Nolan: Return to Signal Bend

by Susan Fanetti

  Vega sat at the table, in his usual place, watching him. His revolver sat before him, framed by his hands.

  “What’s going on?” Nolan asked as he stood up, slowly now, keeping his brain oriented and letting his body get used to its freedom.

  “Have a seat, Nolan.”

  Nolan glanced over to the weapons cabinet. It was closed and locked. The guns that normally rested on the rack above it were gone. Unless he wanted to throw a lighted lantern at Vega—a possibility, but a dire one—the weapon situation wasn’t good. Except for the gun Vega had.

  That gun might have been intended for him, but Vega had had limitless opportunity to kill him, so Nolan doubted he would just aim and shoot now.

  He went and sat. “What the fuck?”

  “It’s in the Tylenol, kid.”

  Every time Vega called him ‘kid,’ Nolan felt it like a spike in his skull. He hated being called kid, and not just because it called out his youth and comparative inexperience. Havoc had called him ‘kid.’ It hadn’t been an endearment, not like the way his mother called him, to this day, ‘kiddo’; it had been merely a word, much the way Vega had just said it. And yet, in Nolan’s mind, the only voice he wanted to hear that word in was his father’s.

  Now, though, he focused on the other words Vega had said. “What?”

  “A little cocktail keeping you mellow.”

  Motherfucker. Nolan tried not to react. He wanted that gun, so he had to stay cool. He nodded. “Why tell me now?”

  Instead of answering his question, Vega said, “My grandfather was killed by a drug cartel. My grandmother was raped, but she escaped and got to the States with her four kids. That’s how my family came to be there. Not long after they came over, she had a baby from that rape—a boy. It didn’t matter how he’d come to be—everybody loved him.”

  “Why do you think I care about that?”

  Vegas eyes shone with irritation, but he didn’t answer. Apparently, he had a story to tell. “My father was the oldest of her kids. He was fifteen when they came over the border. He was a big kid and looked older than he was. He started working right away—day labor. Never went to school again, not that he’d gone much before.

  “The other kids all went to school. The US was good to my family, even as illegals. But when my uncle, the youngest one, was ten, he didn’t come home from school. They couldn’t go to the police, because everybody was illegal. So my Tio Julio just disappeared.

  “I was born by then, but I don’t remember him. But I do remember what it was like for my father, and my uncle and aunts, and especially my abuela, to have him gone. My father insisted all his life that it was the cartel. He didn’t know how, but he was always absolutely certain that Felipe Santaveria had come for his son.”

  Nolan reacted to that name, and Vega stopped talking and regarded him with quiet interest as his—apparently drugged—brain put pieces of information together. “You’re saying Julio Santaveria was your uncle. The one who disappeared.”

  Vega nodded. “My father was right. He died not knowing that. He was obsessed, and it gnawed at him every day. Nobody believed him, not even me. I went into law enforcement because a cartel had broken my family, and to make my father proud, but I was shocked when Julio’s name started to show up. By the time my uncle was ten, Felipe had risen to the head of the cartel. By the time I was a special agent, Julio was making noise himself. But Julio is a common name, so I told myself it was a coincidence. It was easier to believe it was coincidence. When I knew it wasn’t, my father was dead. We’d all let him believe the truth alone until even he thought he was crazy.”

  Vega was quiet for a few seconds. Nolan sat and tried to sort through the barrage of shocking information.

  “I volunteered to go deep cover. We started off as a unit with ‘any means necessary’ clearance. Eventually, even that was too restrictive, and we went off the grid completely.”

  “Why?” Nolan had forgotten that he was facing an enemy; he was wrapped up in the story the man was telling.

  “At first, I wanted to bring my uncle back to my abuela. Pull him in peacefully. Prison in the States was better than nothing. But the deeper I got, the more I understood that Felipe had warped him too much. Julio Santaveria was not my Tio Julio. Then I wanted to end the culture that had hurt my family so much. Take the whole thing down.”

  “Did he know you were his nephew?”

  Vega nodded. “That was how I got so close. Unprecedented access and latitude. And yet, he’d have opened my throat in a blink if he’d even suspected that I’d crossed him at all. I did a lot of horrible shit at his side. I saw him do a lot more.” He laughed without mirth. “I spent my life trying to end the brutality of the cartels, but all I’ve done is participate in it. That is what ‘any means necessary’ gets you.”

  “Why tell me this?”

  “Because I’m tired, Nolan, and we’re out of time. I earned protection, and the facts in my head are valuable, so I have a detail on me—as you know. I have to go to Winnipeg. If I don’t show, that’ll set an alarm off, and the agents who come looking will kill you on sight. I like you, and I’m sorry for what I did to your family. We can’t seem to come to an understanding. You need to balance a scale, so let’s balance it. But I need to say some things first.”

  Nolan blinked. “You’re what—gonna let me kill you?”

  Again, Vega didn’t answer him and instead continued with his own agenda. “You came here through the woods, and you saw the bear and her cub. I suspect that you saw or heard some of the rest of the population out here. All manner of bears, moose, elk, coyotes. And wolves. The wolves will avoid you if you’re moving—most of the animals out here know enough about humans to know we are higher on the food chain than they are. But if you’re still long enough, they’ll come out and see if you’re dinner. Don’t bury me. Don’t burn me. Dig out the bullet and drag me out to the woods, eastward, and the wolves will come. If my detail finds me like that, any risk to you and yours will die with me. If they find me shot on the floor of the cabin, or buried in a grave, or even simply missing, they will investigate.”

  He laid his hands on the revolver before him. “I’ve been careful to remove as many traces of your presence here as I could. Remove the rest, pack your pack with the supplies you need, and go out the way you came in. You’re healed enough. You’ve been strong enough for days. I’ve been keeping you weak, hoping for some time. But it’s time for this to be over. It’s time for you to return to Signal Bend.”

  The drug must have been slowing Nolan’s thinking down, because he was having difficulty making sense of the conversation. It seemed simple and yet incredible. “You’re going to let me kill you.”

  Vega nodded and pushed the gun across the table. Out of reflex more than anything else, Nolan caught it.

  He sat facing David Vega, the man who had opened Havoc’s belly and taken him away from his family, from Nolan and his mom, and from Loki, who had never known his father. The man before him had conspired over decades to end drugs, as if that were possible, and he’d left behind him a deep wake of bodies. All the chaos the Horde had known for the past decade and a half could be traced back to the feet of the man sitting calmly at this table with him.

  He cocked and aimed the gun. Vega’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t even blink.

  Nolan had been Horde for a decade. Although he’d gotten his patch after the Missouri charter had gone straight, he’d spent more than a year in the dark with the SoCal charter. He had killed. In fact, he’d had an existential crisis in SoCal, when he’d realized how little it bothered him to take another life. He’d wondered what kind of man he was. Analisa had helped him see that he could be both light and dark, that he could love deeply and kill when he had to, and that he could hold those truths in balance.

  But he had never killed anyone who wasn’t actively an enemy, who wasn’t trying to kill him at the very same time, or who wouldn’t have killed him when the opportunity arose.

 
; He had never faced a man like this. Someone he knew.

  The gun shook in his hand, and he brought his other hand up to steady it.

  Vega sat there, still as a corpse.

  Was it the drugs making him hesitate? Were they still in his system, whatever they were? He didn’t think so; he felt clearer than he had in all the time he’d been in this cabin.

  He simply couldn’t kill him. He knew him too well now. He understood him. He couldn’t find the vengeance he needed. He couldn’t see the rightness.

  Nolan set the gun down. Then, unable to stop himself, he laid his head on the table and wept.

  Vega stood and pulled his chair around to sit at Nolan’s side. He set his hand on Nolan’s back and just sat there until Nolan was able to pull himself together.

  When he sat up and sliced his hands across his cheeks to clear the wet trails, Vega picked up the gun and opened the cylinder.

  It was empty.

  “Fuck you,” Nolan said, but without the energy of anger. He was just too fucking drained and lost to be angry at the ruse. His head felt like it had been upended and shaken hard.

  Vega pulled another gun from behind him, opened that cylinder, showed Nolan that it was loaded. He set it on the table. “I only wanted it not to be a reflex. I wanted you to think first. I know the burden of a cold kill, and I don’t want you to carry it, Nolan. It will break your back. But it’s your choice. I am ready to die. My life ended when I lost my family.”

  Nolan stared at the two guns on the table. Then he pushed them away.

  Vega put his hand on Nolan’s shoulder. “Do we have an understanding, you and I?”

  “Yes.”

  ~oOo~

  Two days later, Nolan packed his pack. Vega was out running his perimeter check before they left. They had a nearly two-mile hike to the plane Vega used to get to Winnipeg.

  What a strange, sad life the man was leading, isolated from everyone, his family dead, his own life for sale. Now that Nolan had lost his hatred, he’d found sympathy, and even some grudging respect, for the man who’d broken his family. He didn’t think he could live like this, in oppressive solitude, a victim of his own deeds.

  No, he couldn’t. But he didn’t have to. Nolan was going home, and he would try put his life back the way it belonged—the way it had already been when he’d gone off on this selfish, stupid mission. He was lucky—it was turning out okay. He had survived, he hadn’t put his family at risk, and they hadn’t abandoned him.

  There would be consequences, and he might not keep his patch, but Nolan had a home to return to. He had a family. He had love.

  He looked around the cabin, this sad, dim set of walls, and understood, finally, that Havoc’s death had been avenged long ago.

  As he zipped up his pack, Vega came in hard, slamming the door against the wall and making the weapons rattle on the rack. He grabbed a semi-automatic rifle and threw it at Nolan, who caught it without thinking. His chest complained, but not much.

  “What’s up?”

  “Company. I saw their trail, not them. Somebody’s out there. At least five or six, maybe more.”

  “Not your guys?” Nolan checked the load on the M16.

  “My guys wouldn’t come up unless I don’t show at our meet. I’m on my own up here otherwise. It’s got to be cartel.” He pulled a handgun from the cabinet and waved it at Nolan as an offer, then set it on top. “Everything’s loaded, but take some mags and keep the cabinet open for reloads. We’ll have to hold this position. I’ll take this window. You take the bedroom—based on the trail they’re leaving, that’s the only other direction they could come from.”

  Nolan nodded and went to the cabinet. He took the Glock and checked the mag, then gathered up clips for both weapons. Vega was already in position when he walked through the cabin and opened the door to the bedroom.

  He settled on his knees at the window and set his aim with the M16. He saw movement within minutes and turned his aim toward the rustling greenery.

  When the first human body came through into the small clearing, Nolan set his finger on the trigger immediately. But the body had long hair, and he hesitated at the thought that he might shoot a woman.

  Another step—no, not a woman. A man with long hair. He focused his intent again, but in those few beats, more people had eased from the clearing, keeping low, seeking cover. They made an arc, converging on the cabin. Nolan used the sight to scan the other people coming for them.

  And saw Isaac Lunden. The Horde had come for him.

  His chest nearly exploded with love and relief. Home. They’d come to take him home.

  “Nolan.” Vega’s voice behind him made him twitch, and he almost fired. He would have shot Isaac if he had. He pulled his hand away and set the gun down, pushing it from him like it might bite him.

  “It’s okay. It’s my—” he’d turned as he’d spoken, and his mouth snapped shut when he found Vega standing in the doorway with a shotgun pointed at his head.

  He held his hands out in a calming gesture. “It’s Horde. Not a threat. We’re okay.”

  But David Vega, the man who’d killed his father, the man he’d chosen not to kill in retribution, had failed to kill when he’d had the chance, shook his head and waved the shotgun at him. “Let’s go.”

  “You son of a bitch. You piece of shit.”

  Vega only waved the gun again, and Nolan, without a gun in his own hand now, had no choice but to stand and let Vega lead him out of the cabin.

  When Nolan came out of the cabin with his hands raised, the Horde all froze but didn’t drop their weapons. There were eight of them: Len, Tommy, Isaac, Showdown, and Double A, plus Nacto and two others whom Nolan assumed were from the Montana charter. It was Nacto he’d seen coming first out of the woods. All eight bore M16s or AKs.

  Had they all walked the twenty or more miles to this cabin? Had Isaac, Show, and Len—all of whom were well into or beyond middle age, and all of whom suffered from old injuries—walked all that way? For him?

  He didn’t have time to parse the question, because Vega poked him in the back with his gun. He stepped forward, with Vega right behind him. No one had spoken yet.

  Double A, the Missouri VP and the ranking member of the Horde present, took a step forward. Still no one spoke.

  Then Vega swung to Nolan’s side and took a step back. He said, “Remember what I told you,” and pumped the shotgun.

  Nolan dropped to the ground as a gun fired, but he hadn’t been shot. His only pain was the healing wound in his chest. Then more shots rang out, and Vega fell to the ground next to him, his torso and face torn open. His one remaining eye stared. As Nolan lay on still, waiting for the air to clear, blood soaked Vega’s abdomen and seeped into the dirt.

  Just like that, it was over.

  Vega had never fired. Nolan understood that he’d never intended to.

  Remember what I told you. He remembered it all. Vega had confessed his sins. He’d spoken in depth of his regret, his loss, his loneliness. He’d told Nolan how to cover up his death. He’d wanted to die, and yet he hadn’t wanted Nolan to carry the burden. And then the Horde had shown up and given him another way.

  Showdown was at his side first. “You hit, brother?”

  Nolan shook his head. “No. I’m whole.” Show held out his hand, and Nolan took it and let his brother pull him up. When Show yanked him into a monstrous bear hug, Nolan held on.

  Then Show pushed him away and punched him in the face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Geoff stood at the front window as Darwin and Cox walked by, both wearing colors and sporting handguns holstered at their hips. He sighed.

  “I’d heard about the way things were, but it’s different living it.”

  Iris came and stood next to him. “This is nothing like the way it was. I didn’t live here for most of the worst part, but I know it was much, much worse before.” They weren’t even on lockdown. It was just a bit of extra security.

  Iris didn’t know w
hat her father had done or said, but within a day or two of the incident at Moe’s and what she’d told him she needed, a third of the Horde had ridden out of town, heading north, after Nolan. Of the members Iris had always thought of as the ‘core’ of the club, only Badger had stayed back. All of the living members she truly considered family—her father, Uncle Isaac, and Uncle Len—had gone.

  Her daddy was fixing it.

  Whatever Nolan had gone to do, the Horde was worried it would blow back on the town. So all the old ladies, Iris, the members who’d stayed back, the hangarounds and other club friends, everyone was carrying, and the Horde on patrol were carrying openly. Patrols happened more often, and family had to check in regularly. If whatever they’d gone to do to bring Nolan home went badly, they were as ready as they could be to deal with it.