Biker (7 page)

Pratt followed Duane out the door, helped him up from the trash-strewn gutter. As Pratt seized his father's arm and lifted, Duane looked up with an expression of hatred and disgust. An icicle pierced Pratt's heart. His father was no good.

“You!” Duane spat, shoving Pratt away and regaining his feet. “Why the fuck did I bring you along? Remind me.”

A couple late-night tokers watched from the front of the building. Pratt wished he could pull in upon himself and disappear like a singularity.

Duane stumbled for the truck. He'd narrowly avoided arrest that day when he saw the OPD car pulling into the trailer park where he rented space.

Time to blow this town.

Pratt barely made it around and into the passenger seat before Duane goosed the engine. The old Ford sounded like Pratt felt. It sounded like it was about to tear itself apart. Duane paused once to snort meth off his thumb and then they were outta there, endless Interstate 80 where the plains stretched to infinity on either side of the road. At night, with truck stops and towns appearing as gleaming jewel cluster mother ships against an onyx sky, it was easy to believe they were a spaceship traveling through an infinite void.

Pratt turned on the radio, found a country station. Duane lit a Marlboro and swatted his son's hand away. “I don't want to hear that sad-ass country shit! I want some fuckin' rock and roll!”

Duane twisted the dials, the truck describing a serpentine pattern in his uncertain grip. Pratt was sure they were going to roll over into the ditch. An outraged semi blasted them with air horns as Duane barely avoided a head-on, swerving back into his own lane at the last minute.

“Hand me that peppermint schnapps in the glove box,” Duane said.

Pratt stared at him fearfully.

“Do it, you little piss-ant! What the fuck are you good for?”

Pratt opened the glove compartment. A stack of maps spilled out on his knees. He reached in, found the slick glass container and handed it to his father, who snatched it up greedily, clamped the cap in his teeth and unscrewed it one-handed.

Duane found an oldies station playing the Rolling Stones. “Factory Girl.”

“Yeah, I know that bitch,” Duane snarled, tipping the schnapps back. Pratt hoped they would get busted. He'd seen Duane drive drunk before but never like this. His old man appeared naked in the moonlight, a drunkard, a coward, a liar and even though Duane had attempted to beat the nascent belief in a superior being out of him, Pratt offered up a prayer right then and there that they somehow survive the night.

Drunkard or not, Duane was Pratt's old man and he loved him.

The signs said GAS, FOOD, LODGING, next exit. Bosselman's reared its logo fifty feet above the pike. Duane took the exit abruptly, cutting across two lanes of traffic like a madman, outraged truckers laying on the horns. For a second on the curve the old truck lost traction and began to hang its tail out but Duane turned into the curve and regained control.

“I gotta take a shit,” Duane said. “Might be awhile.” He reached in his pocket and removed his turquoise and silver money clip. He peeled off a twenty and handed it to Pratt.

“They got video games, get something to eat.”

Despite the late hour the truck stop was hopping. Pratt could see truckers in ball caps through the windows of the café. Duane pulled up at one of the self-serve pumps. “Go on. I'll come lookin' for ya when I'm ready to go.”

Pratt got out of the truck and started for the truck stop.

“Wait a minute,” Duane said, taking off his cheap digital wristwatch and handing it to Pratt. “Twenty minutes! Don't forget.”

Pratt rolled toward the truck stop, the twenty burning a hole in his pocket. It was the most money he'd had in his hands in years, possibly ever. It hadn't occurred to him that ol' Duane was ditching him like he'd ditched women, jobs and friends.

So when Pratt suddenly realized a half hour had gone by, he looked for his father. He looked in the men's room and the café. He looked in the store and the parking lot. He ran frantically around the Bosselman's until a trucker the size of a polar bear held out a telephone-pole arm. His gut loomed over a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate. He wore an “I'm Irish Kiss Me” T-shirt.

“Hey kid, you all right?”

Pratt stopped, gasping. He burst into tears.

Even today the memory drew a cloak of crimson shame over him like a burka. He'd acted like a little pussy bawling his eyes out to a stranger. He hadn't seen it coming. His father never loved him.

Pratt didn't like to go there but it was always in the back of his mind. Chaplain Dorgan told him there comes a point in every man's life when he learns to stop blaming his parents and take responsibility.

Back online. There were five main tribes of the Lakota: Oglala, Hunkpapa, Sans Arc, Brule and Blackfoot. Each had its own website plus there was a United Lakota website. Moon was a common Indian name but there were no Eugenes.

His cell phone sang “Sweet Home Alabama.”

“Pratt.”

“Hey, man,” Cass said huskily. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Want to come over?”

“I was thinking about bringing you some dinner. You like Thai?”

“Yeah sure. That would be great.”

“Okay, lover. See you in about twenty minutes.”

The things he did for pussy. Pratt hated Thai.

CHAPTER 11

Cass burrowed into Pratt's armpit, her hair splayed across his chest. The radio was turned down pumping out jazz so blue you could smoke it.

“Can I ask you something?” Pratt said.

“Go ahead.”

“What are you doing with those dogfights? You seem like a warm person to me. I just don't get it.”

Cass sighed and turned over, moving away so she could look at him. She reached for her vodka tonic on the bed stand. She'd brought both vodka and tonic. “Don't judge me, Pratt. I like you and you like me. Isn't that enough?”

“Dogs used to lick Lazarus' sores. They are holy to the Lord, just like you and me.”

“I knew this Jesus crap was going to rear its ugly head.”

“I haven't exactly been preaching the gospel to you have I? There are lots of things I could say. ‘The Lord is good to all, Compassionate to every creature.' Psalm 145:9.”

“I knew it!” Cass snarled, sitting up and grabbing her drink and pack of American Spirits. She got up naked and stalked out of the bedroom. A moment later he heard the back door slam.

“Way to go, Pratt,” he said, looking around for his jeans. He did not want Cass to go. On the other hand, her behavior reminded him of past relationships that hadn't ended well. None of them did.

“And God said, let us make man in our image,” Pratt muttered under his breath. “Male and female created he them.”

He pulled on his jeans and followed Cass out to the rear deck, where she stood furiously smoking a cigarette staring at the trees, arms crossed over her breasts. Guiltily he glanced around to make sure none of the neighbors was watching. He had no neighbors, yet. A yellow bulb over the back door kept the mosquitoes at bay.

He went up to her and put his arms around her from behind. “Come on, baby. I promise not to preach.”
Why am I apologizing?

“I had an old man once,” she said taking a long draw on the cig. “He used to quote scripture while he beat me.”

“I'm not like that.”

Gradually she began to soften.

“I have a temper.” She turned and put her arms around his neck, cig dangling. “Let's go back inside. Just don't quote scripture to me.”

“I won't,” he said. Her anger was like a summer storm. It flashed and thundered and then it was gone.
Lord, how am I going to bring this woman to you if I'm forbidden to speak your word?

Maybe he shouldn't try. Maybe he should just enjoy it while it lasts, like his old man said.

Cass went into the bedroom, found his old plaid robe and put it on. She made a beeline for the kitchen. She opened the liquor cabinet and reached for her vodka. “Want one?”

“Couple fingers of that Irish Mist.”

They went back outside with their drinks and sat on the glider, his arm around her.

“Are you part Indian?”

Cass shifted around, pulled his arm tight. “I'm half Cheyenne. My old man, Nathan Breedlove. He lived up to his name too. I have a half dozen half brothers and sisters.”

“Tell me about Moon.”

She stiffened like plaster of Paris. Pratt waited. Not another storm, please.

“I met him at the Ho-Chunk Casino. I was a blackjack dealer. He sat at my table. He stood out from the geriatric crowd like a red Popsicle. He love-bombed me and I fell for it. He tried to get me involved in some scam to rob the casino and I lost my job. We're both lucky they didn't charge us.”

“Tell me about the man, his personality, what he likes and hates.”

“Moon is scary. He's the type of guy walks into a room and every other man feels his scrotum tighten. There's just something about him, some craziness in his eyes that warns you off. Moon's ready to take it to the mat over the most trivial shit. Some dude—a fucking Mongol—owed him like two hundred bucks and kept shining him on. So Moon waited for the guy outside a bar and when the dude came out Moon clocked him with a baseball bat. Dude woke up wired to the wall in a storage locker. Moon released a wolverine into the locker, shut the door and left. They found the guy's body a week later because of the smell. The wolverine had chewed its way out through the floor.”

“A wolverine,” Pratt said.

“Moon's a trapper.”

“Where would he find one?”

“Northern Minnesota. He's smart. The way he talks you'd think he went to Harvard.”

“How tall?”

“Six feet, one hundred ninety pounds. I've seen him bench-press four hundred pounds. He's got tribal tats around his left bicep, a portrait of Crazy Horse on his right. He's got a lightning tat here.” She touched Pratt's neck.

“Eye color?”

“Brown eyes. He had beautiful hair but he kept his skull shaved. Always carries a Bowie knife.”

“What type of man is he? Do you think he has any fatherly feelings toward Eric?”

“Moon doesn't love anyone or anything but himself. I don't know. Maybe he's changed. They say fatherhood can do that to a man. Not from what I've seen. What about your old man? Didn't you tell me he left you at a truck stop?”

A helix of shame and fury wrapped itself around Pratt's spine.
Duane
. He didn't want to think about Duane. Not now. Not ever.

“Yeah, Duane was a piece of work. What about Moon? Did he say where he was from? Hometown? Did he mention any family?”

“No. He was as mysterious as the fucking Sphinx.”

They sat in silence looking at the stars through the trees. After a while Pratt stirred. “Come on. Let's try to get some sleep.”

They went back inside and went to bed. Pratt lay on his back for a long time staring at the ceiling.

“Pratt. You awake?”

“What's up, babe?”

“Please be careful. I'm afraid you won't come back.”

“This is your idea.”

“I'm sorry I thought of it.”

CHAPTER 12

Hold up your hand and make the peace sign. What do you see? A V-twin engine. The most natural engine configuration in the world, especially when put into a two-wheeled chassis. The angle of the V matches the angle of the front down frame perfectly. The crankshaft turns the belt. The rider sits on top. It is a match made in heaven, which is why God rides a Harley.

Madison to Sturgis was eighteen hours. Pratt had done it twice on a hardtail. He was no longer the young speed- and pussy-crazed fool. Two nine-hour days on a bike were enough. He went online to check the action at the Sturgis home page and some chat rooms. Every hotel and camping hook-up had been reserved for months, some for years. There wasn't a bed to be had within a hundred miles of Sturgis.

That left the Buffalo Chip. It consisted of ten acres of rolling prairie built around a huge stage, people flopped wherever there was space. The shows and the drug market made the Chip the venue of choice for those on the down low. Smart travelers brought motor homes with their own bathrooms, some with garages in back for their bikes.

The Chip's lavatories were beyond heinous—a hundred thousand drunk-ass bikers shooting, snorting, smoking and shitting made them so. Some bikers had sex in the lavatories. There was a special patch for that.

Cass watched Pratt prep his bike. “Will you call me when you get there?”

“Sure.” Pratt put a tire gauge to the front tire. Thirty-five pounds. The back tire needed air. The bike looked like a pack horse about to head into the mountains. The pillion was piled high with pup tent, sleeping bag and waterproof duffel for extra clothes. Pratt had fitted a jumbo tank bag to the tank—sacrilege—and filled it with personal effects. A half windshield was bolted to the handlebars.

Cass watched until Pratt gave her a hug and a shove toward the door. “I'll call you tonight.”

Once she was gone Pratt went into the basement with its oxblood shag rug, giant flat-screen television, stack of DVDs and door to the utility room. Pratt looked down at a fallen tower of DVDs. Jean-Claude Van Damme, for the love of Pete. Pratt pulled out his keychain and unlocked the deadbolt to the utility room. Inside was a Centurion gun safe, six feet tall. Pratt swiftly dialed the combination and opened the safe.

To carry or not to carry, that was the question.

A pump-action twelve-gauge Remington, a Chinese SKS, a Ruger 9, a John Wayne commemorative .45 and a Python five-shot .38. He took out the .38 and hefted it. Wheel guns were elegantly simple. They never jammed. It only held five cartridges but he wasn't anticipating gang war.

Lord, do I need this gun?

Leave the gun
, Jesus said.