by Catie Rhodes
Wade grabbed my arm and yanked me off the porch. Justice made a high pitched sound I couldn’t believe came from a human being. His little feet bruised my hips as he kicked at me. It was all I could do to hang on. I wondered if I really wanted kids after all.
Behind me, the tweaker babbled explanations, his words running together. I tried not to listen. The first gunshot echoed through the night air, and his body thudded to the floor. I forced myself to keep my eyes forward.
“Can you drive? I’m shaking too hard.” I shifted Justice higher on my hip. His bucking had nearly dislodged him. All I could manage was getting one foot in front of the other as gunfire and screams played like the soundtrack of a made-for-TV war flick behind us.
“Yep. Just get in the passenger side.” Wade’s calm voice raked over my raw nerves, stinging like acid. I wanted him to freak out, too, but he wasn’t going to. No telling what he saw in Iraq. Or did.
Sitting in the van, Justices wails straining my eardrums, I had no choice but to look at the house. Flames now flickered behind the windows, and dark figures moved through the flames. Black smoke billowed out the open front door, and I wondered if King and Corman would get out. Just as the flames grew so bright I thought they’d fallen prey to their own mess, four silhouettes came from around the side of the house, carrying armloads of packages. Wade and I both stared straight ahead as they got into the van with us.
“Grampy! Did you hear the fireworks?” Justice scrambled back to his grandfather, his fit forgotten. Without his frightened wails, the roar of the fire didn’t sound so bad.
“Go,” Corman yelled as flames began to wink through the house’s roof. Wade drove away, never speeding or showing nervousness, even when firetruck sped toward us, its lights flashing.
The atmosphere at the meet-up point was one of victorious excitement. King and Corman’s take from the house included a bunch of pills and some materials used to make explosives. Like they needed them. Sirens still wailed in the not so far distance. Nobody but me seemed to notice or care.
The club invited Wade and I to join them at an RV park owned by friends in Blanco County for a party. Wade thanked them but said he needed to get me back home to my boyfriend.
“That’s right,” Corman said. “You gonna tell Mr. Cop what you saw tonight?”
“What for?” Fatigue had eaten through my fear. I no longer cared what this outlaw did or said to me. I just wanted sleep. “I’d be in just as deep of shit as you guys.”
Everybody in earshot howled as though I’d told the funniest joke in the world. Corman never cracked a smile.
“You just keep remembering that.” He leveled his cold eyes at me, and chill bumps raced over my skin. King clapped Corman on the back hard enough to set him off balance.
“Get over yourself, boy. She’s a friend of the club now…our pet freak, just like Mojo Rider there.” King stepped forward and took my hand again. This time he kissed it, rolling his eyes up to mine and slipped me a pornographic wink. “You have a good ride home.” To Wade, he said, “Thanks for making this right.”
Pet freak? What did that mean? I glanced at Wade and took note of the way he cast his gaze down. Laughing, Corman and King walked away from us. Wade visibly relaxed, moving his hand away from his hip pocket. “Let’s go home.”
We locked eyes, and I knew I wouldn’t ask about the freak remark. There was a time and a place for everything. It would come up eventually. I took one last look at the toddler sitting on someone’s motorcycle. Dressed in a tiny leather jacket and cap, he laughed and clapped, completely comfortable in this environment.
I wondered what would become of the little boy named Justice. He had no choice but to grow up one of the Six Gun Revolutionaries. They’d teach him their customs and rituals, how they evened scores. One day, he’d be a king of this world, of these people. I doubted he’d handle things much differently than his uncle and grandfather.
“Do you think that kid got justice today?” I walked with Wade to his motorcycle and let him get on first. I put my hand on his shoulder and swung my leg over the bike. Over just the course of a day, I’d settled into this life.
“I think justice is different things to different people,” Wade said. “Sometimes all you can say is you lived to meet another dawn.”
He started his motorcycle before I could answer. And maybe I didn’t need to answer. This day taught me more about Wade than a million conversations could have. Despite the discomfort and danger of this lifestyle, I understood the draw.
It was right there in front of me. The road stretching out before us promised endless possibility. It held invitations of adventure and romance, the perfume of oil, gasoline and leather its own kind of aphrodisiac. Out here with the wind in my face and the thrum of power between my legs, justice was defined by the moment. Worries about incarceration and death mattered in another world. And that’s why I let the subject drop and closed my eyes and let the road roll underneath the tires.
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THE END
About the Author
Catie Rhodes is the author of the Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers. Her short stories have appeared in Tales from the Mist, Allegories of the Tarot, and Let’s Scare Cancer to Death.
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Born behind the pine curtain in East Texas, Catie grew up in a family of world champion liars. The stories they told molded Catie into a purveyor of her own brand of lies and legends. One day, she found the courage to start writing down her stories. It changed her life forever.
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Catie Rhodes lives steps from the Sam Houston National Forest with her long-suffering husband and her armpit terrorist of a little dog.
Find me online:
www.catierhodes.com
Justice
A Peri Jean Mace Short Story
Copyright © 2016 Catie Rhodes.
All rights reserved.
Published by: Long Roads and Dark Ends Press
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Appeared in Allegories of the Tarot, 2013.
Rhodes, Catie.
Justice/ Catie Rhodes. — 1st ed.
Visit the author website: www.catierhodes.com
