Preacher

by Dahlia West

  There was no point in watching him die. There was no recovering from that. Jack turned away, one victory secure, and set his eyes on a second.

  The gunman struggled out from beneath Duke, who was barely moving. He still had a hold of the gun and he started to lift it, aim it at Jack.

  Jack hunkered low, launched himself at the man, and caught him in his midsection. They both plowed into the gate of the empty stall. The man clawed at Jack’s shirt, trying to find a hold. Jack grabbed a fistful of his hair, pulled him close, and then slammed his head into the steel crossbar of the closed gate. There was no give. None at all. It was like hitting a brick wall with a freight train.

  Jack hauled him back and sent the man’s head hurtling once more into oblivion. The crunch of his skull sounded good, felt good, was good. He leaned in, knowing the man couldn’t hear him anymore, or if it was the last thing the guy heard, he couldn’t form a response. “That’s for my fucking dog,” he whispered as he yanked the gun away for himself.

  Fear and rage tore at him as he let the body fall back into the dirt and ran, past Duke, not even stopping to see if the dog was alive. He vowed to bring that fucker in the barn back to life and kill him all over again if Duke was dead, but he couldn’t stop then to check.

  He prayed that Erin was okay, prayed that he still had time to save her if she wasn’t, prayed for all of them as his boots carried him across the lush, sunlit grass.

  It was a beautiful, idyllic day at Thunder Ridge, marred only by the sharp sound of Erin’s scream.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

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  Erin held her breath as the man in the doorway grinned at her. “We came to give Jack a ride back home,” he told her. He took a step closer and licked his lips. “I think we’ll take you back with us, too. So you and I can get to know each other better.”

  A flashback hit her hard, Hank punching her, dirt in her mouth, her jeans coming down. Erin whirled, grabbed the knife she’d been chopping vegetables with, and lunged at him, trying to catch him off guard and score a direct hit with the blade before he could put up much of a fight.

  Despite his lazy demeanor, he was ready for her, though. He caught her arm, twisted it so she spun wildly, and threw her across the room. She crashed into a kitchen chair and it collapsed under the force of her momentum. Wood splintered and the knife skittered away as she slammed into the linoleum floor with a scream.

  He was advancing on her, moving slowly, and she rolled to her hip, over the shards of the chair all around her, and kicked out viciously. The heel of her boot connected solidly with his shin, lower than she was aiming.

  He grunted and snatched at her ankle, grabbing it and yanking her toward the middle of the room. She struck out again, this time hitting home and smashing his knee. He let go of her leg and she scrambled forward, out of his reach, clawing her way to the knife just a few feet away.

  Just as her fingers found their prize, he grabbed her hair and slammed the side of her face into the floor. Stars burst behind Erin’s eyes, but she didn’t let go of the knife handle. She drew it close, or tried to, but his large hand wrapped around her wrist like a vise. The pain was nearly unbearable.

  Out of desperation, she turned her head and sank her teeth into the fleshy part of his forearm. He let go with a shout, slapped her in the head, but couldn’t defend himself from her next attack.

  Erin rose up, taking the hilt of the knife in both hands, and struck downward. The blade sank into his chest, just at the hollow of his shoulder.

  He screamed and grabbed at it, but she didn’t let go. Instead, she tried to pull it back, afraid that if he got his own hands on it, he’d use it on her.

  They fought over it, blood splattering everywhere as they wrestled. It slicked the handle of the knife and Erin felt a spike of panic as she realized she was about to lose her hold on it. He pushed her away and she finally lost her grip, tumbling backward, unable to stop herself, without a weapon.

  Just then the screen door burst open and Jack exploded through it. The man tightened his hands on the knife and the blade came free from his chest at the moment Jack’s own hands grabbed at his head. There was a sickening snapping sound as the man’s head whipped to the side. It didn’t return to its natural position even as Jack let go, letting the lifeless body of Erin’s attacker slump to the floor.

  Jack reached for her then, with those same hands, but Erin was still reeling from her fight to the near-death and backed away instinctively, out of his reach entirely. He stood in front of the body of the man he’d killed with his bare hands.

  How did this happen? How were they here again?

  Erin flung herself away from the scene in the kitchen—her kitchen!—and stumbled outside. She only made it a few steps before retching into the grass. The world seemed to spin, hazy and out of focus, until a dark shape formed in her peripheral vision. She started, a fresh scream dying in her throat, but it was only Duke, coming toward her.

  It took a moment to realize he was limping severely, yet still trying to get to her. Erin ran to him just as he gave up and lay down in the yard. She touched him and her hand came away with blood. Duke was bleeding from the shoulder and unable to walk any farther.

  Determined not to leave him outside alone, Erin slipped her hands underneath the large dog, but he whined when she tried to lift him. She realized he was way too heavy to move by herself so she lowered him gently back to the grass. “Hang on,” she whispered urgently. “Just hang on.”

  She rose and dashed back inside the house and found Jack still in the kitchen, where he was hanging up the phone on the wall. She hesitated, the request for help dying on her lips for a moment. “What were you doing?” she asked him instead.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Jack,” Erin pressed. “Who were you on the phone with?”

  He still didn’t answer. He simply turned his back to her to gaze at the body on the floor.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

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  Jack lifted Duke, who whined softly. “It’s all right, boy,” he said quietly and carried the dog into the house. Duke’s favorite spot was the bedroom, always eschewing his dog bed in favor of cuddling at the foot of the bed with Jack and Erin whenever they gave him the chance.

  Jack carried him up the wooden stairs and deposited him gently onto the bed, and then separated the fur on his shoulder.

  The wound wasn’t too deep, thankfully, and not bleeding much anymore. Jack hoped that was a good thing.

  Erin had retrieved the peroxide from the upstairs bathroom and was pouring it onto a cloth.

  Jack laid a hand on Duke’s head and stroked him gently. “You’re a good boy.”

  Duke’s tail whumped on the bed.

  “Yeah,” Jack told him. “Daddy’s good boy.” He rubbed the dog gently one last time and stood up. “Stay, Duke,” he said gently as the loyal Lab also tried to rise.

  Duke seemed almost grateful for the reprieve as he lowered himself back onto the cushion with a sigh.

  Jack headed to the dresser, dug out Erin’s revolver, checked that it was loaded and handed it to her. “Keep this with you,” he ordered. “Whatever room you’re in, take it with you. Never leave it out of arm’s reach. I’m going to go take care of things downstairs.”

  He headed down the steps, in fact passing up the dead body in the kitchen and the two in the barn. Instead he searched the woods nearby and found two Harleys and a truck. Blood pounded in his ears as he searched the key ring and found one for the Chevy’s ignition. The coiled rope on the floorboards told him what he needed to know. How they’d found him was anyone’s guess, but they’d been under orders to bring Jack in—alive. Which made sense, he supposed.

  He only wished again that he could have been there, at the bus station in Rapid City, when Hook opened the locker and found a whole lot of fucking nothing staring back at him.

  Oh, well. They’d come face to face soon enough. And Jack would have time to compare notes with him on how it felt to be scr
ewed and not even seeing it coming.

  He barely finished tightening the blue plastic tarp over the corpses laid out in the bed when a huge truck hurtled down the driveway, kicking up gravel and dust everywhere.

  Buck slammed on the brakes and the whole rig shuddered to a stop in front of the house. He exploded from behind the steering wheel, shotgun in hand. As instructed, the old man had come loaded for bear. “Where’s Erin?” he demanded.

  “She’s inside. Upstairs. She’s not hurt badly.” Jack was tempted to say she was okay but she really didn’t seem okay. But he couldn’t concern himself about that right now. And that was the only reason he’d called this SOB into play. Someone had to look after Erin.

  He grabbed Buck’s arm, though, as the old man started for the house. “You cannot trust anyone,” Jack declared. “Understand? Not the sheriff. No one. You do not call anyone.”

  Buck’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth dropped open. “But…but…”

  Jack grabbed the man’s button-down shirt and pulled it so hard that a few mother-of-pearl discs popped right off the front. “You listen to me,” he snarled. “You’ve got one chance—exactly one—to make up for being a shitty fucking father to her.” Jack pointed a finger at the road that led to the farm. “You guard that road tonight, Buck. You protect her from anyone who tries to hurt her, understand? You blow their fucking heads off. She won’t want to leave, not without Bee and the dog. She’ll stay. And you’re going to stay with her.”

  Buck looked at him like he’d gone crazy, which Jack supposed he had. “When are you coming back?”

  Jack pressed his lips together and took one last, long look at the farmhouse. “I’m not coming back,” he replied. He slipped the silver W out of his pocket and tossed it to Buck, who caught it. “If you want a real relationship with her,” he advised, “if you’re not just out to steal this place out from under her like a worthless fucking bastard, you’ll tell her the truth. You’ll tell her everything. She deserves that much.”

  Buck looked down at the only evidence of his betrayal. Jack couldn’t tell by the look on his face if he was going to do the right thing. Jack figured it was because Buck hadn’t yet decided what he was going to do.

  Jack hoped like hell he made the right call. For her sake. He turned away and strode to the barn. Inside its cool, dark recesses, he got down on his knees in the corner…and started to dig with his hands.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

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  As Erin broke open a fresh square of gauze and pressed it to Duke’s shoulder, so many questions swirled in her mind. And the only person who could answer them was Jack.

  She let him do what needed to be done, though, for now. There was no way she could have a conversation with him—about anything—with dead body in their midst, and she’d seen too many of those at this point to last her a lifetime.

  Everything about her future—their future—was uncertain now and that was such a slippery slope to be standing on. Erin hated it, hated that most of all—more than the killings, more than the death that had hung around herself and Jack like a shroud since they’d met—the uncertainty of it all.

  For years she worked, and plotted, and planned. She’d left as little to chance as possible, yet none of it mattered. It might all be taken away from her, her whole future destroyed. It was hard to think about.

  It was easier to focus on Duke, on what she knew, what she was good at—healing animals. She leaned down and kissed the dog on the top of his head. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to him. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  She heard boots on the stairs and tensed because even though the assault was technically over, it didn’t feel over, not by a long shot. She slipped her hand under the pillow, felt for the .38 she’d stashed there, and gripped it, just in case.

  But soon enough a familiar face came into view—not Jack’s, but Buck’s. She stifled a groan. She really didn’t want to deal with her father right now.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, looking her over.

  Erin didn’t want to give an answer.

  “Erin—”

  “Yes,” she snapped, pushing the gun back into its hiding place. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” Erin wished Jack hadn’t called him. “How much did—”

  She hesitated suddenly and peered past him through the open bedroom door. It occurred to her that she and Jack needed to get their stories straight before they started answering any serious questions. “Where’s Jack?” she asked.

  Buck took his hat in his hands. “Erin—”

  She stood up quickly. “Where’s Jack?”

  “He’s…” The old man hesitated, obviously not wanting to say the words.

  The pit in Erin’s stomach told her exactly what they were. She darted out the bedroom and down the steps. “Jack?” she called, doing a cursory check of every room as she went past. “Jack?!”

  When she got no answer, she burst through the front door and scanned the driveway. Her truck was there. As was Buck’s. She sped down the steps and ran to the barn.

  She felt a little relief at seeing Bee there, looking agitated yet unharmed, but there was no sign of Jack. She shoved open the old bunkroom door and flipped on the light.

  Only the cobwebs greeted her.

  Jack hadn’t been in this room in over a year.

  And some part of her knew that now that he was gone, he was never coming back.

  He hadn’t even said goodbye.

  She slapped at the light switch on the wall and staggered toward the door again.

  Bee was craning her neck, wanting some attention. Erin couldn’t blame her, but she just couldn’t handle it right now. She did rub the palomino’s muzzle as she passed.

  Outside, in the barn, there was no evidence that they’d been attacked, only dark stains in the dirt that could have come from anything. Only the kitchen showed any real signs. They were gone, like ghosts, and Jack had spirited away with them.

  She headed back to the house to check on Duke. When she passed through the front door again, Buck was lurking in the hallway, hat still in his hands. He looked the way she felt…gutted.

  She pushed past him and stumbled out of the hallway, eyes blurring, throat throbbing. She tripped on her way back up the stairs, clawed at the railing, and righted herself.

  In her bedroom, behind the closed door, she collapsed onto the bed. Sobs wracked her body. The mutt whined and Erin pulled his head into her lap, threading her fingers into his thick fur.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered to him fiercely. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t okay. She wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was okay. And worst of all, Jack wasn’t here to make it okay.

  Part Four

  The Prodigal

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

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  Jack’s first thought when he rolled past the city limits was that Rapid City hadn’t really changed in the time since he’d been gone. His second thought was that he hadn’t missed it, either.

  Evening traffic had already died down. Rapid City’s mini-rush hour had long since passed and all the decent people, if there still were any, were safely tucked into their split-level homes. That was the thing about living so far north in this part of the country. When the sun went down, the predators came out.

  Jack resisted the urge to drive by the now-defunct clubhouse where he’d lived (if you could call it that) for more than half his life. Instead, he headed to the other side of town, past Maria’s bar, which was decently populated for a Thursday night.

  If there was one thing he did miss, it was that place. Seeing everyone as well as being seen, holding court, as it were, to an audience of mostly afraid, somewhat curious civilians who were in awe of their town’s only one-percenter gang.

  Jack did miss commanding so many people’s respect. But he hadn’t had that for a year. Longer, actually. He’d been in a downward spiral, losing even the faith of his men, and he’d been too fucked up to even realize it.
<
br />   He turned the wheel away from the bar and then down a side street that was as familiar to him as any road or alley in this town. He came upon a chain-link fence surrounding a storage unit rental facility and pulled up to the automated entrance. He punched the code into the keypad and waited for the steel gate to rise.

  The unit itself was nothing fancy. It was large. It was climate controlled. But most importantly…it was secret.

  No one knew about it. Not anyone in the club. Not anyone at all. At least, not anymore. Jack had inherited it from his father after the old man had passed. It was rented under a fake name, paid for by the year, in cash.

  Scratch had told him, over and over, that a war was coming. Of course, the old man in his booze and drug fueled paranoid existence had meant law and order. The law was going to come down on outlaws like them someday, and Scratch said he’d be damned if he went without a fight.

  In the end, the old man had gone down without a fight, though. He and Hap Sullivan had been snared in a shady arms deal when Jack and Chris were teenagers. Before they’d even known they were on law and order’s radar, they’d been disarmed, cuffed, and tossed into the state prison over in Sioux Falls.

  A fat lot of good Scratch’s storage unit had done then.

  Jack had considered using it. Pissed as hell that he was now all alone in the world, Jack had very seriously considered doing something off the wall, something completely insane. Like shoot up a courthouse, or kill the judge who’d sentenced his old man—something crazy like that.

  But Scratch saw things differently. Perhaps it was prison that did it. During the long hours spent seething about being trapped in a cage, Scratch had started to blame Hap for their situation. It was Hap who should’ve seen that they were walking into a sting. It was Hap who should’ve known they were about to get popped.