The Forsaken

“Where?” Qui

They’d agreed to meet right up the road at the Jericho town square. Qui

Qui

But he didn’t have time or any inclination to roust some high school kids, knowing what he’d been like at the same age.

He turned as he heard the growling of the motorcycle pipes. Chains LeDoux, wearing sunglasses but no helmet, rounded the Square one full time before parking on the opposite side of Qui

Chains walked up the few steps and sat down across from Qui

Qui

Qui

“Looks the same,” Chains said, “except that corner behind me. That twister fucked things up good.”

Qui

“Kids are the same.”

“Yep.”

“I didn’t think you’d come by yourself,” LeDoux said. “I rode around a bit to make sure. Unless you got some law people in those buildings.”

“I told you I’d come alone,” Qui

LeDoux plucked the cigarette from his mouth, his ratty hair pulled back in a ponytail, gray eyes appraising Qui

“You look exactly like your old man,” LeDoux said, “except for the haircut. The haircut makes me know you’re a square, the law.”

Qui

“You know your daddy was a full-patched member.”

“Hell of an achievement.”

“That don’t mean something to you?” LeDoux said.

“Not in the least,” Qui

“People like you,” Chains said, “don’t have it in you like all us. I bet you fucking loved the military telling you when to jump, run, eat, and shit. Some folks need that, can’t think on their own.”

“I think just fine.”

“Reason I called you is for you to know we want a good relationship with the law here,” LeDoux said. “We had a good thing going with your uncle. He knew we weren’t the boogeymen like you see in those drive-in movies, raping and killing folks. He knew we were a club, not a gang. We respected the law and the law respected us.”

“He respected y’all because you handed him off part of the money y’all made dealing dope,” Qui

LeDoux didn’t deny it. He just shrugged and smoked his cigarette. One of the truck drivers honked his horn and flicked his lights at some girls in a little Toyota. The girls slowed and they parked at an angle beside Qui

“I like this town,” LeDoux said.

“Sure.”

“It’s a good town,” LeDoux said. “I thought about Jericho and coming back for twenty years.”

“And here you are.”

“Goddamn right,” LeDoux said. “But I don’t want no trouble.”

Qui

Chains stubbed out his cigarette. He stood. “Don’t know nothing about it.”

“Of course.”

“I’m a free man, sheriff,” Chains said. “I just want to ride, drink beer, maybe fish a little. Good fishing here out on Choctaw. Lots of crappie. My boys want the same. You hassle us and I got me a slick Jew lawyer up in Memphis who makes three hundred dollars an hour. You probably seen him on TV talking about personal freedoms.”

“I guess we’ll be meeting him soon enough.”

“I never killed anyone,” he said, “’cept in ’Nam.”

Qui

“How about you?” LeDoux said. “Your hands clean?”

•   •   •

“Put your hands on your head,” Animal said, “and get your ass out of the ditch.”

Stagg tried to use just his legs to climb out but couldn’t get a toehold in the dirt and fell back down. He tried at another angle and slipped again and again.

“Shit, crawl on out with your hands,” Animal said, now holding Stagg’s gun that had dropped in the car. “Go ahead.”

Stagg found an old root and used his bad knee to push himself up on the paved road. Another biker reached for the back of his sweater-vest and pulled him on into the road, covered in red mud and bleeding from his knees and hands. His clothes were ruined. He’d lost a fine loafer down in that ditch.

“I want you to understand one thing,” Animal said. The boy was jacked so goddamn high, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. Stagg turned down the road and saw the Mexes, three of them, surround Ringold, his man’s hands held high over his head as they kept automatic weapons trained on him.

Stagg nodded and licked a busted lip.

“You keep cooking chicken-fried steak and serving up pussy pie,” Animal said. “But you’re out of everything else. You don’t touch Memphis. And we get a cut of all the cooch palaces you’re ru

Stagg felt one of his goddamn veneers come loose. He spit blood to the ground, but even in just one shoe tried to muster up some dignity. He wasn’t cowering before nobody on his own road. “Y’all can play all you want,” he said, “but you’ve started something y’all can never handle in Memphis. You think them Mexes got your back? No, sir. It’s a tough city. Maybe the toughest in America. You can’t beat it.”

Animal shot a hand at Stagg’s shoulder and pushed him back several feet. He nodded to a younger biker, muscled up, with a long, drooping mustache. Animal gripped Stagg’s arm, the way a man handles a woman, and pushed him forward to the truck that had cut him off. A Mexican flag painted on the tailgate and a sticker of the Virgin Mary on the bumper.

The bed of it was one of those hatch jobs, sealed on the top, and a flat-faced Mex with black eyes turned the key, lifted the hatch, and opened the tailgate. Animal forced Stagg forward with a rough hand in the shoulder. “Go on,” he said. “Go on. Check out your Memphis.”

Stagg looked inside to see a human head sitting atop a plastic sheet. It was grayed and bloody, eyes glazed over but seemingly alive.