The Brotherhood of the Wheel

by R. S. Belcher

  “You’re not scared, are you?” Elizabeth asked Heck, breaking the silence and making Heck jump just a bit. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew she was smiling.

  “No,” he said, a little quicker and a bit more emphatically than he should have.

  “Good,” she said. “I guess there are advantages to being hungover, then.”

  “I’m not hungover,” Heck said. “I’m still a little drunk.”

  “And driving a motorcycle in your condition?” Elizabeth said. “With your sainted mother on board? Hector Conall Sinclair!”

  Heck laughed. “Didn’t you use to tell me I was conceived while you were in the same condition on a bike going about a hundred miles an hour, ‘sainted mother’?”

  It was Elizabeth’s turn to laugh. “And I stayed that way as much of your childhood as possible,” she said. “Made for a better environment for all of us, don’t you—”

  A cold wind howled down the tunnel, swirling dead leaves, condom wrappers, and crushed red Solo cups. The wind carried voices on it—whispering, hissing, laughing, voices as dry as the dead leaves.

  “Sinnnnnnnnnclaaaaaaiiiiirrrrrr,” they rasped.

  Heck felt his mother’s hand on his arm in the darkness; fumbling, he handed her the wooden cask with Ale’s ashes. Both hands free, he hefted his grandfather and stepfather’s blade from his shoulders. It occurred to him, suddenly, that it was his now. Ahead, two figures became visible, wreathed in a dirty, washed-out light. They were robed, like monks, their faces hidden in the darkness of their hoods. They came from either side of the dark tunnel and blocked Elizabeth and Heck’s way.

  “You see them?” Heck asked his mother, stepping between her and the figures.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve seen them before. A long time ago, when you were a baby. They are not ghosts.”

  Heck dropped to stance, right foot behind his left foot, resting on the balls of his feet, as Ale and Granddad had taught him when he was only a boy. Heck had been a terror to teach swordplay to, because he was left-handed, and because he never quite got the gist of swinging at half speed.

  “The boy’s a blur of energy and destruction,” Granddad had said, laughing as he nursed a nasty bruise on his arm from one of Heck’s blows. “Once he gets some discipline in that skull of his, he’ll be a damned terror with a blade.”

  He didn’t have the room, with Elizabeth behind him, to safely build momentum with the monstrous sword by swinging it in an ever-faster figure-eight pattern, so he grabbed the dull, lower part of the blade between the smaller set of flaring quillons—a sort of secondary hilt—and rocked back to use the blade almost like a spear. He thrust at the figure on the left and shifted his stance to use his target as partial cover for the hooded form on the right. The blade passed through the chest of the hooded figure, as if Heck were stabbing smoke. As a child, he had heard the stories of Granddad using this same ancient blade to lay low a slavering, man-eating Windigo that had shrugged off gunfire and knives of mere steel. Fear tickled his stomach, and he was suddenly back in the desert with the laughing fire.

  The figures advanced. The whispering voices seemed to be at Heck’s ear, or maybe in his mind.

  “Come back with us, Hector … come back … you belong…” they hissed and advanced with clawed hands the color of dead fish. It felt as if someone were vomiting in Heck’s skull. Scalding, putrid thoughts were filling up behind his eyes, trying to eat the light out of them.

  A slender hand flashed out over Heck’s shoulder, past his head. It was Elizabeth’s. She brandished a palm-size stone; it looked like a river rock, smooth from wear. It was glowing with a clean, brilliant white light from within, which seemed to repel the filthy, wavering glow of the hooded apparitions. Heck’s blade suddenly touched something solid as it thudded against the specter’s chest.

  “Piss off,” she said. “You are not going to muck up the final ride of the finest man I ever knew, a man who kicked your sorry tails on more than one occasion, I might add. Now get.”

  The hooded figures withdrew from the now dangerous sword and the light of the rock. They stepped into the deepening shadows, their aura fading, extinguishing, as the daylight at the end of the tunnel became the color of pale ash.

  “Bastards,” Elizabeth said, and spat. The rock had stopped glowing, and she slipped it back into her jeans pocket. “Thank you for saving me, son,” she said to Heck, and kissed him on the cheek. “Come along, we need to get through before the light’s gone.”

  Elizabeth picked up her pace, striding, her man’s ashes under her arm. Heck slung the Claymore back over his shoulder and hurried to catch up.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “Cairn stone,” she said. “Was your grandfather’s. It’s Conair Cloch, one of the Path Stones.”

  “Con-air, what?” Heck said.

  “Never mind,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll explain when you’re older.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Heck said. “I’ve heard that before. That’s what you said about sex.”

  “Oh, you figured that one out,” Elizabeth said. “Quit your bitchin’.”

  They stepped out of the far end of the tunnel into the final brilliant rays of day, shimmering across the dark waters of Fontana Lake. The choppy water split and refracted the sun’s parting kiss to the earth, scattering the light.

  “Beautiful,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s take him into the woods.” Heck nodded. He leaned the Claymore against a low stone wall and followed his mother.

  They moved deeper into the old forest. Ancient maples and birches, survivors of the TVA culling so long ago, surrounded them in the dimming light. The lake was ahead of them. Elizabeth lowered the cask to the damp, cool forest floor. She snapped the brass fasteners on the box and opened it. Within was a simple silver urn, held in place by a black velvet compartment. She lifted Ale’s urn free of the cask and held it in her hands, held it close to her face. “You want to do it?” she asked, looking away from the urn and to her son. Heck stared at her for a moment too long.

  “He’d want you to do it,” Heck said. “Ale and me … not so much, not for a while.”

  “He loved you,” Elizabeth said. “He’d do anything for you. You were his son, Hector, blood or no.”

  “Let’s not do this,” Heck said. “We’re losing the light.”

  “That,” Elizabeth said. “That right there … I swear, the two of you had so much in common. You’re both the most stubborn, bullheaded men I’ve ever known. You and Ale put off saying ‘I’m sorry’ and saying ‘I’m proud of you’ for too damn long, and you both ended up regretting it.”

  “What do you want here?” Heck asked. “I know … I know … I missed him by twelve fucking hours, and I know nothing will ever give me those hours back. You want some big damn cathartic scene? Well, that ain’t how either of you raised me. Ale would have told you and me both to cowboy the hell up and get on getting on. I’ll make my peace with this, with him, in my own damn good time, Mom. Now drop it. Please.”

  Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it and nodded. “Then walk with me while I send him along,” she said. “We used to joke that we’d mix him up with some good pot and smoke him.”

  “Now, that sounds like Ale,” Heck said with a chuckle. “That would be some bitter-ass smoke.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said softly, as she offered a pinch of her lover’s ashes to the night wind. The wind carried them toward the water. “But I think it might surprise you how sweet it would be, too.”

  The return trip through the dark tunnel was uneventful. The specters had all fled. When Elizabeth and Heck emerged back where the Jocks and the other MCs were waiting, cycle headlights burning to fill the edge of the tunnel with light, a raucous cheer went up, and Jim the piper began to play “The Warrior’s Code,” by the Dropkick Murphys.

  “I think if Ale was here right now,” Heck said, jumping up onto the sidecar of the Harley and shouting above the hoots, whistles, and music, �
�he’d say, ‘Let’s go get shit-faced!’” The crowd erupted in howls that would have made Viking raiders piss themselves. The wake was on.

  * * *

  The Ashville chapter of the Blue Jocks hosted Ale’s wake at the home of the chapter president, an affable fellow named Muskrat, who had done fifteen years for manslaughter. The party spilled out of the hundred-year-old farmhouse that Muskrat, his wife, and kids called home and onto the twenty acres of land that had been in his family for well over a century. The number of attendees swelled as word of the party got around, to more than two hundred MC members, prospects, ol’ ladies and sweetbutts, hang-arounds, and supporters.

  Bonfires and campfires littered the huge yard. The night air was full of the revving of motorcycle engines, laughter, deep-bass bellows, the murmuring river of mass conversations and music—everything from Johnny Cash to Cage the Elephant. The Eagles’ “Desperado” played, and couples danced close, hands on hips or in pockets, while Heck nursed his third Budweiser, standing on the porch of the farmhouse. The porch was illuminated by strings of plastic Halloween skulls of every color. Heck sat against the rail and took a draw off his bottle.

  He watched a skinny prospect from the Spartanburg chapter spin and flip flaming devil sticks for a crowd, leaving glowing trails in the wake of the booze-doused sticks. Near one of the ubiquitous keg stations, a brother was on hands and knees puking while several Jocks and their ol’ ladies laughed uproariously at the spectacle. That very cute redhead in the corset, tutu, and knee-high boots walked by for the third time, glancing not so shyly at Heck and giving him an inviting smile. Somewhere, a guy was calling out for the immediate attention of someone apparently named Juanetta.

  Roadkill walked up the steps, weaving a bit, and leaned on the rail to steady himself. “Well, ain’t you a mopey bastard,” he said. “All this in front of you and you’re gonna sit there … I don’t know … having … thoughts, or something.”

  “Just enjoying the show,” Heck said. “Had a few?” he asked, a smile tugging at the edges of his face.

  Roadkill drained his blue plastic Solo cup and nodded. “Indeed, my good man,” he said. “There are some of the Ashville club’s mamas here. I intend to drink until I look good to them. There’s plenty of sweetbutts to go around, man. Don’t want the mother chapter’s future president pissing off the troops ’cause he doesn’t like their stock of clubhouse girls.”

  “Thanks, bro,” Heck said. “Not tonight. Not feeling it. ’Sides, I am not going to be the prez of the MC.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Elizabeth said, walking up to her son and Roadkill. Heck was surprised to see her. She had been holding court since they arrived, talking and drinking with the presidents of the seven other Jock chapters here, as well as reminiscing with Glen and Reggie. “Walk with me, Hector.”

  Roadkill slapped him on the back as he descended the porch stairs and fell in step beside his mother. The Eagles had been replaced with Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks.”

  Elizabeth led him away from the party toward a dark, relatively quiet section of field. “We have a new problem,” she said.

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Heck said.

  “The club,” Elizabeth said, “me, you—especially you.”

  “What?” Heck asked.

  “Do you know who Cherokee Mike is?” Elizabeth asked. Heck thought a moment and then nodded.

  “Yeah,” Heck said. “Mike Locklear. He’s a Nomad. Used to be with the Charlotte chapter. I seem to recall he was an asshole.”

  “He is,” Elizabeth said. “The worst kind—a dangerous and smart asshole. It’s not widely known, but he went Nomad to avoid getting kicked out of the MC entirely. He just got out of Central Prison, and he’s looking to stake a claim to be president of the mother chapter. He wants Ale’s job, Heck. He wants your job.”

  “It’s not my damn job, Mom!” Heck said, throwing his hands up in the air. “Regardless of what you and Ale wanted. Maybe Mike will do good by the MC.”

  “He won’t,” Elizabeth said. “He’ll destroy it, Hector. Cherokee Mike wants to take the Blue Jocks into the meth trade. He was opposed to the club doing bounty hunting to pay the bills. He’s always wanted the club to get into drugs. He wanted to make deals with the creatures out there we hunt. Not stop them from hurting people, not destroy them, use them to advance our position—his position. It was Ale that kept him in check. Now Ale’s gone, and Mike figures it’s his time.”

  “Well, if he’s such an asshole he won’t get voted in,” Heck said. “He’d have to be accepted back by the mother chapter, by Wilmington, then he’d have to get enough support to—”

  “You don’t understand,” Elizabeth interrupted. “Mike is no outlaw; he’s got no code, no honor. He doesn’t care about traditions. He’s a gangster, a thug, and he will wreck anything that gets between him and what he wants, and he wants the MC. You can stop him, but there’s not much time.”

  Heck shook his head. “Are you kidding me, Mom! Is this just some new bullshit way to drag me into Ale’s chair? You want me to go fuck up Cherokee Mike and tell him to leave Wilmington alone, I will. But don’t pull some mind-fuck on me, trying to get what you want.”

  “He’s already threatened Glen,” Elizabeth said softly. “Said something might happen to the garage and to Jethro if he doesn’t get patched back in. Reggie, too. He’s making moves, buying or scaring people. He will burn down everything your grandfather and Ale built. You try to go after him now, you will wind up dead, or in prison, which is exactly what Cherokee Mike wants.”

  Heck looked up and let the air out of his lungs with a whoosh, running his hands through his tangled hair. The stars burned above with ancient, cold fire; each was a story already told and ended. He saw Ale’s face, weathered and smiling—as much as Ale ever did smile. The memory, the mental snapshot, came from the moment he first knew this man was his father, sure and true—balls to bones. He had been three, and it was one of his first memories, one of his best. He turned back to his mother, his green eyes bright and cool. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it. I’ll be president.”

  Elizabeth sighed. She hugged her son for as long as he would allow it. “Now,” she said, “you need to be initiated.”

  “I am, Mom,” Heck said. “At sixteen, remember?”

  “No,” she said. “This is different. A secret only the originals know. The Blue Jocks are part of something much older, much bigger than us. And it is an unspoken law that every president of the MC must be a member of both societies to lead.”

  “Are you serious?” Heck said. “What, are we hooked up with the fucking Shriners or something, Mom? In case you forgot, the Blue Jocks hunt monsters, Mom … real fucking monsters. It can’t be more secret or weird than that. If this shit with Cherokee Mike is so serious, I don’t have the time or the inclination to go learn a bunch of fucking secret handshakes and how to drive a clown car.”

  Heck felt his mother’s full, angry regard. He stopped. Even as a grown man, having seen combat and worse, his mother’s disapproving gaze held him and stilled him.

  “I love you, Hector,” she said. “But you really do need to learn when to shut the hell up and listen. Unless we do this the right way, the traditional way, we will be just as guilty of destroying the Blue Jocks as Cherokee Mike. We have to be better. You have to be better. I know you can do it. I know, and Ale knew. It fell to him, as your father, to make you his squire. That’s why he didn’t want you to go. That’s why he was so angry and disappointed. He wanted you to stay and learn from him.”

  “Why didn’t he say that, Mom? Jesus!” Heck said. “If he had only—”

  “He tried,” she said. “You were too angry to hear him, and the old pigheaded bastard was too prideful to admit how much your rejection hurt him. He tried the best a man like him can. This was a secret, Hector. More so than the things the MC hunt when they aren’t bounty hunting. The biggest secret you will ever discover in your lifetime, and a huge responsibility. It can’t
just be blurted out.”

  Heck paced in a circle, shaking his head. He sighed and rubbed his hair. “What do I do?”

  Elizabeth produced a sealed envelope from her jacket pocket. She handed it to Heck. “Do you remember Jimmie Aussapile?”

  “The trucker?” Heck said. “Yeah. He used to come by when I was little. He and Ale were tight. I figured he’d be here today.”

  “You used to call him Uncle Jimmie,” Elizabeth said. “Jimmie’s on the road, otherwise he would have been. I need you to find him. Give him this. Offer yourself to him as a squire of the Brethren.”

  “The what of the what?” Heck said.

  “It’s all I can tell you,” Elizabeth said. “Once you offer and he accepts you, then Jimmie can explain more.”

  “How long does this take?” Heck asked. “You’re making it sound like we don’t have a ton of time before Mike makes a move.”

  “Months, years sometimes,” Elizabeth said. “As long as it takes.”

  “Years…” Heck repeated. “Great. What about—”

  “I’ll handle Mike,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll stall him, slow him down. Don’t you worry.”

  “You told me this guy wants me dead,” Heck said. “He can’t think too much of you, either, Mom.”

  Elizabeth hugged her son again and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be fine. I’m a cunning old bitch. Go. You got a long ride ahead of you. Reggie said he’ll get me home.”

  Heck started to walk toward Ale’s hog.

  Elizabeth’s voice stopped him. “He was so proud of you,” she said. “Proud to bust. Proud you were a marine. Proud you were his son. Proud of the man you had become. I wanted you to hear it this time.”

  Heck didn’t look back; he started walking again.

  THREE

  “10-200”

  Lovina Marcou parked her car a block away from the crime scene. She unzipped her leather carry bag and checked to make sure she had what she needed: her picks and pry bar, the compact UV wand, fingerprint lift tape, various powders and sprays to draw out prints from different surfaces, the Canon EOS 5D Mark III digital forensic camera. She always got nervous using the camera. It cost more than a month’s pay, and, given what she was doing tonight, it would be hard to explain if anything happened to it.