Biker

by Baron, Mike;

She shot him a funny look. Little late for you to be asking, don’tcha think?”

  Pratt flushed. “I know.”

  “I have an IUD.”

  Thank God, Pratt thought, and flushed again.

  Cass went to shower.

  CHAPTER 37

  Cass’ truck was in the parking lot. They held hands and dashed across the highway to Frody’s, Cass pulling Pratt like a trailer. It was just after six and the joint was half full. A waitress named Sandy took them to a booth opposite the bar. Willie Nelson sang softly over the sound system.

  “I could eat a horse,” Cass said, looking at the menu.

  “Well you’re in luck,” Pratt said.

  “Would you folks like something to drink?” Sandy said. She looked like she was in her teens and would have been pretty were it not for a chin the size of a cowcatcher.

  Cass ordered a vodka and tonic. Pratt ordered a Hamm’s. As Sandy returned to the bar the front door swung inward and the three mesomorphs in Tapout hoodies entered.

  They noisily sidled up to the bar, turned and leaned against it backwards, insolently surveying the field and fixating on Cass. One of them said something and grabbed his crotch and they cackled like jackals.

  Sandy returned with their drinks and they both ordered buffalo burgers. Cass said, “I’ll take another,” and finished her drink before Sandy could get back to the bar. The three hoodies turned their attention to the TV over the bar, which was showing some kind of mixed martial arts competition.

  Pratt washed down a couple of ibuprofens with a beer. Sandy returned with their order.

  Cass polished off her burger and had a third vodka and tonic, folded her hands and looked intently at Pratt. “I figured it out, Pratt. I’ll tell him I’m his mother. He’s not so crazy he doesn’t want to meet his mother.”

  “You can’t do that, Cass. It’s a lie. Kid’s had enough lies.”

  “It’s guaranteed to bring him in. That’s what we want, isn’t it? I mean you can’t help him if he doesn’t come in. He’ll be happy enough when he meets his real ma.”

  Could something positive come from a lie? Of course. It happened all the time. The kid had to know the difference. He was human, wasn’t he? If the full depth of Eric’s betrayal at his father’s hands became clear to him, he might never trust another human being again. It came down to trust. Pratt worried that Eric was incapable of the concept.

  The hoodies stood with their backs to the bar examining Cass’ every move, commenting to each other and chuckling salaciously. They couldn’t see Pratt, whose back was to them, although they’d seen him when they entered. Psychologists said sex was a great tension reliever. So was beating the shit out of someone. Pratt was frustrated with the Eric situation, apprehensive about his upcoming meeting with Calloway and the feds, and didn’t know whether to shit or go blind in regard to Cass. Sewn together as he was he had to restrain himself from getting in the hoodies’ faces. With every comment they lowered his flash point.

  Red dead redemption rose from his toes.

  Cass glanced at the bar.

  “Are those men bothering you?” Pratt said.

  “No more than usual.”

  “’Cause we could switch places.”

  “I’ve been dealing with that kind of trash my whole life, Pratt. They remind me of my brothers.”

  “Yeah well do me a favor. If they start something step back, pull out your phone and film it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Your phone takes video, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well all right then.”

  Her bare foot snaked up inside his pants and Pratt was instantly hard. Like Pavlov’s dogs. He’d learned about Pavlov from Chaplain Dorgan. He signaled their waitress.

  “How ’bout some of our world-famous pecan pie, honey,” Sandy said to Pratt with an ease belying her youth.

  “Just the check, thanks.”

  Sandy pulled her pad from her apron and totaled it up. “You can pay me when you’re ready, honey. You take care now.”

  Pratt left cash on the table. Cass started to get up, fell back and tried again. As they walked toward the door the biggest hoodie detached himself from the bar and drifted between them and the exit. He had a weightlifter’s build, a mullet, luxurious pointed sideburns and no neck. He smelled of road sweat and cheap aftershave.

  “Hey hey hey little lady,” he said, “why don’t you dump the ragman here and get with a real man.”

  Pratt glanced at the bar where his buddies stood grinning, empty shot glasses lined up like soldiers.

  “I’d sure like a piece of that pie, Unca Donnie,” one of the hoodies said, to the delight of his pal.

  Pratt put his hand on Cass’ shoulder. “Start filming.”

  “The fuck you say?” the neckless hoodie said.

  Pratt stepped up. He and the hoodie were eye to eye. “Do I look like some kind of faggot to you?” Pratt said softly, standing perfectly still but relaxed, crouching atop a thermonuclear trigger twitching to explode, seeing in his imagination as he head-butted this fool on the bridge of the nose, grabbed him by his mullet and kneed him in the balls. Radiating menace from every pore, his hand hovered disconcertingly near Unca Donnie’s crotch.

  The hoodie met him with angry brown eyes, little balls of hate at the bottom of sand washes. His hands twitched. For five long seconds electricity hummed. The neckless hoodie blinked and stepped back.

  “Just havin’ a little fun, folks.”

  The waitress sighed with relief and put the phone down.

  The mojo is with me.

  As Pratt led Cass out by the hand she wagged her finger at the hoodies. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”

  She took his hand and practically danced across the interstate.

  When they got into the motel room Cass removed four or five silk scarves from her overnighter. “Now I want you to tie me up and gag me, and I want you to gag me real tight ’cause I plan to scream like a cat in heat.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Cass was rarin’ to go in the morning too but Pratt had too much on his mind. He was eager to get back out to the ranch and try to find the boy. They drove into town in Cass’ truck and ate breakfast at Babe’s Diner. At a quarter of ten an ancient Ford pick-up parked at an angle to the curb in front of Vern’s. Pratt could see a figure behind the wheel smoking a cigarette.

  Cass read a travel mag she’d picked up at a rest stop. “I want to stop at this Lakota Casino on the way back.”

  “That ain’t in the cards, baby. As soon as I check out the ranch we’re out of here.”

  “What for?” she whined. “Ginger and Nathan aren’t in any danger. Just for a couple hours.”

  “Forget it.” Was she crazy? Didn’t she realize he had a job to do, that there was a maniac on the loose?

  Vern’s front door opened. Vern peered out like a March groundhog, saw his cousin and motioned him inside. Lester got out of the truck. He looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over. He wore wraparound sunglasses over a shirt so big it looked like a spinnaker. His long unkempt hair fell to his shoulders. Only his shoes were brand new, some kind of high zoot sneaker.

  Cass and Pratt crossed the street and entered the bar. The air conditioner over the front door sounded like it was self-destructing. They paused inside the door for their eyes to adjust.

  “Hey there, Pratt,” Vern said. “This here’s my cousin Lester.”

  Lester took off his sunglasses and turned toward them. His black hair, beak, and squinty eyes suggested Moe Howard. He smelled of tobacco, graphite and something atavistic.

  Pratt moved around Cass and put out his hand. “Josh Pratt. Pleased to meet you.”

  The thin Indian took Pratt’s hand in a surprisingly strong grip. “Lester Lovejoy, how ya doin’.”

  Vern washed glasses behind the bar. “I told Cuz about the deal.” Vern went in the back.

  Lester fixed timeless patient eyes on Pratt. Pratt removed his wal
let and counted out four hundred dollars. “Half now, half later.”

  Lester folded the cash and stuck it in the breast pocket of his worn flannel shirt. “What is it you want me to track?”

  “Wendigo.”

  Lester grunted. “Ain’t no Wendigo.”

  “A man, Lester. I want you to track a man.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Y’all better skedaddle before the sheriff notices your truck,” Vern said.

  “Doesn’t he have better shit to do right now?” Pratt said.

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  Pratt turned to Lester. “You ready?”

  Lester gazed longingly at the massed booze bottles behind the bar. “I reckon.”

  They went outside, putting on their sunglasses and tugging their caps down low.

  “I’ll follow,” Lester said, getting in his truck.

  “Be easier you ride with us,” Pratt said. He wanted the benefit of Lester’s wisdom on the way in.

  “All right.” Lester followed them across the street and got in the back, leaning in the corner with his legs stretched across the rear seat at an angle.

  They drove east on the state highway until they came to the turnoff to Moon’s valley, a wire gate between fence posts like thousands of others they’d passed. No one had repaired the cut wire. There were a lot more tire tracks than before. The truck jounced over sink-sized potholes and rocks.

  What a bleak, terrible place, Pratt thought.

  “We’re looking for a sixteen-year-old boy who has been turned into a sort of animal man.” Pratt explained the procedure as best he could. Lester kept his eyes on the sere landscape and did not comment.

  “Kid reeks to high heaven,” Pratt said.

  “I ain’t no dog. I don’t track by smell. I track by what I can see and what makes sense to me.”

  “Sure. I mean he’s got problems, curvature of the spine. I wonder how far he could get on his own. He can’t be too eager to change his surroundings if this is all he’s ever known. I have a feeling he’s hanging around, keeping an eye on the place, waiting for everyone to leave and for Moon to come back.”

  Cass put a hand on his thigh. Pratt removed it. She put it back. It crept closer to his package. He removed it again.

  “Casss …”

  She giggled. She thought it was funny. Pratt needed all his concentration to keep the truck on the road and avoid scraping the transmission off on the rocks. Cass put her hand on his thigh. He bent back her little finger and placed the hand back in her own lap.

  “OW!”

  Pratt kept his eyes on the road. Cass crossed her arms and pouted. Lester stared out the side window, oblivious.

  “Coyote,” he said softly. Pratt looked in time to see a shadow disappear behind a rock. Twenty-five minutes later they wallowed up and over a ridge and beheld the little valley, the Quonset hut, the well, tepee, and stand of cottonwood. Yellow crime tape had been strewn around and a Caterpillar backhoe blazed yellow in the noon sun. There were six shallow depressions where it had gouged the earth.

  There was no sign of life. Robbins County didn’t have the bucks to leave a deputy watching a defunct meth lab. Pratt piloted the big Dodge down the boulder-strewn trail and parked it in the shade of a cottonwood.

  They got out. Pratt headed for the hut. Cass walked toward a nearby hill to show her displeasure. Lester followed Pratt. The door was open.

  Lester stuck his nose in and jerked his head out. “Bad medicine,” he spat.

  “Meth lab,” Pratt said, forcing himself in. Breathing through his mouth he walked to the far end of the hut where Eric had made his nest and gathered a handful of fur. Some of the bedding had been taken. The empty water bowl and another containing a crust of dog food remained. The chemicals were gone.

  When he came out Lester crouched atop a nearby sandstone hummock surveying the landscape. Pratt stepped into the blazing heat and walked up the grippy stone. Sweat trickled down his forehead and back. By the time he got to Lester his collar was wet. Pratt pulled his cap lower on his forehead and hunkered down next to the tracker. He held out a tuft of fur.

  “Kid sheds like a Bernese. He’s got all kinds of fur: brown, white, black …”

  Lester put a finger to his lips. Pratt shut up and tried to see what the tracker saw. He let his eyes slowly swivel one hundred and eighty degrees. Hills and scrub. Creosote and Spanish bayonet. To the west lay mountains covered in a green furze—Ponderosa pine. Pratt looked up. Black raptor shapes flitted against the sky. Lester rose like smoke and took off down the hill. Pratt had to run to catch up.

  Lester circled the top of the next hill and proceeded to the one after that, southeast of the hut. He stood atop this hill with feet a shoulder width apart, stuck his finger in his mouth and held it up. Feeling the wind. The Indian went down on his haunches and focused his attention on the ground. The hill was covered with a stubble of straw, a wino’s five-day growth. Carefully Lester reached out and plucked something from the weeds. He held it up.

  A tuft of fur.

  Pratt crouched nearby. Lester swept his gaze from horizon to horizon. His eyes didn’t move in their sockets. His head moved. He stood and did a three sixty. He reached into his voluminous trousers and removed an Altoids tin, which he opened. Inside was a crushed leaf. Lester dumped the contents into his hand and flung them into the air. A breeze caught and fanned them out like brown confetti. Lester watched them flutter until they disappeared.

  Lester crouched and stayed that way without twitching a muscle. Pratt timed it. The sun beat down. Pratt thought of Lawrence and the Rub al Qali. Civilizations rose and collapsed. Seas swallowed the earth and receded. Pratt was about to say something when Lester rose and turned to him. Eleven minutes.

  “Give me the other four hundred dollars,” he said.

  Pratt stepped up. “Half now, half when you deliver.”

  “The boy went that way.” Lester pointed southeast. “He’s terrified of men, of cars, especially of trucks, but he knows how to track and he knows how to hide.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I just know. Something else I know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There’s the sheriff.” Lester turned and loped off into the hills.

  Pratt had that “oh shit” feeling as he turned around. The sheriff had arrived unheard in his new blue and white Dodge Charger, which exuded jackboot authority. Cass was talking to DeWitt near the car’s front fender. He loomed over her like a butte. The sheriff looked Pratt’s way and smiled. Cass saw him and motioned him in.

  Pratt made his way to the bottom of the hill, a dried-up coulee. He was no longer visible to the sheriff. He could just ease on outta there, hook up with Cass later. He could read the sheriff’s malice from a hundred yards, never mind the smile. Pratt knew the kind too well. Never had much luck with cops.

  Pratt reminded himself that he had sworn on the Holy Bible to tread a righteous path, unpleasant though that might be. He’d promised Chaplain Dorgan and he’d promised God. He’d promised himself. Pratt pulled a water bottle from his fanny pack and drank it in one swallow. Over the hill, don’t step on the rattlesnake and there he was, all six four of him.

  “Mr. Joshua C. Pratt!” the Sheriff boomed in rotund tones. “We meet again.”

  “How can I help you, Sheriff?”

  “This is a crime scene, Mr. Pratt.”

  “I have a job to do.”

  “The only reason I don’t re-arrest you for interfering with police business is sheer pity and sympathy for your ideal.”

  And fear of Mason Mazin.

  “I wish you’d told me about this boy sooner, Mr. Pratt.”

  “Sir, honestly, I thought Moon was going to run straight back to Wisconsin and kill Cass and my client.”

  “That’s a matter for the police.”

  “I know.”

  “Now we got the FBI involved and I don’t know what all. I do have some good news for you.”


  “What’s that, Sheriff?”

  “Moon’s outta the country. FBI tracked him to LAX, where he boarded a Korean Airlines flight to Hong Kong.”

  CHAPTER 39

  Pratt watched the sheriff in his rear view as Cass drove up and out of the little valley. The big man stood with his legs spread, hands on hips. He didn’t twitch a whisker until he disappeared from Pratt’s view. Pratt tried his cell phone. Nada. It wasn’t until they reached the outskirts of Hog Tail that he had service. He phoned Calloway.

  Calloway answered on the second ring. “Calloway.”

  “Heinz, it’s Josh Pratt. Is it true about Moon?”

  “That he left the country? If you believe the FBI. Why wouldn’t you? They got him on camera boarding the plane. Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “I’m in Wyoming searching for the boy.”

  “Lotta people think there is no boy. They think you’re shining them on.”

  “Why would I do that? Did they talk to Ginger Munz?”

  “I believe you, but there are people here who look at your background, and they look at Mrs. Munz’ background, and they see a pattern. Your friend’s a druggie. I hope for your sake you’re not back into that shit. They don’t know what’s going on but they’re damn sure it ain’t about no boy.”

  “I’ve been straight since I got out of the joint!” Pratt declared, instantly remembering the line he’d done with the Skulls and the joint he’d smoked with Cass. Well one was part of the job and the other, well it was just a fucking joint. It was practically legal now anyway.

  “Like I said, I believe you,” Calloway said. “When will you be back? The feds want to talk.”

  “Sometime tomorrow if we leave soon. We have to get my bike.”

  “There’s another problem.”

  Pratt stared out the window as they rolled down Main. “What?”

  “Word is the War Bonnets are looking for your scalp. So Moon spread the word. I really don’t have anybody I can put on you. Best steer clear of your usual haunts for a while.”

  “All right.”

  “Call me.”

  Cass stopped at one of the two streetlights. “Where’s your bike?”