Page 80 of Bourbon & Blood

I didn’t know how I was going topossiblyremember everyone’s name. I recognized Hex, Cypress, and Saint but there were several other men wandering throughout the throng in their leather cuts. That was what they called their motorcycle club vests, I guess –the ones with the brightly colored skeleton leering under its purple top hat through its monocle, bursting out of the gold fleur-de-lis that was the symbol of the entire region.

They looked like a fun bunch with their purple, gold, and green bandannas, and their big smiles as they chugged their beers. Unlike the people of the city who would cross the street to avoid any of them, the people out here in the swamp embraced them with open arms and even bigger smiles.

I found that curious to a degree, but the people out here? They were just built different – sturdier, more adaptable. Despite how much the rest of the folks in the city loved to treat them like they were dumb or stupid hicks? I knew better. They could make just about anything you could think of work in their favor with what they called just a little Cajun ingenuity.

So, no; stupid they were not.

Wary? Now wary they absolutely were. You could see it with the way they looked at me with curiosity but also with how they wouldn’t dream of approaching me to talk with me. I was alright with that. I was peopled out. With how much the kids looked over at me and pointed in my direction only to have their parent say something and turn them around from me? Well, I had to think La Croix had something to do with telling them not to bother me.

On any ordinary day with Maya in my life, I would have been hurt. With Maya missing, and possibly dead? I was a little grateful for my solitude. I just felt emotionally and mentally tapped out right now. It took everything in me to pretend things were normal enough to go into work and work tookso muchout of me.

We ate and made small talk. Cypress, Saint, and a smaller brother they called Bennie; although his name patch on his vest readBeignet, came over and joined us after a little while.

“Headin’ out here in a bit,” I tuned in to Cypress saying. “Saint and I just wanted to get somethin’ to eat before riding out and relievin’ Louie an’ Chainsaw.”

“Where they at?” La Croix asked.

Saint looked in my direction then back to La Croix and tipped his head as though to ask if he should really say anything, which mildly annoyed me. But then I harkened back to some of the previous discussions La Croix and I had… about certain things being safer if I just didn’t know.

“You can say where they are, man. Just keep what they doin’ outta your mouth,” Hex said.

Cypress thought about it and nodded. Saint was the one to answer. “They out at some fancy golf course not too far away, actually,” he said and Hex raised an eyebrow.

“Good enough,” La Croix rumbled, giving my knee a squeeze.

I’d met a lot more of the club today than I had previous.

There was Bennie, who like I said, was a small man, not much taller than my five foot three, maybe by only like an inch or two. What he lacked for in height, he made up for in looks. He was all sleek, hard muscle with rich brown hair and a neatly trimmed brown beard. The real showstopper, for him, was his thickly lashed soulful brown eyes.

Axeman was similarly colored in that he too was a brunette, only a little ashier than Bennie. Likewise, he too was bearded, but it was much longer, hitting just above the middle of his chest. His hair was likewise longer, swooping down in front of his eyes and reaching nearly to his chin.

His eyes, where they peered out from behind all those bangs or whatever, were what was striking the most, however – icy blue, and as wintery as I had ever seen. Cold and apathy radiated from them in such a way that if I were a woman walking alone and he passed me and took a second look? I would most definitely quicken my pace or cross the street altogether.

I didn’t need to ask about his road name, either. Axeman was likely a homage to New Orleans’ most famous serial killer. He was active just past the turn of the last century, from like 1918 to 1919. He invaded people’s homes and killed them with an axe, usually their own from their shed or out by their woodpiles. No one was spared, really. Not man, woman, or child; and he just absolutely reigned terror never to be caught. He had a fondness for jazz and writing letters to the papers which is what made the Axeman of New Orleans such a sensational case. He wrote a letter to the papers, stating he would avoid any house that played jazz on a certain set of nights, and as a result, the city’s streets had been filled with music.

While I hoped that the Axeman of today simply had a fondness for jazz – I didn’t think that’s how he got his name. Not with that look in those eyes, which were somehow more terrifying than La Croix’s had ever been, at least to me.

Finally, there was a quiet man – average height like La Croix, except not nearly as imposing or big. He had been introduced to me as Collier but everyone just seemed to call him Col. He had a Tennessee accent and was downright wiry, his hair long, and a dishwater blonde. He had a goatee and a sort of somberness that hung around him. A stillness he wore like a mantle.

After a while, Cypress and Saint left and sometime later, when our plates of food were finished and disposed of and our drinks refreshed or traded for something stronger, two more men of the club rode up and dismounted their bikes.

I guessed they were the Louie and Chainsaw the rest of the men had been speaking of earlier.

“Be right back, cher,” La Croix murmured against my temple and I sat up with my book in my hands, to let him get up out of the hammock. We’d switched to lounging in the shade, me with my book in my hands reading, while he’d simply rested with his eyes closed while I’d lain on him.

I looked back over my shoulder at the small huddle of four. Hex had joined La Croix and the two new men, and eventually, La Croix made his way back to me, the other two splitting off in the direction of the food.

An older man shouted from over by the house and La Croix threw up an arm, waving him off as he came back my way, head bowed as he listened to Hex. La Croix nodded, and Hex split off from him, and that seemed to be that; for now – the older man grumbling and turning to a knot of other older men to seemingly bitch. I noticed a few looks from those men cast our way – some amused, and others sympathetic. I could only imagine the angry old man to be La Croix’s father. Don’t ask me why, but if you know you just know – you know what I mean?

I pulled my bookmark from the back of my book and stuck it between the pages, closing the cover.

“Everything alright?” I asked, as La Croix returned to me.

“Aw, yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s just up from his nap. Been tyin’ one on since sunrise. It’s his fuckin’ way.”

“Ah,” I said and nodded my head knowingly.

“Chainsaw an’ Louie be here any minute to meet you,” he said, and I smiled warmly.

---