by Keri Hudson
“All right, everybody,” Frenchy called out as the gang gathered around him, two dozen strong. “We’re gonna let this stranger stay a while. I think, probably, we’re gonna have to neutralize, but until then, give him your best front. If he’s already suspicious, and my guess is that he is, and that’s why he’s here, well, we don’t wanna give him any more reason to act… least ’til we can get this sorted out.”
Mamma glanced at Sasha, and Sasha didn’t need to hear her say, “Not you.”
“What? What am I gonna do that’s so bad?”
“You know goddamned well what.” Mamma stuck a finger into Sasha’s face. “Do not fuck this up for me, Sasha!”
“I… what? You… I…”
“Just… don’t!” Mamma turned and walked away, and Sasha stood there with her feelings, her thoughts, her imagination, and her memory. All of them led up to one thing.
Disobedience.
But Sasha knew what the price was for that practice. A club like the Crushers lived and died on the concepts of loyalty, confidence, discretion, privacy. And Sasha knew that everything she was thinking and feeling put her at odds with that.
Doesn’t matter, Sasha told herself. There’s something special about that man, something I can’t quite place. But he’s the one; somehow, some way, I know he’s the one to get me out of this pit, this endless death, this lifeless life. And if the Crushers, even Mamma, turn on me and he can’t protect me, then really that was going to happen anyway. It would only be a matter of time.
Time, she silently repeated. It’s endless, yet so limited. How is it that time can go on forever and we can’t? Didn’t we invent time? Time didn’t invent us, but it gets to destroy us? No! That’s not the Crusher way, to stand around and be obliterated by something we don’t know or don’t understand. No! I’m a woman, I’m twenty-five, and my life is passing me by! I won’t have it. Mamma found what she wanted, so good for her. Now maybe I’ve found what I want, so… good for me too, right? Right? Well, if bad for me and good for her, that would figure, make perfect sense. And in the end, what’s the difference anyway?
A few more moments of reflection brought new clarity to her reasoning and her goals.
But… how? Mamma’s watching me, and everybody in Hangman’s Gulch is watching him in that empty jail building. How can I get to him without giving myself away?
Possibilities ran through Sasha’s imagination, each one leading to a terrible end. I could sneak across the street, go around the back, but I’ll be spotted. Somebody will rat me out to Mamma and Frenchy.
Other notions crackled in her brain. What if I created some good reason to go? Let them look then, if they think I’m acting in their best interests. Logic and imagination swirled around Sasha’s brain, and ready solutions came to her—almost too ready.
So Sasha made her way down the street to the bashed-up old church, boldly because she knew she was being watched. Ginger stood at a position just under the steeple, a perfect vantage point for all action in Hangman’s Gulch. Nobody would have much reason to think she wasn't just visiting her old friend, when really she would sneak around the backs of the buildings to the jailhouse. And she would have a chance to plant some seeds in Gin’s head and on his blabbermouth tongue.
“Gin?” Ginger turned as Sasha climbed the wooden stairs, rotting floorboards creaking beneath her. “Gin, it’s me, Sasha.”
“Come on up, Sassy.” Sasha climbed the last stairs to the landing where Ginger was perched, peering out several slats where missing planks gave him a nearly uninterrupted view in each direction, three hundred and sixty-five degrees. “How’s it going with that stranger?”
“I dunno,” Sasha said. “Hoped you might tell me.” Ginger could only shrug, just what Sasha was expecting. “Thought I might go talk to him, see if I can’t get some deats.”
Ginger seemed to take a moment to think about it, and his final nod told Sasha that he agreed. “You keep a good watch, though,” she said. “No telling what that stranger has in mind.”
“Sure, yeah,” Ginger said. “Yer right about that, Sassy. You sure you wanna do this? You talked to Frenchy ‘bout it?”
Sasha took a moment to appear to consider it. “Um, y’know how my sister always lords over me?”
“Yeah,” Ginger said with some evident remorse, “guess I do.”
“And she’s Frenchy’s woman.”
“Yeah,” Ginger said with more certainty, “sure she is.”
“So… honestly, I don’t think either one’ll be very positive about my idea. But if I can bring them something real good, something that’ll protect us all from that man, that terrible stranger…” Sasha stressed those words with deliberate purpose before going on to say, “They might think of me a little different, maybe treat me a little different. Y’know what I mean?”
Ginger stared off, memories clearly filling his brain as he nodded. “Sure do,” he said, repeating, “sure do.”
“I knew you’d understand, Ginger, you of all people. You were always so intelligent, and so overlooked among the Crushers.”
After a tender moment, Ginger said, “Like you, Sassy.”
“Yeah, like me. So we gotta look out for each other, right? Like all Crushers do.”
“Y’damn right!”
“Damn right,” Sasha agreed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sasha crept around the side and back of the old jailhouse, more a precaution against Ginger’s failure than his betrayal. He was dim, and he had a soft spot for Sasha, she and her sister knew that. And as much as Sasha was loath to exploit that, she had little choice under the circumstances.
“Hello?” She stepped into the jailhouse from the back door, which she knew well from years on the property. “Hello?” She could see nobody in that decrepit old room, filled with spider webs and dust.
“Hello,” a voice answered her, and Sasha knew at once who it was. He said nothing more, and the protracted silence filled Sasha’s blood and bones with an eerie chill.
“Hello,” she repeated, the only reasonable answer she could devise. “I… I’m Sasha.”
Another long silence passed. “Hello, Sasha.” The man who called himself Devon Caine stepped out from the shadows to face her, tall and even more handsome than he seemed from her previous vantage point. His hair was long and brown, streaks of light and dark to give it an almost luminescent quality. But his hair was nothing compared to his face. His big, soulful, brown eyes staring out from those brown locks, spilling over his broad forehead. Beneath those gorgeous eyes, his cheekbones were full and strong and high, leading down to gaunt cheeks and a strong, almost Roman nose. His mouth was a broad, strong slant, both expressive and silent. Sasha’s eyes couldn’t resist the sight of his chin, strong and angular, his muscular neck, and then further down.
Further down.
He stood with shoulders broad and strong, arms muscular and inviting. His chest was expansive and bold, leading to a tapered waist, where his hands clung to his magnificent hips.
His legs were long and reedy with muscular definition. Thick and powerful thighs led Sasha’s attention to his calves, capable of supporting his incredible figure, feet big and strong and seemingly planted into the floorboards as if they’d been born in that spot, grown from seeds sown by powers unknown.
“I’m Devon,” he said, as if to fill the void in the room. “Welcome.”
“Oh, um, thanks,” Sasha heard herself say. “Shouldn’t I be welcoming you? I… I spent a lot of time in this building, actually.”
“Did you? Because your friends put you in jail?” Sasha wasn’t sure how to answer, and in the interim, Devon went on, “Have they always kept you locked up this way, unable to find your own self, your own true being?”
Sasha wasn’t sure how to answer, words and thoughts clogging her mind and her throat. Goosebumps rose on the backs of her arms. “I… I just came here, as a quiet place, away from everybody else.”
Devo
n huffed through his roguish smile. “Isn’t that the dream—to be safe, left alone?”
Sasha didn’t have to think about it. “I dunno. I think maybe being safe and alone aren’t such a good thing after all. To be together, to be…” But silence interrupted her thought, derailing her confused notions. “I dunno.”
It was as if Devon could feel her pain, her loneliness, her isolation. “Yes,” he said, simply and calmly, “yes, you do.”
Sasha cleared her throat despite the rising lump just above her lungs. “I do… what?”
“You do know,” Devon said, peering into her big, blue eyes with obvious deliberateness. “And you know what you have to do.”
A long, strange silence passed before Sasha felt she had to say, “What do I have to do?”
Devon leaned forward, as if knowing she would take his meaning. “Live, Sasha, that’s what you have to do… to live.”
She knew he was right. And not only did she like the words and concepts she was hearing, she liked the voice they were wrapped in—grainy, low, a voice drenched in experience and wisdom, despite the man’s relatively young age. His handsome face didn’t seem to be much more than thirty years old, older than Sasha and younger than Frenchy.
“Odd that you should come here, though,” Devon said, “alone.”
“Odd? I… I thought I should welcome you.”
“You did? Or did your leader send you in, try to suss out why I’m here?”
A cold knot tightened in Sasha’s stomach. “No, not at all, I… Frenchy said you were staying, and I thought I should come and be reasonable, say hello.”
Devon looked her over, then shook his head. “You could see how I’d be suspicious, though. A lone girl, lovely as you are, pops in just to say hi.”
“Lovely? I… no, I’m not… I’m not lovely at all.”
Devon broke a smile. “And humble too. Your presentation makes less and less sense… Sasha, was it?”
Sasha nodded. “They call me Sassy.”
“I’ll call you Sasha, then.”
“Because you don’t want to be my friend?”
After a thoughtful pause, he answered, “Maybe because I do.”
Nervousness pulsed through Sasha’s body, palms sweating, mouth going dry, hairs standing up on the back of her neck. “Oh, well, I… I’m glad to hear it. And I hope you know I’m not trying to trick you or anything, I… I really just wanted to say hello, maybe get to know you a little bit. But I won’t ask you anything if it, y’know, if it gives you the wrong impression.”
Devon seemed to give the matter some thought, taking two steps closer to Sasha. “I see.” He offered her a smile and his hand to shake. She took it, and Devon raised her hand to his lips to plant a small kiss on her knuckle. Chills ran up her arm, collecting hot in her chest and then deeper, in her loins.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Frenchy stood by the window of his room upstairs, Mamma stepping quietly in and closing the door behind her. Frenchy was tense, Mamma could feel it, sense it, almost taste it. And there was little doubt as to why.
“You okay?”
“Where is she?” Mamma stepped toward him. “Your sister, Mamma, where is she?”
Mamma gave it some thought. “I… I’m not sure, I sent her to her room.”
“She ain’t there now.”
Mamma’s muscles tensed along her neck, between her shoulder blades. She’d heard that tone of voice from Frenchy before, and it never led to anything other than bloodshed. “I don’t… where is she?”
“Across the street, Mamma, she’s talking to that stranger.”
Heat rose in Mamma’s gut. “Frenchy, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
He turned from the window, “You didn’t send her in there?”
“Me? No, I… you know I’d never go against you, Frenchy. What interest would I have in some stranger?”
Frenchy looked her over, his long, black beard twitching a bit with his grinding jaw. “Maybe you’re thinking of making a move.”
“A move? What kind of… what do you mean, Frenchy?”
“Move that guy in, turn the Crushers against me.”
But Mamma couldn’t even imagine that scenario. “I never would, Frenchy. I love you, you know that.”
“I thought that.” After a long, mean silence, he went on, “If you didn’t send her in, then she’s got plans of her own. I don’t like that, Mamma.”
“Frenchy, I… she… you know my sister, she’s restless, lonely.”
“She’s got the Crushers, Ginger, if she wants him. No reason for her to be lonely, go to some stranger for comfort.”
Mamma bit her lower lip, eyes looking nervously around the room. “In a lot of ways, she’s still a little girl.”
“In a lot of ways, she’s a spoiled brat!” Frenchy’s eyes seemed to glow with his rising ire. “We’ve been dragging that sulking snatch around for most of her life; she ain’t never been one of us, not really. And if she thinks this stranger is a chance to go against me, or to take off on some kind of new life, she’s got bad news coming.”
Mamma gave it some thought, her voice quivering with nerves. “Would that be so bad, if she went off with that man? I mean, she ain’t happy, we all know that.”
“Ain’t happy? I don’t give two shits if she’s happy or ain’t! Happy? She’s alive, and that’s as much as any of us can expect! Happy! She’ll be happy in heaven, and that’s just where I’m gonna send her, your sister or not!”
“But… if he’s just some lone biker, what harm would there be?”
Frenchy twitched, clearly angry and confused. “What kind of sister are you? We don’t know shit about that guy! He takes off with Sasha, you ain’t ever gonna see her again, maybe nobody ever will. She’ll wind up eaten by coyotes out in the desert, crunching her bones to powder! And supposing he ain’t some crazed sex killer; she knows too much about us, Mamma. She knows we’re here, she knows how many we are, all our names, what we done. That stranger down there’s probably a fucking badge! He’ll turn her head around, and soon enough she’s blabbing to some district attorney somewhere trying to make a name for himself?”
“She’d never do that,” Mamma urged him, a hand on his arm. He glared at it, and Mamma pulled her arm away. “At least because of me, Frenchy. She’s my sister.”
“Your—? You don’t think she hates you for this life? You don’t think she resents you, wants to break free?” Sasha knew he was right. And before she could concoct some contradictory logic, he went on, “And what if he ain’t a cop or a maniac, just some lone biker, like he seems? How long you think it’ll be before he comes across another club like the Crushers? How long before the Angels get their hands on him, and your sister? Or the Fallen Devils, the Gravediggers. They’ve turned tougher people than your sister. She’ll sing like a fucking canary! No, Mamma, no, it’s too dangerous.”
Mamma knew there was no changing Frenchy’s mind. And in truth, she could hardly disagree.
“Put an end to it,” Frenchy said. “I’ll kill her if I have to, Mamma, and she ain’t the only one.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer,” Devon said, taking a careful step across the old room, Sasha watching him closely. He was tall and well built, obviously strong, and Sasha knew she would have no chance of fighting him off if it came to that. But she had the feeling it wouldn’t be necessary, or perhaps might just be recreational—for herself as well as for him.
Sasha cleared her throat. “Offer?”
“To win my trust,” Devon clarified. “I’ll share a bit about myself, if you’ll share first.”
Sasha thought about it, a movie she’d seen once flashing in her memory. “Like that old movie about the serial killers, Something About the Lambs.”
“I think you mean Silence of the Lambs, and yes, something like that. Quid pro quo, as they say in Latin—one thing for another.”
Sasha was intrigued, but a
bit intimidated too. He took another step toward her and her heart skipped in her chest.
Devon seemed to take her silence for compliance, and he asked her, “I called you lovely and you didn’t agree. Why?”
Sasha was surprised at the question. Looking herself over, she felt the answer was painfully obvious. “Well, I mean…” But he just stood there quietly, his head tipping to the side just a bit. “I… I’m fat, that’s why.”
He broke a little smile. “Fat,” he repeated. “Is that how you see yourself?”
“Um, yeah. Isn’t the sunlight any good where you’re standing?”
After a bemused little huff, he said, “Perhaps I’m the one seeing things most clearly. You see a woman who fails to live up to society’s expectations of the ideal of what’s beautiful. But beauty is more than just somebody’s notion of what’s appealing to them. I see beauty in everything around me: cacti, rattlesnakes, the bones of a dead animal.”
Sasha’s sense of hope, rising fast in her rushing blood, suddenly ebbed. “So now I’m beautiful like a cactus or a dead animal? How flattering.”
“It is, actually. You’re a part of the cycle of life, Sasha. A beautiful part of it, perhaps the very best part of it.”
“Because I’m as big as the Earth, is that it?”
Devon shook his head. “Terrible.”
“What?”
“How society treats people, eats its young. A girl like you, forced to hate herself because of the shape of her body? It’s ridiculous. And wrong, by the way.”
Sasha gave that some thought, her hope rising again. “How do you mean?”
“Today’s women, they’re all skin and bones! Knobby knees, reedy necks, cheekbones popping out. It’s like they’re all starving to death.”
“I think most of them are.”
They shared a little chuckle before Devon went on, “And why is that? I’m not sure, but I’m guessing you’re not a bible-based person. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Am I right?”