Chapter Six
Hoodoo walked through the dusty streets, endless rivers of bikes flowing up and down as the riders drove to experience the joy of riding. The growling, deep-throated sound of thousands of bikes all rolling at once washed over him, through him and past him. Funny how he noticed the sound now, the rumble vibrating in his chest until it felt like he had become part of it, this whole wild crazy mess.
She was, too. Somewhere out there…perhaps she felt the same rumble in her chest. Felt that she too had become a piece of something that was making history. This was Sturgis. How was it he’d never thought to bring her here?
Preoccupied with the past, Hoodoo walked in an isolated bubble, remembering the way Tracy felt on his arm, the way her hair smelled, the warmth of her pressed against him. The days she came to see him in Arizona (leaving that damn Crocker in storage, where it belonged). They’d taken a ride to the Grand Canyon, a fair distance, but she’d taken the back of his bike and he’d not let anyone else sit there since.
He smiled at that. It mattered. Once there was someone in your life, no one else rode behind you. No one. I s’pose that don’ hol’ true no more, though. If she’s not my girl, then ain’t no reason not to. But it didn’t feel right. It felt like a betrayal, not to Tracy, maybe, though it would be nice to imagine that she still held on to that much. But it would be a betrayal to him, to Hoodoo. No one but Tracy could take that spot. Or fit so nice under an arm.
Momma Leonna would have already beat him firmly about the ears. “Stop your damn lamentin’!” She’d already chastised him when he’d broken up with Tracy. “You done did what you did and we all has to live with stupid mistakes. Now it’s your turn!”
She went on for several minutes calling into question Hoodoo’s parentage (odd considering his mother was Momma’s daughter – and person or persons unknown), his genetic structure and the easy- to-count synapses in his brain. She then turned to God and spent several minutes explaining to the Almighty how He’d erred by short-changing the boy, trading brains for brute.
“You go back there and you get her!” she’d hit him again with her cane.
“I can’t!” he’d protested, ducking another blow. For an old, arthritic woman no higher than five-feet-two, she could hit hard.
“Then pull up your panties and get on with your life!” And that was that. To her, it was solved. Fix your mistake or live with it. Everything seemed so simple to her. Maybe things got simpler when you got old like that. But Hoodoo knew things were more complicated than that. That there wasn’t always an easy solution. And when he’d tried to bring that up, she wouldn’t hear it.
“Now, you tell me ‘bout that friend o’ yours.” Momma Leonna had smiled. She liked Hitman. He sent the rich tourists her way, he gave her little presents now and again. The last little present hung from her ears, glimmering sapphire earrings like drops of blue sky under hair the color of rusted iron. He’d sent them last Christmas. Michael had been charmed by her the first time they’d met and he remembered her fondly. For Momma’s part, she had the earrings immediately appraised, just so she would know how fondly she should be thinking of him.
These particular earrings carried a lot of fondness.
For Hoodoo, not so much. Especially after she’d dragged the story out of him piecemeal. “Well, I… I owe him a little money….”
Momma stepped back and looked up at her boy. “How you be owin’ him? He’s got more money than God! How much you owe him?”
“Uh…”
Hoodoo stood in the middle of the street watching the traffic flow around him, remembering the thrashing he’d taken that day. In general, fixing your stupid mistakes or moving on was very sound advice. But if it imperiled Momma Leonna’s gift bag, it was much more urgent.
He caught a glimpse of a woman working her way through the crowd on the other side of the street. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew that strut. Whereas most people walked, Tracy moved with attitude. Her hips seemed to roll as she walked, completely independent of her shoulders or back. It was sexy as hell and in jeans, like she was now, it was Hoodoo’s favorite thing to watch.
He pushed through the traffic, nearly running into a sportster parked in the middle of the street. The median was wall-to-wall bikes and it was tricky to pick through between them without touching any of them. Especially for a man his size.
He nearly took out a chopped trike going the other way, but ran to the sidewalk, a half-dozen people jumping out of the way of the running giant. He plowed through the crowd with mumbled apologies. Other than some irritated folks who decided not to pursue a complaint once they saw the size of the man, people began to open up a pathway for him.
Tracy was going into a shop at the end of the cleared way.
“TRACY!” Hoodoo yelled.
She turned. So did half the rally. After a moment, people began to realize it wasn’t a battle cry of sorts and returned to their activities. Tracy, on the other hand, waited for him, hands on hips, lips pursed and foot beginning to tap.
It was something she did when she was mad. This was not an auspicious beginning.
But damn she looked cute doing it.
“Tracy,” Hoodoo said as he caught up to her. “That Bandit you be having breakfast with…”
The slap that stung his cheek came from nowhere. His eyes widened and whatever words were in his mouth suddenly fell out, landing on the ground around his feet, never to be resurrected again.
“I. Do. Not. Believe. This!” Tracy was shaking. Hoodoo realized it was from anger, it rolled off her in waves, he could smell her rage. “You’re spying on me? REALLY? I thought so much better of you!” She stomped her foot again in outrage. In retrospect, he probably should have seen the second slap coming, but he didn’t.
SLAP!
“Stop hittin’ me!” He bellowed. Again, people stopped to stare at the source of the noise. Considering that Tracy was a foot and a half shorter and at least two hundred pounds lighter, her hitting him didn’t seem to stir anyone to immediate action. In fact, a few too many smartphones were being brought out to record the event for all posterity. With visions of YouTube dancing in his head, Hoodoo grabbed her elbow, steering her out of the limelight, looking helplessly for a place to talk where there just weren’t so many people. Or at least interested ones. “Loki happened to see you as he was going past, that’s all!” He was babbling as he tucked her in a space between buildings that was more or less private, if you didn’t count the drunk guy urinating against the wall.
Tracy threw up her arms in frustration, knocking his hand off her elbow and stepping resolutely back out into the press of people, especially after she got a good look at the bum in the alley. “Then what are you following me for? Wanting to warn me about big, tough bikers? Want to warn me off of getting involved in biker gangs? Tell me, that Gila lizard on your jacket, does that mean you’re in animal rescue?”
Hoodoo gritted his teeth, biting back all the things he could have said, and feeling rather proud that he stayed on topic. “No, listen, you don’ understand. They after the Crocker.”
“Who is?”
“The…” Hoodoo looked around, a city street was not the right place for this conversation. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “The Bandits, they just after the bike.”
Tracy nodded. “Of course. They would have to be, wouldn’t they? After all, it’s not like a biker would want me because of me. The only reason I would have for being with someone is if they wanted the bike. I have nothing else to offer!”
“You know that ain’t true!” Hoodoo growled, hands clenching and unclenching in frustration. Damn but she was one maddening woman. “That bullshit! I didn’ want you for the damn bike! That weren’t why! If I wanted that damn Crocker, I would’a bought it from your pa and been done with it!”
“I wish you would have, I really do. Losing that bike would have killed me, but at least it would be over by now, I wouldn’t still be seeing you everywhere and still have you a part of my life!”
Her eyes were bright and suspiciously wet, but her chin was up and shoulders back. His Tracy was never a woman to be taken lightly, and he realized he’d been going about things all wrong. “Look, I don’ know who this boy is,” Hoodoo pointed in the general direction of the town, “but he be using you!”
“That ‘boy’ happens to be my cousin!” Tracy said shortly, crossing her arms, and staring him down until he lost a foot or two in height. “He invited me to come along. I haven’t been to Sturgis before. Not that that’s any of your business anymore! And where do you get the damn idea that he wants anything? You’ve never even met him!”
Hoodoo shrank back under her gaze. He stared at the ground, trying to find the wording that wouldn’t make this sound as bad as it was about to. “Mad-dog heard some of the Bandits talking…” he mumbled finally and waited for the explosion.
“Wait, what? By sheer coincidence he happened to be walking next to Bandits? Before or after your man was spying on me?”
“No! No one was spying!”
“Before or after?” she demanded.
“We was just tryin’ to find out…” Hoodoo stopped, knowing that he was only getting deeper with each word.
“I see, you were trying to figure out what anyone was doing hanging around me, OR!”—she held up a hand to forestall his objection—“or you were trying to find out what the helpless little woman got herself into.” Tracy’s face grew red. “You wanted out of my life, Hoodoo. Stay out.”
She turned and stormed into the building. Hoodoo stood in place, streams of people walking around him, parting like a river breaking against a rock.
Hoodoo, he could hear Momma Leonna in his head. Before you fix the stupid things you done, first, stop doing more stupid things.