Blood in the Water (Kairos) (4 page)

“The Tails are clear across the north of the state.  The Rabids are by the border.  The Tails ain’t got no say in this.”

“Oh I’m sure they’ll have a few words on the matter anyhow, but I see your logic.  Just sayin’ they might try shit is all.”

“Terry, if the Rabids can’t keep their turf that’s up to them.  If they lose their ground we cut the deal with the Tails instead.  But for now, keeping their garden clear is up to the Rabids.  Anythin’ else is just a bridge we don’t worry ‘bout crossin’ ‘til we need to.”

“Alright, Boss.  I got enough here to take it to Church.  I’ll let you know next week what the boys say.”

Samuel watched Terry leave with the hope that the response from his club would be favorable.  The opportunity that they’d been presented with had the potential to be lucrative, and to last over the long term, too, if they were cautious.  It wasn’t something to be passed over lightly.  It wasn’t something to be entered into lightly, though, either.  Colombian cartels weren’t known to be easy to walk away from; but what they were proposing sounded reasonable enough to be worth the risk to the Priests, and it wasn’t too far removed from the work they’d been used to.  Samuel wasn’t one to be swayed by dollar signs, but he couldn’t deny that the chance to earn big after six years of his family existing at subsistence levels was extremely attractive.

~o0o~

The redhead sitting across from him at the table in the visitation room was as beautiful and alluring to him now as she’d been fifteen years ago.  Sure her hairstyle had changed, she’d tamed the wild curls that had caught his twenty-year-old eyes, and she’d added a few lines around the corners of her eyes, just as he had; but she would always be the sassy bitch that had dared to answer him back.  There wasn’t a day that went by that Samuel Carter ever regretted falling in love with Moira Belle Lebeau, even if he often had to stifle the urge to strangle her.

“You didn’t think you needed to tell me he’d been suspended, cher?”

“Nothin’ you could do about it from in here, was there?  Thought I’d save you the time worryin’ about it.  Terry’s got no business bringin’ that to you.”

“Terry knew I’d be concerned.”

“And here you are bein’ all concerned and that’s all you can be, cher.”

Samuel knew he was looking daggers at his wife, and he was glad that this was one of the visits that she’d chosen not to bring the children along.  If she kept up like this he’d be in for First Degree Murder, probably end up on Death Row for the damage he was about to do to her.  They didn’t need to see their daddy squeeze the breath out of their momma here in the prison visiting room.  He was so angry, at Terry, at Moira, at himself, at the world, that he almost missed the imperceptible way her expression softened.

“I know it grates on you, bein’ stuck in here.  But you gotta trust me.  You’ve left me alone a long time now to bring those children up and you need to trust that I know what I’m doin’ with them.”  Moira sighed, obviously having caught his renewed irritability at her reminder about how long she’d had to cope on her own.  “You don’t need to be worryin’ about Dean bein’ suspended for something; that weren’t nothin’.  You need to concentrate on gettin’ your ass outta here in time for your daughter’s birthday.  She’s depending on her daddy bein’ there.  She won’t ask for no presents, says all she wants is you home.”

Samuel’s heart shattered.

He took a deep breath, trying to find some center, some calm.  He knew he was failing miserably, but he had to at least pull himself away from the verge of crying like a baby right here in the middle of everyone.

“You gonna at least tell me why he was suspended, cher?”

“Fightin’ in school.”  Samuel didn’t miss how uncomfortable Moira looked, positively shifty.  She could manipulate him like no other woman ever had, except for maybe his mama; but she had too fiery a nature for subterfuge.  She had a direct brain to mouth link with no filter that made it practically impossible to lie, at least to him.  She seemed to manage it just fine with some people. 

“And the rest, cher.”  He prompted gently.

Moira took a beat, but he knew she knew she had to give it up.  “He tells me one of the boys in his class was bein’ mean to Ashleigh.  Said some things ‘bout you bein’ a jailbird, ‘bout you never comin’ out.  Said a few more about the club, about her family bein’ criminals.”

The pieces of Samuel’s heart shattered into fragments.

He dropped his head and looked at the table top, keeping his eyes wide until he was sure the tears would not fall.  He usually kept the feelings of powerlessness tamped well down, but they were leaking out all over the place right now.  He’d always hated seeing his kids off to school.  Dean he was less worried about since the boy had grown big enough to take care of himself, and had heeded some lessons in how to fight from his collection of miscreant uncles, but Ashleigh was his baby girl.  He hated that some little shit had been mean to her, hated that little shits like that existed, hated that he was stuck where he was and couldn’t even go visit with the little shit’s parents.

Moira’s soft hands snaked across the Formica and covered his white-knuckled fists.  “Don’t you fret, Samuel.  Dean broke that boy’s nose.  That’s how come he’s suspended for so long.”

Moira gave his fists a little shake, but Samuel still didn’t trust himself to open his mouth, not until he was convinced that there was a better chance of words coming out instead of his anguish.

“I had a word with Principal Schaeffer.  They’re not suspendin’ the boy since he’s goin’ to be home so long recoverin’ anyway.  They seem to think it’ll be counterproductive.  But I made sure they knew that I backed my boy on this and that I would do again.”

Samuel had no doubt that the Principal had seen the side of Moira that most people would throw themselves into a burning tar pit to avoid encountering, Samuel included.

“You just get yourself home soon, cher.  Get home for your little girl and your boy.  Get home for me.”

1993 – Part Two

Finally, the day had dawned.  It might have been Samuel’s imagination, but he thought perhaps the sun shone a little brighter this early summer’s morning.  He had no doubt that he would be dicked about for hours yet with official bureaucracy, but he could bear it.  Today was the day he got to go home, to his club, to his family.  Today was the day he got to be the man he knew he was again.

Terry had come back with the club’s answer for their involvement with Rojas scheme.  It was a go, but the club didn’t want any wheels in motion without Samuel.  As far as they were concerned, he was the link to the Rojas, the element of essential trust necessary for the exercise to work effectively.  Eduardo had understood. It was a natural caveat and not a surprise.  All the arrangements were in place for a very profitable alliance as soon as Samuel took his seat again at the head of the Priests’ table. 

~o0o~

Samuel hadn’t been wrong; it was well into the middle of the afternoon by the time he’d been processed out of the prison.  The guards escorted him to the perimeter gate, as if they didn’t trust him to actually leave, which amused the hell out of Samuel.  The humidity was high, but even so it was better to be outside than in.  There was no air conditioning inside the prison walls.  The clothes he’d been wearing when he’d entered the prison years ago were a lot too tight now; following years of physical labor, he was broader just about everywhere.  Between them Terry and Moira had ensured he had jeans and a t-shirt that fit him, a little grease money had made sure that the new outfit hadn’t gone missing.

He couldn’t hold back the smile that split his face at the sight of his brothers waiting for him.  They were keeping a respectful distance from the prison perimeter, but as he neared they parted to reveal his pride and joy, his ‘79 Fat Bob.  They’d polished the paintwork and chrome until it gleamed.  The reflected sunlight almost blinded him.  His smile only grew as he left the prison grounds well and truly behind and was engulfed by hugs and back-slaps.  It was Terry that handed him his kutte.  He slipped it on, feeling like a piece of his skin that he hadn’t known was missing had been grafted back to his body.  The weight of the leather on his shoulders was a balm for the portion of his life that he’d never regain.

The ride back to the clubhouse was as exhilarating as the first ride he’d ever taken.  Fuck but it’d been a long time, too long, far too long.  Right then and there he made an oath to himself that he was never going down for a stretch that long again.  No way, no how.  If his kutte was his skin, his bike was his heart.  The paltry muscle in his chest had been beating for the last six years, performing the functionary job of pushing blood around his sorry carcass, but this machine beneath him now was what made him live.  The wind whipping past him was the air in his lungs.  He would die before he gave this up again.

The ride back to Absolution, his hometown, the home of the Priests, took a couple of hours.  It was too short.  As much as Samuel wanted to do and experience on this, his first day of liberty, he wanted to stay on his bike and chase the sunset.  He needed that freedom, but being home was freedom in its own way and it would have to do for the present.  He knew that the following day would find him astride his bike, the blacktop flying away beneath his wheels.  The regime in prison had been based on physical labor, with the intention that a bone deep muscular tiredness would control inmates as much as anything else.  That meant that the majority of the inmates spent a lot of time in the open air, but Samuel didn’t recall one minute of one day of his sentence when the air had tasted quite this good.  Simply being on the other side of that razor wire-topped wall gave it a different flavor.

As they entered the town limits, he slowed.  His brothers, riding in formation behind him, slowed too.  The town had been around since the 1700’s.  It had its own schools, hospital and a mall.  It wasn’t such a big place, but it wasn’t such a small place, either.  There were a couple of other MCs in the state, above the bands of weekend warriors, but they all recognized the Priests as the guiding light.   Samuel took note, as best he could as they passed, of the more significant changes that had taken place while he’d been incarcerated.  He needed to get to know the town again, to find his hook back into its nervous system.  In the six years he’d been gone the town had expanded a little, pushing its limits out with clean, fresh new buildings.  Along with the homes came businesses. 

The Priests provided a degree of protection to the businesses in Absolution.  The town had its own police department, but the club picked up the slack on a lot of the minor crimes and some of the larger ones, too.  Whenever something was deemed too small to warrant an officer’s full attention, something like a bad seed’s continual shoplifting habit, the MC would step in and straighten the kid out where repeated cautioning by officers had failed.  In cases where there was little to no evidence and no chance of any conviction, but everyone knew who was really behind it, the MC would take up the enforcement while the legal system was hogtied by due process.  For continued access to this insurance policy, the businesses paid a percentage to the club.  Terry’s twice monthly reports to Samuel had assured him that the new businesses were just as grateful for the club’s continued interest in the town’s well being as the more established ones.

Samuel’s father had joined the Marine Corp straight out of high school, barely taking the time to marry his school sweetheart first.  The war in
Vietnam was heating up and Samuel’s daddy had been desperate for the opportunity to fight for his country.  Samuel had been born in 1962, almost exactly nine months after the wedding.  When his father had eventually returned from Asia, Samuel had still been too young to remember much, but his mother had told him that his father was not the carefree boy who’d set off with stars and stripes in his eyes.  When Maxwell Carter had come home he had struggled to settle into domestic rigidity with his wife and child.  Samuel knew now that his father’s state of mind would be labeled Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and treated with a bunch of pills and therapy.  At the time, Claire Carter, well used to coping on her own with a house to run and a small child, hadn’t been quite so bothered by Max’s absences when he’d acquired a motorcycle and taken to riding around the southern states with his buddies from the Corps, but she had asked that he find a way to bring money into the household.  Max’s answer to that request was to combine the two things he cared most about in life, his love of riding and his family, thus the Priests motorcycle club, based in Absolution, Louisiana had been born.

Samuel had always called Absolution his home.  He’d put on the Prospect patch the day he’d turned eighteen, and for almost twenty years his life had been devoted to the club and the town.  He didn’t like the big city, where people passed each other on the street like shadows.  He liked that everyone in town knew each others’ names and most of their business.  It was a touch inconvenient occasionally, but it felt like family, like home.  However, Samuel did prefer to live his life at a faster pace than most people; he figured it was genetic, passed down in his DNA from his daddy.  He had no problem at all with the outlaw road that his father had taken the club down in a bid to keep earning at the level required to support so many families.  He’d always liked action and excitement; hence his decision to marry Moira.  No sane person would’ve married Miss Lebeau if they’d wanted a quiet life. 

As a child growing into a young man, he’d watched fellow townsfolk, civilians, wither and die without ever knowing just what they could have wrung from their lives.  That wasn’t for him, getting up at the same time every morning to spend five days of his week cooped up in an office slogging his guts out for someone else to take the credit, only to spend his weekends squeezing in chores to keep the house going and barely ever having enough money to make ends meet, only to die at the end of it all with a shitty retirement present and kids that didn’t hate you if you were lucky.  No, that life was not for him; it wasn’t what any of his brothers or predecessors in the club wanted.  Samuel had seen his father and his contemporaries roaring through town, their bikes so loud that the sound literally vibrated through his body.  They left the ordinary people bobbing in their wake like so many corks in the ocean in the wake of a passing ship.  That was the life that Samuel wanted, and if that meant breaking or ignoring a few rules that someone he’d never met or known had made, then that was just fine by him.

They pulled up to the clubhouse, a long low red brick building set on its own land on the other side of town, almost in the bayou.  The isolation meant their business stayed private, and so did their leisure.  Just as Terry had described to him, Samuel noticed that the garage attached to the clubhouse had been extended and refurbished.  It was a small operation which mainly existed for the club to repair and restore their own rides, but the business it brought in from the town made it one of the club’s useful legitimate fronts.  The sign on the gable wall at the apex of the roof showing the club patch - two hands, palms together in prayer, wrapped in a rosary with the cross depicted in rifle bullets - had been renewed and the gravel around the building had been replaced maybe a couple of years ago.  It was brighter than Samuel remembered, but not shiny new.

There was a large amount of the gravel and the clubhouse that Samuel could not see because anyone even remotely associated with the club had gathered to witness his homecoming.  His extended family, from babes in arms to grey haired old-timers were arrayed at the front of the building cheering and clapping like Christ himself had risen.   Samuel’s heart swelled up from his chest into his throat at the sight of so many faces, unseen for years.  But it was the joy radiating from his wife and children that brought the tears to his eyes.  If they were angry with him for removing himself from their lives for so long, it wasn’t visible.  They were the very paragons of pure happiness.  Even Dean, at twelve years old, who usually tried so hard to affect a burgeoning teenager’s casual indifference to everything, was practically hopping up and down. 

Samuel didn’t waste a second. As soon as both his feet were on the ground after he’d swung off his bike he was running over to his family.  He gathered them all in his arms, dimly aware that the cheering had increased a few decibels.  He hid his sobs of happiness and regret in his wife’s thick, russet hair, knowing only she could hear them.  There was barely enough room in his embrace to encompass his wife and both children, but they squeezed in until they all fit.  It was something else to be able to hold them so freely after the rules and regulations of prison, and Samuel renewed his promise to himself that under no circumstances would he be spending time behind bars ever again.  The new deal with the Rojas family would incur heavy tariffs if any of them were caught.  Well, he’d just have to play it smart, and he knew he was plenty capable of that.

He scrubbed his visible emotion away with his hands as he pulled back so that he could drop to one knee to better hold his children.  They were completely unreserved in the moment of expressing their joy at the return of their daddy, and Samuel felt doubly blessed for the remnants of the innocence of their youth.   For the first time he fully appreciated just how many years of their lives he had lost and the sensation that accompanied that realization just about stopped his heart from beating. It was Moira, showing her awareness that it was not just a homecoming to the three of them, who put her hand on the back of his neck to guide him to stand before gently pushing him into the throng of people behind her.  Samuel was immediately disoriented, dizzy to the point of drunkenness from the calls and shouts and slaps on his back.  After years of keeping as much distance as possible between himself and any other human, he almost vomited with the sensory overload of being surrounded and touched by so many people.

Like the contraction of a muscle, the crowd propelled him through itself into the clubhouse.  After the bright sunshine Samuel was blinded by the darkness of the room, but his brothers, having also been squeezed through by the crowd and now at his back, kept his momentum going until he hit the bar.  Before he even knew what was happening, he was downing a shot of good whiskey, feeling the burn down his throat all the way into his stomach and out through his limbs.  His sense of smell belatedly caught up with happenings and informed his brain that a variety of food was awaiting his attention.  His stomach grumbled appreciatively, engendering guffaws from those nearest to him, seconds before a plate filled with a mouth-watering array was pressed into his hands.  Terry, whose beam was dimmed only slightly by the concern in his eyes, an expression mirrored exactly by Fletch, the club’s Sergeant at Arms, spread their arms to push back a cordon around Samuel so that he could draw a breath. 

Someone, Samuel didn’t see who, lifted Dean and Ashleigh onto barstools on either side of him.  Moira stood behind Ashleigh, making sure the crowd didn’t knock the young girl from her perch.  Samuel had a flash of knowing that Dean was beyond allowing his mother to protect him in such a way, but he was holding his own space on his precarious seat which gave Samuel a small flash of fatherly pride.

Having eaten and practically inhaled another shot and a bottle of beer, it took Samuel a few giddy minutes to remember that he didn’t have to wait for permission or a bell to do anything he wanted to do , anything at all, and that nothing was denied to him.  He caught Moira’s eye.  Terry and Fletch had obviously seen the glint of his intentions because their laughter caused several heads to turn their way.