Doc Marshall

by Jessie Cooke

  “If this is what you need, Dal. But just remember this, I will love you until they put me in a box in the ground. What I did is…inexcusable…and you’ve put up with too much already. So, I’m not going to try and stop you from going. But I want you to know that if you ever want to come back, the door will always be open.” Tears were rolling down her cheeks as he spoke. She didn’t understand how he could profess to love her so much, but yet hurt her so badly. The worst thing she could have ever done to him was cheat, and she knew it. She’d never, ever been angry enough with him to even consider it. She knew it was partially her fault, for putting up with it for so long. But she was so young when they first met, and so naive. She supposed it had taken the past decade for her to understand herself enough to know that as long as Doc treated fidelity like it was a one-way street, her heart would be perpetually broken. Something inside of Doc was broken. His need for adoration and attention far surpassed what she would ever be able to give him on her own. She had lived in denial of that for too long. It was time to move on.

  She focused on her son again. She reminded herself once more that she was the parent and he was the child and she could not let him push her around. “Dax, you’re ten years old. You don’t make the decisions.”

  Her son narrowed his beautiful blue eyes at her and before he even spoke, she knew she wasn’t going to want to hear it. When he did speak he said, “Neither do you.” Dallas caught the gasp in her throat and Dax went on, “Dad’s the one that makes the decisions. He’s in charge, not you.” Dax spun around toward his father. “Dad, tell her I can stay here.” Doc looked at his son, and then at Dallas. She was pleading with him with her eyes. Once again, he looked back at Dax and said:

  “You have to do what your mother tells you, Dax.” And that was when her son turned back into a ten-year-old. He turned back around to face her with tears in his eyes and said:

  “I hate you.” Dallas had to move out of his way to keep him from knocking her down as he shoved past her into the house. He was already a big boy for ten years old. She wondered, only for a second, what she would do when he was twelve, and fourteen, and bigger and stronger than she was. Shuddering at the thought, she tucked it away. She had too many present things to worry about. She looked at Doc and said:

  “Thank you.”

  He didn’t take his eyes off her face, but he didn’t say a word. Dallas finally had to break eye contact and as soon as she did, Doc got on his bike, and drove away toward the clubhouse. Fighting the tears that had been lurking for the past two weeks and wanted to assault her at random times, she went back into the house. She had to start packing.

  “You’re just going to let her pack up and leave?” Hawk sat next to Doc at the bar. Doc had been there a lot more lately than usual. He was never a big drinker, but the alcohol numbed the anger and frustration enough that he was able to keep it in check. He’d been so angry the day Abril snuck in. He could have honestly hurt her if Dallas hadn’t intervened, and that’s what scared him the most. Since he was a kid, he always knew there was something dark that simmered down deep in his soul, just waiting for a chance to escape and wreak havoc. For the most part, he had controlled it. Not that he was a saint, but he’d never killed anyone, or ordered them dead, without a damned good reason. He had also never hurt a woman. He thought about his mother and pictured her rolling over in her grave at the sight of him raising his hand to Abril. If he had hit her, he would have been crossing a line that he might not have made it back from. So, when Dallas sat him down and told him she was leaving, he hadn’t tried to stop her. If he could get angry enough with Abril to actually hurt her, while she carried his baby no less…what might he do to Dallas if he let the anger and hurt inside of him come to the surface? He hated that she was leaving. He hated that she was taking his son. But…if there was one thing Doc had learned how to do over the years, it was to tolerate things that he hated…until he could figure out how to change them back to the way he wanted them. That’s how he was looking at this. It was temporary. She felt like she needed to do this, and he had to let her…but somewhere along the way he would find some way to fix it, because Dallas was wrong about one thing…there was nothing that the “almighty” Doc Marshall couldn’t fix.

  “What would you have me do, Hawk? Should I store her in one of the tunnels underneath the ground? Maybe Dax could go down and visit her a few times a week? I could go down and have sex when I got horny. Everyone on the ranch could know I was keeping my old lady here against her will. Sounds like a dream life to me.” He took a sip of the rum and coke in his hand and looked at Hawk in the mirror that ran along behind the bar.

  “I’m sorry, Doc. I hear you…I just know this isn’t what you want, and…”

  Doc chuckled. “And I always get what I want, right? Well, Hawk, in this case I had exactly what I wanted, but I was too stupid, or arrogant maybe, to realize it. Now, I have to accept that there are consequences even for my behavior.”

  “So, you’re just done?”

  Doc kept his eyes locked into Hawk’s in the mirror as he said, “Not by a long shot. But some things you need to spend some time thinking through…and this is one of those.” The door to the clubhouse opened and Hawk turned his eyes toward it. Doc didn’t look over until he saw Hawk’s features suddenly become horrified. Doc understood why when he saw what Hawk was looking at. Badger’s old lady, Molly, had walked in. She was dressed in a thin, too-tight tank top that looked like it might belong to one of her kids. Her shorts were way too short as well, but since her arms and legs were as thin as sticks and she had no breasts to speak of, it wasn’t a sexy look in the least. Her hair was greasy and pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. And her face was almost unrecognizable. She had a dark blue bruise on the side of her face and one of her eyes was cut in the corner and almost swollen shut. Her top lip was split open and dried blood crusted around it. Her nose looked broken too, and when she opened her mouth to speak, Doc could see that she was missing a tooth in front. He didn’t see the blood that covered her hands until she held them up…and that was also when he noticed the knife.

  “I think I killed him,” she said. Her words were difficult to understand, but when Doc looked at Hawk’s face, he could see that the other man had heard exactly what he had. Doc didn’t have to ask who. He knew that Badger and Molly fought constantly…sometimes like wild animals. She supposedly was trying to get clean again since the baby had been born, but Doc hadn’t seen her in person since the day he took Dallas and Dax out to see the baby, so he wasn’t sure how that was going. Doc knew that Badger had hit her at least once before, and he had warned him that if he did it again, he’d take him in front of the rest of the club and put his future there to a vote. Maybe that wouldn’t be necessary, however, judging by the blood on Molly’s hands and the knife.

  35

  Doc left Molly with the girls at the club and told them to get her cleaned up and keep her there until he got back. Most of the guys were already out and about, working. Doc had recently invested in a strip mall in town. It was empty when he bought it and the club was working to fix it up so that they could either rent it out or resell it, he hadn’t decided which yet. He found Moose, a young prospect who was quiet and respectful, but built like a Mack truck. Moose was putting chrome pipes on a bike for Toolie, who Doc knew was at the porn studio that morning. Lola was making a new movie and Toolie’s deal with Doc for letting her continue doing her porn was that he got to be there any time she had sex with a man. The women and animals he didn’t care about…but to each his own. “Moose, saddle up,” Doc told him. “Anyone else around?”

  “Tank is in the office on the phone,” Moose said as he wiped off his hands. By the time Dax headed toward the back, Moose was already headed for his bike. Doc didn’t knock on the door to the office. He walked right in and found the big man with the phone pressed to his ear. Before Tank saw him, Doc heard him say:

  “You’re sure the baby is mine, huh?” Doc shook his head.
It was one fucking thing after the other around this place lately. “No, baby, I know you ain’t been with nobody else. I’m…”

  “Tank.” The big biker looked distressed when he turned and saw Doc.

  “I’ll have to call you back, baby. I will, I promise.” He hung up the phone and looked like he was about to explain the call to Doc. Doc held up a palm and said:

  “We can talk about that later. We’ve got something that can’t wait. Let’s go.”

  Tank looked relieved. He nodded and grabbed his keys off the desk and followed Doc outside. The four men finished getting ready and then rode deeper into the countryside where Badger’s trailer was located. The entire way there, Doc kept thinking about the kids. He had asked Molly more than once where they were, but she never gave him an answer. Her eyes were glazed over, and Doc was sure she was flying high on heroin or some other nasty shit. It made him sick to his stomach, but it still didn’t warrant the beating she had taken. He wasn’t sure if he found Badger dead that he’d grieve much. Dallas had been right about him; there was something not right, and that was putting it mildly. He thought about his own situation with Abril and Dallas then, and once again pictured himself raising his hand to Abril. He made himself a promise then and there that he’d cut off his own hand before ever raising it to a woman again.

  The men drove up in front of Badger’s trailer. It looked worse every time Doc saw it and he almost hated the idea that two babies lived there. He knew that problem might be a moot one if they found Badger dead…or injured gravely enough that he had to be taken to the hospital…or if Molly pressed charges this time. Maybe that would be the best thing that happened to all of them.

  Doc went first, not bothering to knock on the door. The screen hung loosely from one rusted hinge. Doc pulled it out of his way and opened the door. He didn’t even have to step inside the cramped space to see the bloody carnage inside. “Fuck.” He had to make a decision. If he called an ambulance, Molly and Badger would be arrested…if Badger was still alive. If he didn’t, and Badger died, or was already dead…he’d be complicit if this came out somehow. He didn’t know where Molly went before she got to the clubhouse. He didn’t know what she had done with the kids. She’d been in her old pickup that had to be as covered in blood as she was. What a fucking mess. He looked at Hawk and said, “Call an ambulance.” Hawk gave him a raised eyebrow but took out his phone and began to dial. Tank and Moose stood quietly, waiting for Doc to tell them what to do. Finally, he looked at them and said, “You two go back to the ranch. No sense in giving the cops two more of us on a silver platter.”

  Moose turned to go but Tank stood firm and said, “Boss, wouldn’t it be better if it was one of us here, and not you, when they got here?”

  It might be. Doc was who they wanted, badly, and every time one of his guys screwed up, they tried to find a way to use it to get him. But he wasn’t giving them one of his guys to protect himself. They couldn’t arrest him for anything; they’d just harass him. Hell, it might even be a blessing in disguise. He wouldn’t have to think about Dallas leaving him for a few hours. “Thanks, Tank. But no. Go. I’ll talk to you later.” Tank nodded at him and glanced into the living room before turning away. Badger wasn’t really close to any of the guys, but Tank had known him the longest. The two men had known each other since they were kids. Tank was a much better man, but despite Badger’s shortcomings, Tank had stuck by him for a lot of years.

  “They’re on their way,” Hawk said as he ended the call. He waited until the other guys were on their bikes with the motors running and said, “This is going to be a mess, boss. We have no idea what’s in that trailer. They’ll tear it apart. You want me to go in there before they get here?”

  Doc shook his head. “No. We step in there, they’ll know. Too much blood. I just hope the fuck the baby is okay. I can’t hear anything.”

  Hawk shook his head. “So fucked up,” he said. Doc nodded. There wasn’t much more to say than that. Doc walked back over to his bike to wait. Hawk stayed on the porch. Almost eight minutes passed before they heard the sirens, and Doc wasn’t even a little bit surprised to see Detective Brady’s unmarked car pulling in behind the ambulance. It was about to be a long fucking day.

  Badger wasn’t dead. He was critically injured, however, with several stab wounds to his stomach and chest. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Brady found the kids. The toddler, Keller, had taken his tiny baby brother and was sitting in a closet in one of the small back rooms, clutching him tightly. He had the baby’s pacifier shoved in his mouth. The kid wasn’t even three years old. When Brady told Doc how he’d found them, it was the closest Doc’s heart had ever come to breaking.

  “So, where is she?” Brady asked.

  “I’ll have our attorney bring her to the station to turn herself in.”

  “Damn it, Doc. I can get a warrant and come out there to the ranch and get her.”

  “Sure. You can do that. The crime wasn’t committed there, though, so it still won’t give you grounds to go any further than picking her up. You may as well let me send her to you.”

  “What was she driving?”

  “She’s got a ’62 Ford pickup. I think it was green at one time, now it’s rusted, all over. It’s parked out by the road in front of the gates.” It hadn’t been. It had been parked right up in front of the clubhouse. But Doc had Hawk call the club and tell one of the girls to put on a pair of gloves and move it. Brady rolled his eyes. He knew Doc well enough to know that was probably the case…but he couldn’t prove it, of course.

  Brady looked over at Hawk. He was holding the little baby, Cody, in one arm and the toddler, Keller, in the other. “I’ll have Child Services meet us at the station…”

  “Can I keep them?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Can they stay on the ranch with me, until we find out what’s going to happen?”

  “No. There’s a protocol we have to follow.”

  “They know us. You know Dallas. You’ve seen my son. You know how well taken care of he is. He does well in school. I can afford to support these two…”

  “No, Doc. It’s not my call.”

  “But you can put in a word. I know the foster care agencies are overburdened. Why not let us take care of our own?”

  “If they were your blood, it would be different.”

  “I know this doesn’t resonate with an Irishman who has ten kids of his own…”

  “Five,” Brady said.

  “Oh, well, five, ten, whatever. My point is that Badger and Molly don’t have ‘blood’ family. They have us…those kids have us. We’re their family.”

  “You’ll have to state your case to a judge.” One of the techs called Brady away. Doc went over where Hawk was and took the baby, Cody, out of his arms. The kid looked up at him with his big, blue eyes. Doc realized now that his little face had smoothed out and his blond hair had grown out more, he looked a lot like Dax had at that age. Cody could be his…

  He looked at Hawk and said, “I need you to call Dallas.”

  “Okay. What would you like me to tell her?”

  “That I’m about to claim paternity of at least one of these kids, and you’re going to claim the other. Then, you’re going to make sure Molly understands before they take her to turn herself in.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “When Keller was born, Molly was using hard. Badger didn’t want his name on the birth certificate, so she put unknown. When Cody was born, and they were fighting about her using, I heard her tell him she was going to do the same. If we claim these kids, they won’t take them to foster care.”

  “And we do what with them, once we get them to the ranch?”

  “There are plenty of people around to help. Dallas might even stay long enough to help a little bit.”

  “Doc…this isn’t a play to keep Dallas around, is it? I mean, not that I don’t want you two back together…but…”

  “Just do what I asked you to do, Hawk. Here,
stand him down, he can walk.” Hawk put the toddler down and Keller automatically grabbed Doc’s leg, wrapped both his arms around it, and hung on tight.

  36

  Doc looked across the room at Dallas. His heart was so full. The second that Hawk told her what was going on, she put her plans to pack up and move out on hold. They were in the chambers of the family court judge and Dallas was being grilled about accepting responsibility for two kids that weren’t hers…and she was doing a fantastic job, as usual.

  “So,” the judge was saying, as he looked down at a file in front of him. “DCS did a home inspection and they spoke with your son, Dax…” That had been the part Doc was most worried about. He wasn’t sure if it was that Dax knew this would stall the move, or if he genuinely cared about the kids. Sometimes it was hard to know what his son was thinking, but Dax had given his mother and his father a glowing review. He had also told them that he thought of Cody and Keller like brothers, and he was so happy to find out Cody really was his brother. Before he spoke to the judge, Doc had coached him, and Dax had told the judge everything Doc told him to, word for word. “He seems like a smart, well-adjusted child.” Dallas smiled. Any time anyone mentioned how smart Dax was, she beamed. Doc wished that he provoked those same feelings in her, but he knew she was doing this for the kids, not him. “I have to ask you, Miss Paxton…” Doc hated that too. He often wished that he would have married her while he had the chance and made her a Marshall. It would be a part of him she couldn’t shed. But it was too late now. He could see in her eyes when they were alone together that she wanted to be anywhere but. Still, he had to respect her for doing this. “You’re not bothered by the fact that your…boyfriend?” She nodded. “It doesn’t bother you that he made a baby with another woman?”

  “Of course it does,” she said. “But it’s not the baby’s fault. Judge Prescott, these two little boys have not even been on the earth a total of three combined years. But everyone that meets them, loves them. They are like a breath of fresh air around the club. And I know that’s a big deterrent, the club. But since it’s the elephant in the room, let’s talk about it. Yes, it is classified by the police as a gang, and it used to be, I understand that. But my old man…Doc Marshall…has taken that club and turned it into a respectable business that supports upwards of thirty families. He’s a good man with a clean record. He’s a good father. Our son worships the ground he walks on. He has never raised a hand to me or Dax. He’s never hurt anyone…as far as I know.” Doc was impressed at how she said that with a straight face. There were things Dallas knew that could put him away for a very long time. Sometimes he’d lie awake at night and wonder why she hadn’t. “Badger and Molly are not an accurate reflection of us. What DCS saw the day they came to my home is what they would see if they went to ninety-nine percent of the homes of the people in our club. We’re a strange, twisted family…but, we’re a family and these boys are part of that.”