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I was roused from dozing in a cool place. I saw sunlight through slat and broken boards. I was in a barn.
Grannie was looking at me. "Good, you're awake. I'm going to stitch you up. If you don't like the job you can go get plastic surgery later; they're pretty good at removing scars or making them very faint. Here, take a big swig of this."
It was a bottle of Whiskey.
Her eyebrows drew down. "I have to start. Now, drink."
I nodded and pulled the bottle up to my lips. I chugged back as much as I could and coughed at the end.
She gave a nod of approval and said, "Lay over on your side. Kristy, hold the flashlight right here. At this angle."
Light moved around me. I noticed others in the barn. Gunner was stripping out of his suit. Sonar was talking to him.
A wash of cold liquid poured onto my head – into the hurt that was so numb.
I saw Donna rush by, carrying another bottle of alcohol. Going the other way was Slicer and Smiley, carrying a wounded Flats.
Fire erupted along a wide swath of the side of my head. I growled out and scrunched my eyes shut.
Grannie muttered, "Just to disinfect everything." A thin stabbing seared my skin. Then again, and again. I felt something odd and tugging.
Kristy said, "Oh god, I think I'm going to be sick."
Grannie said angrily, "None of that now. I need you to hold the light. These are stitches and stitches are good. These mean your husband isn't wrapped in plastic to be delivered to the coroner."
I heard my wife gulp sickly. Her word was breathy, "Okay."
"That's a good girl." She made an appreciative noise. "Stiff here is going to have quite the scar. He might want to let his hair grow."
The strange tugging and stinging pain settled down to a throbbing numbness. My skin was being stitched closed.
I heard Dragon hiss and groan.
Grannie called, still stitching my head, "She about ready?"
Donna said, "Yes."
"I'm almost done here."
It seemed to take forever.
She sighed. "Thirty-five stitches." She raised her voice. "Here I come."
Dealer squatted down by me. "You all right, Stiff?"
I felt like I needed to answer. I slowly moved, leveraging myself up. I was on a bale of hay. "I think so."
His hand clamped down on my knee. "You did fine today."
"We lost two? Did I hear that..."
He nodded. "Big Pizza and Viking."
I felt tears in my eyes. "We're not going to bury them in some grave are we?"
His mouth firmed. "No. The coroner is my uncle. He'll prep the bodies and they'll have a normal funeral." His eyes grew distant in memory. "And we'll be there for them."
~ ~ ~
We were on the road out from the abandoned ranch within an hour. Kristy informed me on the way back how the plan had been to make it all look like eight Surenos got together and things went bad. That way, the media had nothing to report except that gangbangers shot each other – probably over a drug feud, or money.
I felt the rightness of what she said. The media didn't care if gangbangers shot each other; they did all the time. But if the news was that a biker gang and the Surenos clashed, the media would hype racism, warfare, vigilante murder and all sorts of hysterical claims to make good ratings.
But eight dead gang members? Who cared? No one, not even the media. The media only cared when the public fought back. Then it was bad. We carried several plastic wrapped bodies away from the gas station. There had been seven vehicles driven by the Surenos. Who would question that? Their families, surely, but again, who cared about gang members? They died and disappeared all the time.
By the time we reached Keystone, I felt a lot better, if stiff could be called better. My head hurt like a son of a bitch, but the pain was merely a reminder that I was alive. It was a double shock when we turned onto our clubhouse street and got out.
Tequila's face was awash with mascara. And our clubhouse was ringed with fire trucks and personnel.
I hugged Tequila to me as she rushed into my arms, sobbing heavily. But she wasn't crying for the clubhouse, I knew. Kristy hugged her with me.
I stared at the blackened hull of what had been the clubhouse. Fire-fighters held hoses, spraying down what remained. But really, nothing remained.
Jonesy occasionally could be heard barking forlornly beyond the cordon.
Dealer was near, shaking his head. "Must have been a second gang group."
Gripper said, "For sure. We didn't face all of them today. But we took out their leaders."
They saw me standing, holding Tequila, and both came over.
I said, "What are we going to do?"
Dealer sighed. "Rebuild. We had insurance. We'll rebuild bigger. And better."
The smoke rose like the remains of so many dreams, twisting upward as if all the life of the club was passing upwards before our eyes. Somewhere in there, I hoped to see my brothers. I hoped to see an indication of their new journey. Anything. But all I saw was smoke. All I felt were Tequila's tears.