CHAPTER TEN

He thought he’d be able to handle knowing she was back there, but his whole body felt like a strand of hair pulled taut, ready to snap. The golden landscape of the San Joaquin Valley spread out before him, slowly turning to purple with the fading sun, nothing holding back the gathering starlight, finally free of the garish artificial lights of the city. He should have felt free too, as he always did straddling his bike. Knowing that whatever had troubled him, whatever had made him scream or cry or grieve, was now in the rear view. Kyle had always talked about how he felt the same way, and it was one of the reasons they were close. For Joe, who had lived in many places but called none of them home, riding away was escape. It meant he’d survived, once again.

 

He tried to relax as he drove, to loosen his grip on the handlebars and the clench of his thighs around the saddle, to let himself go, but he couldn't shake the constant awareness that Ruby Clarke was seated behind him, her wool-clad arms clinging dutifully to his waist. He couldn't figure out if she simply didn't want to try to speak to him over the noise, or if she was deliberately ignoring him.

 

The truth was, this was far from the first time he had had a girl on the back of his bike. As a teenager, girls used to literally push each other out of the way to be the next to take a spin down the highway with Joseph Ryan. And he always tried to humor them, even if he wasn't interested in leading them on any further. After all, there was no better feeling in the world. Especially for a kid like him, who had nothing better to look at than to watch the dead-end streets fall away under his tires. The scolding faces on the sidewalk became featureless blurs, with a beautiful girl clinging tight to him, her long hair streaming in the wind. But it never meant anything more to him than a good ride, over to the next town and back again.

 

This was different, though. He could tell just in the way Ruby held onto him. She didn't cuddle close, the way he'd learned that girls liked to do. She didn't caress his torso or trace patterns on his hips, or rest her cheek delicately against the logo on the back of his jacket and close her eyes.

 

Her hands on his hips stayed taut, her muscles as tense and alert as an eagle perched on a branch, scanning the ground. As if she knew something was bound to go wrong. As if any minute she expected him to turn on her, do something to hurt her. As if she thought he was scum. He needed to disabuse her of that notion--not that he was scum; there was probably no helping that. But the idea that he would do anything to hurt her.

 

He reached into his pocket again, tempted, not for the first time, to take out the necklace and show it to her. At the very least; it would prove that he had known Kyle, that they had, at one time, been close. But it would also be one more piece of proof to tar him guilty for Kyle's death, and he knew that was precisely what Ruby was looking for: another excuse to write Joe off as worthless, as untrustworthy. To do what people had been doing to him all his life--at least, until he'd met Kyle and the Jockeys. He closed his gloved hands around the chain, tightly, just for second.

 

What if he passed it silently to her? No. He released his grip, and the chain tumbled deeper into his pocket. He'd know when the time was right. Jesus. How had things gotten so complicated?

 

He felt Ruby shiver, and coming back to earth, realized that they'd already been riding for an hour and a half. That was more than enough time, he decided, to chance a conversation and not risk her thinking him pushy. Besides, asking how she was doing couldn't hurt if he was trying to show her his intentions were good. "Are you warm enough?" he asked, afraid he sounded as awkward as he felt, and honestly not knowing quite what he'd do if she responded in the negative. Offer her his jacket, he supposed.

 

"I'll be fine," she said flatly. He was afraid that meant "no, but I'm not taking any charity from you." She hesitated. "Why is this thing so quiet?" she asked. "And yes, I realize the irony of the fact that I'm shouting, but it's only because the wind is so strong. The bike itself is just purring like a kitten over a bowl of milk."

 

"Yeah," he agreed, surprised and admittedly pleased that she'd noticed. "I fixed the pipes yesterday. I figured the last thing I needed was to call undue attention to myself by peeling out."

 

"That's got to be a first for one of you guys," Ruby scoffed.

 

He laughed a little, and he felt her grip on him change imperceptibly. "Who was that guy?" she finally asked in a smaller voice. Joe decided to be honest.

 

"He was a Reaper."

 

"A what?"

 

"A member of a different club."

 

"Why did he want...me?" she hesitated, as if every word she spoke was torturous. "It's because of Kyle, isn't it?" Joe felt himself gulp at the mention of his old friend's name.

 

"It's more complicated than that, but...yeah."

 

"Hey, road warrior," she said, poking him, and he could feel the tip of her fingernail in the small of his back. "The turnoff to Madelia was thirty miles back that way."

 

"I know. That’s not where we’re headed. At least not right away. That's the first place they'll look for you," he said. "We're going to stay with a friend of mine. Sean Donovan. He's president of another Steel Jockeys chapter."

 

"Where?"

 

"Outside Fresno."

 

"Dude, that's still another hour and a half away!" she protested. "We'll never make it back before morning. I do have a job you know. And by the way, the second I don't show up, my boss will have the state patrol on your ass before you can cross the county line." She was trying to sound threatening, but her voice hitched.

 

"Relax. I'm sure he'll understand the extenuating circumstances." He tried to keep his voice light.

 

"He would if you'd give me back my phone so I could call him."

 

"Calling Fox Keene is the last thing in the world I want you doing." If Ruby was surprised by the fact that Joe knew Fox was her boss, she didn't show it.

 

"Why not?"

 

Joe knew that telling her precisely why would mean going all the way back to before Kyle was killed. Not only would that open up enough cans of worms to fill a pantry, Ruby wouldn't believe him anyway. "Because we can't trust him."

 

Ruby laughed harshly. "By we, you mean the Jockeys, of course. God forbid any of you should have an independent thought. I wonder why you don't trust Fox?” she said idly.

 

Joe could feel her body language, which had actually started to relax, grow taut again. He wanted to duck his head as if a high wind was coming.

 

“Because he knows every single disgusting crime you guys have committed for the past ten years and could have you all put away with a phone call, but he's too polite to do it?” Ruby continued. “Because he had the sense to crawl out of your little snake pit of horrors while he still had his soul left intact? Or maybe because, unlike all the rest of you combined, he actually possesses more than two brain cells to rub together and thus knows that not every problem can be solved with a set of brass knuckles and a sawed-off shotgun?"

 

Joe could sense the rage in Ruby's voice, and knew she was once again thinking of Kyle. He wanted to scream back at her, to tell her, once and for all, that she couldn't have it more wrong. But he couldn't tell her the truth without making himself look worse than she already thought him. Instead, he gritted his teeth and kept a stranglehold on the handlebars, so much so that he forgot to signal as he impulsively edged into the turn lane and sped up the ramp to the nearest exit. He was fooling himself into thinking that if he drove hard enough he could outrun his emotions' mad swirl. He wasn't that familiar with the town, but he recognized the green neon glare of a BP station's lights. He pulled in.

 

"What are you doing? Where are we?" Ruby demanded.

 

"Gassing up," he muttered as he pulled into the nearly-empty parking lot, not trusting himself to say more. Glancing at the gauge, he knew he probably had just enough fuel to get them to Sean's, but he needed a time out, and he guessed that his new companion did too.

 

Joe hopped off the bike, as athletically as ever, and holding out his hand to Ruby who, predictably, ignored him. It was strange to look at her for the first time though. as they'd been so close for the past hour and a half. She sat stiffly on the back of the bike, looking straight ahead, her gray-green eyes big and deep and sad. Her hands were shoved in the pockets of her sweater, and her curly chestnut hair looked like a squirrel's nest with its knots and tangles, partially plastered against her olive skin. Her lips had become chapped and she chewed on piece of loose skin nervously. Joe, realizing he was staring, grabbed for the gas pump before his emotions got revealed any further.

 

It was an almost physical agony, knowing how wrong Ruby had it, how Fox had her so completely brainwashed that she didn't understand that it was Fox who had betrayed them. On the other hand, Joe wasn't guiltless himself. What a mess. If only there was a movie that he could rewind to get Ruby to see that night through his eyes. Then, even if she still decided to condemn him, at least she'd know that Kyle’s culpability had had not been one of malice, but failure.

 

"Are you sure you don't need to use the bathroom, at least?" he ventured carefully, as he watched the numbers on the pump tick up, mentally measuring the figure against the dollars he had wadded up in the money clip in his pocket. Whatever he had left over after paying was going to get his bike out of the impound lot. "There's not a whole lot between here and Fresno." She ignored him. "Ruby?" he called again.

 

No sign of her. He turned around in a circle, but only saw a pickup pulling up under the lights and a grizzled guy exiting, opening a pack of Camels and some beef jerky. He raced to the door of the store, heart starting to thump, pushing hot blood into his head and chest, grim realization making his boots seem to stick to the pavement as if it were wet cement.

 

He should have done more--she'd been terrified, he cursed himself. And he'd only been able to offer awkward overtures and smartass comments to assuage her fears. Now he was paying the price. "Ruby?" he shouted.

 

His stomach did a somersault as he remembered what he'd stashed in the Harley's right saddlebag. Frantically, he reached down for it, only to find a gaping void. Ruby's handbag, wallet, and cell phone were gone, and so was the gun.