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“But a week ago you didn’t even know Cropper
was
your father.” I wanted to say,
it’s not like Cropper ever came breaking down your front door looking for you either, taking responsibility for being your damned father.
I knew he’d never acknowledged that brother of Ford’s that had died of some rare disease in childhood. June had told me that poor handicapped child had died deaf and blind never having been in the same room as Cropper—although Cropper knew he existed. His existence was why Cropper had dumped Ford’s mother. Cropper was too afraid of having more deformed kids.

So yeah, likely there were other creepy or otherwise facets to Cropper that I’d been blissfully unaware of. I had every conviction of my opinion when I added, “Come back to the table. Hear Ford out. He’s offering you a place in the club, which
is
his family, Lytton. There are no more of you guys left. His mother is dead. You told me your mother might as well be. Don’t you want to get to know Maddy, Fidelia, the other club patch holders? I promise you, they’re all a bunch of really nice guys, even Turk, the asshole who labels his product all wrong.
Especially
Turk.”

Lytton’s mouth was firmly set. “No. No. My mind’s made up, June. There’s no coming back from that. People don’t always have to be close to their blood relatives. You can choose your friends but not your family, right? My family is my company up at the Leaves of Grass. Now those guys have my back. Listen, I like you and all. I like you a lot. But I’m sorry. I just can’t forgive and forget something that massive.” He blipped his throttle as if eager to move on.

I realized I was begging for his crumbs. My heart leaped when he said “I like you a lot.” To my love-starved soul, that was tantamount to a marriage proposal. “At least give
me
a chance. I promise you I won’t try to convert you to a Bare Bones member. I had a great time with you too, when I wasn’t thrashing around with fried brains.”

That was the only tiny sign that his heart had melted, when he smiled slightly. Then it was back to business. “No. I’m disowning any allegiance to Ford and his asinine club and you’re part of that. You can’t join fortunes with me. I’m the black sheep, the loser. Don’t make me out to be a hero when I’m not, June. I’m just another pathetic Pretendian trying to get by. You can do better than me.”

He actually touched the brim of his lid then, bidding me adieu, and rode off. I was left standing there completely bereft.

Hope is a powerful thing. I had hopes of being a conduit, reconciling Cain and Abel, getting them to see reason or some such biblical shit. Hope stokes the soul, nourishes the spirit. I would
not
give up hope. I would find Lytton, get closer to him, reconcile the two brothers, mend the rift in the club.

Meantime, Madison came out front onto the sidewalk, her arms folded in front of her chest. “No luck?”

“No luck. He just wants to have a pity party on his mountain. Don’t worry. I’ll bring him back in the fold.”

“Use your wily charms.”

“You said it.” I wished I felt that confident. I had only ever managed to snare a little old lady with monumental concerns about his spice rack. I had no background in man-killing. “Meantime, I’ve got some Eminence Front to bring mom in Cottonwood. Can you give me a lift back to my cage?”

“Listen to you, already talking like a biker’s old lady.”

“Well, like you said. Love the man, learn to love the club.”

“That’s it. But when you’re done with Ingrid, I want you to move into our Mescal Mountain house. There’s plenty of room, now that we don’t have any more pass-arounds or sweetbutts living there.”

“That’s okay. I really should stay with Ingrid until we get her moved into that facility.” I had accepted that Maddy didn’t want to help pay for Ingrid’s hospice. We had to go for the facility with all the drug addicts, not the cleanest or most high-tech—but that was even
if
I could convince Ingrid to go. Naturally, she was resisting even that, preferring to wallow in her misery, not a fun environment at all.

“I won’t hear of it. You could be a huge help for me with Fidelia. Don’t you want to help take care of your little niece? Turk moved in, but he only has so much time to help with the little girl, having to run the dispensary. August helps sell pot, but Turk’s there a lot too.”

“Of course! Of course I want to spend time with Fidelia! You’d better believe, I’d much prefer that than listening to Ingrid gripe about her Masterpiece Classics or how I messed up the order of her two hundred daily vitamins.”

So I went to see Ingrid to give her the pot and the pipe Lytton had given me. Ingrid just ranted about how long I’d been gone, how I didn’t care that she was in pain, that it took her half an hour just to get to the bathroom. I tried telling her I’d come down with a bout of malaria and actually had been to the hospital, but it was as if I hadn’t even spoken, she was so self-absorbed. She literally did not give one shit that I had been bedridden as well for several days.

“Jesus wept!” I quietly railed as I banged the teapot for her tea.

Hope kept me going. But every cell of my body would prefer to be up on Mormon Mountain at the Leaves of Grass with Lytton’s long, fat cock down my throat. I could lay my cheek against his warm, sun-browned chest and hear his heartbeat. I could nuzzle my nose in the curtain of silken hair at the nape of his neck.

I could smell his scent and feel his warmth even as I poured the hot water. I would get back to him somehow. It was fate.

LYTTON

L
ytton finally returned one of Doug Zelov’s many phone calls.

The dude had been nonstop calling him since the near-bust at the Leaves of Grass. Doug Zelov, Iso and their man Tyke had ridden off in their Jeep just as the cops had pulled up in front of Lytton’s front door.
All a misunderstanding
, he had lied to his buddies the cops.
A coyote must’ve set off the alarm.

In honest truth, he’d been reeling from the bomb Iso had laid on him about Cropper. That’s why he shied away from prosecution. His entire world was already shattered—he didn’t want to invite any more violence.

Also, Lytton had filed it away in the back of his head for future use—The Cutlasses needed him and his expertise. The Cutlasses were The Bare Bones’ biggest rivals. It was a no-brainer to put two and two together.

Now that he’d pulled away from Ford and cut all potential ties whatsoever from The Bare Bones, more and more Lytton thought about Zelov’s offer. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and Lytton had been getting bored on the farm. It would be exciting and action-packed to help Zelov set up a new marijuana dispensary. It would challenge his chemistry skills in new ways. Tobiah, Helium Head, and Crybaby were more than equipped to run the Leaves of Grass. Lytton liked to supervise and check in on the plants every day, but it wasn’t absolutely vital.

So after wallowing for several days, drinking Jack Daniels as any red-blooded Apache should not do, and playing Creedence’s “Fortunate Son” over and over, Lytton had called Zelov back. Now he roared past Lake No. 1 up Tollhouse Draw, heading for the motor home The Cutlasses had put on the property after The Bare Bones had blown their warehouse to kingdom come ten years ago.

Lytton didn’t give a shit if he was the prodigal son, wasting all his money, waiting for famine to strike. Kino Driving Hawk had always told him that story to demonstrate that he should respect his elders. Well, he’d be herding the swine soon enough, there was no fear of that.

Lytton didn’t harbor any illusion that he’d get off easy, having heard such an enormous, dramatic secret straight from Ford Illuminati’s lips. They didn’t know that he planned to take Ford’s secret to his grave. For all they knew and expected, he was running straight to The Cutlasses to blather confirmation to the rumor everyone had been buzzing about all year long.

He
should
have done that. But he wouldn’t. He wasn’t that type. He’d never be a snitch, having been on the wrong side of the law for so long.

Karma would get Ford Illuminati in the end. If Lytton could help that karma along by assisting Ford’s mortal enemies, so be it. He’d gang up with The Cutlasses and make a few bucks while doing it.

It was losing June that really twisted the knife in Lytton’s gut. He could find no way clear to continuing to see her while remaining morally outraged with what Ford had done. It would be hypocritical, to say the fucking least. If he was going to have the conviction of his words, he couldn’t hook up with June. What would it look like, fucking the sister-in-law of the guy he so proudly refused to acknowledge?

But his balls throbbed with a craving for that sweet woman. He wanted serious carnal knowledge of her. He had not even gotten a chance to bang her before fever had overtaken her last week. Her excellent, enthusiastic blowjob had only whetted his appetite for more of her creamy boobs, and what he was sure was her tight, snappy cunt. She had an hourglass figure that knocked him out, just like her sister. She was meaty and bouncy in all the right places, not a stick figure.

The Jack had taken care of some of his desire. Booze always saturated him and tamped down that craving. But when he sobered up and rode past Lake No. 1, Lytton started wondering about how much of a straight arrow he wanted to really be. June wanted him, that much was obvious. When he kissed her when dropping her in front of the Hip Quiver, she had melted into his arms. He’d barely given her a dry peck, but her eyelids were trembling, and she was shaking like a vibrator in the TSA line.
Probably the fever.

He felt like the biggest dirtbag in the world cutting her loose like that after telling Ford he never wanted to see his ugly fucking face again. Now he truly was a renegade, a dropout from society, an even bigger reprobate than before. Only problem was, he didn’t feel like calling any of his slaves back to his house.

It was strange. Maybe he was entering some period of life where work was more important than sex.
No. Could never happen.
But maybe it was.

“First, we have to get certified by the Department of Health Services,” Lytton said now. One half of the double-wide trailer was devoted to Cutlass office space, the other half evidently being the living space where the wasted-looking sweetbutts draped themselves. Lytton had been right—The Bare Bones had much classier sweetbutts. It was as if the leftovers, the rejects, the wannabe Bare Bones sweetbutts all came here. “I’ve got good, solid contacts in that agency, so I can fast track that through the process.”

Doug Zelov nodded sagely. “That’s what we figured. That’s why we knew you were our man.”

Isosceles Weaver brown-nosed it. “That, and your brilliant chemistry knowledge. Did you know that indica plants are short and wide, but sativa plants are tall and thin?”

“I do.”
Oh, brother.
That was the most basic sort of cannabusiness knowledge. “Indicas are used to treat insomnia, relax muscles, relieve stress, best smoked at night before bed. Sativas give you an uplifting, cerebral high, suited for daytime smoking. Energizes and fights depression.”

Iso leaned forward pointedly. “Can a patient smoke both?”

Lytton shrugged. “Sure. Just keep them separate, one during the day, one for nighttime.”

Zelov grinned crookedly. “Just testing you. How often do you hit the bong?”

Lytton grinned too. “Almost never. I have to road test some once in awhile to make sure it’s up to par, but it really doesn’t agree with me. Maybe I’ve soaked enough into my pores over the years, or maybe it’s the Apache in me, but I can take very little of it. Where do you plan to rent this facility?”

Zelov said, “We’ve already got a space on Entwistle Drive. Three thousand square feet for the showroom, another four thousand in back for the warehouse. We’re getting the display cases, shelving, security installed.”

Lytton frowned. “Entwistle Drive? That’s only about ten blocks from A Joint Effort.”

Zelov’s smile was devious now. “You hate those guys as much as we do, don’t you?”

Lytton was taken aback. It hadn’t occurred to him that his rift with Ford would have traveled to The Cutlasses already. “Yeah, of course. But do you think there’s enough of a client base within that radius to support two dispensaries?”

Zelov shared a conspiratorial look with Iso. “If not, then one shall fall. How much you want to bet it
won’t
be the guys who are giving patients the good, clean, organic stuff?”

Iso added, “The Young Man Blue and the Eminence Front that you’re so famous for.”

That was true. The Bare Bones got their stuff from the Ochoa plantation near Show Low. “They use those new super-mega-steroid plants that get as big as a fucking Christmas tree. Those places suck the rivers dry. Their fucking pesticides poison wildlife.”

Zelov pointed at Lytton with his coffee cup. “Exactly. And don’t you want to be on the forefront of running some fuckwads like that out of business? We’ll advertise Pipe Dreams as being family-owned, a hundred percent organic, green, eco-friendly, locally sourced. All that shit that people eat up.”