by Jayne Blue
“Oh, really?”
I shoved the fucker down to the pavement and put a boot to the back of his head. I heard a crunch. I was pretty sure hitting the pavement had broken the already ugly Skillex’s nose.
I crouched down. Skillex was getting the picture.
I didn’t have to do a damn thing to keep him on the ground now. He lay there and Kade had Taro nice and quiet too.
“Fine. We’re going,” Taro said.
“I’ll be keeping this.” Kade put the piece in his jacket.
“That’s fucking bullshit,” Taro said, but he got back on his bike.
“Get up,” I said to Skillex.
“Asshole,” Skillex growled at me as he lifted his hand to stop the flow of blood from his nose.
He looked good and roughed up. Exactly my orders from Bear, our Prez. Bear could count on me to do exactly as the club needed.
“We see you again anywhere near our county, we’ll break more than your goddamn noses,” I said quietly, taking his gun. We’d dispose of them in the usual place later.
The two of them righted their bikes and we stood back.
“We’ll escort you,” Kade said. They both headed North on Old Split Rail Highway. Kade and I followed until they got to Highway 37 and then we peeled off.
It was a good day’s work.
Kade and I stopped on the overpass for a moment and watched their bikes fade over the horizon.
Port Az was Dark Saint’s territory. There was no place for the Hawks, if they were Hawks. Or any other crew. Running them out was the goal. Mission accomplished.
“I really like what you did there with the nose,” Kade said.
“Yeah? It was an improvement.”
“For sure. You think that’ll be it?” Kade said. Exactly what I had been thinking.
“For now. For a while. But people are gunning for action in Port Az. Hawks, Mexicans, maybe more.”
“I think you’re right on that one, brother.”
I didn’t want to think what that would mean. Most likely I’d be busting up more than noses.
We fired up our bikes again and headed back.
Port Az was getting bigger and harder to control. But part of the reason it was getting bigger was us, The Saints.
The Hawks wanted to come in and bring in worse shit than we ever allowed. It was going to be trouble.
Half the town had no idea why this was a good place to be. The other half knew exactly why and they stayed out of our way because of it.
“Let’s meet up with Zig at Woody’s,” Kade said. That sounded just right.
“We earned it.” Nothing like a shot or two after a hard day’s work.
At Woody’s Lounge, in the old section of Downtown Port Az, you could have a drink, play some pool, and be left alone. The newer places in Port Az had a college element. Or for fuck’s sake, hipsters. We were glad those businesses were thriving – it put money in our pockets – but we sure as shit weren’t going to drink in ‘em.
Woody’s Lounge was old and gnarly. Zig was already in a booth at the back.
He greeted Kade and I with a shoulder bump each.
“How’d it go?” Kade sat down and looked around.
“Went fine. Rearranged some faces and escorted them straight out of town,” I said.
“Where’s the drink you promised?” Kade said to Zig.
“I’ll go. Fill him in,” I said to Kade. My adrenaline was still up from kicking the shit out of those two asshats.
I felt restless. I knew we’d done our jobs, but I also felt something more was in the air.
The booths were private here, they had high backs. It made for a good place to have a meeting you didn’t want other people to see. And Woodrow didn’t dilute the booze, so we made it our off-site meeting place. If we didn’t head to the clubhouse, we came here.
A lot of things were going through my mind, mainly, how many other MCs were we going to have to run off? I was thinking about that and maybe that’s why I didn’t see her when we came in.
But I saw her now, on my way to the bar, because I nearly knocked her to the ground.
We collided. I was quicker than a big man should be, I suppose, and I caught her by the shoulders.
“Whoa, sorry miss. You okay there?” I said. I was more interested in getting drinks for my crew than getting her answer. But I didn’t mean to knock a woman down. I may have done a job on that fucker, Taro, but I’d never hurt a woman. Never would. And I’d practically flattened this one. Shit. What was a woman like this even doing in this dive?
“I’m fine, it’s me. Totally a klutz. I’m the one who’s sorry.” Her voice grabbed my attention and shifted it away from my guys waiting for their shots.
She wore her dark hair in a ponytail. She was taller than most; she had to be, because she came to my chin. Most women stared straight at my chest.
She had on a yellow dress. I noticed the yellow. I liked the yellow. She had heels on. And she didn’t have any makeup on that I could tell. Yet she was prettier than anyone I’d ever seen. Her eyes were the same color as the whiskey in the bottles behind the bar.
I kept my hands on her shoulders and took a good long look to be sure she was balanced and steady on her feet. I had nearly knocked her over.
“I, uh oh.” She’d dropped her bag on the floor. I bent down to get it.
“Here you go.” I handed it to her and she looked away from me.
“Thank you.”
“You probably shouldn’t be in this place. It’s not really for nice girls,” I told her.
“Well, Woodrow and I are friends, and I needed tea. But thank you for the advice. I’m Jenny Guffy.”
“Jenny, I’ll walk you out.” I gave a hard look to Woodrow Trudeau, the owner, and bartender. He knew she shouldn’t be here either. This place was shit and a remnant of Port Azrael’s worst days. Woodrow shrugged at me and went back to his work behind the bar.
I focused back on Jenny. For some reason I couldn’t take my hand off her. I wanted her out of this shit hole and safely to wherever the fuck she was headed. I also didn’t want to stop touching her.
I opened the door and ushered her out into the bright sunlight.
“There you go. Again, there are a few nicer places in town. Where you won’t run into bad guys.”
“Are you a bad guy?” she asked. The innocent way she looked was in direct conflict with her low voice, which had a bit of gravel in it. Who was this woman?
I felt a tightening in the leather pants I wore. That voice in this pretty package had my complete attention. I stepped closer to her and leaned down so she would hear me nice and clear.
“I am the baddest of men. Best stay away from me and places like this, Jenny.”
She blinked. I noticed her lush eyelashes. I also noticed the pulse in her neck and the hollow at her collar bone. Normally I noticed tits and ass. What the fuck was my problem?
“Bad maybe. But polite for sure,” Jenny said in that sexy as hell voice. This time I noticed her lips. Jesus. I decided to give hanging with her just a little longer a shot.
“Can I walk you to your car?”
“I – no. I’m here, right across the street. Next time you’re in the library come say hi.”
She turned and walked across the street – jaywalked I might add. I swear a car nearly hit her. Her skirt blew up in the aftermath and I got another nice look. Fucking A. She was a damn disaster wrapped up in sexy. And not sexy like anything I’d ever seen.
I watched, couldn’t help it, as she walked up the steps to the Port Azrael Library and into the building. She didn’t look back at me.
The library, how the hell was I going to find a reason to go to the goddamn library?
I’d have to think about that one. I knew for sure that I’d like to see Jenny in the yellow dress again. And out of it.
It was enough to almost make me forget my worries about the Devil’s Hawks and whoever else was trying to encroach on Port Azrael.
3
Jen
I did not normally trip; I did not normally dodge traffic like Frogger in a traffic jam. I normally did pretty well on my feet. But if I was going to be in the same space as three Dark Saints, I knew I better do something to get one of them to notice me.
A collision seemed the best option. So I played the klutz.
It worked. Sort of.
I felt legitimately dizzy when his hands touched my shoulders. They were strong, steady, and as hot as it was in Port Azrael. I watched gooseflesh raise up on my arms when he made contact.
His patch said Benz but that probably wasn’t his real name.
I wanted to make an impression. And I think I did. But the hell of it was that Benz made one on me as well.
My thoughts kept going back to him throughout the rest of my day. And that had to stop. I wasn’t here to find a boyfriend, for God’s sake.
I was working. I wasn’t supposed to think about sex or anything in the vicinity of attraction, but damn.
That man was bigger, badder, and hotter than anyone I’d ever seen.
I found myself imagining what it would be like if I let his hands roam. I closed my eyes and tried to purge the carnal thoughts he’d inspired.
I did what I could to focus on my job as visiting librarian. I had to have a reason to be there that wouldn’t raise suspicion from The Saints or anyone else in Port Az.
I really didn’t have a clue as to how to take the next step with The Saints. So I did what I was paid to do. I made myself at home in the little area Inez had given me.
I angled myself perfectly to see out the window across to Woody’s. I would be looking to see if Benz or either of his friends showed up again.
Woody’s Lounge wasn’t their club. I had no idea where that was. But now I knew that at least some of The Saints drank across the street. Three to be exact. One of whom I couldn’t quite shake from my mind.
Until I could make inroads on whatever criminal shit they did in this town, I’d make progress on its history instead.
I began to dig into the old records.
I knew Port Az had ties to the Texas Rangers, and to my own history, and so here I was. I’d learn, read, and scan. It was more interesting reading than the filing they had me do in Austin. And it was connected to my Daddy’s past.
I’d get the history of Port Azrael into the permanent records before it disintegrated and I would watch through the window toward Woody’s Lounge. Something had to happen. Something would come to me. I had faith. And maybe Daddy would help things along.
Reading history in a book is a far cry from what it’s really comprised of. History that lasts, records, are things like deeds, old newspaper articles, and other dusty, crumbling papers. Those were the building blocks of any town’s story.
The drama behind the documents was what I was after too. What really happened here was the stuff of legend in my family. My Daddy and my Grandma had told me the stories.
During the Great Depression, when legendary Texas Ranger, Frank Hamer, was going after Bonnie and Clyde, Ranger Randolph Davidson was doing the same in Port Az.
Ranger Davidson was my Great Grandpa and I had heard stories about his heroism since I was born. He was larger than life and loomed large in my dreams: I wanted to become just like him, and just like my Dad.
Back in the day, outlaws and bandits made their way to Texas because it was easy to hide here back then. The vastness of our state is exactly why The Rangers were needed.
The Old West wasn’t so far in the past during The Depression; that’s what Grandma and Daddy reminded me of all the time with their bedtime stories.
They said Great Grandpa Davidson actually rode a horse to the towns he patrolled.
Those stories inspired Daddy to become a Texas Ranger. And me too. It almost seemed like becoming a super hero to me. But now that I was grown, the reality was setting in.
I was going to be standing at copy machines, not spurring a horse from town to town. Unless I took matters into my own hands.
I decided to start with Randolph Davidson. Where was he in all of these old records?
The Town had a newspaper then, so that’s where I looked first for a record of his heroism.
It took a bit of doing, but I found the editions from 1933. The papers were yellow: I was doing this in the nick of time. Port Az Library was not exactly a hermetically-sealed environment. It was hot and dusty.
I started at the beginning of 1933 and slowly thumbed through the front pages.
After two hours, the front page I’d been hoping to find appeared. A headline blared at me, and it was the first name that I’d recognized: Tommy Bass. He was the bad guy in my Daddy’s stories more than once. Bass. A name I’d grown to hate twice over.
TOMMY BASS ESCAPES
Notorious bank robber, Tommy Bass, has escaped the custody of Marshalls in Austin.
Bass, awaiting trial for the robbery of the Bank of the Dakotas, in which a security guard was killed, made his bold break from the law during his transfer to court for a preliminary hearing.
Deputy Charles Folgerty is currently hospitalized with a contusion to the head. He has been unable to provide authorities with details of the escape.
The FBI believes Bass will try to reach the Mexican border.
“That is the best option for him. All citizens need to be on the lookout and understand that Thomas Bass is a hardened and dangerous criminal. Call your local authorities if you suspect you see him. And do not engage in conversation,” warned Agent Bill Belton, field agent from the Austin office of the FBI.
Tommy Bass was a famous around Texas, like John Dillinger, or Bonnie and Clyde. In an era when criminals were like Kardashians, Tommy Bass had his moment in the spotlight.
And I knew what happened to him. It was the old story they’d told me. I was excited to read about it. It made things real for me. And it brought back my Daddy, in a way.
My Great Grandfather, Ranger Randolph Davidson, killed Tommy Bass. He hunted him down and stopped his violence. Because of that, Ranger Randolph Davidson was in the Ranger Hall of Fame, just like Ranger Frank Hamer.
Most people didn’t know the story like they knew Bonnie and Clyde; there wasn’t a movie or a beautiful girl. Just crime and punishment.
But I knew it and was proud of it. And so was my Dad.
I hunted through a lot of the old records to add details for the Ranger Randolph Davidson section of the history. I felt like I was making sure, in my own small way, that Ranger Randolph Davidson wasn’t forgotten.
Same with Daddy.
It was a lot easier to find things about my more recent history. The story of my Daddy’s death was only a decade old.
He was hailed a hero too.
I had a lot to live up to. But I was going to do it.
I was going to be a Ranger and I was going to bring down The Saints. Or at least I was going to try.
When I asked for this assignment, my boss, Paul Laraby, was relieved. I knew that he would be. He had told me to stop asking for challenging work.
The idea that I wanted to be a Trooper and then a Ranger still didn’t sit well with the men in charge. Paul saw my fresh-out-of-the-academy enthusiasm as a joke.
Texas sexism was alive and well. But I wasn’t going to stop. Daddy wouldn’t, and I am sure Great Grandpa Davidson wouldn’t either.
“You sure as hell don’t look like a Texas Lawman,” Paul had said over and over again.
That was supposed to be a compliment, except coming from my superior, it felt like a sexist remark.
My boss was determined to keep me in a subservient role. I wanted more. And I didn’t want to wait.
The State of Texas was digitizing the history of towns like Port Azrael
Paul may not have thought I looked like lawman material, but he did like me as a secretary or even a librarian. So when I asked for the one-month assignment, he said yes.
I scanned in each item with care. I was saving Texas history, and my own fami
ly’s too.
There was nowhere I’d rather be.
I learned how to be careful with the items. And even though I wasn’t, technically, in law enforcement, I did feel like I was contributing more than when I was answering Paul’s phone.
The oldest documents were ones you had to wear gloves to touch. I gently put them on the glass and watched the machine record every detail of the parchment that was the oldest piece of paper in this tiny library.
With each document, I learned more about the connection I had to this town. I learned about my ancestors and what they did here.
I found myself immersed, one document at a time, in the way the town must have looked back then.
I learned about another Ranger, Davis Digby, whose story went back even before my Great Grandpa’s time to when Texas was born. It was fascinating and it was stuff that historians could use.
Davis Digby was one of the first people to provide any type of law enforcement in Port Azrael. He knew President Sam Houston. It was sort of amazing to decipher Digby’s role in helping Port Azrael become a town.
As I converted documents, I became engrossed in the stories of the founders of Port Azrael. It was a mix of Native Americas, Mexican settlers, white settlers, and oddly, Texas Rangers. All of them were here in a strange amalgam. I wondered if that was still true or if their descendants had moved on?
I knew, eventually, that police work was also like this: painstaking attention to details, to papers. And I felt like I was training myself while I worked.
There was so much stuffed into this little library that it was going to be hard to do it all in the four-week assignment. But I’d do my best.
I didn’t have to search hard for the article I needed about my Daddy.
That headline blared at me every day.
TEXAS RANGER KILLED DURING BANK ROBBERY INVESTIGATION.
I knew every line of that story. I’d lived it. My Daddy’s death was covered across the state. He’d stopped the bad guys. Except my Grandmother said some of them were still here. In Port Az, The Saints.
“I don’t care what the news says. The Dark Saints got away with it,” my Grandmother always told me. And I believed her.