Biker

by Baron, Mike;

  “Bad for business,” the vendor groused, chain-smoking Camels. It took forty-five minutes to reach the Chip from the Broken Spoke. Pratt thanked the man and jumped out at the gate, flashing his bracelet to the guard.

  Six SDHP squad cars crowded the shoulder just outside the gate. Pratt made his way through the milling mob toward the main stage where he’d left his bike.

  Three cop cars occupied the area in front of the main stage. Most of the bikes had been moved. Pratt waited at the yellow tape for a cop to permit him to retrieve his bike, which he’d left in front of the stage. He got the story while waiting.

  The Vandals and the Skulls had a long-standing beef that began when three Skulls jumped a Vandal in Reno in 1999. They’d taken their feud to Daytona Beach and Laughlin, Nevada. They’d taken their feud to Canada and Mexico.

  In the wee hours of the morning, while the Skulls partied in front of the stage, two Vandals with bandannas over their faces unloaded with Mac-10s, shooting four Skulls, two fatally. The Vandals split the scene before the cops got there. The cops hadn’t released any names.

  Nobody knew if the show would go on. Prior to this, there hadn’t been a comparable incident at Sturgis in twenty years. The gangs had all learned to get along. The big worry was that the shooting would result in the Chip’s being forced to close, losing a major chunk of change, and that the bad publicity would affect Bike Week for years to come. Most bikers were outraged and would have cooked the Vandals on a spit and served them up as barbecue.

  Pratt rode/walked his way through the choking dust back toward his camp. Monster wasps vibrated the air as hands twisted throttles. Many bikers saw this as heaven but Pratt saw it for what it was, a pathetic gathering of perpetual adolescents clinging to a mock image of toughness, outlaws excluded. For them the toughness was real and often resulted in injury or premature death. They were pretty far down the list of enlightened species.

  Pratt’s camp was as he left it. There was virtually no theft inside the Chip. It was like Hong Kong in that respect. The Vandals had broken a sacred trust and henceforth would be cast out even among the lowest of the low. Maybe that was the point. The Vandals had lowered themselves to legendary status. Pratt was glad none of the Bedouins were around. It was one-thirty in the afternoon and the heat was fierce. He had barely crawled inside his pup tent when he lay down on the mat and crashed.

  Every time he woke up he heard sirens wailing.

  CHAPTER 20

  Pratt woke to a howling cacophony of voices, bikes and country music. The sun barely hovered above the hills, lasering in at an angle, turning bikes to gold and leaves to emeralds. Pratt rolled over and checked his watch.

  It was seven-thirty. He’d slept for six hours.

  He checked his phone. Cass had left a “I love you, baby.” He called her back, got her phone and left her one.

  Pratt crawled out, relieved himself against the barbed wire and prepared for the long haul to the showers. He felt stitched together with duct tape and baling wire. The morning incident had left powder charge in the air. More booze- and drug-crazed bikers howled at the full moon, already rushing the sun offstage.

  Some loon kept shrieking, “Yeeeeeee-HA!” with a Southern accent. More bikers flying the stars and bars. Pratt stood in line for fifteen minutes for his turn at the shower. The water was lukewarm but at least he’d sluiced. He took two ibuprofens.

  Dusk had fallen by the time he got back to his camp. It was going to happen tonight. He could feel the electric tide rising in his bones. He changed into a fresh shirt, underwear and Packers cap and packed his tank bag with water, gloves, a light backpack, maps, goggles and rain suit and headed back to the stage. He wore a pair of Gargoyles.

  The sonic throom of the blues vibrated through the ground. Jonny Lang was opening for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Bikers were still pissed about Harley’s 100th anniversary party where they’d booked Elton John. Why not just book RuPaul and be done with it? The Chip knew its audience better than Harley.

  The cops had left and taken their crime tape. The Chip was back to normal, with several thousand people milling in front of the stage as Jonny Lang went down on one knee, face twisted in exquisite agony as he plucked a chord that would make a banker weep.

  Pratt hung back near the concessions, purchased a smoked turkey leg, of which he could only consume half, and handed the rest to a starving biker. Pratt watched people for an hour. A lot of people were letting it all hang out when they shouldn’t have let any of it hang out. There was something about biker cons and Sturgis in particular that erased the inhibitions of men and women of a certain age.

  Pratt spotted the War Bonnet between Jake’s Tattoo and Domino’s Pizza, furtively trading with a wan blond who looked like she’d been left in the rinse cycle too long. Pratt hung back and observed.

  Over the next hour, while Jonny Lang finished and Lynyrd Skynyrd came on, the War Bonnet did a dozen deals. Then he was out. Like before, he headed toward home base. This time Pratt would not be distracted.

  The War Bonnet walked right by him. The War Bonnet had a pronounced occipital brow and a full face beard. The full moon lit the campgrounds like Stalag 17. The War Bonnet had a bald patch on the crown of his head that looked like an eagle’s nest. He moved with a herky-jerky motion. People stepped aside for him. He broadcast bad juju.

  The dusty road was chock-a-block with drunks, stoners, tweakers, shooters and trippers. Pratt was invisible. He followed the War Bonnet for a half mile through the campgrounds to an ivory LaFarge Motor Home parked in a copse of cottonwood, two rat bikes in front.

  Pratt stood behind some cottonwood and alder as the War Bonnet knocked on the door. A second later the door opened. Lights went on in the motor home but Pratt couldn’t see anything. The angle was wrong and the rear windows had their blinds shut. He knew what was going on. The vendor was replenishing his supply. The War Bonnets kept their stash in the motor home.

  Fifteen minutes later the vendor left the motor home walking more spasmodically than before and headed back to the stage. Pratt stayed where he was. The blinds on the motor home went up and Pratt could see inside. There appeared to be only one dude. Of course there may have been more in the bedroom but with Lynyrd Skynyrd just tuning up that was doubtful.

  If the trailer’s a rockin’, don’t bother knockin’.

  The trailer was not rocking. Pratt watched and waited. The dude in the motor home seemed to be straightening up the joint. That open blind was going to be a problem. The War Bonnet peered into the darkness and closed the blind.

  Don’t think about it, just do it.

  Pratt let his gut go slack before heading to the motor home. What he was about to do made his asshole ride up between his shoulder blades and gave him the heebie-jeebies. He strode up to the door as if it were his own, glanced around once. Nada. The door hinged outward. Pratt knocked on the door.

  The motor home shifted as the dude inside jumped. A second later the door opened two inches, dude inside peering down with an evil brown eye.

  “What the fuck,” he said.

  Pratt ripped the door open with his left hand and punched the guy in the balls with his right hand. The man immediately collapsed in agony. With a quick glance around Pratt leaped into the motor home, dragged the War Bonnet away from the door by his collar and shut the door. The Bonnet had a shaved skull and a ‘stache and for an instant Pratt thought he’d got lucky and found Moon.

  Pratt looked down. This dude wasn’t old enough to be Moon although his face bore all the signs of hard living, crackle-finish skin from a lifetime of smoking, pinpoint pupils from sampling his product. The War Bonnet curled up like a carpet worm, looking up with tiny rage-filled eyes.

  “You’re a dead motherfucker, you know that?” the Bonnet said through gritted teeth.

  Pratt kicked him in the ribs with his pointy-toed boot. “Where’s the shit?” he seethed. Blood rose in him like a gusher. He was Gut Wrench again. The violence fed off itself as his instincts urged him to fin
ish the job. He plunged a knee into the man’s bruised rib and pulled his boot knife.

  Pratt stuck the point under the War Bonnet’s chin. “Where’s the shit?” he growled in a voice he didn’t recognize. Green with pain, the man pointed at an overhead compartment. Pratt kicked the War Bonnet’s legs apart, dug a buck knife out of the Bonnet’s side pocket and stomped on the man’s hand. Pratt grabbed a greasy cast-iron pan from the stove and brought it down sideways against the Bonnet’s temple with a temple bell gong. The War Bonnet banged down sideways and lay inert.

  Pratt ripped open the compartment. Inside was a patched-leather duffel bag. He yanked it out, set it on the sofa and ripped it open. Inside a jumbo zip lock contained about a pound of gleaming meth. There was a triple beam balance in the cupboard as well as a pack of little baggies and several sterile hypos.

  Pratt looked around for CCTV. Nada.

  Quickly Pratt stepped to the bedroom and threw wide the card paper door. The tiny room was empty, sheets in disarray, smelling of stale sweat and cigarette smoke. Pratt turned off all the lights, stepped over the inert War Bonnet and fled into the night.

  CHAPTER 21

  Pratt made a beeline for the nearest concrete privy, a hundred yards away. The beeline veered around campsites and trees. From ten feet the privy smelled like the devil’s asshole, an acidic stench that peeled the bark off trees. Eyes watering, Pratt went up to the sprung wooden door and pushed it aside with his foot. Inside he could see the floor covered with feces, used condoms, toilet paper, rags and two feet poking out from under a pile of rags. Dude was folded on his side snoring like raw static.

  How fucked-up was that dude, to fall asleep in the Chip’s privy? Pratt didn’t want to think about it.

  Pratt couldn’t even imagine using one of the privies, let alone sleeping in it. He tossed the zip lock of crank into the toilet. An instant later there was a moist splat. Pratt got away from there. There were people right there at the Chip who would gladly dive into that privy if they knew what was down there.

  On the way back, his cell buzzed in his pocket. It was Cass. He was immediately resentful. Couldn’t the bitch leave him alone? As certain as night follows day came the shame. She loved him, or at least she thought she did.

  “Are you all right?” she asked breathlessly.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I heard about the riots. It’s all over the news.”

  “I wasn’t around when it happened, babe. But thanks for your concern.”

  “And then I read that a guy I knew died in a traffic accident last night.”

  That would be Taco.

  “I don’t know anything about it, babe. I can’t really talk right now. I’m in the middle of something. I’ll call you back.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you.”

  Pratt returned to his perch across the way from the trailer. Folded against the base of a tree he was nearly invisible. The lights went back on in the motor home. The first thing the War Bonnet would do was phone his supplier. Next he would phone the cave man and any other War Bonnets in the Hills.

  The War Bonnets would seek vengeance. Pratt was pretty sure he would be hard to identify. He’d worn a cap and Gargoyles the whole time. Long sleeves covered his ink. They’d be perplexed. And furious.

  Ten minutes later the caveman jogged up to the motor home, sweat popping on his bony face, panting like a winded dog. Caveman’s eyes bulged from the exertion. Pratt half expected him to have a thrombo right there. One hand on his knee for support, the caveman knocked.

  The door popped open and caveman went inside.

  For long seconds there was relative silence as the War Bonnet explained the situation. Pratt could practically see crimson bolts of fury radiating from the motor home.

  “Why do I have to go?” caveman wailed, followed by the smack of flesh on flesh.

  “Because I say so, asshole.”

  A window cranked shut.

  Seconds later two War Bonnets rumbled up to the motor home on rat bikes, tossed down plates for their kickstands, got off and knocked on the door. They went inside. The bikes were rat bastard Harleys, one with twin leather saddlebags.

  More shouting from inside. Glass breaking. Cries of anger and astonishment. “Motherfucker!” escaped the cone of silence.

  It was only the third day. The War Bonnets couldn’t afford to turn their franchise over to somebody else. They’d never get it back. So they had to come up with more crank for the rest of the weeklong celebration. Pratt believed the War Bonnets would send a rider. Pratt would follow the rider to the source.

  About twenty minutes later one of the War Bonnets, not caveman, came out and got on the rat Harley with the saddlebags. The rat Harley had a brake light hanging off the right chassis near the axle, just above the vertically displayed license plate. No turn signals. The Bonnets weren’t the type who signaled turns.

  Eric, here I come.

  Pratt stared a hole in the Bonnet’s colors knowing that each rugged individualist looked more or less like the next rugged individualist. The Bonnet started his Harley. Pratt ran for his bike.

  Pratt pissed off a few people in his mad scramble to catch up with the Bonnet. Someone threw a full can of beer at him, followed by, “Hey asshole!” Pratt didn’t turn. He kept on moving. He sympathized with the can thrower. He reached the front gate in twenty minutes and joined the queue waiting to get out. The Bonnet was two bikes ahead of him. It was nine-thirty.

  A few minutes later he showed his ticket stub and got a yellow bracelet to wear back in.

  The Bonnet turned west toward town and Pratt followed. The Bonnet trolled sedately through town before turning west on Highway 14 toward Deadwood.

  Here we go again, Pratt thought.

  Traffic was intense even at the late hour, thousands of bikes roaming the Hills, motorized Conestogas hauling families hither and yon, trucks bearing bawling cattle and bales of hay. The Bonnet was in no particular hurry and went with the flow. Pratt was happy to lie back and keep an eye out for the low red brake light.

  The Bonnet stopped in Deadwood to gas up at a Kum & Go. Pratt motored past and filled his own tank at a Conoco, lining up behind a full-dress Kawasaki with a teddy bear bungeed to the sissy bar. The dresser’s owner tried to talk to Pratt, but Pratt smiled and said, “Gotta go. Have a good ride.”

  He paid via credit card at the pump and waited in the shadow of a closed supermarket until the Bonnet passed him heading west. They were in Wyoming an hour before the sun cast low beams on the western horizon. There were enough bikers heading every which way to conceal Pratt for a while, but sooner or later that would thin out and he’d be on his own.

  West on 90 through Gillette headed toward Buffalo. A wash of wind rolled over Pratt with every eastbound semi. The capricious wind threatened to blow him off the road. At other times it was meek as a clam. Sun and wind sucked water out of him like a giant ShamWow. Pratt thought of T.E. Lawrence crossing Al Rub al Qali—the “Empty Quarter,” on the way to liberating Aqaba. He rode to Maurice Jarre’s stirring theme to Lawrence of Arabia echoing in his head.

  When the camels die, we die. And in twenty days they will begin to die.

  They rode for hours beneath the blinding sun. Pratt drank water on the go, one hand on the bar. Three and a half bottles left. When the Bonnet stopped in Buffalo to fill up, Pratt held back, watching from a promontory on the edge of town until the biker moved off. His own tank was on reserve. Pratt had no choice but to gas up and hope to catch up with the lone Bonnet.

  He watched from afar as the Bonnet turned south on 196.

  Lonely 196.

  Pratt filled up at the Last Chance Gas! at the edge of town and took off like a bat at dusk. Crosses with plastic flowers sprouted from the shoulder of the rough-hewn road. This was high desert, sunbaked rocks rising thousands of feet to the right—the Bighorn Foothills. The land was sand and gravel, worthless save for the hardiest of predators—rock-eating lichen, road-kill-eating turkey bu
zzards.

  Buzzards and hawks gyred overhead. Maybe they were waiting for someone to crash. The occasional pick-up or truck passed him heading north. The road peaked gently and Pratt saw his quarry a mile ahead, an intense black presence against the rust and beige background, like the after-spot from staring at the sun or a morning floater.

  The rat Harley’s rear-views were worthless. The bike made so much noise the rider wouldn’t hear a semi. Dude never looked back.

  Pratt hung a mile back, pausing atop each promontory, sticking to the shadows. Forty-five miles south of Buffalo the Bonnet slowed and carefully turned west onto a gravel road that looked like it hadn’t been traversed since the Civil War. Basketball-sized rocks littered the rutted path. The only signs of life were some scrub, ground-hugging juniper and Spanish bayonet, all coated with a patina of brown dust, and the omnipresent turkey buzzard. It was always up there, like the Air Force’s 24/7 Early Warning Mobile Command Platform.

  Pratt waited until the Bonnet had disappeared into the folds of the earth before easing his Road King onto the treacherous gravel. Pratt hadn’t messed with his bike’s baffles. He never dug straight pipes. He didn’t need to hear the fucking engine to appreciate the sensation of speed. He shimmied up the gravel road using his boots, winding through a tight “S,” and shut off his motor. The cackle of the Bonnet’s engine spoke clearly, reverberating off the rock walls.

  Pratt cinched into the shade of a half dome, tossed out the coffee can lid and left his bike. He shimmied to the top of the rock outcropping, covering his jeans and shirt with dust. One hundred yards ahead the Bonnet had stopped at a barbed wire gate. The land beyond was desolate and unforgiving, part of the Great American Siberia that stretched from Minnesota to the Rockies.

  The Bonnet got off his rat bike, opened the gate, rolled his bike through and closed the gate behind him, looping a length of wire over the wooden post. The dirt road wound into the foothills. Pratt hunkered on the hot rock, motionless in his desert camo hat. For a long time the Bonnet’s engine echoed, fainter and fainter until finally it fell silent, the choking dust falling to earth.