Biker (9 page)

Pratt hustled to keep up. He went around camps rather than give the pissed-off campers a second chance at manliness and had to cover more ground. His whacked-out ribs rang every time he juked. A goon on a KTM motocross jumped the path in front of Pratt cackling like a hyena. The bike slammed into a gorse bush with a horrendous grinding sound and a scream of pain. A Geico caveman chased his old lady in a drunken rage. A naked bearded giant, dead ringer for Goya's
Saturn Devouring His Son
, capered with a weather-balloon-sized dollop of nitrous from which he inhaled, dancing madly in the moonlight.

A lady biker rode by on a Bourget wearing nothing but jeans. Pratt thought he was having an acid flashback.

Pratt followed the War Bonnet, worried that he might lose him in the black leather sea. The Bonnet's once white and red patch was so grimy it was almost illegible. Now he was out of sight. Pratt stepped it up, jogging. He circled a campfire off the end of a bike-toting land cruiser, a motor home with an attached garage.

“HEY MOTHERFUCKER!” roared a familiar voice. Pratt couldn't believe his ears. He looked ahead and kept jogging, his ribs preventing him from breaking into a flat-out sprint.

The voice pounded up behind him, breathy and menacing. “Hey asswipe, I'm talking to you.”

Pratt glanced over his shoulder as Mastodon President Barnett limped at him full-tilt boogie with a tire iron. Déjà vu all over again. Pratt's heart leaped into overdrive. The lumbering giant was right on his ass. Instinctively Pratt lashed out with a side kick, catching Barnett in the breadbasket and setting him on his rump. The impact sent an atomic fireball up Pratt's side. He gasped involuntarily.

“
Whooo!
” a spectator cried.

Chain Mastodon and Knife Mastodon lumbered toward him like a bad sequel, red eyes testifying to a long hard haul followed by serious partying. And now it was ass-kickin' time, as it was every evening. The stitch in Pratt's side slowed him down just enough to catch the end of Chain's chain on his shoulder, sending a numbwave down his arm. Pratt faced the Mastodons on a dirt path with alder on either side, less than twenty feet from a campground. He glanced down looking for a weapon and spotted a used condom.

Knife Mastodon came in low, slicing upwards. Pratt back-stepped, barely missing the blade, tripping over an exposed root, falling on his ass. Chain came in whipping a figure eight, whomping at Pratt's legs. Pratt withdrew a nanosecond ahead of the chain and scrambled to his feet, his back against a cottonwood. He looked around for a weapon. All he had was a buck knife.

Whack!
The chain peeled bark off the tree where Pratt's head had been. He ducked under, planted his crown in Chain's groin and took him down wrestler style. Pratt crawled up the guy's crotch and head-butted Chain in the nose, imparting a nausea-inducing blow-back, blood rushing to his head. He saw stars and flashing blade. Pratt rolled to one side as the Bowie knife came down, cutting a slash in his jeans and ending up in Chain Mastodon's thigh.

“AROOOOO!” the Mastodon bawled. Figures danced around the perimeter, filming with their BlackBerries. One dude had a Bonaroo video cam.

Great
, Pratt thought.

Barnett used his tire iron to push Chain Mastodon out of the way. Bikers came running. Hot damn. This was better than Edgar Winter.

“That skinny dude's quicker than a cougar,” said a bystander.

“Yeah, but three Mastodons …”

Pratt scooped up the discarded chain as Barnett charged, tire iron held over one shoulder like a golf club. Pratt whipped. The chain clanged off the iron and hit Pratt in the head. He whirled it overhead like heli rotors and cracked it at Barnett's tire iron hand. Two more Mastodons came running. Pratt stood in a circle of ice-crazed bikers wanting to kill him. They bared their teeth and sprayed spittle. Pratt hadn't been in such a life-threatening situation since his first week in prison.

I wish I'd brought a gun!
he thought.

Barnett came in high. Knife Mastodon came in low. Pratt kicked Knife Mastodon in the nuts, threw up an arm and caught the tire iron on his elbow, igniting a thermonuclear explosion that turned his vision white and neutralized every muscle in his body. He couldn't seem to catch his breath.

Pratt went down.

The inchoate roar of some massive carnivore filled the hollow, a sound so deep and primeval it made the hairs on Pratt's neck stand. It came from up the trail behind the Mastodons. Before Knife Mastodon could turn his massive body, the flat of a Scottish Claymore smashed down on the top of his head, collapsing him like a sledgehammer hitting an empty beer can.

The four remaining Mastodons swiveled to face a lump of humanity wearing denim coveralls over an oak-barrel belly, beard to gut, a Viking helmet with two bull's horns, holding a two-handed sword with a three-foot blade.

The Nordic Raider used his sword like Pete Sampras, knocking Mastodons out of the way, parrying steel with steel and smacking steel on flesh. He flicked his Claymore around like a baton, elegant loops ending with the clash of metal on metal. He scooped the blade from Knife Mastodon's hand. He worked his way back to Pratt, where they stood back to back facing all comers.

“Thanks,” Pratt said.

“No prob,” the Raider rumbled.

One by one, three more Nordic Raiders appeared, each toting a two-handed sword. The Mastodons backed away. They evaporated like the morning dew. They had suddenly turned extinct. The biggest Raider stood about six five. The hirsute cannonball who'd come to Pratt's aid had to weigh 300.

Pratt dropped the chain and stuck out his hand. “Josh Pratt.”

“Lars Larsen,” the cannonball rumbled, gripping Pratt with the soul clasp.

When Pratt looked around, the War Bonnet was long gone.

CHAPTER 15

Pratt followed the Nordic Raiders to their camp where a javelina roasted on a spit over a barbecue made from a fifty-gallon drum split in half. A bulbous Raider in a purple Bret Favre jersey turned the spit. Two Raider old ladies dished up potato salad, coleslaw and beer from the tailgate of a double-cab F-250. Biker etiquette demanded that Pratt drink and chow down with the gang that saved his life.

Pratt realized he was starving. The War Bonnets weren't going anywhere. It was only the first day. He joined Larsen and two other Nordic Raiders, Sven and Steve, hanging around the barbecue.

“You always travel with swords?” Pratt asked.

“Yeah. We're historical reenactors.” Lars winked. “At least that's what we tell the cops.”

Pratt gestured to the long sword poking up over Lars' shoulder. “Can I take a look?”

Lars drew the sword with a metallic ring and handed it over. It weighed about five pounds and appeared to be hand-forged. “Where did you get this?”

“Albion Armorers in New Glarus. We're putting on a show with some Indians on Sunday. Premise being the Nordic Raiders got here first and may even have ventured as far west as the Black Hills.”

“Is there any evidence to support such a theory?”

“Quite a bit,” Lars said, warming to the conversation. “I did my doctoral thesis on it. Traces of bronze found in the Black Hills, evidence that early Nordic Raiders may have mined for gold.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I teach history at Elgin University. You?”

“I'm a private investigator,” Pratt said. He always felt silly when he said that. “Last week I recovered a couple of dogs the Mastodons stole to feed their pit bulls. Hence the rumble. I should have guessed they'd show up here.”

The Raider in the Bret Favre jersey handed Pratt and Larsen paper plates with barbecued hog and a roll of paper towels. Larsen was about to dive in when Pratt bowed his head.

“Lord,” he said softly, “for this food we are about to receive we thank you.”

“Amen,” Favre said.

“So what are you doing out here?” Larsen said.

“Somebody hijacked a truck last week, stole four Ducati V-4s.” It wasn't a lie. Pratt couldn't say why he was reluctant to discuss Ginger's case but some still-small voice urged caution.

“Man,” Lars said, “I haven't done toes down since I was in college. I used to have a GPz550. It's a miracle I didn't kill myself on that thing. I couldn't bend myself around one of those crotch rockets today if I tried.”

They decried the squids whose antics made it difficult for all bikers. Pratt tossed down more ibuprofen. Pratt and Larsen drank Irish whiskey and swore eternal allegiance to one another. Lars removed a card from his fat Harley wallet. Pratt took out one of Bloom's and wrote his number and e-mail address on the back.

Pratt left his bike in front of the stage and made his way to the Bedouins' camp on foot. You could leave your bike anywhere in Sturgis with the key in and nobody would touch it.

Pratt lay in his sleeping bag listening to a non-stop chorus of revving engines, shrieks of joy and pain, cursing and the distant throbbing of the band. He screwed in his ear plugs and fell into deep sleep.

Pratt rose at seven, crawled out of his tent, walked to the fence to piss and climbed a rock to survey the Chip, which looked like the aftermath of battle, bodies lying everywhere and smoke rising from countless campfires. There would be no action until the Chip heated up around eight or nine that evening. Pratt decided to go into town.

His bike was where he'd left it. He started her up and joined the long dusty line snaking back from the exit. A deputy directed traffic in and out of the Chip. Traffic into Sturgis was thick and slow. Nobody tried to pass, wheelie or do anything crazy. An SDHP cop stood next to his blue strobing bike.

The line moved so slow, Pratt may as well have pushed his bike into town.

By the time Pratt found a parking spot it was ten. You could literally walk across Sturgis stepping only on motorcycles. Main Street looked like the world's biggest motorcycle showroom. A line stretched out the front door and down the block from Sturgis Breakfast and Brunch. Pratt bought a corn dog and a raspberry Slurpee from a vendor and ate it standing up along with a couple of ibuprofens.

Pratt saw several “John Deere” Harleys, a Confederate Wraith, Big Dogs, Indians, Beemers, restored Vincents, Excelsior-Hendersons, Ducati Monsters and speed bikes, Aprilias, Bimotas, Bourgets and one-off customs of no discernible heritage. He saw every kind of bike but the Desmosedici. Since that vehicle had not been officially released in the United States, the one that passed him had to be hot.

Not that he was prepared to do anything about it. A block off Main were the vendors, tat studios, massage therapists, every kind of leather, hop-ups and add-ons. Pratt walked the route, stunned by the sheer press of humanity. The air smelled of sizzling meat, suntan oil and pine.

Traffic cruised Main Street at five miles per hour under the watchful eyes of local deputies. By eleven it was ninety degrees out and the women were showing off their breasts. A couple cruised by on a Harley that looked like a buffalo, draped with skins, horns sprouting from the furred fairing. The woman must have weighed two hundred pounds, her gut bulging over her leather skirt, showing off her gigantic boobs like rare fruit. A cop turned away in disgust.

It took Pratt an hour and a half to get back into the Chip. He rode his bike all the way back to the camp where half the Bedouins were still zonked out. Pratt crawled into his tent, opened both ends to catch the nonexistent breeze, and fell into a shallow slumber in which he dreamed he was still in the joint, in the lunch line, and a man who was pure scar tissue was about to grab the last piece of lasagna. Pratt tried to break free but the other cons kept pulling him back.

He woke covered with sweat.

He knew what he had to do.

It was going to be a bitch.

CHAPTER 16

Saturday night Jonny Lang was the headliner. A Guns ‘N' Roses tribute band was onstage when Pratt tossed down his coffee can lid at the end of a long semi-circle of bikes facing the stage. He'd talked to Cass earlier. She'd just come back from making the rounds of her fireworks stands in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Her employees had proven slothful and mendacious. She had no assets. She was thinking of going back to dealing blackjack. Pratt told her they'd talk when he got back.

If she was looking at Pratt for money she was shit out of luck. “Son,” his dad had told him. “Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. And never go to bed with a woman who has more problems than you.” Probably the only worthwhile advice Duane had ever given him, even if it wasn't original.

The sheer craziness of the scene banished all thoughts of Cass. Children in Harley diapers ran through the crowd. Hundreds had put down blankets to watch the show. It looked like Family Picnic Day in Heavy Metal Hell. The Hells Angels sold balloons filled with nitrous. The Sons of Baal worked the crowd with lids.

At nine-thirty Pratt spotted the War Bonnet from the previous night, face like a fist, doing business in the shadows between a pizza joint and a tattoo parlor. His patch showed a skull wearing a war bonnet. Pratt shadowed the guy for over an hour as the Bonnet unloaded his stash, baggie by baggie.

Finally the Bonnet exhausted his supply. Pratt watched him explain to a bearded giant, hold a hand up indicating he'd be back. The War Bonnet headed up the dirt road away from the stage with a herky-jerky power walk indicating he'd been sampling his wares. Pratt was almost jogging, ribs pulsing dull red. Over a slight hill a mob had converged, a sea of black leather. The Rum Wranglers New Orleans met up with the Minneapolis branch. Guys kissing each other on the lips.

The War Bonnet had disappeared.

All those non-conformists looked alike.

“Fuck!” Pratt said, hustling around the mob. His detour expanded as most land next to the road had been staked out. By the time Pratt got back to the road, no sign of the War Bonnet remained. Pratt hustled up the road hoping to catch up with the distinctive patch.