“What she did to me? She didn’t do anything to me. What are you talkin’ about?” He interrupted her, knowing his tone was dark and dangerous, cutting off her words with the question, which she answered immediately.
“Tab knew she was the reason you had to go away. Hated that she drove you away from everything you loved.” Her words sliced at him, making the constricted feeling around his chest return, silencing him as well as brutalizing him bloodlessly. “Hated it, but she loved you so much. Loved hearing about what you were doing, all the different people you’d meet. Things you saw. She loved everything you sent her. Read me every letter a dozen times. You’d call, and she’d be giddy over the moon for days. Helped her beat it back.”
“She didn’t do anything to me. Not a thing. Nothing to deserve feelin’ like that.” He could hardly force the words through his throat, tight to the point of pain. He knew Bethy’s words and voice would be haunting his dreams for a long time, because he didn’t write home often, and called Tabby only infrequently. Discovering how much those things meant to his sister, knowing he could have made it better forever if he had only known—he would have to live with the knowledge, and that living wouldn’t be easy. “Nothing. Ever. Her whole life.”
“I was there the night it happened, you know.” At her quietly spoken confession, his head whipped so he could see her, and he instinctively steered the truck to the right as it slid and shuddered to a stop, his feet stamping hard on the brake pedal and clutch, controlling the vehicle automatically. “She didn’t do anything to deserve that, either. None of them did.” Her already soft voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “Not one of us.”
Bethy was the same age as Tabby. Same age, same place, and now, he knew she shared the same ghosts. Each stared at the other, eyes locked and at that moment he knew…knew it had happened to her, too. Happened and she didn’t have anyone to help; no talking doctor, no one to lean on except his damaged sister, because her pa had run everyone off who would give a shit.
“You beatin’ it back?” Watcher hadn’t meant to ask the question, didn’t know where it came from, but it was on the air between them, and he waited.
Bethany swallowed, a hard, painful sound as her throat worked. Her head made one sweep, left to right, right to left, and she froze in place, staring at him.
“I got a friend in Nashville,” he said, shocked he got the words out, but there were more to come, restitution for a hard life where Bethany’d done what she could to make his sister well, now needing someone to stand at her back. “He’ll put you up. Find you a job. I can help with expenses. I’ve got it, yeah? Whatever you need, Bethy. I’m there for you. I couldn’t…can’t change things for Tabby, but I can do this for you, sweetheart.”
***
Two days later he and Darrie drove Bethy to Nashville, to where one of the men from his unit had moved after separating from the military. She and Tyrell, his guy, hit it off right away. Ty teasing her like she was his long lost little sister, while Bethy dished it right back at him. Sass and attitude, but a fast growing affection between them smoothed the way. A day later, convinced she was settled and safe, Watcher and Darrie headed home. Watcher had set up a bank account for her and dropped some money in it, calling the noncom who handled payroll for his company and making it so the money that had been going to Loretta would go into the new account every month instead.
Since she had been married at fifteen with her pa’s permission, it actually made things easier. Zonder had begun the process of a divorce but being as she was already emancipated, in the eyes of the state of Kentucky, she was an adult. This meant she was able to make her own decisions and if one of those decisions involved leaving the family holler and moving to Tennessee, no one, not a single person—not even her father—could tell her no.
On the way home the two brothers took a turn through Lexington, checked into a motel, and it was then they mourned the loss of their little sister, toasting a being they loved more than life, whose existence on this earth was cut far too short.
Beat it back
“No, sir. I will not be reenlisting, sir.” Watcher’s eyes remained focused on the wall behind his commander’s head, refusing to look at the kid. Hands folded into the small of his back, at ease, Watcher could hold this pose for hours. He had already told the men, taken all the guff he intended to take, and was ready to hand ownership of everything back for someone else to deal with. Someone’s responsibility, but not his. He’d been in charge for so long, even thinking about having a space in time where he could simply be was seriously fucking attractive.
“This is the army’s loss, soldier.” He doesn’t even know me enough to know my name, he thought, then wondered, confused, What the hell am I doing following his orders when he don’t even know my name?
“Yes, sir.” Gaze still on the wall, he didn’t notice the kid moving until he had invaded Watcher’s space in a way that made his skin itch to get away. He barely covered his instinctive flinch when a hand fell on his shoulder and squeezed.
“Mike, every man in this unit will miss you.”
At hearing his name, he cut his eyes to the kid’s face and saw real regret there, maybe tinged with a hint of fear. Was I ever that young? “I’ll miss the men, sir,” he said respectfully, but firmly, “but it’s time.”
The kid turned loose of him with a nod and walked back to his desk.
***
“Naw, brother.” Rubbing his forehead, trying to stave off a headache earned from reading close-spaced newspaper reports, Watcher spoke quietly into his cell phone. “Nashville ain’t my speed these days.” He was talking to Tyrell, who was trying to convince Watcher he needed to come stay with Ty and Bethy until he got his feet underneath him. “Gonna hang with my aunt and uncle for a bit, see what I can come up with.”
This statement wasn’t exactly true. Actually, Watcher was still unsettled by whatever it was had bugged him at Tabby’s funeral six months earlier. Bothered and disconcerted, he was pissed off at everyone for assuming they knew the reason for the wreck, and found himself needing better information. He’d stopped in Louisville for only a couple of nights, and wanted to head back home to get a read on his blood. Watcher was convinced if it wasn’t an accident, he’d be able to see if there was anything else that could have been done to help Tabby get past the things that had happened to her on that mountain so long ago. One way or the other, he needed answers.
“That little girl doing okay?” Irritably, he pushed back from the table, scanning the library for anyone he knew. If he didn’t give her a name, maybe he could get over his fear on her behalf, some of the nightmares that woke him sweating, imagining she wasn’t dealing with her change in circumstances well. Dreams that left Watcher trembling with fear she’d wind up taking a sail off a switchback on a high mountainside, too. He had a recurring one where he was the first person present at an accident scene, first one to clamber over the lip of the cliff, and always...always first to the truck. Any help trailing so far behind him that he was alone when he saw Bethy’s face, her body crushed and bleeding. A face that always swam and changed, until finally the shock of seeing an image of Tabby would bring him out of sleep with a shout.
“Oh, hell yeah,” came Tyrell’s laughing response. “She’s runnin’ the show at a local radio station now.”
“What in the hell?” The question yanked out of Watcher in surprise. “She’s working at a radio station?”
“Started as the coffee and donut intern. Two days ‘a that and Bethy’d talked her way into one of the engineer rooms. Three days after that she was laughing and cuttin’ up on the air, and the station got hundreds more call-ins than usual. Every single one ‘a them wanting a little piece of the sunshine she was spreading around. Worked her way up from there, brother.”
Watcher found himself grinning, the muscles of his face stretching uncomfortably, cheeks quickly aching with the unfamiliar movement. “About time that girl caught a lucky bounce.” Beating it back, one day at
a time.
Outrider years
“Otey.” The shout of his last name got Watcher’s attention, and he lifted his head to twist around, looking down. Pausing, he held the nail gun steady and leaned towards the peak of the roof he was working on. Two stories down stood Miguel Orland, owner of the construction company where Watcher had been employed for the past year. “Come on down.” That kind of summons couldn’t be ignored, so with a sigh, he found an anchor and secured the gun, then padded carefully across the roof, rubber soles gripping the felted material firmly as he made his way to the ladder and descended.
“Yo, boss,” he said when both feet were firmly on the ground. “’Sup?”
“Got a request for a bid. Need you to go take a look, tell me why the client can’t find a contractor to take the job on.” Orland thrust a packet of papers towards Watcher, holding them extended until Watcher reluctantly reached out to take them. “They’ve been through three companies before coming to me. Go see what the deal is.”
“Okay.” His answer was short, and he hoped conveyed annoyance at having to leave a job unfinished to go scope out something they might or might not take on. Walking to his truck, he unbuckled his tool belt with one hand, studying the name and address. Frowning, he considered the information as he folded into the driver seat, slinging his belt down into the passenger floorboard and changing into his boots. Outriders was an odd business name for this area, where most were named after the family that founded them.
Pulling up into the parking lot, he double-checked the address on the papers against the numbers on the side of the building. They were a match, which meant he was at the right place, but this was not a business. Not by a long shot.
The parking area nearer the building was marked off in narrow slants, each about half the size of a standard space. A number of these were filled, motorcycles backed up to the building, the front wheels angled to the side, handlebars twisted. He saw a dozen different types of bikes, but only one American manufacturer and Watcher stood in the door of his truck for a minute, staring at the machines. “Beautiful,” he murmured, tearing his eyes away and leaning back into the cab of the truck to grab the paperwork and tools needed to work up the proposal.
When he straightened, Watcher was surprised to find half a dozen men standing close to the vehicle, arranged in a half circle, arcing out from the truck’s bumpers. “Hey,” he said, his gaze sweeping along the line, unsuccessfully trying to determine the head honcho. “I work for Orland. He sent me to check out the stuff y’all want a bid on.” Upon closer inspection, each man wore a vest, similar in that all were black leather, some covered nearly entirely on each front panel by small patches, some of them with only a few. They each had at least two, placement similar to military units so he ran his gaze across all of them, finding what looked to be the highest ranking man standing in the bend of the line, smack in the middle of everything.
With a nod, Watcher indicated the man he had selected, and the guy’s face split into a wide grin, white teeth shining in a full, dark beard. “I’m Killer,” the man said, confirming Watcher’s thoughts on which patch indicated a name and which a title, “President of the Cynthiana Outriders. We’ve got a lot of work needs doin’ to the clubhouse. I’ll walk you through. Me and Painter—” He pointed to the man to his right, whose title patch read Lieutenant. “—can tell you what we want.” Killer made a gesture and the remaining men silently turned and walked away, some heading towards a cluster of bikes near an outbuilding, and some headed to the door set into one side of the long, flat building.
Watcher nodded, and then as the remaining men stayed in place, staring at him, he offered his name, “I’m Mike Otey, folks call me Watcher.”
Killer’s eyes narrowed, gaze sweeping him from boots to cap. After a moment he tipped his head, and then astutely asked, “Which branch?”
With a grin, Watcher answered, “Army.” He sucked in a breath, and then quietly called, “Hooah,” not surprised when it was echoed by both men. A sense of belonging swept through his belly. “Fort Leonard Wood, Sapper. Only been out a few months.”
Killer nodded, and then said, “Medic, overseas for far too fucking long. Painter was my partner. My brother’s still in, too. Glad me an’ Paint could settle here. Bein’ out, like this, after bein’ in so long? We found it’s nice to have folks you trust at your back.”
“Know what you mean there,” Watcher said, turning to follow the men across the lot. “My brother’s in, too, he’ll be out in a couple months. Counting the days.”
“I feel ya.” Painter spoke for the first time. His posture and movement was giving off an uneasy vibe, attentive gaze sweeping the area around the building, not seeming to miss anything. “Hard to breathe free, ‘less you got someone watchin’ your six.”
“Yeah,” Watcher responded, twisting his neck to sweep his gaze across the front of the building, cataloging the location of the men out of habit. “I know that’s right.”
Two hours later, he had everything needed to write up the quote and stood in the great room on the ground floor of the building. Glancing around, he saw the space had partially filled up with men, each dressed similarly to Killer and Painter. Motorcycle boots, jeans, T-shirt, and one of those damned leather vests. Standing not far from him, his two guides huddled with a couple of men for a moment before walking to him.
He glanced at the bar, where there was a flag pinned to the wall with the word Outriders across the top in an arc. The symbol underneath matched the one on each vest. In fact, every element was recreated on the flag, including the diamond shape with 1% inside, and the small square enclosing the letters MC.
One of the questions he had about the bid would help lay to rest some of his curiosity about their group. “Any organization information I need to put on the bid other than Outriders?”
“Naw, that’ll do it. I’ll get the info to my guy in SoCal. He’ll deal with the bills. Way folks around here don’t want our money, you actually turn in a bid, I can almost guarantee you got the job, man.” Killer snorted a laugh. “Don’t mean we won’t haggle, you come in high.”
“My bids are fair. Fair but competitive.” He grinned as he spoke, to show there wasn’t any offense at the insinuation he might jack up the bid with Killer’s admission they were the only show in town when it came to the construction modifications wanted. “We’re not cheap, but neither are the materials we use.” He laughed, knowing he wasn’t able to keep the pained tone out of his voice completely when he saw both Killer and Painter flinch. “My crew does good work, too. In and out, focused on the job. Not my friends, but they don’t have to be to do what we do. They just have to do what I tell ‘em.”
Silence fell between them, and Killer’s gaze hit him for a moment before skidding up and over his shoulder. It took some doing, but Watcher forced down the itch between his shoulder blades at not knowing what was behind him, trusting the man to give a heads-up if there was something to be worried about. A few seconds later, his gaze returned to Watcher’s face, and then Killer grinned, holding out his hand.
Palm to palm, Watcher gripped and lifted once, twice, before releasing the grip, getting ready to leave.
“Come by tomorrow night,” Painter put in, and Watcher turned his head, looking at him, wondering at the abruptness of the invitation. “’Bout eleven o’clock. We got a half a dozen military guys who’ll be in town for the night. Come have a beer with us, give us a new audience for our stories.”
Nodding slowly, Watcher said, “Well, all right. I will. I’ll take you up on that. Thanks.”
***
15 months later
“Goddamn right, brother. Best day for this chapter, you walked through that fucking door.” Painter staggered sideways, caught himself on the edge of the bar and straightened, looking Watcher in the eye. “Killer said it, more’n once. ‘Never met a man more born to the life than Watch.’ Swear, brother. Love you, man. Love and respect, brother.”
Patches leaned on Painter�
�s shoulder, lifted a fist and thudded it against the patch now affixed underneath the name on Watcher’s chest. “Fucking President. Own that shit, Watch. Killer’d be proud.”
They were at Killer’s wake, held in the main room of the Outriders’ clubhouse, and the officers had just announced voting Watcher in as president. He didn’t understand Painter’s glee, because this fucking bizarre decision meant they passed over the man, who had held the lieutenant position within the chapter for nearly three years, while Watcher had only been a fully patched member for eight months. With being so new to the club, and never having held any officer title, this was entirely jacked. It was unheard of for a short-term member to be voted into the top role in the chapter. Not nearly unheard of, but according to each man who came to congratulate him, this had never happened before in any club any of them knew about.
Watcher stood with his shoulders against the wall at the end of the bar, looking out over the crowd of men. There were members from a half a dozen chapters, and not only were there national officers present but Morgan, the club’s founder, was here. He’d showed up not two hours after they’d got the news about Killer’s wreck, and had organized everything. Morgan had a knowledge of the county, which surprised Watcher since he had never heard of the man before joining the club. But, with the amount of info Morgan had on the political and official ins and outs, he’d evidently been around a lot, and for a while.
Watcher’s gaze swept the room again, looking for trouble, wanting to stay ahead of it. He knew it’d come eventually, couldn’t help but know from the angry shouts that had accompanied the announcement as Morgan walked over holding out an open palm, without words demanding Watcher accept the patch balanced there. Watcher looked down, seeing that same piece of fabric held in place with a safety pin for now, not even having time to take a sewing kit in hand before Morgan pulled him into the first of many quiet conversations.
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