A Brother’s Salvation: The Sacred Brotherhood Book VII

by A. J. Downey

  I could almost hear an echo of his deep bass chuckle.

  That owl one you was talking about.

  I had enough of the texting, I called the number and he picked up on the first ring.

  “Hunter’s Choice?” I asked before he could even say ‘Hello.’

  “That would be the one, yes,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “What page are y’ on?” I asked.

  “Dunno if I got the same copy you do, but I’m on page fifty-four.”

  I turned forward in my book to fifty-four and skimmed the page.

  “Well if it’s the same as mine, you’re at the part where Jessamine is at the hospital, you just started her chapter.”

  “Yeah, that would be where I’m at.”

  “Well, I’ll be. I’ve read it afore, but you’ve gotten ahead of me from where I’m at now.”

  “Is that right?” he asked.

  “Surely is. So what got you reading that?” I asked.

  “You know it was you, but like I said, it ain’t what I expected.”

  “Well, what did you expect?” I asked, suppressing my laughter.

  “Not really sure, but this wasn’t it. I sure expected a whole lot of fuckin’, not a whole lot of actual story.”

  I laughed and laughed and when I finally got myself together, I said, “Well, the love stories of today are typically written by women for women. They certainly are a far cry from the old Fabio bodice-rippers my mama used to read.”

  “I can see that,” he said. “Found the attack in the barn was done pretty good. Author has a good grip on reality when it comes to violence.” I think I paused a little too long, because his voice came back over the line, a little softer, “Marcie, y’okay?”

  “Yeah! Yeah, I’m all right.”

  “Something I said?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Y’know, my family was here for Sunday dinner. My two girls, my oldest’s husband and his best friend. You recall Jimmy, the deputy that pulled us over?”

  “Ah, yeah. I take it they gave y’ a hard time about that?”

  “They’re just worried,” I said, and he chuckled, but it held a bitter edge.

  “They have a right, goin’ by what we used t’ be. I done a lot of bad things, gonna take the rest of my life to balance the scales and I still ain’t sure it’s gonna be enough.”

  “At least you’re tryin’. There are folks out there that do wrong every day of their lives under a false banner of what a good Christian should or would do. I’d honestly hate to be some of ‘em when it comes time to meet the maker.”

  “Mighty strong opinion you got there on the subject.”

  I sighed. It was, and it wasn’t always a welcome one around these parts, but I couldn’t stand hypocrisy. I said as much.

  “I can’t stand hypocrisy, and what kind of Christian woman would I be if God and Jesus can forgive but I can’t? I’m aware everybody has a past, Dragon. I’m no different. I just wish that folks nowadays could live and let live a little more. I don’t know, maybe I’m bein’ naive…”

  “Just a bit,” he drawled and I had to smile and shake my head. Not that he could see either. “There’s nothin’ wrong with naivety outta innocence, though. Y’ aren’t ignorant, not by a long shot.”

  “I’d like to think not,” I said with a snort. “I just want to believe the good in people, least until they do me wrong personally.”

  “I like t’ think that’s a noble quality,” he said.

  “Painful one, for sure,” I murmured, which was true. You tended to get hurt a lot with that philosophy.

  “I know I’m about to lose points for sayin’, but it takes a lot of courage for a woman who’s lived as much life as you have – ex-husband, two grown children, grandbaby on the way and the like, to live life that open.”

  “Was that a crack about my age?” I asked, yankin’ his chain some.

  “As gentle as I could make it, but yeah. Age has somethin’ to do with it.”

  “I believe you might owe me another drink for that,” I said.

  There was a long pause and he finally said, “How about next Friday?”

  “Can y’ make it Saturday?” I asked.

  “Y’know, I rightly believe I can.”

  “Good, pick me up at eight?”

  “Eight o’clock at yer place?”

  “Yeah, you know where it’s at?” I asked. I knew he did. I just wanted to see if he was gonna try and bullshit me.

  “Y’know I do, but if I didn’t, I could find out.”

  “Still not quite sure how I feel about that.”

  “Intimidated?” he asked.

  “Yes and no.”

  “Well that’s an interesting answer,” he said when I didn’t elaborate.

  “Isn’t it just?” I asked.

  He chuckled and said, “You gonna catch up to me?” he asked.

  I smiled, “You go on an’ read ahead if y’ want,” I told him. “Don’t let me hold y’ back.”

  He laughed again and said, “Maybe, I’m at the point in my life, I could use a little grounding.”

  “Things stormy?” I asked.

  “No, not at all, actually. Just feelin’ kind of adrift, while everyone is moored around me.”

  My heart kind of leapt. It was like he took the words right out of my heart on that one. That’s kind of exactly how it felt. I was quiet for a moment while I thought about what he said and finally came to the conclusion that, despite our odd meeting and the circumstances on how we met, I was all right with exploring this a little further and makin’ a new friend.

  “I know the feeling,” I confessed and it felt like a little bit of my silent burden eased.

  “I’ll see y’ Saturday at eight.”

  “Saturday at eight.”

  “Night, Marcie.”

  “Night, Dragon.”

  The phone disconnected in my ear and I lowered it and saved the number. Sighing, I took a sip of my tea and lifted my book, determined to catch up, and tickled he’d even picked it up.

  7

  Dragon…

  I hung up the phone and blew a plume of smoke into the air, leaning back on the swinging bench around the fire-pit. I pressed a hand to the back of my neck and tried to ease the kink I’d put into it out, while I rolled my eyes heavenward. The sky was rich with star-scatter, and I let my mind wander a bit.

  “Different, ain’t they?”

  I jumped and let my breath out slow as Doc trudged the rest of the way up the earthwork to the plateau the fire-pit setup rested on.

  I shook my head.

  “I may be gettin’ older, and I may be tryin’ to live peaceful, but it’s still a real bad idea sneakin’ up on a feller, old friend.”

  Doc chuckled and dropped onto the bench beside me.

  “My bad. Maybe I just been of a reckless kind of mind, lately.”

  “Miss her?” I asked, knowing right where he was at.

  “Seems like more, not less, with every day,” he said.

  I nodded and felt terrible. I knew how he felt, and I didn’t wish that on nobody. Least of all, him. Doc was one of the best of us when we were at our worst. I felt hell over guilty about how we’d practically conscripted him into the club, but at the same time, he’d stayed. Found something with us he wasn’t gettin’ out there, in his citizen life.

  “Stop that,” he said, and shook his bald head.

  “Stop what?” I demanded.

  “Lookin’ like I kicked yer favorite dog. As much as y’all dragged me into this life, I’m glad fer it. You kept me straight, for all yer crooked ways,” he said with a gusty sigh.

  Outta respect for the man and his position as a doctor, I stubbed out my cigarette on the sole of my boot.

  Doc had come to us by way of Unkind, who ran a lucrative bookie gig on the side. Club sanctioned, of course. He’d hooked Doc, got him in debt with the club, and when Doc couldn’t pay, rather than hurt him, we used him. It was right useful having an on-call eme
rgency physician and surgeon attached to the club.

  We could have made his gambling mistake a painful one, but instead, the Vietnam vet found somethin’ he’d been missin’ since his discharge from the Army. We was surprised when he wanted in, but we saw the benefit. We made him work for it, though. Made him prospect like any other. He’d earned those colors on his back twice over. He paid for ‘em in the blood of his woman, and for that, I was heartily sorry.

  “Never wanted you to know this kind of pain, Doc.”

  “I knew it the day she showed up in my ER, D. You can’t know how sorry I was – and still am ‒ that I couldn’t save Tilly.”

  “I do know. I can’t tell you how sorry I am our sins came back to haunt us with Chandra.”

  “I know you feel responsible, but that ain’t how it went down. Those cats brought the fight, we just finished it – just not in time. That there was straight up Karma.”

  “I know it,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Speaking of women…”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “What you got going on with this lady?”

  “Marcie?” I asked.

  “If that’s her name. You been playin’ this one awful close to the vest, brother.”

  “I have?” I asked, thinking it over and realizing that, yeah, I had been. I didn’t talk about her much, if at all, with any of the boys. I was surprised this was the first I was gettin’ any of them askin’ about it.

  “Huh, I guess I have,” I said finally, to fill the silence, realizing too, Doc was using my own tricks against me.

  “So?” he asked, when I was silent too long.

  “So, she’s not what I expected,” I said honestly.

  “How’s that?”

  “She’s got spunk, that’s for sure. Ornerier ‘n cat shit.”

  He laughed at that and shook his head, “Ornerier ‘n cat shit? I’m hafta remember that one. Just where do you get this shit?”

  I chuckled with him and shook my head, “I dunno where that one came from, but if I had to guess…”

  “Tilly,” we said in unison.

  “She like her?” he asked.

  I shook my head, “No. She’s different, in just about every way, but no less strong that I can see.”

  His mouth turned down at the corners and he nodded, mulling it over.

  I smiled to myself and said, “I like her, but just as a friend for now. It’s kind of nice reconnecting with a citizen and that kind of life. Certainly it’s a simpler one than ours.”

  “Boring, compared to ours,” he said dryly, and I cast my eyes back towards the sky and shook my head.

  “Maybe once I thought like that, and maybe I’m just gettin’ old, but I don’t see it so much as boring anymore,” I said. “Just different.”

  “You like her that much?” he asked.

  “Naw, man. She’s just… different. Calmer. Bein’ a grandpa, now, I kind of need calmer. Don’t you think?”

  He laughed and said, “I think we’ve all needed calmer for a good long while.”

  “Truth to that, my brother. Truth to that.”

  “You done with that?” he asked, and I looked down at the tattered paperback resting on my knee.

  “Actually, if you don’t mind, I’d right like to finish it.”

  “Well,” he said. “Looks like we can maybe start our very own book club.”

  I laughed at that and said, “Chandra’s callin’ us both a pair of pussies, right now. You know that, right?”

  “Oh, I know it,” he said, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “What I wouldn’t give for her to be here so I could rail that pussy of hers.”

  “Still a few club girls that come around.”

  He shook his head.

  “Wouldn’t feel right about it.”

  I nodded. That’s where Doc and I differed. When Tilly had died, I’d tapped whatever ass was on offer, hoping to find something. I still didn’t know what. I never did, of course, but a man has needs and I had no trouble gettin’ ‘em met.

  “Hey,” I called, when he got up to head toward his club room.

  He looked back over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, what?”

  “You got any more by this broad?” I asked.

  He nodded, “One of Chandra’s favorites. I got a whole shelf of her stuff. Even went out and bought her newest stuff. The stuff that came out after she was gone. I go down to the cemetery and read ‘em to her sometimes.”

  Tilly wasn’t much of a reader, or I probably would have done the same. She was a gardener, though, so I brought her roses from her garden, and sometimes left packets of seeds.

  “That’s a good thing, Doc.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, his expression sober, so somber.

  “Yeah. I’m sure Chandra loves it.”

  He sniffed and looked at the sky, I pretended I didn’t see the tears.

  “I miss her somethin’ awful, D.”

  “I know, brother.”

  “I can’t smell her or hear her like you can Tilly.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Feel her, sometimes though.”

  “That’s good! That’s good, Doc.”

  He nodded and didn’t say anything else. Just turned abruptly and trudged back toward the club’s main building and the back door. When the old screen clacked shut behind him, I heaved a big sigh, letting it out slow. I wished I could do something. I was agitated that I couldn’t. I pulled out a cig and put it between my lips while I fished for my lighter. I breathed in the smell of roses over the smell of fresh tobacco as I flipped back the lid on my Zippo.

  I thumbed over the wheel, the friction against the flint sparking, the cotton wick of the lighter catching. I stared at the flame and murmured around my cig, “I wish I knew what to do for him, baby.”

  The breeze out here kicked up and whisked the cloying smell of my wife’s flowers away. I lit my cig and sucked in a lungful of smoke, my nerves settling as the nicotine hit my bloodstream. It was too dark to read out here, now; the fire-pit was cold and dark. I didn’t want to light it. I just wanted to sit out here for a bit, smoke my cigarette, and stare at the sky.

  That done, I stubbed it out on the sole of my boot and gave the butt the same treatment I had the first one, flicking it in among the fire setup in the pit to burn off the rest of the way. I heaved my ass up onto my feet, my old injuries protesting, my joints creaking, and decided it was a bit cooler out here than I’d realized.

  I went in, the club quiet and dark. Everyone had gone home to be ready for the work week ahead. I liked the club when it was peaceful like this. Still. The halls were thick with nostalgia, and the vibrant energy of parties past was still there, but dulled down until the next shindig could replenish the supply. I went into my club room and kicked the door shut, dropping into my old recliner with a sigh and a creak of leather from my jacket and cut.

  I cracked open the novel and picked up where I left off. I wanted to stay just ahead of her if I could. I wanted to be able to talk to her about what happened without having the story spoiled.

  I was surprised.

  Mysteries that were in the same series, after a while usually got kind of formulaic, but I’d always heard and thought romance was a genre particularly guilty of being cookie cutters, the same ol' shit rehashed from book to book, despite changes to eye color or hair color, to names, or the setting. Guess these really weren’t your weird aunt’s romance novels. This one had some heart to it. Was different, even if the basis for it was the same. Guy saves girl from the awful things… they fall in love… and …Happily-Ever-After.

  In this one, though, it started out with the girl saving him. Even if she didn’t know what or who he was right away.

  It was nice. I could see why Marcie liked them. I could also see why Chandra liked them. Tough broad that she had been, she also had a good heart, a soft center. Especially where Doc was concerned.

  I always said women had it toughe
r than any man out there, when it came down to it. That’s why I’d been adamant, even at our worst, that women and children were fucking off-limits. They were the ones who had to shoulder the burden of life after men like me were gone. They were the ones that suffered most for our sins.

  I tried to push back the guilt and found it was a little easier this time. The smell of roses was faint but welcoming. Tilly was just so present lately, and I knew in the bottom of my heart that she was tryin’ to tell me to let go. I was a stubborn bastard, though, and if it was one thing I was good at, it was hoarding things. Just like my namesake, I hoarded all sorts of things like treasure. Books, memories, feelings, family, and unfortunately, grudges.

  I was real good at holding a grudge.

  More ‘n a few men had ended by my order or my hand, because of a grudge. In the end, it’d come back to bite me, in so many more ways than just my wife’s death. I was tryin’ to be better at letting things go, but Tilly? I didn’t know if I could. I honestly didn’t know if I ever should.

  I sighed, and pulled my readers off my face, pressing my fingertips into my eyes and tried to deal with the pain. Sometimes the guilt, the hurt, the grief, it welled up outta nowhere as fresh as a daisy, and that echoing sinister voice would snake out of the darkest corners of my mind and remind me what a piece of fuckin’ shit I was, how everyone would be so much better off without me, and how I should just eat my gun and get it over with.

  Countless times I’d sat here with that very same gun out and resting on my knee, very black against the light denim of my jeans. That voice had grown further and fewer between its appearances, and right now, it was barely a whisper, but like always, when it made an appearance, I contemplated it. I thought it over silently and I thought about all the boys, my son, and now, my grandson.

  While I could rationalize that leadership was no longer a problem, that Dray could run this club as good as I could, anymore, I couldn’t do that to my boy. I couldn’t leave my boy an orphan. Even though he was a man himself, now, he still had a lot to learn and I had to stick it out to smooth his way as best I could. I’d already made life rough enough for him.

  Then there was my new daughter. Probably one of the brightest spots of joy in my life, next to my grandson. She’d already had to say goodbye to her real daddy. I couldn’t do that to her twice over.