Over the next several days, the Souls mourned the loss of their brother, burying him with full honors. It was a closed funeral—only Stilts’ family, his brothers, and their old ladies in attendance.
Hammer gave the eulogy, speaking quietly and from the heart, pausing several times to gather himself. He made no mention how Stilts died—there was no need as everyone knew—and kept his remarks to Stilts’ life and what he’d meant to the club.
As six brothers carried Stilts out of the clubhouse, the other twenty-one brothers formed a double line at the back of the hearse, each man carrying Stilts on his final journey. The whole Souls then took up the front and rear of the big black hearse on their Harleys to ride as an honor guard.
Stilts had a soft spot for big Cadillacs from the sixties. Every time he used to see one, he would tell anyone who listened how he would own one someday, and go into exact detail on how he would customize it. Knife had somehow arranged Stilts to be transported in a gleaming 1965 Cadillac hearse with the plate THDRTKR. Thundertaker, with its slammed ride height, massive tires with wide whitewalls, and loud exhaust, was cartoonish and ridiculous, and Stilts would have loved it.
It was an unusually cold day as the Souls led the hearse through town, the rumble of their V-Twins announcing to Souls already departed that another brother would soon be joining them. After they rumbled to a stop on the road near the grave site, the brothers once again formed two lines at the back of the hearse so each man could do his part to carry Stilts, offering their hands in symbolic support.
The process was repeated a final time at the grave site, Stilts being handed man to man to his final resting place. As Stilts’ family, both blood and brotherhood, watched on, Hammer stepped away from his gathered brothers and removed the Immortal Souls pin from his colors. He placed the pin, a skull wearing a Roman Legion helmet, on the top of the polished oak coffin and thumped it hard with his fist, driving the pin into the wood to affix it.
Knife, as vice president followed, then Mike, then each brother in turn; each pausing to drive their pin into Stilts’ casket. Their task now complete, they stood in silence off to the side until the last brother had affixed his pin.
Hammer nodded, and Stilts was lowered into the ground. He watched for a moment, then turned and gave his condolences to Richard Stilton’s family before stepping aside to allow each brother to do the same.
###
Over the next two weeks, the Souls ripped Amberton apart, looking for any hint to the shooter’s identity. The Souls had an extensive network of contacts they used in their side business—men and women that were valuable for all sorts of information. But in this case, everyone was coming up empty. All expressed their condolences, and promised to keep their ear to the ground for news, but had nothing of value to offer.
“How the fuck can nobody know shit?” Hammer raged after another frustrating day and total lack of progress. “This fucker isn’t a fucking ghost!”
Knife handed Hammer and Mike a beer, keeping one for himself. “I don’t know. You need to keep it together, brother, for the club.”
Hammer took a healthy pull from the beer. Knife was right, and he knew it, but knowing something and being able to do it weren’t always the same thing.
Knife was almost thirty years older than Hammer. He was part of the original eight that founded the Immortal Souls with Motor and was the last remaining active member of that group. When Motor had stepped down, he’d offered the gavel to Knife, but Knife had refused to take it, preferring to continue in his position as vice president, and the gavel had passed to Motor’s protégé, Hammer.
Hammer relied on Knife. He was always good for advice and a steadying hand. He was going to miss him when he stepped down.
“What I can’t figure,” Mike said, “is how nobody saw him. You’d think someone with a rifle out in the open like that would have been seen.”
Hammer nodded. “If he’s ex-military, they’re expert at concealment.”
Mike took a drag from his beer as he mulled over what Hammer said. “Maybe. But this isn’t fucking Iran. Carrying a rifle is going to get you noticed. I hit a couple of stores today and spread a little cash around so they’d let me look at their books. Nothing. One place hadn’t sold a high-powered rifle in weeks and at the other, the guy who bought it was somebody the owner knew. My guess he’s had the gun for a while or he didn’t buy it in Amberton.”
Hammer smiled. He’d selected Mike as his sergeant at arms when he’d accepted the gavel, and he hadn’t regretted the decision for a moment. Mike was only thirty-five, totally committed to making the Immortal Souls great, and was smart and careful. He thought every problem through before he acted, then did so with purpose and determination. Hammer wasn’t that stupid as to replace Knife as vice president, but Knife was grooming Mike to take over his position, just as Motor had groomed him to become president.
“You don’t realize how good these guys are,” Hammer said. “One could almost be in this room with us and you wouldn’t see him.”
Hammer snickered as Mike began to look around, his eyes forced open wide for comical effect. That was the other thing he liked about Mike—he could lighten any mood with just a look or his razor-sharp wit.
“If he’s that fucking good how are we going to find him?” Mike asked.
“That,” Hammer said, softer, “is going to be the trick.”
###
“How’re you holding up?” Lily asked.
“It’s been tough,” Hammer replied, slowly twirling his mug on the bar in front of him to give his hands something to do.
This was the first time they’d seen each other since the morning she’d stopped to check on him. They’d talked on the phone nearly every day, and texted more often than that, but their schedules had been out of sync, and this was the first chance since that they’d been able to speak face to face.
It’d been a tough two weeks. Stilts had been the only brother to die since he joined the Souls, and the way it happened was eating him alive. After the shock had come the rage and the only thing that contained it was the sound of Lily’s voice. She had, for lack of a better term, talked him down each day, their discussions preventing his self-destruction. He never mentioned the Souls were on the move, but he could tell she knew, even though she never mentioned it.
Now, sitting here with a beer in front of him, he could feel her tug. Lily was like a star, shining bright and pulling him into her orbit. She was inescapable, almost burning him with her radiance and he didn’t care or want to escape.
He took a pull from his beer then smiled to himself. What he wanted was to shove her into a backroom somewhere, or bend her over the bar, and fuck the shit out of her. He wanted to hear her wail in pleasure as he took her hard and fast, to taste her lips and feel the bite of her nails on his back.
He wanted her to consume him, as a star would consume a planet that wandered too close, and burn out this knot of rage and pain with the heat of passion.
He smiled, his lips tight, as he watched the mug slowly turn in front of him. It was an odd sensation, unlike anything he’d experienced before. Somehow, she could wind him up, and calm him down, at the same time, while doing nothing.
Lily knew the Souls were tearing up the town looking for the shooter. She assumed since they were still at it they were coming up as empty as the police were. The shooter was like a phantom. The police had done a full forensic sweep and other than recovering a few bullet fragments they’d found nothing. They didn’t even know for sure where the shot came from, only that it had come from somewhere in the Gravely Park Recreation Center parking lot. If they didn’t get a break soon the murderer might get away with it.
“You still don’t want to talk about it?”
“No, not really.”
“It might help.”
He turned away from his beer to look at her. “Maybe.”
“Hammer, you don’t have to keep it all bottled up inside. If you can’t talk to your brothers, then talk to me. If you can’t talk to me, talk to your brothers. If you can’t talk to either of us, find someone you can talk to. Just let someone help you.”
He gave her a faint smile. “I don’t know what to say.”
She rose from the stool, picked up her beer, and gave her head a jerk as she led him to a booth in the back of the bar. “You say whatever you feel like saying. It doesn’t matter what.”
She knew he was hurting. All the life and the crackling energy that seemed to surround him was missing, along with his quick and easy smile. She reached across the table and took his hands. They were cold.
“Tell me about Richard. You have my word. What you say here will never leave this table.”
“Stilts.”
“Stilts?”
“Rich, Richard Stilton, we called him Stilts.”
“Does everyone have a nickname?” she asked, trying to draw him out.
“Road name? Yeah. I’m Hammer. Stilts. My VP is Donald, but we call him Knife because you do not want to fuck with him if he has a knife in his hand.” Hammer paused then smiled. “I think the best one is Goose. When he laughs, he honks like a goose.”
She grinned, imagining that. “Did Stilts have family?”
“He has an ex-wife somewhere, but she didn’t even bother to come to his funeral. His brother, mother, and father were there. His father isn’t in good health and could barely get around. Having Stilts die broke him, you could see it in his eyes. It’s not right to see your kids buried.”
“No,” she agreed softly. He smiled again, but she could she could see the wetness in his eyes.
“Knife found this hotrod hearse and somehow convinced the owner to let us use it to transport Stilts. He would have loved that thing… and somehow it just seemed right that if he couldn’t be riding with us, he was riding in that.”
She gave a slow nod. “I think that’s a fitting sendoff for anyone to have them doing something they loved.”
Hammer pursed his lips and fought back the tears as he bowed his head.
“Joe,” she said, her tone even gentler. “It’s okay to mourn the loss of friends and loved ones. You don’t have to keep it all in. If you don’t let go of the pain, you can’t heal. If you can’t heal, that pain will twist you up from the inside until it consumes you. You need to let it go. You have to let it go.”
“I don’t know how,” he murmured.
Without saying a word, she slid out of the booth, still holding his hand and pulling him up with her. She turned and guided him along behind her as she weaved through the room, heading for the door. Once outside, she headed for her car and once there she stepped in close and put her arms around his waist.
“You just do it,” she said, gazing into his eyes. Her lips twitched as his arms went around her waist. “There is no one around. Nobody to see or hear. Nobody but me and I’ve already given you my word.” She reached up and pulled his head down to her shoulder and held it there. “Let it go, Hammer.”
He didn’t want to let it go. He wanted the shooter’s head on a pike, but as she held his head down, her breath soft and warm on his neck, he felt the churning, seething, mass inside him tear as the blackness came pouring out.
She felt a hitch in his breathing, and he squeezed her, crushing her to him until she thought her ribs would crack under the strain. His breath hitched again, and he whimpered.
“Let it go,” she whispered again, pulling his head even harder into her shoulder. She could scarcely breathe, but he pulled her in even tighter.
He tried to pull his head back, relaxing his embrace, but she held him. The pain was trying to escape, but he was fighting it, probably afraid to let it go because of some macho biker bullshit. She wasn’t going to give up that easily and continued to hold him his head to her shoulder, pulling him in as she attempted to wrestle the pain from him.
“It’s okay,” she said, caressing his head. “It’s going to be okay.”
She felt him relax, and this time he didn’t pull back, he continued to hold her. After a long moment, he stirred, pulled back, and sniffed.
“Fuck. I wish I hadn’t—”
She touched his lips with a finger to silence him. “I’m glad you did. You needed it.” She beamed at him. “I’m honored that you trust me enough to let your guard down, if only a little.” Her smile widened a little and became more teasing. “Your secret is safe with me. But can we go back inside? It’s freezing out here.”
He forced a smile. He didn’t understand what had just happened. He knew he was gutted with the death of Stilts, but he’d felt numb. It was only after Lily pulled him into her embrace and told him to let go of his pain that he realized how much he was hurting. It was as if she had somehow reached inside of him and wrenched a portion of the pain away.
“Yeah, okay,” he said then wiped his eyes again. She started to walk toward the bar again, but he pulled her back and into his arms. When she looked up, he kissed her, slow and soft.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For caring. For… what you did.”
She touched his face. “Did it help?”
“Maybe a little.”
“If you ever need to talk…”
He nodded and again felt the urge to pull her in closer and allow the closeness to balm his pain. “I know how to reach you.”
She smiled, feeling like they had reached a kind of breakthrough. “Why don’t you get on that steel horse of yours and follow me home? We can talk more if you want.”
He watched her for a moment then pulled his key from his pocket and dangled it in front of her, answering her question. She grinned and began to fish around in her purse for her keys.
Hammer followed Lily to her home—an upstairs apartment in a large complex. She pulled into her parking space, and he squeezed his bike in behind her car, so it didn’t have to sit on the street. It was getting cold, colder than he expected or dressed for, and he shivered as he stepped off the bike.
She led him into a small and cozy space that was blessedly warm.
“It’s not much, but it’s home,” she said as she flipped on the lights and closed the door behind him.
He looked around. The living room was full of cheap furniture of decent quality, but it was tastefully decorated with bold, bright prints of cities and parks to bring color to the otherwise drab and inoffensive paint of the rental. The most interesting bit was a small black and white print that said, Be bold, or italic, but never regular.
“It’s nice,” he said.
She paused at the entrance to the kitchen “Want a beer?”
“Sure.”
She retrieved two cans from the fridge and poured them into glasses before returning and settling down on the black metal futon with a cream mattress and bright pillows. She handed him his glass then held hers aloft. He looked at her, his brows drawing together, and then held his own glass up.
She clinked her glass against his. “To Stilts. May his rides be forever sunny and warm.”
He nodded in agreement, not trusting his voice at that moment.
“Tell me a funny story about Stilts.”
He took a slow pull from his beer to give himself time to think. “I remember this one time…” he began as Lily settled back to listen.
They talked—Hammer telling her about Stilts until long in the night. As she giggled and nodded, they drew closer and closer together, until she finally leaned back and snuggled into his side.
“He sounds like a good guy,” she said when he seemed to have run out of stories.
“He was… the best. All the brothers are.”
She nodded and said nothing else. Having him talk to her about Stilts, and by extension, a few of the other members of the Souls, she had a better understanding of the club. From Hammer’s tales, it was hard to imagine them as killers.
“It’s cold out there,” she said.
“I know.”
“Did you freeze riding over here?”
“It was pretty cold. I should have checked the weather.”
“You could stay. Leave in the morning after the sun comes up.”
“Is that what you want?”
She looked up at him. “Yes. If you want to.”
He looked down at her, realizing that he did want to. He smiled. “Will you help me stay warm?”
She held his gaze for a moment, silently inviting him to find out.
With a smile, he lowered his lips to hers, tasting her with slow, gentle caresses of his lips.
“Warming up?” she breathed as he pulled back from the kiss but kept his lips close.
“Some.”
“Let’s try again,” she whispered and tugged his lips back to hers.