by Zoey Parker
Clem gulped nervously, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he waited for her answer.
“Okay,” Billie agreed, taking a sip from her beer and wiping her mouth. “How much money have you got?”
Clem grinned nervously, reaching into the pocket of his grass-stained overalls. He pulled out a handful of crumpled bills and counted them out on the bar. “Fifty bucks.”
“Not bad,” Billie commented, nodding. “For how long?”
Clem's smile widened, revealing two rows of small, crooked teeth. “Heck, gal, since it's you? I'd go a whole forty-five seconds.”
Next to him, Big Pete Crabtree let out a wheezing guffaw and slapped his knee with a huge, hairy hand. “Boy, are you kiddin'? This is Billie Rosewood we got here!” Pete pulled out a roll of bills and peeled off five twenties. “I got a hunnert dollars fer the full sixty seconds.”
“Aw, yer a couple a' cheap-ass pikers, both of ya,” Red Hawley sneered, tossing some money on the bar. “I got a hundred an' fifty bucks says we're gonna have ninety seconds of pure goddamn poetry in motion tonight. What do you say, darlin'?” He winked at Billie lasciviously.
“All right, boys, all right,” Billie said, sipping her beer again. “No need to fight. There's plenty of action to go around. Only what if I say anything less than the full two minutes is a waste of this lady's time, huh?”
The men gaped at her, astonished.
“No way,” Pete said, shaking his big head vigorously. Dust and hayseeds drifted down from his shaggy gray hair, settling on the surface of the bar like snow flurries.
“Nuh-uh,” Clem agreed. “Ain't no way a little gal like you is gonna be able to hang on for the full two minutes. Not with somethin' that big an' powerful between yer legs.”
“Ninety seconds,” Red chimed in. “Anythin' more than that an' yer gonna be on the ground lookin' up, feelin' like you just got punched in the pussy by a freight train.”
Billie shrugged mildly. “Well, maybe you're right, and maybe you're wrong. But there's one surefire way to find out, fellas. And in the immortal words of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 'Money talks and bullshit walks.' So are you in, or not?”
The three men exchanged skeptical looks. Finally, Clem said, “Okay, you're on. Show us what you got.”
Billie nodded and finished her beer in three long gulps. “I'll need some tunes to get in the mood,” she said, pushing a button on the bar's stereo. The song switched over to Merle Haggard lamenting about how there ain't no good in an evil-hearted woman.
Satisfied, Billie walked around the bar to the mechanical bull in the center of the room.
“Hey, Carlito,” she called out to the bar's owner.
Carlito was in his early fifties, a short, stocky Mexican with a shaved head and a white handlebar mustache. He looked up from the table he was wiping down, his eyebrows raised.
“I'm gonna ride Bessie,” Billie announced, stepping up to the bull and straddling it. She wrapped her fingers around the fake horns, ready to hold on for dear life. “Make sure you turn 'er all the way up, y'hear? I want to make sure these boys get their money's worth.”
Carlito shook his head and chuckled as he positioned himself next to the control switch for the bull. Billie's entire body tensed up as she prepared for the machine to start moving. She'd never actually managed to stay on for more than one minute and ten seconds, but she felt lucky tonight.
The other bar patrons formed a loose circle around the platform with the bull. All the faces were familiar, especially the men's. They came to the saloon to drink almost every night, swapping the same old stories and dirty jokes. Sometimes it seemed to Billie like she'd either dated, fucked, or rejected every man in Cactus Hollow at one time or another.
Sometimes she fantasized about leaving, but where was there to go? The town was close to where the borders of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico converged. It seemed like deserts and wheat fields stretched out to infinity in every direction.
Carlito counted down loudly. “Tres...dos...uno!”
He hit the button and the huge machine heaved between Billie's legs. She gripped the horns as hard as she could, her palms already slick with sweat. The hairy bull head rose and fell sharply, its glass eyes reflecting the neon beer signs over the bar.
As the crowd around her cheered and hollered, Billie stole a glance at the clock on the wall.
Only twenty-two seconds. Shit.
She squeezed her legs together with all of her strength as the mechanical beast bucked and lurched. Her head bounced in every direction with such force that she felt like her neck might snap at any moment. With each sudden movement, her crotch slammed against the unforgiving saddle. The sound of the patrons whooping blended into a single constant roar, like the sound of a seashell against her ear.
Another peek at the clock.
Fifty-seven seconds.
Okay. Not bad.
The bull reared up suddenly and Billie was almost thrown backward. Her wrists ached from how tightly she was clinging to the horns, and the bones in her arms felt like tuning forks. She felt herself starting to slip off to the side and tried to hold on tighter, but her fingers were filled with pins and needles and she worried that soon they'd go completely numb. She kept one leg hooked over the back of the machine and threw herself to the other side to counterbalance, straightening out.
The clock again.
One minute and eighteen seconds.
Come on, goddamn it, she thought. Forty more seconds. You can do this. Tonight's the night.
The monstrous machine shifted to one side unexpectedly, and Billie's right hand came loose from the horn it was holding. She flailed, trying to find her grip again but clutching at air instead. The other hand lost its grip a half-second later and she felt her ass rise off of the saddle. She let out a sharp yell and plunged both hands forward, desperately grabbing for the short patches of fake fur on the bull's neck. Her inner thighs connected with the saddle again, but the muscles in them were burning viciously.
She felt her sweaty hands lose their purchase on the brown fur and closed her eyes, preparing to be thrown off...
“Two minutes!” Clem screamed. “Well, I'll be butched. She did it!”
The bull came to an abrupt stop and Billie came down hard on top of it, gasping and panting. Her shirt was soaked with sweat and the space between her legs felt like it had been hit by a wrecking ball.
She rolled over and let herself fall to the floor on her back, sore, exhausted, three hundred bucks richer and laughing triumphantly as the men at the bar drank a toast to her.
Chapter 2
Carter
Carter's motorcycle roared like a hungry demon as he rode down Route 385, crossing the border from Oklahoma into Texas with Hazmat and Oiler right behind him. Their saddlebags were heavy with the bundles of cash they'd stolen from the First Farmer's Bank and Trust in Boise City, Oklahoma, just a couple of hours before, and Carter's blood was still up from the heist, his skin crawling with excitement like it was covered with busy ants.
The bank's elderly security guard hadn't put up a fight. There hadn't been any exploding dye packs stashed in the money bags.
And best of all, there were no state police vehicles on their heels.
The Metal Monsters MC—of which Carter was currently president, with Oiler and Hazmat as his vice president and sergeant-at-arms, respectively—had gotten away clean with nineteen thousand dollars, and no one had been hurt in the process.
Carter felt the cool night air on his face as the dusty corn fields on either side of the highway slowly gave way to dry mesas and desert blooms. He saw a bullet-pocked sign by the side of the road that read, “Welcome to Cactus Hollow – Spiky Name, Flowery People! Enjoy Your Stay!”
His face broke into a wide grin and he let out a triumphant yell, popping a wheelie. He heard the other two laugh wildly, revving their engines and racing him to the sign ahead.
Until about a month ago, Carter had been the club secretary for the Hobgoblins, a
biker gang based in Pensacola. They'd gotten into an ugly turf war with the Naggia family, a Miami crime syndicate determined to stomp out all of their competition in Florida's drug trade. The Hobgoblins were proud and tough, but their club of roughly three dozen brawlers and gearheads was easily outmanned and outgunned by the Naggias, who also controlled most of the state's cops and judges.
Within two weeks of fighting with the Naggias, almost every member of the Hobgoblins was either dead or in prison—and Carter, Hazmat, and Oiler were laying low in Mobile, burning their old patches and wondering what to do next as the little money they had quickly run out.
Carter had always dreamed of starting his own MC, and the other two quickly agreed to join him. Oiler came up with the name “Metal Monsters,” and he even designed their new patch, a menacing robot face he remembered from an old sci-fi flick he'd loved as a kid.
But establishing a club with any balls behind it would also take money, and Hazmat came up with the idea to go on a bank robbing spree across the south. The plan was to travel in a wide and unpredictable arc, hitting local banks in remote towns across five states: Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and finally Texas. The takes would be relatively small compared to more prestigious banks in bigger cities, but the security would be minimal, making them far more low-risk.
Then they'd find a safe place to hole up in southern Texas, waiting for the heat to die down before they relocated and set up their new club. The law wouldn't have any proof that they were the ones who committed the crimes—the masks they wore would make sure of that—but word of their robberies would ring out among outlaws, securing their reputations and attracting new prospects to their MC.
They'd carried out the first two heists without much trouble, since surprise was still on their side. They took twenty-five thousand from the bank in Mississippi, and another ten thousand from the one in Louisiana.
But by the time they attempted their third score, the news of their previous robberies had reached the Arkansas State Police, who were on high alert along with a handful of feds from the FBI's field office in Little Rock. Carter and the boys managed to grab a little over seven thousand dollars before a shoot-out with the cops forced them to flee, sirens wailing behind them for miles until they were able to evade the squad cars via the side roads.
“Okay, time to pack it in,” Oiler said as they made camp in the Ouachita Forest that night, cooking pork and beans over a small fire. He was a small, wiry man in his late twenties, with prematurely-receding blonde hair and beady brown eyes that always seemed to be blinking. His voice was generally soft and hesitant, like a shy child who was called to the blackboard to explain a difficult math problem.
“Knockin' over three banks without gettin' shot or arrested ain't a bad tally overall,” he continued, stirring the pot. “An' forty-two thou might not be as much as we wanted, but it's still not a bad haul for sixteen days. If we don't wanna end up behind bars, I say we call it good an' find a place to hole up.”
Hazmat glared at him over the fire. His scarred and weathered face resembled a pirate's, and his copper-colored hair was shaved into a short mohawk. His pale green eyes perpetually seemed to flicker between confusion and anger.
“First of all, when it comes to makin' a rep for ourselves, three banks ain't five,” Hazmat counted off on his stubby, freckled fingers. “Second, if we wanna get the Monsters properly set up, we're gonna need a lot more than forty-two thou to establish a steady stream of guns an' product to run. An' third, if you're pissin' your pants about bein' behind bars, maybe you oughtta work at a fuckin' Starbucks 'stead of tryin' to be a biker.”
“Hey, don't be mean, okay?” Oiler said plaintively. “You've seen me in enough scrapes to know I'm not yellow, so don't act like we're on a playground. Havin' balls and havin' brains ain't no either/or scenario, and I happen to think riskin' serious prison time after what we just escaped in Pensacola is pretty stupid. Maybe if you'd done a six-year stretch like I have, you'd understand why I ain't so eager to go back.”
Hazmat waved him off impatiently. “Shit, there you go again. You're always bringin' that up. Where I come from, guys brag about the time they spend outside the joint, not in it.”
“I ain't braggin' about the time I did,” Oiler said, spooning some beans onto his plate. “I reckon it's the most horrible and degrading thing a man can go through, and I don't ever plan on seein' those bars around me again no matter what. Besides, one of my biggest reasons for goin' along with this whole cockeyed plan is I got a wife an' kid over in Jacksonville who count on the money I send 'em. But I ain't gonna be able to send 'em much if I'm makin' two cents an hour stampin' license plates in the pen.”
“No one's stampin' nothin',” Hazmat insisted. “Carter's got inside info on the bank in Texas, so we can't lose. Won't even have to case the joint or nothin'. Ain't that right, Carter?”
“Not only that,” Carter said, “but if we do it right, it'll triple our cash.”
Also, Carter had made a promise to someone important that he'd rip off this particular bank, though he chose to keep that to himself.
“Fine,” Oiler sighed, “so let's pretend this last bank down in Texas is some kind of miracle job like Carter says it is, where somehow there's no cops or security guards anywhere in the state and we'll all fly away on the backs of unicorns with big bottomless bags of money. Why don't we just make that our next and last score, then? We've been lucky so far. Why risk some bank in Oklahoma on the way?”
“Because it's there,” Carter said decisively. “And because luck's not good for anything unless you push it.”
So they had, and oh, the First Farmer's Bank and Trust had been the sweetest little honey of a job Carter had ever pulled in his life. No chase, no shots fired, no hassle of any kind.
And by this time tomorrow, their spree would be at an end and they'd all be richer than they'd ever been before.
Carter saw a roadhouse called The Boot Hill Saloon and motioned for the others to follow him to it. He needed something to wash the taste of adrenaline from his tongue and calm the jitters on his skin before turning in for the night.
They pulled into the parking lot, cut their engines, and slung their saddlebags over their shoulders before heading inside.
Chapter 3
Billie
The bell over the door to the saloon jangled and Billie turned to look as Sheriff Greg Panzer strolled in, just as he always did at ten o'clock whenever Billie was working. He'd made a habit of this ever since she'd gotten the job, and the pattern they followed was always the same.
“Pour you a drink, Panzie?” Billie asked as he sat down at the bar. “On the house, what with all the serving and protecting you do.”
Sure enough, the sheriff gave his usual response. “No thanks, Billie. I'm on duty.”
Billie smiled, shaking her head. “Aw, how come you ain't no fun anymore, Panzie? Back when we were in tenth grade, you used to be able to drink a whole case of beer in one night.”
“Yeah, I had one hell of a metabolism back then,” he chuckled, patting the gentle slope of his belly ruefully. “Didn't have a badge, either.”
“So now that you're the sheriff, you figure having one beer with your old high school sweetheart would cripple you in your never-ending battle with the sinister forces threatening Cactus Hollow? Is that it, Panzie?” she countered.
He rolled his eyes and tried to sound impatient, but pink spots of embarrassment were slowly spreading across his cheeks and forehead. He'd always hated it when she called him Panzie, but it had never stopped her.
“I didn't say nothing about no sinister forces or whatever,” he replied, trying to make his voice sound deeper and more authoritative without much success. “I just take my job seriously, is all. And we was never sweethearts, not that I can recall. You were always with other boys.”
“Too shy to ask me out between boyfriends, huh?” she asked teasingly. She knew he'd never have been able to work up the courage to ask her out back
then, any more than he could now. He still got red-faced and tongue-tied whenever he was in the same room with her.
True to form, Panzer's face was turning a deep shade of crimson, and he began to stammer. “The, uh, the way I remember it, there were always some pretty heavy areas of, um...overlap between your relationships,” he said, clearing his throat.
“Is that a nice way of pointing out I dated around a lot?” Billie prodded, batting her eyelashes at him innocently. “Can you blame me? When you're born and raised in a dump like Cactus Hollow, it's an ongoing battle against boredom. We're not all cut out for the thrill of law enforcement.”
Panzer laughed, relaxing a little. “I think the last law I actually had to enforce around here was when I told Old Man Fordham he had to cut back the branches on his spruce 'cause it was growing over onto Doc Samuels' property, and that was about two months ago. Other than that, it's mostly just crossword puzzles and re-election plans.” A shadow passed over his face briefly. “There's a chance that could change pretty soon, though.”