Page 151 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

His mama had cut a man open, and his daddy had run through the swamp, bleeding from bullet wounds to get him back. Love and gratitude surged up inside him, a bright swell that put a lump in his throat, and blotted out the worry, for the moment.

When he flung his arms around her neck, she hugged him right back. Rubbed at his back. “We’ll be okay,” she promised, and he really, really wanted that to be true. If they were okay, then he thought that, one day, he could be, too.

~*~

Ghost arrived at Dartmoor just as dawn was pinking the sky to the east, the river a fat, glittering snake brushed with rose. He parked by the clubhouse, and walked over to sit in Maggie’s garden. The fish were still drowsy, and didn’t bother coming to beg for food. He sat on the bench at the water’s edge and stretched out his boots. Watched the fog slowly burn away; watched his empire come awake in a way he hadn’t for a long time.

It wasn’t unusual to be here at this time, but usually it was because he’d stayed all night, bent over his computer, on the phone, trying to solve another crisis. He never just…sat like this, anymore. Never appreciated the view.

There were feeders hanging in the twisted apple trees of the raised garden, and birds flocked to them. Goldfinches, chickadees, English sparrows. He knew them on sight, which surprised him; Maggie had named them over the years, but he hadn’t thought he’d internalized the information. There was a titmouse. A nuthatch, after the peanuts strung up in a mesh bag.

He'd left Maggie only half an hour ago, before the alarm went off. Her skin still dewy, glowing, pulse still beating fast andstrong in the hollow of her throat. Her eyes had been half-lidded, drowsy with satisfaction, and when he’d kissed her one last time, he’d nearly climbed back into bed and asked her to undress him.

But he had business this morning, and she knew it. She’d stroked his face, and given him a serious look, and said, “I know how brave, and strong, and smart you are. So do they…but you’ve got to show them what you show me: that youcare. That you love them.” When his throat felt thick, she smacked him on the ass, and wished him luck.

He swore he could feel her handprint there, now, and on his face. Could smell her perfume when he breathed.

No matter what happened, he had Mags. However this morning shook out, no matter how low it brought him, he had her to go home to, and she could lift him back up from there.

The only activity at the clubhouse had been Chanel and Stephanie’s quiet comings and goings: taking out the trash, going up to the mailbox to get the paper, rinsing out the rubber mats from behind the bar with the hose out front. The rumble of an approaching bike engine caught his attention. He stood, and shaded his eyes against the brightening sun to see Walsh turning in at the clubhouse gate, rings on his fingers sparkling brighter than his wrapped tailpipes.

Ghost walked down to meet him.

Walsh was on his feet, helmet off, tidying his hair with a few absent gestures. He was fresh-shaved, clear-eyed, and his face had a certain rosy glow to it that Ghost had seen on himself in the mirror earlier; it had nothing to do with the morning’s already-mounting heat. It had everything to do with a good woman, and maybe Emmie was to thank for the way Walsh met his gaze, and nearly smiled when he said, “Hey.”

“Hey. You’re here early.”

“Yeah. I wanted to give you something, before church.” He fished into his pocket, and handed something over. It was only then that Ghost noted the blank space on the front of his cut.

Ghost’s hand trembled, faintly, when he took back the PRESIDENT patch. It wasn’t a new one; it was his own, carefully unstitched and given to Walsh in his absence. He recognized the dirt ground into its threads; the faint burn mark along the edge where James had once fallen asleep while smoking. There were a few tiny, brown flecks, too. Blood. Duane’s blood, from where Maggie stabbed him to death.

Walsh said, “I don’t know how much my word’s going to be worth. Or my vote – but you have both, Prez.”

Ghost felt like he’d been punched, right in the sternum. He nodded.

Walsh scrubbed at his jaw, and tipped his head, and a smile still lurked at the corners of his mouth. “But there’s one other thing.”

~*~

In a perfect world, Mercy would have gathered all his brothers around him and extolled Ghost’s virtues, and they would have nodded, and agreed, and said,Yes, you’re right, Merc, he made a hard call, but the right call, and we need him as our president still. But the world was far from perfect, and so Mercy knew he had to let his brothers feel the way they felt.

He walked into the chapel – the same chapel, with the same table, same chairs, same framed photos and flags that he’d known since he’d come here, feeling then as though he’d lived an entire, miserable life, brought low by terrible grief…only to find that entering this room for the first time, and finding a girl hiding in a cabinet, had been, in fact, the beginning of his life. His real life. His best life. He walked in today, and breathed deep its smells of wax and oil, and he took his usual seat, andhe surveyed the faces around him. Contemplative. Concerned. Confused.

He caught Tango’s gaze, beside him, and Tango, he noted with pride, with a surge of affection, looked hopeful. Leagues and leagues past the pallid, shaking boy who’d once spilled his guts over cigs and coffee in Mercy’s old apartment. A well-fed, well-loved Tango whose gaze seemed to saylet’s hope for the best.

Mercy winked, and Tango grinned, and winked back.

Ghost walked in first…and every head turned toward him, and the way he stopped short, and leaned back against the wall. He didn’t speak, and just as Hound was sitting forward, stubbing out his smoke, clearly with something on his mind, their acting prez and VP entered together, as a unit.

Walsh took the head of the table, and Aidan sat at his left.

Walsh, Mercy noted with a start, wasn’t wearing his president patch.

He picked up the gavel, though, and tapped it once, though no one was talking. “I call this meeting to order.” Then he set the gavel down, and leaned back in his chair, and surveyed each and every one of them. His gaze was a strange blend of his usual impassive coldness, and something warm and unfamiliar. Something open. He looked…free.

Aidan, by contrast, was picking at his cuticles, and looking at no one.

Walsh took a deep breath and said, “It’s been two weeks. At this point, we all know what went down. I’m not going to rehash it for anyone. What I will say, though, is that I quite willingly went along with Ghost’s plan. That’s not,” he said, quickly, “slander against him. He did what he did in an attempt to protect the club and everyone in it. I agreed with his decision, and so, if anything, I’m the one who lied to you all.”

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