by Sy Walker
“So how did he meet you? How does he consider you his family when he doesn’t have one?” Mack was fascinated. And he wasn’t sure that he’d ever heard a more disturbing and sad tale than the one of the tribe of lost boys banding together against the world. No wonder they were so aggressive.
“I found the little guy running around in my front yard. I can’t tell you much about what happened, but suffice it to say I made sure that he was taken care of. He begged me not to take him to the authorities, and I knew the legal loopholes could make our lives hell, so I let him do as he pleased and made sure that he didn’t get in trouble for it. I basically just looked after him. He was used to living in the mountains, you know, but he still needed someone to take care of him. So that’s what I did. Not quite a mother, which is why he calls me an aunt.”
“I see,” Mack said. He was quiet for a moment before he turned back to his plate. “Thank you for telling me. So what kinds of things does the MC do around here?”
She laughed and threw her hands up in the air, shaking her head as if to say she had no control over what they did. “I really couldn’t tell you, honey, it depends on the day. Saber tries to keep everybody in line, but most of the men fancy themselves to be tough guys and do as they please. But they all answer to Saber and respect him, so they try not to piss him off too much. Basically, he keeps them out of trouble the same way I kept him out of trouble, and he keeps them from causing trouble, too. It works out for everybody in the long run. Don’t let the MC bother you; he’s really a sweet guy underneath it all. Sometimes I think he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Mack smiled warmly at her as he finished his meal. He paid her generously and left, heading back to the mountains. It was time for him to go on a hike and think about everything that he had learned. Who would’ve thought that he didn’t need to stalk Saber the way he had been to learn about the MC. The answer had been right in front of him all along.
Chapter 18
Mack was too busy whistling to notice the motorcycle following him along the road, and then he was too busy hiking up and down the trail to feel the eyes burning into him. If he had noticed, he probably would’ve just assumed that it was Saber, but Saber was snugly tucked inside his own bed and sleeping the day away.
Mack had no sense of danger and felt perfectly at peace, and so he believed himself to be for the rest of that night and the morning after. It had been a while since he had spoken to Saber, but talking to his aunt about his origins had helped Mack to start making sense of the way he was. It had probably been very troubling for him to grow up without anybody, and so Mack decided to reach out to Saber and show him that he really cared about him, and he could be trusted for something long-term if he was willing to commit to him.
Commitment was sometimes a big deal in the gay community, because it could be so wildly tempting to enjoy the affections of whatever man was convenient. A lot of the men he knew in LA had disagreements with their partners, but Mack had never been interested in sharing. He was a very old-fashioned man who enjoyed the values of traditional marriage, despite his untraditional taste in lovers.
He started to find it odd that he hadn’t heard from Saber in a few days. Usually about three days was the maximum that they had gone without seeing each other, but for some reason, Saber hadn’t shown up. Maybe he had seen him driving around town and found out that he had been checking up on him. Mack was sort of ashamed of himself for it, but he needed to know the kind of person that he was dealing with. He really wanted to figure out his feelings, and it was more important than ever now that he was trying to figure out the next stage of his life. If he wanted to spend it with Saber, and he wasn’t sure that he did, he would have to figure it out now, because he couldn’t stay a camper forever. He was starting to get homesick. But not for LA. More for anyplace that he could call his own. Sleeping under the stars for a while was nice and refreshing, but he didn’t want to make a habit of it. He needed a roof over his head, and somewhere to take nice hot showers. The stream was refreshing, but he was really starting to miss temperature-controlled water.
He finally decided to pop into the car and head out to find Saber. He was really starting to miss the way that the man could make him feel. He was starting to wonder if he was really staying in the Joshua Tree National Park for himself or if he was hanging around because he was hoping to catch sight of Saber. The tale that his aunt had spun had been sad, and now that he had seen the man in a softer light, he was desperate to talk to him.
When he realized that Saber wasn’t home, his stomach turned. He hadn’t wanted to talk about this at the MC, everybody there seemed to have prying eyes. However, when he had shown up before, Saber had been able to save him from the harshness of the judgment from the men there, and they usually ended up escaping to be alone together. Maybe that would happen again. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling in his stomach.
He parked outside the MC and stared at the dark windows. He hesitated for a moment before getting out of the car and walking nervously toward the door. He had been confident enough the first time, but that was before he had heard Saber telling his men that if Mack had anything to do with the destruction of the conservation area, they would have his blessing to kill him. Remembering this made his uneasiness even more extreme, but he decided to keep going anyway and hope for the best.
He pushed into the doorway of the MC.
All eyes turned to him, and he swallowed hard. Saber was staring across the room at him, but the look in his eyes was strange. Distant and aloof. He wasn’t sure that he would be saved from the men this time. What had he done?
Chapter 19
“Mack, you shouldn’t be here,” Saber said without budging from the wall.
“But-”
“Yeah, scram, you little twink!” said the same man who had been trying Mack’s nerves since the beginning. He tried Saber’s nerves too, but instead of correcting him, Saber only narrowed his eyes.
“I’m serious, we’re in the middle of something. Could you just –”
“What are you in the middle of? What’s the big secret? What does the MC do? Deal drugs? Have an underground empire to run? Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on!?”
An old man, still tougher than Mack was, lunged at him. Somehow, before the blow landed, Saber was between them and pulling Mack out of the bar by the collar of his shirt.
“What do you think you’re trying to pull, busting in here like that and making accusations? You’re not going to make any fuckin’ friends that way, I can tell you that much. What do you want, Mack?”
Mack suddenly felt deflated. “I guess I just want to be close to you,” he said with a heavy sigh.
“I thought I already made this clear. I can’t get close to you. I can’t do what you want me to do. I have a lot of secrets, all right, and I’m not interested in sharing them with you. You wouldn’t understand.”
“No, I already spoke with your aunt! I do understand. I know about –”
“You don’t know shit,” Saber interrupted, his blue eyes dark and threatening. He pushed past Mack and disappeared into the din of the MC. “Get the hell out of here,” he growled, and slammed the door behind him.
***
Mack felt the heat of embarrassment flush his cheeks as he walked quietly to his car. He could hear all the men in the MC jeering at him and cheering as he was forced away. He had never felt more humiliated in his life. All he had wanted to do was get closer to Saber. And somehow he had just created a memory that he was sure would haunt him for the rest of his life. So much for a great new start with a good guy. That didn’t seem to be possible. He had already set himself up for failure; there was no chance that the universe would let him change hands now.
He decided that he would leave the Joshua Tree area and never look back. He was too humiliated. But when he dug his hand into his pocket, he realized with a pang of anxiety that his phone wasn’t there. He must have dropped it at the campsite.
“Ugh!” he
growled, slamming his fist against the steering wheel. The horn let out a sharp honk and he could hear the laughter of the men become louder and more obnoxious through the open window of his sports car. Mack tried not to let himself cry as he headed back to the Joshua Tree National Park.
He searched for about half an hour before he found his former campsite. His cell phone was lying on the tree stump, right where he had left it. He sighed and pocketed it, taking a deep breath to try and collect his thoughts. So what if Saber wanted nothing to do with him? He had come here for himself, not for anybody else. And there was still a trail left that he hadn’t gotten a chance to hike yet. He wouldn’t let the idiots from the bar bother him. He would spend his last day at the park doing just as he had intended to do – hiking and spending some quality time with himself and himself alone.
Chapter 20
Mack made sure that his gear was packed tightly away and headed toward the trail. He felt a surge of excitement despite his terrible experience at the MC. But if he could train himself to try to steel his emotions about Saber and the whole sorry lot, then he could get over what he had experienced and start his life over somewhere new. Somewhere people had never heard of him before.
With a renewed sense of adventure, Mack set off on the trail, checking his map to make sure he was on course. Once he was deep in the woods, he started feeling uneasy, as if somebody was watching him. The discomfort followed him for another half hour, until he started hearing strange noises coming from the brush.
Suddenly, the savage man from the bar, the one who had insisted on calling him a twink and making everything more difficult for Saber sprang out from the bushes.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said with a leering grin. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Like hell. You’ve been following me, haven’t you?”
“Plucky! I wouldn’t have guessed that. Though I guess there’s got to be some reason that Saber was into you.”
“Just leave me alone, all right?” Mack said confidently, turning away. However, his legs were shaking despite himself.
“Not so fuckin’ fast, little twink. I got me an appetite for something soft and sweet like you. You get me?”
The man came close to Mack. He towered above him, and now that they were closer together, Mack noticed that his face was pockmarked and scarred, full of ugly red gashes. His teeth were crooked and his eyes were beady and fierce. He had stringy black hair that hung limply, just grazing his shoulders, and the beard that covered his face was thin and unkempt, unlike Saber’s full, neatly groomed facial hair.
“I said, do you get me? You know what I want from you, twink?”’
“Would you stop calling me that please?” Mack said, his voice barely above a whisper. He couldn’t do much against this man, that much was certain. If he made an advance, there was no way that he would be able to defend himself.
The vile man’s hands were suddenly pulling Mack forward by the shoulder straps of his hiking bag, and he stumbled, falling to the ground hard on his knees. He tottered for a second, trying to gain his balance and stand.
“No, no, no. I’ve got you right where I want you now, twink. You stay right there,” the man said, grinning cruelly down at Mack and forcing him down with his head in his crotch. It smelled sweaty and sour, and Mack recoiled as the man’s meaty fingers fumbled at the button of his jeans. Just as the zipper was about to free the man from his pants, a mighty roar made them both jump.
“Oh hell no!” the man shouted, whipping around, his eyes darting to the green foliage of the forest. “What the hell are you doing here?”
A wolf, the white wolf that Mack had been seeing so frequently around the forest, suddenly lunged at the man. He jumped back, narrowly avoiding a lethal blow. He suffered just a scratch on the abdomen, and looked down at his ripped leather vest.
“Goddamn it! You owe me for this one! It was Frank’s, you fucker!”
Mack paled as his attacker let out an earth-shattering roar and coarse black hair began to spring out all over his body. He crouched, his clothes falling onto the ground in a heap as his body contorted from a human form and into that of a wolf.
Mack stared at him in disbelief as the scraggly black wolf lunged at the majestic white wolf that had saved him from the man’s advances. They were coming violently to blows not far from where Mack was still kneeling in shock. He got shakily to his feet and watched the fight. The white wolf clearly had the upper hand, snarling confidently as the other threw himself at it. Mack squeezed his eyes shut as the black wolf howled in pain, and then lashed viciously at the white wolf, who whimpered briefly before apparently retaliating.
Mack was suddenly knocked onto the ground as the wolves tumbled toward him, rolling around in a fight for dominance. He had never seen anything like this, though he’d been scarred on his arm a while back trying to break up a dog fight. That was scary but it was nothing like what he was seeing with the wolves now. Though they were both fighting to the death, nothing could have prepared him for the feral wildness of this battle.
The white wolf suddenly roared loudly in pain, its cry echoing throughout the forest. Mack whipped around just in time to see it flung into a thick tree and collapse in pain. The black wolf caught Mack’s eye, and he could have sworn he saw a gleam in it. Their eyes remained locked as the wolf began to walk tauntingly toward him, as if he had intended to finish what he’d started before dealing the finishing blow. As if for some reason he wanted the wolf to see that he’d won.
Mack trembled as he scrambled along the dirt path, cursing the bulkiness of his huge backpack. It was probably going to cost him his life now, and he tried to unthread his arms from the straps so that if he had a chance to run, he could bolt up a tree unimpeded.
He needn’t have feared though. A howl of anguish suddenly erupted from the black wolf, and he collapsed to the ground. Behind him was the white wolf, its snout drenched and stained red with blood. The black wolf lay dead on the forest floor, its throat ripped open inches away from Mack. The magnificent white wolf gave its enemy the once over, confirming the kill, before crumpling to the ground.
Mack watched in disbelief as the white wolf began to change right before his eyes, its white fur receding and changing into long, golden strands of hair, and revealing a naked, beautiful body writhing in pain. He suddenly recognized the face of the man who lay passed out in front of him – the man who had saved his life. It was Saber. And he needed help.
Chapter 21
Mack grimaced as he laid Saber down in the backseat of his sports car. He hadn’t regained consciousness yet, and Mack had done his best to bandage him up using the first aid kit that he kept in his backpack. He hadn’t realized the man would be so heavy, but that was all right. Although Mack was scrawny and couldn’t fight to save his life, he had stayed in shape and was determined to help the man he loved. After all, that was what had been developing in his heart, whether he wanted to admit it or not. The secrets Saber had been keeping from him, the distance, it all started to make sense.
He started the car and took off down the road, turning the corner as quickly as he could without going off the road.
Saber groaned in pain. “Mack?”
“I’m going to get you to a hospital,” Mack said in his most reassuring voice. In truth, he was scared beyond belief.
“No,” Saber said firmly. “No hospital will know how to treat this. You could have just left me there.”
“I can’t just let you die,” Mack said, shocked at the notion. “Not when I…I mean, not after you saved my life.”
Saber seemed too pained to speak again and closed his eyes, nodding quietly at Mack. “My aunt,” he said. “She’ll know what to do.”
“Right,” Mack said. This made him feel immensely better. Now he had a plan, and they would be able to make sure that something happened, whether Saber could go to the hospital or not. Mack could follow the plan. It was one thing he had always been good at.
They drove in silence until they
got to the diner. There was a single man eating inside, and Mack glanced in the rearview mirror at Saber. He would try to make this as discreet as possible.
“I’ll be right back,” he promised. “Hang in there.”
Saber gave him a sardonic look, and Mack laughed despite himself. He had never laughed in the gravity of a serious situation before, and he wasn’t sure if it was his nerves or if Saber just had that effect on him.
As soon as Saber’s aunt saw him, she noticed the blood smeared on his shirt.
“Saber,” he mouthed.
She nodded, immediately understanding. “Dan, I’m sorry, but there’s a bit of a family emergency and I’ll need you to take the rest of your food to go. Now. You can keep the plate.”
“I –” Dan looked confused.
“Now,” she said.
The man nodded, suddenly understanding how serious it must be for her to be shooing him out of the diner and grabbed the plate, walking out the door. Thankfully he didn’t think to look in the back of the sports car as he left.
When he was finally out of sight, Mack led Sandy to his car, and she gasped when she saw Saber in the back.
“You usually win in a fight,” she said, shaking her head at him.
He grinned weakly at her. “I did,” he said.
“Well, this won’t do. We need to take him down the block, to the farm. Grew up tending to all sorts of animals. Reckon I still have enough iodine for this sorry ass.”
This made Saber grin broadly, and Mack laughed shakily.
“I’ll drive you,” he said. Sandy climbed into the passenger’s seat and they hurried to her property, where she had him pull in down a long driveway and park beside a wooden building.
“Let’s get him inside,” she said softly.
Mack nodded, and they carried him as easily as they could into the building. Mack was surprised by how comfortable it was when they went in. It looked like a shack from the outside but inside it was heated and clean-looking tables and equipment lined the walls. Sandy whipped a blanket onto a table and helped Mack lift Saber onto it.