Jules sat on his bike a moment, reflecting on what just happened. Rachel had given him a hug in gratitude and then he had kissed her. She didn’t seem to mind and he damn sure didn’t mind.

 

Those two, three actually, soft little kisses were nice. He smiled as he remembered the thrill that had passed through him when she had accepted his return kiss as he held her face. He had felt it again when he kissed her the second time just before he left. He had done that to confirm that she would actually let him kiss her… and because it was so nice the first time. He grinned as he put his helmet on and thumbed the bike to life, kicked his bike backwards, then snicked it into gear.

 

***

 

On a lark, Jules headed north on 118, looking for the stuck truck. He had nothing else to do until Rachel opened. He was rumbling along until he braked hard and turned around. He had just crossed some skid marks perpendicular to the direction of the road. He eased his hog to the side and dismounted before parking his helmet on the mirror.

 

He toed the broken tail lamp lenses as he looked at the scarred earth. The skid marks, the torn up ground, and the broken pieces of truck spoke of a desperate attempt to free a mired vehicle. This had to be the place where Rachel saw the stuck kids.

 

Forsaken 99 wasn’t the police. They worried about the drug trade; the police could worry about trespassing, but he had been doing this long enough to get a feel for things… and this didn’t feel right. Why risk tearing your truck up when a phone call would get out of the jam with no damage? And if they didn’t have a phone, they had the other truck. If they used the second truck to push the first one out, and they had to spin the tires on the pavement to do it, the entire back of the first truck, and the front of the pushing truck, were going to be wrecked. As he looked he noticed a small puddle of black goo. He leaped across the ditch, dipped his fingers in it, and rubbed them together. Oil. They had wrecked the engine in one of the trucks, yet they kept going, he mused as he saw another drip several feet away, heading into the desert. Something didn’t add up. Jules pulled his phone and dialed Fish.

 

“Jules! How you doin’ man?” Fish’s voice came over the tiny speaker.

 

“Fine. Listen. Can you ride out on 118? I want you to look at something.”

 

“Sure. What’s up?”

 

“I’ll tell you when you get here. I have another call. Get Bell, too. See you.” He killed the call to Fish and accepted the incoming call. “Jules Rivera.”

 

“Jules. Chuck Washington.”

 

“Yes sir, Mr. Washington.” Charles Washington owned the Square V ranch and was one of Forsaken 99’s benefactors.

 

“Jules. We got a little problem. One of my ranch hands just called in. Said he caught some kids out joy riding on our land. Except they weren’t just joy riding.”

 

“Drugs?”

 

“That’s what it looks like.”

 

“I’m actually on 118, looking at where they crossed the road, right now. I have a couple of members on the way. They headed north?”

 

“Yeah. Maybe eight or ten miles from 118.”

 

“Can your hand hold them until we get there?”

 

“Yeah. He said they’re scared to death, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

 

“We’ll be there as quickly as we can. I’m sorry about this, Mr. Washington.”

 

“It’s no problem, Jules. I know you can’t get them all, and compared to the way it was… This is the first one we’ve caught on our land in over a year. Y’all are doing a damn fine job. I think you about have ‘em licked if they’re sending boys now.”

 

“Thank you, sir. We’re doing what we can.”

 

“I know, son. I’ll let Virgil know you are on the way.”

 

“Thank you, Mr. Washington. We’ll get this taken care of.”

 

The moment Jules hung up, he called Fish back. “Hey, Fish. You left yet?”

 

“In five minutes. I wasn’t ready to ride.”

 

“Change of plans. Get one of the trucks. Washington called. They caught a drug runner. It’s kids.”

 

“Kids?” Fish exclaimed.

 

“Yeah. Still come out on 118. We’ll follow the tracks.”

 

“Be there as soon as we can.”

 

***

 

Jules heard the rolling thunder of the approaching Harleys before he could see them. As they approached, he recognized the ape-hangers of Bell’s bike, then, a moment later, Fish. Behind them is one of the club’s Chevrolet Suburbans.

 

Bell and Fish wheeled around and parked their bikes with Jules’s. “What have you got?”

 

“Don’t know. But I knew I couldn’t go out there on my bike. Who you got?” Jules asked nodding at the idling SUV.

 

“It’s Saturday, and short notice, so I rounded up everyone I could. Todd, Dwayne, Gigolo, Spence, and David are in the truck.”

 

“Going to be tight in there,” Jules said with a grin as they approached the SUV.

 

“David, you watch the bikes,” Todd said as Jules opened the door.

 

As the club’s newest member crawled out of the way-back, the others shuffled around to make room for the other three additions. Jules slid behind the wheel.

 

“Know where you’re going?” Todd asked from the front seat.

 

“That way,” Jules replied as he eased the big SUV across the ditch. The truck scrabbled and spun the tires as it clawed across the ditch, and Jules had to make two goes at it to get across, but once on the other side, they jostled along with no other problems, following the broken scrub and tracks.

 

It didn’t take long before a battered Dodge truck came into view. The entire back of the truck was crushed. As they eased past, Jules could see a sizable puddle of oil under the truck, but they didn’t stop.

 

Twenty minutes later, they stopped behind another mangled Dodge pickup and a Ford with the Square V brand on the door. Four kids were sitting on the ground with their backs against the Dodge.

 

As Forsaken 99 crawled out, Jules approached the man holding the gun. “You Virgil?”

 

“Yes,” the man said in his heavy Spanish accent. “I caught them while I was out checking the fences. One shot into the ground and they stopped. I thought it was just kids out tearing up our graze, but then I found this.” Virgil nudged a white brick on the ground with his toe. “There are fifty-nine more in the truck.”

 

Several of Forsaken 99 whistled softly. “Sixty keys, uncut!” Todd said softly. “That’s a lot of blow. That’s what… one and a half, two, million on the street?”

 

“There is another truck back there that is broken down and leaking oil. You’ll want someone to come get that one. Do they speak English?” Jules asked.

 

“They pretend they don’t but I think they do,” Virgil said.

 

“Who are you running the drugs for?” Jules asked, giving the youngest looking kid a nudge with his foot. The kid couldn’t be a day over fifteen. The kids didn’t answer and stared back at him with wide eyes.

 

“What are we going to do with them?” Jules asked Todd as he pulled him aside.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“They’re just kids. We can’t just shoot them.”

 

“Why not? They’re running drugs. That’s what we do with drug runners. You know that.”

 

“Not kids, Todd! That’s not right!”

 

The President pulled Jules farther away from the group. “What do you suggest? Just turning them loose? Then what? The Andres Cartel will just start running the drugs with kids. No mercy. That has been our club credo since the beginning. You knew that when you joined.”

 

“This is different!” Jules hissed. “We don’t shoot kids. Just like we don’t shoot the illegals, just the Coyotes.”

 

“Okay. Who’s at fault here? Who’s the Coyote? You tell me.”

 

“Todd! We can’t shoot the kids. It’s wrong!”

 

“Fuck it,” Todd muttered stepping away from Jules. “Somebody shoot them.”

 

“Wait!” Jules called, holding up his hands in warding off gesture. “Just wait a minute. We need to think about this.”

 

“Thinking’s done, Jules. You need to get with the program,” Todd said, his voice hard as diamonds.

 

“Todd! These are just kids!”

 

“What’s your problem, Jules? You have been bucking me for the last three months. You have questioned almost every decision I’ve made.”

 

“Just the wrong ones, Todd. This is the wrong decision!”

 

“Fine. I’ll do it myself,” Todd said as he drew his sidearm.

 

“Put the gun down!” Jules shouted as he drew and pointed his own weapon at Todd’s head.

 

“Whoa! Wait a minute!” Fish called as he and the rest of Forsaken 99 drew their weapons and began pointing them at each other. Only Jules’s gun never wavered.

 

“Goddamit! Are we going to shoot each other now? Everyone, put the guns down!” Todd shouted as he holstered his weapon.

 

When the last weapon was holstered, Jules lowered his, but didn’t put it away. “We are not shooting kids!”

 

Jules watched Todd’s jaw muscles work. He knew he had seriously crossed the line, but he couldn’t let Todd shoot the kids, President or not.

 

“Fine. We’ll do it your way. But this is on you, Jules,” Todd finally said.

 

Jules tucked his weapon away and stormed up to the kids. “Do you speak English?” he shouted into the oldest kid’s face. “Because if you don’t, you’re in a world of shit!”

 

The kid nodded. “I can speak English.”

 

“You see that man?” Jules said as menacingly as possible while he pointed at Todd. “That’s a bad man! He was going to kill you! Next time I might not be able to stop him! Do you understand what I’m telling you? The next time someone, bambino or not, comes into Forsaken 99 territory, they’re going to be killed! If I weren’t here, you would be dead! Understand?”

 

All the kids nodded frantically that they understood.

 

“Go! Get out of here!”

 

The kids needed no more encouragement and bolted back along the way they came on foot.

 

“Put the drugs in the truck,” Todd said in disgust as he stared at Jules.

 

***

 

Jules rode in the Dodge with Gigolo so that he and Todd didn’t have to ride together. There was silent agreement among all the Forsaken 99 members that having Todd and Jules in the same vehicle probably wasn’t a good idea. When they reached the road, they paused only long enough for Jules, Fish, and Bell to get out before the truck and SUV roared away toward town.

 

“That was some serious shit back there,” Bell offered.

 

“Yeah,” Jules replied. He wanted to be sorry for what he did, but he wasn’t

 

“You’re going to have to make this right,” Fish said. “Todd was wrong on this, but he’s the President. And he is right… we have always taken out the mules.”

 

“You think we should have killed the kids?” Jules asked as he stared at Fish, daring him to admit it.

 

“No. But pointing a gun at a brother’s head wasn’t right either.”

 

Jules sagged. He had acted without thinking. “Yeah. I know. But he was going to do it, Fish. I couldn’t have lived with that. Shit! I don’t even know what I’m doing any more!” Jules growled.

 

“I don’t know what to tell you, brother. But you have to make this right. Shit like this is what tears clubs apart. Todd has been the President since day one. You rose fast because we could see you were the type to get shit done, but, in this case, I got to back Todd. I don’t agree with what he was going to do, but I agree even less with what you did.”

 

Jules settled on his bike and jammed the helmet on his head. “This is all fucked up.”

 

“You’re telling me. Hey… I’m still your friend. That’s why I’m telling you this, okay?”

 

Before Jules could answer, all three of their phone announced an arrival of a text message. “Oh hell,” Bell said. “Board meeting. I know what this is going to be about.”

 

“Yeah. Me, too,” Jules said.

 

***

 

Todd banged the gavel down. The board, sometimes called the Voting Nine, was in the boardroom – what was once the single carport of the house before the club enclosed it. There was a table and ten chairs, and nothing else. This is where the club met to discuss business.

 

The Voting Nine consisted of the President and Vice President, Sergeant at Arms, and the Treasurer, then one additional member for every ten members in the club. The officers served two-year terms, the other voting members six-month terms.

 

“I think everyone knows why I called this meeting. We’re voting to banish Jules from Forsaken 99 and strip him of his colors for pulling a weapon on another member.” Todd paused a moment for the charges to sink in. “Yea.”

 

“Abstain,” Jules said immediately. He had a vote but he would be damned if he would vote for himself in this matter.

 

“Yea,” Marsh, the Sergeant at Arms, said.

 

“Nay,” Added Spence, the Treasurer.

 

“Nay,” Bell, the next in line, said.

 

“Nay,” Added Fish.

 

“Yea,” Gigolo added.

 

“Yea,” Dwayne said as he cast his vote.

 

Everyone except Jules looked to Malcolm Morrison. “Nay,” Duck said quietly, not meeting Todd’s eyes.

 

Jules watched Todd grind his teeth as he banged the gavel down hard. “Motion is defeated.”

 

“Wait!” Jules said as everyone started to rise. “I just want to apologize to the club, and to you, Todd. I was out of line. I know it has always been club policy to kill the runners, and I support that. I didn’t, and don’t, agree with killing kids, but I shouldn’t have pulled my weapon. That was wrong.”

 

Jules watched as everyone relaxed just a bit. Fish even gave him a slight smile and a quick nod.

 

“That it?” Todd asked testily.

 

“No. I have one other bit of business that I think we all can agree on. Rachel Wallace’ brother, Will, is going to be discharged from the Marines in about three weeks. He is flying into El Paso. I will let the club know the exact date when I find out, but I would like Forsaken 99 to meet him with an honor guard and escort.”

 

Todd stared at Jules a moment, as if he was going to deny him an official vote, but then relented. “All in favor?” Nine hands went up. “Motion carries.” He banged the gavel down again, stood, and walked out of the room.

 

“That went well,” Jules said, his tone belying his words. He remained in his chair, as did Fish and Bell.

 

“Todd was wrong on this,” Bell said. “I’m glad you stopped him. Killing drug smugglers and Coyotes is one thing, but killing kids is something else entirely.”

 

“Yeah, but he isn’t going to forget this,” Fish added.

 

Jules looked at his hands resting on the table. “I’m sorry for putting you guys, the entire club, on the spot like this.”

 

Fish smiled at his friend. “I would have voted the same way, even if it had been someone else. I agree with Bell. Todd was out of line. The club needs to vote before we start gunning down kids. I can’t see anyone in the club agreeing with doing that. That’s crossing a line I don’t think anyone is ready to cross.”

 

“I’ll try to make it up to him.”

 

“You apologized to him, and to the entire club. You admitted what you did was wrong. That goes a long ways to clearing the air. Give Todd a couple of days to cool off and things will be better,” Fish said. “I’ll talk with Spence. He was there. He and Todd go way back. Get him to talk to him. Show him that he was wrong and you actually did the club a favor. If he had actually shot those kids, we would be voting to ban him, and I think we would have. Banning the President is some bad shit. ”

 

Jules snorted and pushed his chair back to rise. “Good luck with that.”