Tangled Threats on the Nomad Highway

by MariaLisa deMora

  Retro gestured towards the stairs, and Einstein cut a glance in that direction, then back to Retro’s face, studying his features. With an expression turned calm and determined, Retro radiated patience mixed with a little bit of stubbornness, and Einstein knew any arguing would be futile.

  “I’m not going to disagree. Clear statement of fact, brother.” Might as well be graceful about his acceptance of Retro’s high-handed behavior. “I don’t need much in the way of things.” He angled forwards slightly. He needed his friend to hear and comprehend his next words, because just the idea made him sick. “But I sincerely want people to leave my shit alone at home. I’ll go through their things when I’m ready. Don’t try to push me there, brother.” His grief swelled, choking him, and he forced out the rest. “I won’t have anyone touching Lauren’s things but me. Makayla’s either. That’s on me, you hear?”

  “Heard and understood, brother.” Firm fingers wrapped around his hand, holding on tightly. He stared down at them, bemused. Rough, clean as working hands ever got, with calluses that reflected the hard labor the owner was familiar with. Retro shook his hand slightly, and Einstein brought his gaze up to meet that of his friend. With an earnest expression, Retro said, “I will always have your back, no matter what you need. I’ve got you, brother. On my life, I’ve got you.”

  Einstein stayed downstairs for a few more minutes, but when he made his excuses, he wasn’t lying about being tired. It seemed weird he was as exhausted as he’d ever been, just from a few hours of riding and jawing with friends. And being out of that house. As much as he tried to ignore the truth of the thought, he couldn’t. If he’d stayed home, he would have slept much of the day, so with that context, it did make sense that doing anything else would be taxing.

  Door closed and locked, he studied the suite carefully, sweeping the room with his gaze. As anonymous as any hotel room, the space had only a small duffel bag on the foot of the bed to add any personality. Einstein unzipped the bag and shuffled through the few items inside: just enough clothing to span a handful of days, a half-full can of shaving cream, a razor and blades, bottle of shampoo and bodywash, and his toothbrush.

  Einstein dropped the duffel and shoved his hand inside the vest pocket, his breathing coming jagged until he had the firm plastic stick in his grip. Running his thumbnail across the bristles, he stared around the room again. It was the work of moments to put everything away and kick the empty bag underneath the bed, hidden by the drape of the comforter. Toeing off his boots, he let them stay where they’d dropped as he turned to sit on the edge of the mattress.

  He leaned backwards, allowing his torso to fall heavily onto the bed. Bringing one hand to rest on his chest with a sigh, he settled it between the panels of his vest and curled the clenched fist over his heart. Closing his eyes, he ran the edge of his thumbnail across the bristles again.

  “Night, babies.” His whisper fell flat in the room, air as empty of energy as a battery left unprotected in the coldest of winters.

  “Love you.”

  Chapter Three

  Marian

  Crouched on the kitchen floor, Marian Threadgill cautiously rose to her knees and peered over the windowsill. The van was still parked in the front drive, two large men remaining seated inside the shadowy interior. She’d been able to see enough during her snatched glances to know they hadn’t stopped staring in her direction, not since they had first pulled up in front of the house she shared with her father.

  The screen door creaked. Then there was the thud of a tool belt hitting the floor, and finally a muffled curse followed by a canine cry of pain. All of these noises from the back of the house told Marian her father was home. He would have driven in the back drive, coming down from the church on the mountain instead of up from town like their visitors. His visitors. She didn’t have anyone to visit her.

  Not anymore.

  Until a few months ago, Marian’s younger sister Myrtle had been dropping by. Infrequently, but still visits Marian had come to anticipate. And until a couple of weeks ago, their younger brothers would have been wrestling their way through the house, but not now. Marian knew without being told what had happened when old man Sallabrook had driven away with Luke, Thad’s head popping into view over the top of the pickup truck’s tailgate. Since then, the silence in the house had only been interrupted by her father’s fits of anger, growing in frequency.

  Now he was home, with visitors in the front drive, and Marian wondered if it was finally her turn to be sold or given away.

  “Papa.” Her call was quiet, solemn, as far away from strident as she could make it. “There’re men in front of the house.”

  “What are you doin’, girl?” Floyd Threadgill paused in the doorway before striding quickly over to where she crouched in front of the window. Marian pointed out the glass to where the two visitors were climbing out of the vehicle, as if in answer to some silent signal. “Cowering like your momma.” The boney part of his knuckles hit the side of her head almost desultorily, a casual strike she didn’t have time to avoid. Ears ringing from the blow, she still heard his snarled, “Useless cowards.”

  “Yes, Papa.” Marian rolled her lips between her teeth, holding still with the mouse’s hope of not being seen. The next hits were across her upper back, fists landing hard and fast, overbalancing and sending her sprawling with a cry.

  Her father moved away, leaving the house by the front door as Marian pulled her feet back underneath herself. Wheezing with pain, she’d stayed in place, crouched behind the windowsill, and hadn’t quite found the courage to move from her place when the front door reopened.

  This is it.

  She didn’t bother to turn around, didn’t dare glance towards the movement, not until she realized there were only two sets of footsteps.

  Pivoting slowly, she lifted her chin and stared up at the most frightening men she’d ever seen. With their broad shoulders, thick, dark hair, and hardened faces, they could have been brothers. They smelled of fuel and smoke, and the air around them reeked of danger.

  Marian couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. She waited for her father to enter behind them and finish what had to be a handoff. He needed money, she knew, the phone message machine lately filled with calls from men with hard voices and blatant demands.

  He did it. He finally did it.

  She’d expected him to leverage her existence years ago, but he hadn’t, and things had stayed in a rut. A safe rut compared to what had happened to her sister. A painful rut when her father remembered the useless nature of having a daughter like Marian, meek and retiring, with a voice too soft to listen to and little to no skills in housework, according to him. Useless and a burden.

  “Marian?” The one with longer hair spoke her name like a question, his voice deceptively gentle, but she stayed frozen. “Myrt’s sis? Are you Myrtle’s sister?”

  Her heart pounded in her ears, head gone dizzy with a sudden escalation of fear. “Is she okay?” She slapped a palm over her blurting mouth, mind veering to the worst possible scenario. Oh, God. She’s dead. Listening at the door when old man Sallabrook had come to talk to her father had given her part of the story, enough to know Myrt had been alive when she’d left the old man. But Myrtle had been gone for weeks and weeks. On her own for days and hours filled with risk and danger, all alone out in the world. “She’s been gone so long.” Biting her lips, Marian tried to steady her voice. “Is she okay?”

  The man who’d spoken to her smiled, the soft expression changing his features, taking him from brooding to beautiful in an instant. “Yeah, Myrt’s good. She’s real good. She’s here in town. We came to pick up your brothers, and I promised her I’d stop by and check on you.”

  “Asshole’s stirring, brother.” The other man spoke, his voice deep and rough, like gravel in a streambed. “Why don’t you get Myrt on the phone, let the girls talk. I’ll go deal with this piece of shit.”

  “Good idea, Gunny.” As the one called Gunny exited through the open doo
r, the first man hunkered down near Marian. He kept his gaze fixed on her face as he pulled a phone out of his pants pocket. Tension flooded her muscles, and he made a cooing sound. “Shhh. Be easy, Marian. I’ll get Myrt on the phone. She can tell you what’s going down.” While he fiddled with the phone, she heard a cut-off shout from the front of the house, but when Marian would have risen to look out the window, he dropped a hand on her shoulder, the unexpected contact and light pressure enough to keep her crouched. “Baby, I’m here with Marian. Yeah, she’s okay. She looks okay. Scared to death of us, but she’s good. Wanna talk to her and explain what we’re doing?” The tiny pauses in his words were just enough to indicate the coherence of a conversation, but Marian couldn’t hear anything from the other end. “Here.” He thrust the phone her direction. “Myrt said, ‘Don’t be scared,’ and she wants to talk to you.”

  The tears started bubbling over before she had the phone next to her head, so her voice was unsteady when she asked, “Myrtle?”

  “Oh, Marian. Yes, it’s me.” Her sister’s voice held a tiny hitch as she responded. Joy, not sorrow. Marian had become adept at telling the difference and was surprised to hear joy from her sister. After the years Myrtle had spent at Sallabrook’s beck and call, true sorrow had often suffused her words. This was a change, and a welcome one. “The man with you right now is Bane. He’s good, Marian, so good. True blue, just like we always talked about.”

  “Really?” True blue would have been the best of the best, according to their moonlit giggling conversations, before the world had begun collapsing in on Marian in all the worst ways. “You trust him?” Swiping at her nose with the back of her hand, Marian sniffled. “He’s good?”

  “So good, Marian. More than I knew a man could be. He and his friends have been everything I needed, all along the way. I’ve got Luke and Thad here, and I’m taking them away with me. I won’t leave them for Ian. I can’t believe our daddy could do that to these boys. Won’t let it keep happening.” Steel laced Myrtle’s voice, a trembling rage that sounded barely banked. “I want you with us. Want you to come back with us. Leave our daddy. I miss you, sister. Will you come with us?”

  Marian stared at her knees pressed to the bare floor. A floor she’d scrubbed with harsh soap and a handheld brush every week since she gained double digits. Decades. She didn’t have to see it to reflect on the room around her, walls filled with cheap dime-store plaster quotes about a good life mixed with the mounted heads of dead deer. Taxidermied deer and fish held pride of place. Not a picture of her or her siblings existed in this space, nothing to say they were valued or treasured. Nothing to say the lives of their mothers had been noteworthy.

  Tears ran down her face freely, pattering on the fabric of her dress, dampening the cheap weave. The week-old bruises across her back ached, and she knew if she didn’t make a change, more of the same awaited her this week or the next. The fact her father would use his feet and fists on her was inevitable. What if it wasn’t?

  That was what Myrtle offered. A chance to change the course of her life.

  “Yes.” With a broken sob, Marian accepted, praying it was the right choice.

  She lifted her gaze to see the man Bane staring at her, understanding and a reflected pain visible on his features. Myrtle was crying as Marian handed him back the phone. She watched as he curled around the device as if he could physically comfort her sister, like it killed him a little not to be able to right whatever was wrong in her world.

  Marian pulled in a hard breath, waking the pain of her spine and ribs more acutely, and embraced the knowledge that this was the last time she’d bear bruises from a man. Never again.

  “You ready, Marian?” Bane tucked the phone back into the pocket of his pants, then climbed to his feet. Towering over her, he held out a hand, and Marian knew it was symbolic, but she clasped her palm to his anyway. He pulled her upright. “Let’s get your shit.” Glancing around the room, he pointed over his shoulder at the hallway leading towards the back of the house. “Your room back there somewhere?”

  She began walking, listening to the echoing footfalls following her. He stopped in the open doorway without an actual door as Marian scooped her small selection of clothing out of the cardboard box shoved against the wall. A few shopping bags hung on a hook near the door, and she took them down, ignoring how her fingers shook. It only took a few minutes before everything she treasured was bagged and ready to go outside.

  Bane took it all from her, not letting her carry anything. He steered her through the house and out the front door, placing her belongings near the threshold. His hand was gentle on her arm as he angled them past where her father stood near the front porch, shouting garbled words at the sky. Gunny stood close beside him, massive hand clamping her father’s wrist in a tight twist up against the middle of his back.

  Bane didn’t move from her side as he said, “Her shit’s inside, brother. Get it, yeah?”

  Gunny did something to pull a pained cry from her father before shoving him to one side. Gunny turned towards the house as Bane opened the side door of the van, his hand out to steady her as she stepped up into the vehicle. His voice was soft when he told her, “Don’t look, honey. Not anything you want to see, promise.”

  Marian stared at him as he pulled the door closed between them, then angled to look out the windows opposite where the house stood. She kept that position as the back doors opened, plastic rustled and rustled again, and the doors slammed shut. Gunny climbed in the front seat and positioned himself to fill the space, reducing her field of vision even further.

  “Good girl. Don’t look, Maid Marian. There’s nothing left for you here, and you don’t have to give an ounce of yourself to that asshole ever again.” Gunny’s words swelled in volume as he continued talking, filling up the passenger cabin until no sounds from outside could penetrate. He’s making sure I don’t hear whatever Bane’s doing to Daddy. “Sharon, my wife? She’s down in Florida with our friends who are also helping Myrt. I can call her if you need a woman’s voice, honey. Breathe easy. Just breathe easy. There’s nothing to fear with me and Bane, promise you. Stop shakin’, honey. You’re safe.” Marian folded her fingers together, pressing tightly to hide the trembling.

  “I’m safe.” She mouthed the words as she kept her eyes aimed out the windows she’d already chosen, holding herself tightly until Bane opened the driver door and levered himself inside.

  “Yeah, honey. You’re safe now. Fuckin’ promise you’re safe. Only gonna have good from here on out. You’re gonna love Sharon. Vanna and her old man Truck, too. Myrt loves them already.” Gunny spoke about people using strange terms and names, as if she’d known them her entire life. The way he normalized Marian needing rescue from her own family loosened the noose around her neck, letting each breath come a little easier. “Vanna stumbled on Myrt when the gal was sleeping rough in a park, similar to how I met the woman. Her trail name is Peepers—Vanna, not Myrt. That woman’s a gem, and she’s got a thousand stories about her hikes. You’ll have to ask her about them, Maid Marian.”

  “Old maid, maybe.” Marian spoke her truth. “Thank you both.”

  “Maid to me, and there’s nothing to thank us for. We’re just doin’ the right thing. The human thing. Takin’ care of someone who’s got a need. It’s how I was raised. Plus Vanna, she’d have my hide if I did anything but. We’re not blood, but she’s like a grandma to my kids. Me and Sharon have three so far.” Gunny kept talking, still loud, still leaning back into her space as if she might float away if he wasn’t there to keep her focused. “Vanna rescued my Shar, too. You should know that. Woman is too good for this world.”

  Marian smiled and nodded but stayed silent, still looking out the window. She kept to the same as they drove away. Looking ahead, never back.

  About time.

  ***

  Einstein

  “When’ll you be back?” As he asked the question, Einstein glanced over the bags Retro and Mudd had slung against the wall near the
front door. “You got any idea, or is this an open-ended run?”

  It wasn’t typical for their president and VP to head out together, not since they’d made the run to bring him home. Almost a year ago. Not that he was aware of, anyway. At least not in the three months since he’d moved into the clubhouse. They’d both been around a lot, seemingly working their agenda of keeping Einstein busy.

  Einstein hadn’t been idle since moving in. Far from it.

  He’d thrown himself into helping any of their brothers with any stated need and had forced himself on a few who hadn’t wanted to acknowledge what they had going on. Bike repairs, general home maintenance, bodyguard work—anything was better than sitting in the upstairs suite alone with his memories.

  “Need a third?” He took a backwards step towards the stairs. “I can be ready in two minutes.”

  “No idea how long, probably no more than a week, and no, I need you here, brother. Need you takin’ care of shit like you’ve been doin’.” Retro gestured towards the prospect and called, “Get me a soda, yeah?” He turned to Mudd. “Brother, you want anything?”

  “Water’d be good.” Mudd walked towards the furniture grouping they often used for their conversations. “Wet my whistle before gettin’ in the wind.” Einstein trailed behind him, glancing over his shoulder to verify Retro was following. Mudd continued, “We’re headed to the panhandle.”

  “Texas?” Einstein was surprised. They were friendly with clubs in Texas, but mostly east and south, with El Paso being the farthest location of which he was aware. “Amarillo? Who you talkin’ to there?”