either. He left the room.
Jensen was sitting at the kitchen table with Miguel. He was slurring his words and having an unsuccessful go at setting the dominoes. Casey stood in the kitchen, drinking a wine cooler and rolling her eyes.
Maddox felt Gaby move past him. “Come on,” she said to her son in a clipped, irritable voice. “Let’s go home.”
Miguel looked up from the dominoes and argued with his mother. “Dad said I could stay here in his old room tonight.”
“No,” said Gaby with absolute certainty. “You can’t. Your uncle’s going to be staying here and he’s no babysitter.”
Maddox shrugged, annoyed with the way she dismissed him. “Look, I don’t care if the kid stays.”
Gabriela whirled on him. “Exactly,” she accused. “You don’t care.”
“Please, Mom,” said Miguel in a quiet voice.
“Gaby,” Jensen interjected, running a tired hand across his face. “Come on. What harm would it do?”
Gaby exhaled with obvious annoyance but she relented. Maddox grinned as the boy clapped his hands and capered around in triumph. He understood that to Miguel he was something of an idol. He had been telling the truth; he wouldn’t mind having him around.
Jensen was on a downhill slide. After another half hour he was having difficulty remaining upright in his chair. Gabriela ushered their son off to bed, glaring at Jensen before disappearing down the hall towards the room which was across the hall from the one Maddox had spent his boyhood. The room which witnessed the origin of Miguel himself.
Maddox swore silently, trying to push away the memory of Gaby and Jensen together. His brother was clumsily trying to put the dominos away but Casey remained in the kitchen, staring at Maddox avidly. She pressed her legs together with a small smile which said all kinds of dirty things. Maddox understood that if he was after revenge it was staring him right in the face. Yesterday he might have taken it. He might have grabbed his brother’s wife and fucked her raw without conscience. But today was different. Here, in the presence of pain and death, he didn’t have the desire to be the worst version of himself.
Casey was openly petulant when Maddox ignored her, helping Jensen into the pickup truck. Jensen had been the upright one for a long time but now he had to lean on Maddox heavily, handicapped by his knee and by the bottle. In spite of having spent the past decade refusing to think of Jensen, Mad didn’t like seeing him like this. He knew if it continued then he would be burying his brother too soon.
As he stood in the cracked driveway, watching them drive away, Gaby joined him. The temperature had dropped about twenty degrees since the sun retreated. It wasn’t cold, but it was cool.
“Sorry,” said Maddox grudgingly. “You know, about this afternoon. I lost my head a little bit. Gabs, I never intended to see you again.”
He heard her sigh. “Ah, don’t apologize. I’m sorry for a lot of things, Maddox.”
Mad didn’t want her regret. He didn’t know what the hell he wanted. He started to walk away but she pulled him back.
“Really, I am. You wouldn’t hear me back then and I don’t blame you.” She winced. “I don’t blame you one god damn bit. It’s just…I was young. I had a moment where I was lost, you know? I was in pain. Jensen was my friend. He was in pain.”
Maddox pushed her away. “You think I fucking want to hear about it?” He began to stalk back to the house and then changed his mind, pushing right up into her face. “No, on second thought, tell me all the horny details. Was it my face you were thinking of, Gabriela, while my brother was popping your cherry?”
“Yes,” she said flatly and Maddox flinched, not expecting that. “It was. Just like I’ve thought about you every day for a decade. I’m not going to say I’m sorry it happened because it would be saying I was sorry for having Miguel, but shit, Maddox. I was wrong. And I never forgave myself for the hurt it all I caused you. I never will.”
“Good,” said Maddox, nodding, backing down a little. “Good.”
Gaby played with the end of her dark ponytail, suddenly looking much younger, much more like the girl he’d once known. “I loved you, Mad,” she said softly. “I did.”
Maddox felt his fists clench. Her words just made it worse. What was he supposed to say? He’d loved her too, probably more than she ever could have guessed. But if that wasn’t enough then, there was no point talking about it now.
A long moment of silence passed and he heard a nocturnal creature scrabbling around under the nearby creosote. Coyotes began to yip to one another in the distance, claiming the hours which were supposed to belong to them.
Gabriela sighed and withdrew a set of keys from her pocket. “I’ll be here to pick him up in the morning. Early.”
“Fine,” answered Maddox, looking toward the Scorpion Mountains, invisible in the darkness.
“I left my cell number on the fridge. Call if anything happens with Priest.”
He didn’t look at her. “Sure, Gabriela.”
She hesitated, lingering for one more minute to see if he would say anything else. But Maddox was done with the subject. It was all exhausting to him.
“Good night, Maddox,” she said softly and then climbed in her Versa, leaving him alone in the dark.
CHAPTER TEN
Contention City, Arizona Territory
1888
It was late but Annika did not have the heart to put an end to the child’s lessons. Desi de Campo had torn through three chapters of Darwin’s The Origin of Species and was avidly asking questions. Though the light was fading and she knew Mercer would arrive shortly, the teacher in her delighted in Desi’s enthusiasm. The school for the Mexican American children of Contention City had stalled. The students were being taught by a fifteen year old girl - who was scarcely literate herself - in an abandoned mining shack by the Hassayampa.
Through James, Annika had let the de Campo family know she would happily make time for any child who wished to learn. Thus far, Desi was the only one who showed up. Five days a week for the last month he was eagerly waiting as soon as the other children departed. The boy had an astonishingly sharp mind. Annika only hoped he would be given the same opportunities as his peers.
“What does ‘theory’ mean exactly?” Desi asked, poring over the words with utter seriousness.
Annika smiled, putting aside her lesson plan for the following day and joining him on the floor of the schoolhouse.
“Scientific theory,” she explained, “is an explanation of sorts, supported by a vast amount of research which leads to one conclusion.”
Desi nodded, appearing to understand.
“So this man is saying that if you’re alive then it’s because you’re better, right?”
“In a way. In his work Darwin describes ‘survival of the fittest’, which is a particular idea that competition for the planet’s resources has winners and losers.”
“So what am I?” Mercer Dolan leaned against the doorway, looking casually down at them. “A winner or a loser?” He grinned.
Annika felt her mouth twitch. “I don’t know, Mr. Dolan. Why don’t you elaborate on your virtues so we may come to a conclusion?” She was glad to be seated. Something inside of her became instantly unsteady when Mercer entered a room.
Mercer must have walked to the school, as he usually did. His beloved stallion, Axl, was likely in the stables over at Lizzie Post’s place. He didn’t want any curious gawker to recognize his horse tied up outside the schoolhouse late at night. Annika would be questioned. She watched him as he stood in the schoolhouse and considered her challenge. For a man who claimed to care about very little, Mercer could be considerate.
“Mr. Dolan,” Desi said with obvious pleasure. Annika wondered how Mercer was acquainted with the boy.
Mercer came forward and tousled his hair. “Hey, son. Tell your dad to save some of that good tequila he scored down south.”
Desi nodded. “I will, Mr. Dolan.”
Mercer grimaced. “And quit callin’ me Mr. Dolan. My damn brother’s Mr. Dolan. I’m just Mercer.”
The boy appeared mildly scandalized. “Okay, Mercer.”
The supper hour approached. Annika knew the child’s mother would be looking for him so she sent him on his way. He was overjoyed when she insisted he borrow The Origin of Species until the following Monday.
