A Brother’s Salvation: The Sacred Brotherhood Book VII

by A. J. Downey

  We stood around the grave a long time while everyone waited for me to speak.

  “I don’t think he’d want us to be sad, rather I think he’d expect us all to be… I don’t know… relieved? Relieved to know he ain’t hurtin’ no more. Relieved to know he’s with Chandra now, and glad he went out on his own fuckin’ terms because, you know, fuck the man.”

  I raised a fist and pumped it twice into the air about shoulder height, halfheartedly. A few grunts of assent, and a couple of chuckles swept through the gathering.

  “What I don’t think he banked on was just how much we were going to miss his sorry ass. How much his wisdom meant to us, and how much he changed all of our lives for the better. Not just as a doctor, but as our brother, as our friend and confidante.” I sucked in a breath and blew it out slow.

  “Doc had a way about him. He kept our secrets, shared and soothed our pain both physical and emotional, and was always the one brother we could always count on to be there for us in our darkest fuckin’ hours when it felt like no other brother understood.”

  More noises of agreement, soft weeping from the women.

  “He stitched us up, he birthed our children, he made sure we were all right, no matter what. He took care of us, and life ain’t gonna be the same without him. Not only did this club lose one of our best men, this town lost the best damned doctor that it’s ever seen.”

  Cheers, some whistles and applause.

  “So pour one out for Doc. After all he’s fuckin’ done for us, he’s more ‘n earned a fuckin’ drink or two in the afterlife.”

  I gave a nod and they lowered my best friend’s casket into the ground. I reached into the pocket of my jacket for the mini-bottle of Doc’s favorite booze and cracked the seal. I poured it over the shiny black carapace of his casket and walked.

  The women threw in white roses, the men poured their shots, and one by one we went back to the bikes. I sighed and murmured, “See you next week, you old bastard. You too, baby.”

  Marcie slipped her hand in mine and squeezed, I glanced over to her and she gave me a tight-lipped smile, the corners of her light blue eyes fanned with wrinkles with how tight they were, her pain, her empathy for what I was feeling in that moment palpable. I gave her a brave smile in return, but fuck if I was feeling anything like brave in that moment.

  “Y’all have run of the house,” I called out to the out-of-town club members, members from other chapters who’d come to pay their respects. I jammed my helmet back on my head and said, “I got business.”

  “Keep the dirty side down, brother,” one of the Presidents from another chapter called out, and I gave a nod. I got onto my bike and Marcie got on behind me. Dray gave a nod and I pulled out, he followed, and we knew Ev would be right behind us with my grandson.

  It probably wasn’t the most ideal fuckin’ day to have Sunday dinner with the two damn families, but there honestly wasn’t any better day either. All I knew was I was ready for some fuckin’ food.

  28

  Marcie…

  I walked in my back door with Dragon on my heels and practically right into Bobby. The girls were at the table, setting it, while Rich and Jimmy were in the living room foolin’ over some damn game on the TV.

  “What’re you doin’ here?” I cried.

  “Thought you always told me I was still part of the family,” Bobby said, bending to kiss my cheek.

  “Well, today wasn’t exactly the day I wanted to do this, but Dragon, Bobby – Bobby, this here is Dragon and that’s his son, Dray. Dray’s lady, Everett, is on her way with their son, Stephen.”

  The TV had shut off and Rich and Jimmy had wandered up to stand in the archway from the kitchen to the living room while the girls stood in the archway from the kitchen to the dining room. The tension in the room was so thick you’d like to cut it with a knife.

  “Where were you, Mamma?” Devon asked and Dylan tried to elbow her older sister into silence, scowling at her.

  “Well, if you must know, I was at a funeral, girls,” I said and I felt like an intervention was in the offing, but boy I tell you – not today, Satan. Not. To. Day.

  Rich was the one to extend the olive branch. “Was real sorry to hear about your man, Dragon.”

  “Thank you, son,” Dragon said. He swallowed hard. “Your boys on the motorcycle patrol did us proud on the funeral procession escort.”

  Rich and Jimmy both smiled and gave a nod at that.

  “We’ll miss Doc,” Dray said. “He was the best of us.”

  Dragon nodded and reached blindly for his son’s shoulder and gripped it, giving his son a bit of a shake back and forth.

  “Knock, knock!” a voice called from outside, and I shooed people with my hands.

  “Boys, to the living room, let Everett and the baby in. Shit, it’s crowded in here. I don’t think I thought this through.” I worried and fussed over getting everyone settled and out of the way so I could cook. To my girls’ credit, they may not have known where I was or what I was up to, but they had what I’d had in the fridge in the oven for me. Well, as much as would fit.

  “Tried to get it going for you Mamma,” Dylan murmured and I hugged her one-armed, proud of her, and kissed her temple.

  “You girls do me proud,” I said, but Devon was already aside with Everett and her little man, both of them just talkin’ away. I felt a tightness, a worry, in my chest ease.

  There wasn’t much more awkwardness, until Bobby opened his fat head at the dinner table.

  “So, uh, you don’t mind me askin’, what happened to your man?” My knife hit the plate with a clatter when it slipped from my nerveless fingers. I felt my face flame with embarrassment.

  “Bobby Lanham!” I admonished. “That is not something to ask as polite dinner conversation.”

  Devon had the grace to look horrified at her father, too, saying, “I’m with Mamma on this one, Daddy. Je-sus!”

  “What?”

  “It’s all right,” Dragon’s deep voice rumbled across the place settings and everyone quieted down.

  Dray picked up and said, “Doc was sick, none of us knew. He died like we live, by his own choice, his own methods. We ain’t gotta like it, but we do understand it.”

  “Oh, so it was suicide, then?” Bobby asked.

  “Daddy!” Dylan cried and I put a hand to my forehead.

  “What?” he asked and I didn’t know what was worse, the fact the big dumb ox had asked in the first place, or that he was genuinely clueless as to why he shouldn’t be askin’ in the first place.

  Bobby gave me a look from across the table and said, “Well, what d’you expect, Marcie? It’s not like we know anything about ‘em to know what t’ ask.”

  Dragon’s gaze roved over my face and he cocked his head slightly, “That’s all right, I think that may be our fault to a certain extent.” Dray even looked at his father like he’d growed a second head at that. Dragon smiled at me and said, “I told Marcie we were a private people, and she’s the kind of woman to take things like that to heart. She probably didn’t want to share anything out of turn.”

  “Oh, well, yeah… That’s my Marcie,” Bobby said.

  “Maybe once, Bobby, but we’re divorced, now,” I reminded him gently, under my breath.

  “Sorry.” He colored slightly, “Just used to usin’ the phrase,” he said and sounded genuinely a bit guilty.

  “Look, I’m fine, y’all. Dragon and his family are good people. We probably should have rescheduled this whole dinner thing for any other day, but he insisted we not cancel.”

  “We don’t back out of our commitments,” Dray said.

  “No, no, you do not,” I agreed.

  Everett looked over to Dray, baby Stephen in her lap, and the look of love and adoration in her eyes, and the look Dray gave back; my girl Devon fell in love with them as a family right then and there, I think. It was cemented when Everett reached over under the table and she and Dray twined fingers beneath it.

  “Aw,” Devon sa
id fondly, “How long have you two been together?”

  “A few years,” Everett said softly.

  “Not long enough,” Dray said, smiling. “Then again, ‘forever’ doesn’t seem like it’d be long enough, either.”

  I glanced at Dragon who was smiling softly at me and I returned the smile. Thankfully, the subject shifted from sad to happier things after that and the awkwardness of the initial contact between our families was dispelled. Kind of hard to stay awkward when the whole table was melting into a puddle of goo at the romance between Everett and Dray. It was nice to know that Dragon’s son, despite his dark and brooding looks, was a real chip off the old block. His daddy had a fine way with words too, enough to make my heart flutter every time he spoke.

  It was a special family joining mine at the table. I was proud of my girls. My family? It was a special family, too.

  I was at the sink, washing up after dessert and my girls’ fabulous meal when Dragon came up behind me and put his hands on my hips he laid a reverent kiss on the side of my neck and murmured, “Dray says the natives are getting restless.”

  Dray had left right after dinner, kissing Everett and his son good-bye. Everett had smiled up at her man like he hung the moon and stars, and he’d gone after some message had come through on his phone.

  Didn’t take long for Stephen to start to fuss and Everett sighed, “I should get going too, get him down for a nap. Ugh, his ma needs one, too.” I chuckled and hugged her, kissing her cheek.

  “That’s motherhood for you,” I said. She packed herself and her little one into her car and left, too. Not long after, I turned to discover Dragon buried in his phone, peering through his readers and fat-thumbing it, cursing, all over the screen trying to text. He did it, because most of the younger guys in the club preferred communicating that way, via text, but I happened to know he hated it.

  “Problems?” I asked.

  “Nothin’ I can talk about. Club business.”

  I chuckled lightly and murmured, “Sounds like code for drama. Somebody get their feelings hurt?”

  He grinned at me and said, “Can’t tell you that, learn to live with it, Sugar. That’s this life.”

  “Alright,” I said, knowing damn well he’d fill me in when we weren’t sittin’ in the middle of a corn field. Rich and Jimmy were eying us from the living room and Devon and Dylan were staring at us, apprehensive, from where they were gathering up plates and dishes from the dining room to bring to me.

  I rolled my eyes and Dragon grinned, his eyes on me. He didn’t even have to turn and look.

  “It ain’t nothin’ illegal, boys and girls, it’s just none of your business,” he said kindly. I laughed a little at the looks on their faces and he gave me a quick kiss goodbye.

  He said, “I better git before someone burns the club down by accident. Girls, thank you for a wonderful meal.”

  “You’re welcome,” Dylan said, while Devon stood next to her, mouth agape.

  “See you later?” Dragon asked me.

  “Probably after your house guests leave. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting too old for nights like last night.”

  He chuckled and pulled on his fingerless riding gloves from his inside jacket pocket saying, “Truth be told, I’m right there with you. I need to leave the hard partying to the young bucks.”

  “Ride safe,” I told him and he smiled and ducked his head in a nod as he pulled the door shut behind him. A moment later, his motorcycle fired up and he rode on down the gravel drive.

  “Hard partying?” Bobby called from the living room. “I thought you was at a funeral.”

  “I was,” I called back, rinsing the colander. “A biker’s funeral.”

  “How are they different from any other person’s funeral?” Devon asked and I could hear the genuine curiosity in her voice.

  “Ever see an Irish wake on TV?”

  “Can’t say that I have,” Jimmy said.

  I smiled, “Well, let me tell you what I can, then…” and I did. Heavily editing out the drugs that some of the members were indulging in last night, the small orgy on the pool table, and the fist fight that damn near broke out – which it sounded like to me was in the thick of it, and caused Dray, then Dragon, to leave early. Of course, it weren’t none of the local men, but some of the club members from out of town engaging in that fool behavior.

  I tried to explain the whole ‘club as a whole versus chapter’ thing to the kids, but Jimmy, bless his heart, just wasn’t catching on. My smart girl, Dylan, came to the rescue.

  “It’s like the government, Jimmy. We’re the United States of America, but every state has their own rules. There’s federal level, or the club as a whole, then there’s state level, or your chapters.”

  “Oh, that makes sense,” Jimmy nodded and I had to laugh and shake my head.

  “I dunno if they’d take kindly to bein’ compared to The Man, but it’s as good a comparison as any,” I said, handing a plate to Dylan to dry.

  “You seem real happy, Mamma,” she said, out of the blue, and I nodded.

  “I am real happy,” I said.

  “Well, that’s good,” Bobby said with a big long stretch.

  “Y’ leavin’?” I asked.

  “I am,” he said.

  “Take it Dragon passed whatever bullshit test you were runnin’ him up against.”

  “Eh, he did, for now.”

  “Bobby Lanham!” I flicked my dishcloth at him and he put his hands up.

  “Hey!”

  “Hate to admit it,” Rich said with a haggard sigh, “But when it comes to this town, we need ‘em.”

  “What?” Devon demanded.

  “It’s true. Police force ain’t what it should be for a town this size. They keep bigger criminal elements at bay around here, allowing us to focus our efforts. The rule of the street is very different from the law. It’s kind of this fucked-up symbiotic relationship – but it’s there.”

  “They’re not bad people,” I chimed in.

  “I don’t know that I’d go that far,” Jimmy said dubiously, and I scowled at him.

  “What? I’ve seen them case files, Mamma Marcie. It’s rough stuff.”

  It was, as far as I was concerned, in the past, as well. Of course, there was no tellin’ these pigheaded children that. I wiped off my hands on the dish towel over my shoulder and sighed.

  “Look, y’all. I know you’re worried, but I like Dragon. A lot. Hell, I would even go as far as to say I love that man, dearly. Now, he’s not goin’ away, and he’s not as bad as all that. What’s done is done, and there ain’t no changin’ it, and he knows that. But he’s a changed man, lookin’ for his salvation and I do believe that.” I said the last giving Devon a sharp look as she opened her mouth to interrupt.

  “Now, y’all are gonna have to get used to his bein’ around, because he ain’t goin’ anywhere. Y’all are just gonna have to consider my house Switzerland from now on. Y’hear me?”

  “I can live with that,” Rich said with a shrug and everyone else turned to look at him, sorta horrified.

  “Look, as bad as the Sacred Hearts’ reputation is, I gotta give ‘em something. They’ve always protected this town as much as they could from any blowback. I mean, look at that thing a couple a years ago with that club they disappeared. We was havin’ all kinds of problems with robberies and burglaries happenin’. They started beefin’ with the Sacred Hearts, the next thing you know, they been run outta town, and the crime rate all but evaporated.”

  “You sayin’ the biker gang in our back yard makes less work for you, so you like them?”

  Rich shrugged again and said, “If the shoe fits. I’ll admit, I’m not keen on the Sacred Hearts bein’ here, but at the same time, sometimes it is better the devil you know.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked, and he wouldn’t look at me.

  Finally he said, “Anybody that can make a Mexican drug cartel not only cease operations but cease to exist – that ain’t somebody
I wanna be on their bad side, you know?”

  “No, I don’t know…” I trailed off.

  “I ain’t stickin’ around for this, even though it does sound like a facinatin’ bedtime story,” Bobby said. He kissed my cheek and made for the back door.

  “Well, all right, then. See you later,” I called.

  “Thanks for dinner,” he said, shutting the back door and going down the back steps.

  “Now, what’re you gettin’ on about over there.”

  Rich sighed. “The story goes, maybe nine or ten years back, the Sacred Hearts fucked up, or at least the cartel thought they fucked up, and so they gunned down their clubhouse. Dragon’s wife, and several of the members at the time, didn’t make it.”

  “The rest of the club, well, they had their funeral, then went to ground for a month or two, then shit got real, south of the border. There was some real rough stuff in the files, Mamma Marcie.”

  “Like what?” I asked, hollowly, the first creeping sensation of fear making itself known at the look on my son-in-law’s face.

  “Well, and I hate to tell you this, the first shot fired in retaliation was the bikers skinned a man alive and nailed his skin to one of the cartel leader’s front doors. It only got worse from there.”

  I swallowed hard, my mouth suddenly dry, and had a hard time reconciling the horror story with the men and women I’d met. I didn’t know what it said about me that my mind immediately justified the horrible action with But they killed his wife…

  “I don’t think I want to hear any more of this nonsense,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Mamma! It’s not nonsense,” Devon exclaimed. “These are dangerous people! We don’t want nothin’ to happen to you!”

  “Oh! Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to me, girls!” I sighed and realized there weren’t no way I was gonna make them see what I did when it came to Dragon. That nothin’ was gonna happen, because that man didn’t make the same mistake twice.