Chapter Sixteen
“So,” Mad-dog said, stretching outside their tent. The hour was early, and hardly anyone was up yet. “Back to the booth?”
“Nah.” Hoodoo said, trying to work out the kinks in his own back. Somewhere in the course of the night his air mattress had deflated, leaving him flat on the ground. Not the most auspicious start to the day. “Not today.” He looked around and cracked a smile. “Got no product to sell. Tracy has it all.”
“You didn’t get it from her last night?” Mad-dog cocked an eyebrow, “I take it the reunion went well?”
“If you count me being tol’ to stay out of her life as going well, I suppose…” Hoodoo said and shrugged like it didn’t matter. “But I wouldn’t say it was true.”
“Damn, man, I’m sorry to hear it. What are you gonna do?”
Hoodoo looked at his oldest friend and took a deep breath. “I’m gonna let ‘er go,” he said simply. “Not much else to do. She want me to go away, it’s her choice.”
Mad-dog clapped the larger man’s shoulder. “Well, it’s shit no matter how you look at it, but hey, maybe you can enjoy the rally?”
“Yeah. I’m thinking that they got something I might check. Some of the locals are taking tours around the back roads, someone said about climbing the Black Hills. I may go on that.”
“Sounds good to me,” Loki said from behind Hoodoo.
Hoodoo had learned at an early age not to show when he was startled. It was the product of being an oldest brother to six siblings. Then too, no one who was raised by Momma Leonna was easily startled. The voodoo might not be real, but the spiders and snakes she used for effect certainly were. But he jumped now and gave Loki a glare that should have quelled him for the rest of the day.
Except, of course, it didn’t. The man was all eagerness as he asked, “When do we ride?”
Hoodoo reached into his back pocket and pulled out a flyer he’d found. It folded better than Val’s electronic tablet. “Noon,” he pronounced.
“I’m going to go round up some doughnuts,” Mad-dog said, somewhat gleefully. “Be back in a bit.”
“Trike gets the haul,” Loki said cheerfully. It was an old joke, there was limited room on a bike and packing a bike wrong can make it unbalanced. Any experienced rider could compensate for it, but it was pain in the ass. Trikes had room, so whenever there was something that needed to be carried, say for example, a keg of beer, Mad-dog was the one to haul it. Even something as simple as a box of doughnuts could be a problem on two wheels.
Mad-dog was good-natured about it. It was one of the things he valued about the man. No matter what the cause or disaster, Mad-dog was always calm. Unless he was in a fight. Then he earned his nickname.
“So where is the fair Valkyrie?” Loki asked, making a show of leaning down to see inside her little tent. It was sealed shut, so the best he could see was the zipper, but the move was so roguish that Hoodoo couldn’t resist a smile.
“Remember,” he warned Loki, “that fair Valkyrie can kick your ass up over your ears.”
“That’s why I say these things when she’s asleep,” Loki assured him, parodying Hoodoo’s accent, “No fool I!”
“I’m awake,” Val said, walking up to them from the general direction of the port-a-potties.
“You were sayin’?” Hoodoo cocked an eyebrow at the smaller man.
“I was saying that I’ll go check on the twins and see if they’re around yet. Excuse me.” Loki made a half-bow to Val and turned to the furthest tents with the greatest of interest.
“Hey boss,” Val said, looking up at Hoodoo, “I was wondering if your lady friend would let me use her shower.” She shrugged, “I just…”
“You’re gonna meet Rocky and you don’ want to stench,” Hoodoo finished for her.
“Yeah,” she said, hands on her hips. Hoodoo knew that look, it was the look she gave whenever she was caught out being a “girl.” It had surprised them all when she’d been doing her nails yesterday, Harley Davidson colors notwithstanding. But now this? He held up his hands in a placating gesture.
“As it happens,” he said with a big grin, “I have a better idea.”
“What’s that?”
Before he could answer, Mad-dog returned. He pulled up next to them and killed the trike. “Val, grab the doughnuts out of the back, will you?”
“Hey! Doughnuts!” She lit up and was halfway into the trunk before he’d even gotten off the trike. “Thanks!” she mumbled, her mouth full of pastry.
Mad-dog pulled Hoodoo off to one side. “Hey boss, I ran by Tracy’s place to get your stuff. She’s not there, man, her rig’s gone.”
Hoodoo sighed and looked at him. He’d half expected it, but it still left an empty feeling in his chest, an ache that wouldn’t go away anytime soon. He knew that from experience. “Well,” he said slowly, “that’s it then.”
“Your stuff, though…”
“I can get it sent to me,” Hoodoo said, waving it off as inconsequential. “In a way, it’s probably a good thing. Now I got nothing to put in the booth, maybe I can jus’ enjoy the trip.”
Mad-dog looked at him a moment and then smiled. “Shit, man, welcome back.”
Have I really been that bad? Hoodoo shook his head, and called them around. The twins came, half-asleep, reaching for doughnuts with the same enthusiasm that zombies show for brains. Val took one look at them, and disappeared back inside her tent, muttering something about trying to get cleaned up for the day.
Hoodoo looked around the group. The Gilas. His family. Maybe a little awkward and dysfunctional, but home all the same. What the hell had he been doing, chasing all the way out here like this? They were bikers. Bikers rode their damn bikes, didn’t they? Enough of this nonsense of sitting around and watching the world go by for the sake of a handful of nickels and dimes. He motioned Mad-Dog over to his bike and lay the flyer out on the seat, flipped over to show him the map on the back. “Ok, so here’s the plan. We got this local run, right? It goes all around and over these roads.” He used his finger to trace the route and stopped at a crossroads. “Just before it winds back, there’s an exit. There’s another town out there, about forty miles away.”
“Not much of a town,” Mad-dog said dubiously, eyeing the map.
“No, it’s a gas station and church, but… they have a motel. I couldn’t sleep last night and I called them up, made a reservation for today.”
“That’s like a hundred miles, round trip.”
“That’s why they had openings. No one else had anything.”
“So we’re all bunking down in one queen-sized bed? Val’s gonna love that.”
“No, we’re not spending the night, we’re going to use a toilet that doesn’t stink of disinfectant We’re going to use a shower with hot water, and if there’s any justice at all, there’ll be a laundromat there that we can use.”
“Fresh start, eh?” Mad-dog grinned.
“Look, don’t tell her I said so, but I know that Val is all kinds of nervous about meeting Rocky.” Hoodoo winked at his buddy. “I say we give the girl a chance to girl it up a bit for him, you know? This means a lot to her.”
Mad-dog blinked and looked at the table where Val and Loki where laughing at the twins trying to fight off a hangover. Val was practically dancing on the tabletop just to make enough noise to punish them for their supposed transgressions. “Damn, they grow up so fast, don’t they? It was only yesterday that she was a little girl in pigtails.”
“I’ll tell her you said that,” Hoodoo warned with a grin.
“No you won’t,” Mad-dog said, punching Hoodoo in the arm. He almost felt it. “What good would it do if your wingman was beaten to a bloody pulp? You’d miss me!”
“Just make the calls. Find out if there’s a restaurant in the area, we can get some sit-down and be served food.”
“Someone die and leave you a fortune?” Mad-dog said, eyebrows raised as he pulled out his phone.
“I sold a painting, remember?”
“That’s to repay a debt!” Mad-dog said, shaking his head, but tapping the phone screen until the mysteries of Yelp were unleashed.
“What debt?” Hoodoo shrugged and walked away smiling.
Tracy or no Tracy, it was going to be a good day.