Page 53 of Biker's Property
I know I’m lying. Every minute that bitch has with me will be nothing but pure hell. Cash nods, which means even if he suspects I’m lying, he’s sticking to the story, doing what’s right and protecting a brother while he handles his property the way he sees fit. Saying the words twists me up with deep, intense pain. Almost as bad as losing the man who raised me. What they died for wasn’t worth dying over.
The bastards that killed them didn’t have to do it.
“The Midnight SS want some land they claim belongs to Harlan Shaw and his Indian children.”
Cash raises an eyebrow. Doesn’t take a genius to understand what he’s thinking.
“Not Oske. I asked her. And she threatened to filet my balls with a special Indian technique.”
Cash grunts, but clearly doesn’t feel too sympathetic towards me.
“Southpaw must know about these alleged Indian children.”
“If he does, he never shared it.”
“He didn’t see the need,” Cash said. “I can’t blame him for not wanting his father’s dirty laundry aired out…”
One thing we both agree on. This isn’t the fault of anyone in the club. Fuck, if the land belongs to Southpaw and these Nazi fuckers think they can take it from him, my opinion is we ought to show them how wrong they are. We ought to take revenge. Not just for Southpaw. But for my dead brothers.
Brothers in the way we mean it in the club, brothers in the way you mean it at the pearly gates. The Nazis killed both kinds of my brothers out in the desert.
I grew up with Jairus and Jotham. The two of them started off picking on me. I was skinny, always sunburnt — redneck from my first years waddling out into the sun. But I earned my way into being one of them. They gave me my first cigarette when I was eleven. I shot my first deer with Jairus’ gun when I was ten years old. I still have the antlers on the dashboard of my truck.
If I hadn’t been in Libya and watched two friends die just a year before Uncle Lyle, it would have been easier for me to cry. The tears feel all washed out of me. All that’s left is the dark part of me that Uncle Lyle never wanted me to fall into.
“They’re planning on doing more than just killing a bunch of us out in the desert,” I continue, hoping to get Cash off this property so I can get back to my unpleasant business. “They want that land for themselves and they’re not gonna stop hitting us.”
“Why would they want the Shaw land?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
I have my own problems. Darlene, for example.
He reachesinto his pocket and offers me a cigarette. He thinks I look tense, and I am — but not for the reasons he thinks. I take the cigarette, appreciative of the offer, even if he’s dead wrong about my nerves.
“You got all that from Darlene?” Cash asks as he lights me up, reminding me of my fucking problem. If he thinks he can smooth this over and draw information out of me faster with a smoke, he’s absolutely fucking right. I nod as I take that first perfect drag of nicotine. Nothing hits quite so good.
I keep telling him what she told me — the dark secrets that were apparently worth betraying me for. I hate her more with every word.
“The man she was fucking talked when he was drunk. They’re talking about moving onto the reservation with a pack of hogs and slaughtering Indians on the border of the territory, scaring them into selling the land.”
Cash betrays no emotion. He’s a businessman at heart, well aware of how valuable land can be out here in the desert, but he’s not the type to agree with the cold-blooded killing of other people. And I agree with him. That type of killing goes against God.
Just like beheading members of my family.
“I don’t know anything about this land…”
“Neither do I,”I answer. Cash and I exchange glances that are equally distrustful of the other. I don’t trust him not to screw me if it meant making more money – they call him Cash for a reason. And he doesn’t trust me not to lose my shit and do something that will send me to federal prison.
I’ve ridthe world of bodies before and turned consciousness into dust. Prison doesn’t scare me. I’ll never end up there. What’s the difference? When the government paid me to kill turbans out in the desert, nobody had a fucking problem with it. What’s the difference if I choose to kill for personal reasons?
It’sthe same man pulling the trigger. I know what the fuck I’m doing.
“Southpaw must havehis reasons for keeping it private,” Cash says.
“He doesn’t want us sticking our hands in the pot.”
Cash shakes his head. “Don’t be a dick, Bucky.”