Gambler

by KJ Dahlen

  Wes shrugged, he knelt beside his dog and said one word, “Seek.”

  Blue sniffed the ground and began going around in bigger circles until he caught the scent he was after.

  Wes began following his dog and the men followed him.

  Blue lead the group deeper into the woods, away from the compound and away from Wes’s place on the other side of the woods.

  When Blue began to move faster so did the group. They kept pace with the dog always keeping him within sight but not too close in case they mixed their own scent with Sinner’s.

  Blue paused and sniffed around the area and took off again catching a strong scent again. He led them further into the woods then stopped and alerted by sitting down.

  The men paused and looked around. They didn’t see anything worth stopping for and finally after a few minutes, Deke and Gator came over to Wes and asked, “Now what? Why did he bring us here and stop?”

  Wes searched the area carefully with his eyes on the ground. When he didn’t see anything amiss or out of place, he lifted his eyes and looked around the tree tops. When he still didn’t see anything amiss, he searched again moving his eyes higher than he normally would have.

  That’s when he saw it. Hidden in the high treetop was an enclosed hunting blind. The green, gold and brown coloring blended well with the natural tree colors around it. So well in fact that he’d completely overlooked it the first time he looked. Most blinds were open on three side with just a backrest but this one wasn’t, this one had canvas sides and a mesh half front. The shooter could see out but would have to leave the bottom half open in order to shoot his prey.

  Wes pointed high in the tree.

  Deke, Sam and gator all searched but didn’t see it either.

  Sam growled and snapped, “What exactly are we looking for?”

  Wes smiled slightly. “We are looking at his campsite. Don’t you see it? It’s a camo hunting blind.”

  “What the fuck would a biker need a camping blind for?” Mountain wanted to know.

  Wes chuckled and looked at the ground. “To hide in plain sight of course.”

  “To what?” Wiley called out.

  Deke went to move closer but Blue growled and kept him back. Deke turned to look at Wes. “What the fuck is your dog doing now? Why won’t he let me any nearer?”

  “You know I’m not quite sure,” Wes admitted. “Let me scope things out.” Wes moved a little closer to Blue and began searching on the ground. He knew his dog and Blue wouldn’t have growled without reason.

  After about ten minutes of searching, Wes found the reason why Blue growled. He looked back at the group and motioned them forward. When they got close enough he held up him hand to stop their forward progress.

  The men all stopped and Wes searched around the ground and picked up a stick. Very carefully, he poked at the ground and everyone heard a metallic snap. The ground seemed to jump about three inches and the stick broke in half as the metal halves of a small animal trap snapped shut.

  For a moment no one moved.

  A few of the group had a sick look on their faces.

  “What the fuck was that?” Wiley asked.

  “That was a wolf trap. Nasty dirty things they are to use but they will do damage to whatever walks into it. Your friend Sinner knows his business.” Wes nodded. “He’s got traps all over this area. He wanted to keep everybody and everything clear of this area.” He motioned toward the left and sniffed the air then noted, “Something got caught in one of his traps. Bastard probably just threw whatever animal it was out of his way.” He got to his feet. “Nobody move for a minute. I’ll check it out.” He disappeared for a few minutes and when he returned he nodded at Deke. “The bastard caught a coon, maybe three or four days ago. Threw it out of his way and let the poor thing rot.”

  “How the hell would a biker even know this shit?” Gator asked.

  “He probably grew up with a dad that liked to hunt. Just cuz he’s a biker don’t mean he doesn’t know some of this stuff,” Wes explained. “He could have known about this stuff growing up.”

  “Ok I’ll give him that.” Deke nodded at the other man. “But why would he use it now?”

  Wes knelt on the ground to see whatever else he could about this man. Now that he knew what to look for it wasn’t hard to find a pattern. A pattern he quickly pointed out to everyone else. “Looks like he’s set up a perimeter. His hide is high enough in the trees to hide it from anyone passing by. It’s placed higher than any normal hunter would put it so he had it up there for a reason. By setting things up this way, he’s free to leave early in the morning before anyone else is in these woods.”

  “He’s free to move around the city where we can’t find him and then he returns here free and clear at night,” Mountain finished Wes’s thought process. “We’ve been looking for a place he sleeps at when he’s been sleeping here the whole time. No wonder our guys can’t find any trace of him in town.”

  “Fuck a duck,” Bones swore. “I’ll bet he’s done this sort of thing before.”

  Gator looked up into the trees and frowned. “That hide isn’t very big, not big enough to sleep very comfortable anyway.”

  Wes shrugged. “It’s probably got a safety harness and if you can sleep in a chair you can sleep in that thing.”

  “He slept two years in a prison cot he can spend a few night in a hunting hide.” Raine growled. He’d been quiet for a while now but he had listened carefully to what was being said. Slowly, he turned to Wes and asked, “So how do we get this fucker to come to us? We tried hunting him down and got nowhere for our efforts, so how do we get him to come to us?”

  Wes leaned back against the tree and thought for a moment. “Well, most hunters know this but I’m not sure bikers do.” Holding up his hands, he warned them, “That’s not a slam on you guys by the way. I’m just stating facts. Hunters scope out where the deer and other animals like to go for food, water and whatever else animals do. Then they set out bait, like a salt block for deer or fruit for bears. Animals will hunt for food if they have to, but if it’s left in their path, they’ll take it. As long as it’s there, they will come back time and time again.”

  Raine stormed over to the other man and got right in his face, “I will not use my wife or Paige as bait.”

  Wes shook his head. “I’m not suggesting that you do anything of the kind. I wouldn’t think much of you as a man if you did, but there’s a way to set the trap that would make him think the bait he’s after is right where he wants it to be.”

  “And how is that?” Deke asked, intrigued now.

  Wes reached up to scratch his ear lobe. “Well now, we already know he’s been watching the compound right?”

  Deke nodded.

  “Then he knows Cricket and her family have gone there to stay at least for a while because of his threat. He also knows she’s worried and that she cares for Dusty, more than a lot right?”

  Again, Deke nodded.

  “He also knows Max is Paige’s father and he beat the hell out of him already because Max sent him to jail seven years ago. He got his revenge on Max but still has to get Paige.”

  “He won’t get close enough to Paige or Cricket or Dusty to lay one finger on them.” Raine growled.

  “What if you make him think he can?” Wes suggested.

  Deke raised his hand when he saw Raine and the others get mad at Wes’s suggestions. “Hold up, let the man speak his peace. He might just be on to something here.”

  “By now, he knows where Cricket and Dusty are and that they are well protected by the MC, right?” When everyone nodded he continued, “As we don’t know where he is at the moment we have to play this out as if it’s really happening. I’m sure you have a safe room inside the clubhouse right?”

  “Yeah, we do,” Deke admitted. “But how did you know that?”

  “Because I’m not a stupid man either. I may not know much about MCs but I’ve been watching you guys for a while now. I see how you treat your
women and how you treat each other. You have a strong brotherhood and you won’t stand for any abuse to your women and kids. Hell, the whole town has been watching you guys. Nobody knew who the hell you were when you first came here. We all remember the Satan’s Spawn when Bear was in charge. They were feared for a reason. Everybody hated them and stayed the hell out of their way.” He paused then nodded at Deke. “Things changed when you took over. You turned the club around and people still watched your group. At first, they were waiting for the other shoe to drop and the MC to turn back to what it was before but you didn’t let that happen. You turned a lot of opinions around as well. Mine included I have to admit that. Over the years, the townspeople found they had nothing to fear from your men.”

  “So what’s your point old man?” Mountain growled with impatience.

  “My point is that while I don’t know the inside scoop, I do know that you go to great lengths to protect what’s yours. And so does this biker Sinner.”

  “And?” Deke glared at him with impatience. “How do we get him to come to us? That’s what we want to know.”

  “You give him what he wants,” Wes said slowly, carefully.

  “We set him up to think he can get his hands on Paige or Cricket.” Gator nodded.

  “As with any hunt, you set the right bait you’ll get exactly what you want to come after it,” Wes assured them. “Of course, his overconfidence in his own abilities to hunt will lead him right into your hands.”

  Gator scoffed. “What makes you think this man is all that good a hunter?”

  Wes motioned around the area. “Because he knows what he’s doing. He has to in order to have set this sort of camp up. He also knows how to avoid how to get caught by his MC Brothers. That shows he’s a smart man. You just have to be smarter men.”

  Deke didn’t say anything but instead turned and walked away from the group. He didn’t have to go far but he did do some serious thinking. A few minutes later, he turned and stomped his way back. “I think I know what you’re suggesting.” He smiled. “I also think it might just work.”

  Raine looked enraged. “I will not use Cricket or Paige in this.”

  Deke shook his head. “And neither will I. I don’t think that’s what Wes is suggesting at all.” He stepped forward and grasped Raine’s shoulder. “You know I’d never put any of our women in danger.”

  When Raine went to growl again and move away from him Deke tightened his hold. “All we have to do is make Sinner think he can get to them. That way when he comes for them, we’ll be waiting for him.” His grin grew bigger. “Us and the Unholy will be waiting in the shadows until Sinner gets into place and that’s when we’ll take him down.”

  “And just where will our women be while all this is going on?” Raine asked with a sneer.

  Deke looked over at Wes. “We’ll have them in the safe room under guard. Nobody will get close to either of them.”

  A calm settled over the rage in Raine’s soul. His mind had been blinded to what was so obvious by the blackness in his heart. Once his head was clear, he could see the advantage to Deke’s plan.

  “How is that going to work?” Gator asked. “With Max in the hospital,l Paige isn’t going to leave there. We can’t risk Sinner going after her there. There are too many advantages to him getting in and out of the hospital unnoticed.”

  “We have to bring Max back to the compound,” Deke told them. “With everybody under one roof, he’ll come here to get them.” He smiled evilly. “He’s got such a high opinion of his own abilities he won’t be able to not come after them.”

  “The bigger challenge will be to keep his Unholy pals out of sight until we got hands on this man,” Bones commented.

  Deke nodded at his dad. “You remember that thirty grand Cordy got the night she set him up?” When Bones nodded Deke told them, “That was the money he stole from the club. He was on his way out and he knew it. The Unholy had called a church to discuss the missing money and other stuff they couldn’t quite pin on him. Apparently, all they needed was solid proof but at the time they knew they had someone willing to betray them in their midst. Sinner knew they were coming for him, one of his brothers had called to warn him what was going on. He was going to split town before they could strip his colors. Before he could leave town, he ran into Cordy. When he woke up from the mickey Cordy slipped him, he was surrounded by his MC Brothers. They beat hell out of him and stripped him of his right to be called one of them. They left him with nothing, not even his bike as the club had given him the wheels the day he made brother.” Shaking his head, he told them what else he learned from Guenther, “Sinner had a particular talent for B&E. In other words, he’s a great thief. He could scope out a place, break in and get away with no one catching him. Guenther told me Sinner broke into a Pawn shop on his way out of town and took enough stuff, cash included to get a set of wheels in the next town over. After that, they never saw or heard from him again until the day he got out of prison. There was another member of his MC doing time and they both got out the same day. He didn’t know the other man was there. They kept track of him for a while then lost him about three years ago. This is the first they’ve heard of him since then. When they heard he was here and saw what was on the flash drive, they decided to come after him.”

  “What the hell was on that flash drive?” Mountain asked.

  “I don’t know and it wasn’t my business to ask,” Deke replied. “But now they are on their way here. I have a feeling there was something pretty bad on that drive.”

  “Otherwise, why the hell would they come three hours to confront a man they haven’t seen in eight years?” Sam finished his son’s thoughts.

  “One more thing to think about gentlemen is the fact that this man is smart enough to know the only way in, might be a diversion,” Wes told them. “In other words you have to be prepared for anything that might draw the majority of you guys away from where the women are. He’s used fire once and got the results he wanted, he might try it again.”

  Wes’s statement gave everyone something more to think about. On everyone’s mind was the fact that Black Jack and Molly’s home was the furthest away from the compound.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When the group got back to the compound, Black Jack came out of the clubhouse. Raine went over to him. “Did you bring ma back with you?”

  “Yeah, I did. She wasn’t happy and I’m not either.” Jack looked over his son’s shoulder to view the others. Deke was talking to the men of the club issuing orders about watching over the compound. “What’s going on? Did you find the bastard or what?”

  “Well with Blue’s help, we found where he’s been staying. The old man Wes suggested a plan to get him to come to us but there’s more than that. His old MC is coming to make sure Sinner pays for his crimes against them.”

  Jack frowned. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Do you remember when Cricket told us about the money Cordy took from Sinner the night she slipped him the mickey?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Well apparently, there was something else along with the money, they found a flash drive and when they viewed what was on the drive they found a whole lot more. They didn’t say what that might be but when they found out we had Sinner around here, they told Deke they were coming here for a tribunal.”

  “Are you shitting me?” Jack grumbled. “After eight years, why do they want him now?”

  “I imagine we’ll find out when they get here,” Raine assured his father. “Whatever it was is bad enough they want their pound of flesh. If they issue a challenge, we might not get justice for what he did to Paige or Cricket, let alone Max.”

  Jack snorted. “There’s no way Deke will allow that.” He looked over at the others again, then turned back to his son. “So what’s his plan then?”

  “Deke is gonna lure Sinner into coming to him rather than running around looking for him.”

  Jack stiffened. “He’s gonna use our women to bring Sinner
in?”

  Raine shook his head. “Not according to Deke. He’ll only allow Sinner to think he’s got access. He’ll have the women and kids under guard in the safe house. Apparently, Sinner is very versed in B&E so he doesn’t think he’ll have any problems getting in, he just won’t be getting out.”

  “I don’t like this. Don’t like it at all.” Jack shook his head.

  “I don’t either and I know Gambler will blow a gasket,” Raine admitted.

  “Damn right, he will. Paige means a lot to him.” Jack shook his head at the whole idea.

  “Not only that Dad but Wes pointed out that he might use setting another fire to get everyone away from the clubhouse, leaving the women unattended.”

  Jack growled and fisted his hands. “If I get my hands on that little bastard I’ll kill the motherfucker.”

  “Your house is the furthest away.”

  “I know that fool.” Jack glared at his son. “That’s your mother’s dream house, the one place she always wanted to retire in. That house means as much to her as Cricket’s house meant to her.”

  “I know and you can’t tell her what’s going on. If she thinks it might burn, she could go back to protect it and we don’t want her in this prick’s cross hairs.”

  “That don’t mean I can’t be there.” Jack grinned at him.

  “Dad,” Raine growled. “Ma will kill you if you end up dead because of this guy.”

  “Don’t be silly son. Kill me if I’m dead! HA! Better me than her.” Jack shrugged, “I can take care of myself and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some bastard burn my ladies’ house. Fuck that bullshit.”

  “Keep Judge and Hound with you then.” Raine knew there was no changing his dad’s mind once he got an idea in his head. He began running his hands over the top of his head and looking around the compound. “Has anybody heard from Gambler yet? Do we know how much damage Max has?”

  Black Jack nodded. “Gambler called in an update. Max has a severe concussion, a broken eye socket, he busted his jaw in three places, a busted sternum, three broken ribs, one that punctured a lung and a busted hip from being stomped on.” Jack shook his head. “He won’t be going anywhere for a while.”