Page 6 of Paladin's Hell

This is the bit where she might get upset. Our personal history is all water under the bridge now. But it’s not as easy to dismiss as that. Though years might have passed, my old lady still dwells on what had left a permanent scar. “Paladin. He was just a prospect at the time, but he carried that young, drugged girl out of the house. When she came around, she remembered it was him, latched onto him. Paladin, well, he was taken by the kid. Seems a mutual attraction developed between them.”

Quickly she sits forward. “I know Satan’s Devils don’t do everything legal, but shit, Hell. Drummer shouldn’t have allowed…”

My hand slashes through the air. “He didn’t.” I snipe. “Let me fuckin’ finish, woman. Paladin was nineteen, Jayden fourteen. At the risk of losing his patch, Paladin had to promise to keep his hands off her until she reached the age of consent. Which in Arizona, is eighteen.”

“In Colorado it’s seventeen.” She purses her lips, and I can see her mind whirling. “How old is the girl now?”

“Sixteen, approaching seventeen, Drummer said.” I’d asked to estimate how much supervision she’d need. Knowing Mo, though, I can see why she’d think it significant, that’s confirmed by her next words.

“Paladin wants to bring her here so they can have sex.”

“No, Mo. Drummer wants Jayden to come here for protection. Paladin wants to come with her so she isn’t alone.” My hand sweeps back through my grey/white hair. “Fuck, Moira, I don’t know much more than what I’ve told you. But there’s more to this shit than a boy wanting to get into a girl’s pants. Don’t forget the need to hide her. Reckon Paladin just wants to get her away from Tucson and somewhere she’d be safe.”

“They could have gone to Vegas if they just needed to get out of Arizona.” Moira stands and goes to open the window again, sweat glistening on her face. “I reckon the legal age limit has a lot to do with it.”

“Nah,” I contradict. “It’s because of us. You and me. San Diego is too close so that’s out of the question. Neither Utah or Las Vegas are anything approaching family clubs…”

“And we are?” she scoffs, incredulously.

“Not the club. Us,” I emphasise again. “We’ve raised a family. We’ve got experience with teenagers. That’s the way Drummer’s thinking.”

Again, her lips press together, clearly unconvinced. Yeah, Drummer had walked me through his reasoning. But I have to wonder if my old lady’s on track as to what’s in those youngsters’ heads. There’s not a lot I can do about it. I’ve had a request from the National Prez, I need to get my woman, and my brothers, on board with it. Hard to say no to Drummer.

Standing, I approach, laying my hand on her shoulder. “They’re still assessing the risk in Tucson, don’t want to upend a kid’s life if there’s no real reason. If they come here, and at this point, it’s still a big if, my suggestion is that they stay with us where we can keep an eye on them, and not at the club.”

Moira stares outside, there’s a squirrel searching for something to eat in the yard. Suddenly she turns around to face me. “She can,” she agrees. “But not him. Not until I know what the score is, Hell. I won’t be complicit in a young girl being forced to do anything she doesn’t want, or she’s not ready for.”

A compromise, and a good one at that. The direction of my woman’s thoughts doesn’t surprise me one bit. Gently turning her around to face me, I place my lips to her forehead. “Agreed, Mo. We’ll see how the land lies before throwing them together.”

We stand like that for a minute, then she pushes me away. “You going to be coming home tonight?”

Moving my head side to side I think. “We’ve got church, then I’ll have to be sociable and have a drink with the boys. I might need to stay at the club if the roads get iced up.”

Her face tightens. “Do what you’ve got to do, Hell. I won’t bother to wait up.” She turns fast, but not before I see her eyes glistening.

I say a goodbye to her back, then go grab my jacket, thick winter gloves, and a warm beanie, then back my bike out of the garage. A steady rain is falling, and by the look of the sky, it could turn to snow later. If it does, the sun rising tomorrow should quickly melt any that settles, good thing is, this time of year, snow doesn’t tend to hang around long. But the overnight temperatures will likely freeze it. Hate leaving my old lady alone, especially as our talk is bound to have dredged up thoughts of the past. But I can’t neglect my duties, and that means putting in an appearance at church. Only been a couple of times I’ve missed it in the twenty years I’ve sat in that chair.

I put on the goggles I wear in cold weather and start the engine of my Harley Dyna Glide. Its rumble echoing from the garage whose motion sensor fitted doors are automatically closing behind me, then, facing it in the right direction, shift up through the gears and I’m off.

It only takes twenty minutes for me to ride to the small steel mill that closed when the market collapsed in the early eighties. An appropriate setting for our compound, seeing as it was the resulting unemployment that led to the start of the motorcycle club which, eventually, threw in their lot with the Satan’s Devils. We had to knock the chimney down as it had become structurally dangerous, but the furnace remains. It’s a huge pit, large enough to melt down a train. We kept it, in part as a memorial to the mill’s origins, and by having placed our grills within it, as a talking point when weather permits and we hold club barbeques. In the factory alongside, brothers have rooms and the lower floor has been stripped out to become our clubhouse.

Over the almost four decades that we’ve been in existence, we’ve had the opportunity to mould it just how we like.

Mid-afternoon and the road’s relatively clear, I let my mind wander back, the plight of young Jayden bringing the past back to me, just as much as I suspect it had done to my wife.

In the beginning the clubhouse had been a makeshift affair. Crooked shelving housing drinks behind a couple of planks suspended on brick blocks which had been our bar top. Mismatched tables and chairs, a pool table which had seen better times. But the members, who in time would become Devils, were even then bonding together as a brotherhood, and while the MC was just the bare bones, it was slowly shaping up.

Black Plate, more commonly known as Blackie, had started the club, and had assumed the position of Prez. His friend, another steelworker kicked loose when the steel market plummeted, Furnace, joined him as his VP. Members have come and gone, usually via coffins, over the years. The only two remaining original members, other than myself, are Bomber and Rusty.

Blackie also happened to be my father. Showing me, his son, no favours, I’d joined at the bottom as a prospect. Absolutely no preference given for, or acknowledgement of, our relationship. I’d probably have been treated better if I hadn’t carried his genes. Maybe things might have been different had my mother lived. She’d died with complications from blood loss after having her only child, me. Something I’d felt he’d always blamed me for.

Drug running and moving guns had taken the place of earning an honest wage. Money in your pocket rather than eking a living from whatever you could. I didn’t like it, but had no alternative, with the crash of the steel industry, there were too many people unemployed and chasing after the few available jobs.

It was on one of the days I’d just finished making a delivery to a local dealer, when I first saw her. A sweet girl, walking arm and arm with a giggling friend. As they approached, I saw I was the target of their mirth, or, rather, interested, slightly nervous laughter.

Seeing them eyeing my bike, and the cut that I’m wearing, I pull out a pack of cigarettes, light one, and watch them draw closer.

My greeting, of, “Ladies,” accompanied by a grin and a chin lift has them giggling all over again.

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