Leave a Trail (59 page)

His own son.

Bo nodded again in answer to his question. Isaac tried something and asked a question that couldn’t be answered with a simple gesture. “What did you do?”

Bo shrugged. Well, okay. That gesture covered just about everything, he supposed.

“Hey. Have you ever been in my woodshop?” He knew the answer. No one had since the last time he’d been in it himself. For Lilli, the shop had become a sacred place, left to wait for him, unchanged.

Bo shook his head.

“Would you like to?”

An emphatic nod, complete with wide eyes. Isaac felt something there. Not a connection, not yet, but something.

“Okay. Let’s do it, then.” They left the room and crossed the yard, Isaac pulling his keys from his pocket as they went. Even putting keys in his pocket, and his wallet, on its chain, had been an event worthy of a missed heartbeat or two. Hooking Mjölnir around his neck and wrapping his cuffs around his wrists this morning had put a lump in his throat. Sliding his wedding ring on his finger had been damn near a religious experience.

The lock was stiff, but he worked the key patiently, and the hasp released. The door squeaked open, and Isaac reached in to hit the lights.

The aroma of wood shavings and stain and polyurethane that had pervaded this space for years was still there, muted by the smell of still, stale air and accrued dust, but strong enough to ease an ache in his heart.

“Will you help me get the windows open, so we can air the room out?” He knew to ask complete questions that had clear answers. Lilli had written a lot about Bo in her letters.

Bo nodded, and they opened up the room.

There was a lot of dust, but it didn’t matter. Isaac could feel his heart slowing, his frantic head settling. Here was something that had not changed. Here was nothing but familiarity, of the best sort, a space that had always given him joy and comfort. A retreat. He went to his work table and put his hand on his lathe. Then he stroked it. Why the fuck had he been anxious about coming in here?

Because he’d been afraid it, too, would have become different, even locked away as it had been.

Bo moved around the room, his eyes wide. He touched everything. Every dusty gewgaw and knickknack Isaac had stored for the next art fair, all the stores of wood, the cans of stain, the tools, the supplies, the projects. Isaac thought he might have literally touched every single thing. And he stood at the table and just watched, waiting to see if Bo would seek him out in any way.

When he got to the racks of gouges, Isaac had to stop him. “Hey, Bo. Don’t touch those. They’re sharp.” Bo turned and finally looked at him, and Isaac had an idea. His boy loved patterns. A gouge could make a pattern in wood.

“Would you like to see how they work?”

Bo nodded, and Isaac went to his pegboard and pulled two pairs of goggles off the wall. “You have to wear a pair of these. Will you?”

A nod, and Isaac handed him a pair. Then he went to his wood stock and found a thee-inch diameter dowel that hadn’t dried out too much. He pulled a few different gouges from the racks and brought everything to the lathe.

After carefully explaining safety rules and describing what a lathe did, he hooked a leather apron over Bo’s neck and set him back a step. “Hands in your pockets, little man.” Bo did as he was told, and Isaac chucked the dowel and started the lathe.

Bo watched, rapt, as Isaac shaped the wood. He didn’t work with any kind of purpose except to keep his kid interested, but when he shot a glance or two Bo’s way, he realized that the spinning of the dowel, the movement of the gouge and the way the wood was shaped, rather than the shape itself, was what had his interest.

When the dowel was turned from one end to the other with undulating shapes, Isaac turned off the lathe. Bo didn’t move. Isaac released the wood and held it out to him, but Bo didn’t take it. Instead, his face obscured by the goggles, he looked up, his eyes not quite meeting Isaac’s.

“C-can. Can. I try?”

The sound of his son’s voice, something he’d lost for years, dug deeply at him. With one brief thought to what Lilli would say about letting their ten-year-old son play with a wood lathe, Isaac smiled. He was about to answer in the affirmative when he remembered that Bo responded to
quid pro quo
. “If you will sit and have a conversation with me for fifteen minutes after supper tonight, then yes. You can try.”

Bo eyed him suspiciously. “How long. How long…can I try?”

Isaac got it. Okay. He could work this way to get Bo back. “Do you know what a conversation is?”

Bo nodded.

“Tell me.”

“When one person…says something and…the other person says something back.”

“Back and forth like that, right?”

Bo nodded. Isaac was going to have to remember not to use yes/no questions.

“Okay. For fifteen minutes of conversation with me after supper, you can try the lathe for fifteen minutes. Deal?” He held out his hand.

Bo considered. “Deal.” And they shook on it.

~oOo~

The first Friday back in the clubhouse felt surreal to Isaac. With SBC a going business, Show at the helm, the lot and building were hopping in ways he hadn’t seen in…ever. Not even when SBC had been running before. It wasn’t a big company, just doing home builds and renovations, but they were fully staffed and had a full complement of equipment.

The Horde itself was bigger and more robust than it had been in years, with Show, Len, Badger, Nolan, Dom, Double A, Tommy, Thumper, Kellen, Saxon, Mel, Cox, and Darwin—and Isaac—now taking seats, filling the table he’d made. Zeke had had a fatal heart attack two years back. His big, red chopper had joined the row of quiet warriors that still guarded the bays. Isaac had never met Saxon, Mel, Cox, or Darwin before they’d been standing outside the bus station—or, anyway, they’d been young kids and mostly outside his notice before he’d left. They all still seemed impossibly young, but they were clearly comfortable at the table.

Tonight, his first night back in the Keep, was Isaac’s official welcome home, and the old ladies and kids were arriving for a supper after the meeting and before the real party started. Show had told him that Horde parties were again a thing of legend. With so much young blood at the table, there was more of everything, and some Fridays the place about burst at the seams. Tuck and Rose Olsen had started taking Friday nights off, closing up the bar, leaving the night to the Horde. They were pushing or past seventy, and glad for the break.

It all made Isaac’s mind boggle and his bones feel old. But for now, before the meeting, things were fairly quiet. Just women getting ready, Prospects—he’d have to learn their names—stocking the bar, and Horde draining the stock.

Len came and sat next to him at the bar. “How you holdin’ up, brother?”

“Good. It’s been a strange week.”

“Yeah. It’s been pushing on a month for me, and it’s still strange. Good, but…strange.”

“Yeah. Like the Twilight Zone version of everything.”

Len just nodded and tossed back a shot of Jack. “Show talk to you yet?”

Isaac and Show had talked several times. Almost daily. But not of anything that seemed particularly significant.

“You mean about taking on a crew?” Show had asked him to lead an interior construction crew. Most of the Horde were on the SBC payroll, and Isaac needed a day job for his parole. He was still getting used to not leading the club. It had been years since he had, but in a way, it felt like it had been only a few days. He might as well have been cryogenically frozen since the day he’d gone away.

“Nah. I’ll let him tell you.”

“Okay.” Curious, but not about to push the point, he lifted his glass toward the top of Len’s head and changed the subject. “You left some fuzz.” For years before prison, Len had kept his head smoothly shaved. In prison, he’d let his hair grow to a few inches’ length. Now, he had a tightly cropped pate, but not baby-smooth. A dust of grey over his head.

“Tash likes it.” He laughed. “It’s easier, too.”

“You think we can relax yet?” He’d been struggling to lose the sense of self-guarding that was an imperative inside—and had been part of his previous life in Signal Bend, too.

“I do. Look around, Isaac.” Len had finally stopped calling him ‘boss.’ “Our family is safe. Straight money is comin’ in. Our town is solid. There’s no need to cross the line, so we’re good. We can rest. It’s time to rest. Enjoy life while we can still ride our road.”

Isaac nodded and waved his empty glass at a Prospect. This one had some bird name. Budgie? Robin?

“Another for me, too, Parrot.”

Ah. Parrot. Stupid fucking name. He wondered whose idea that had been.

As he took a swig from his glass, he looked over to watch the club girls—so much young booty around. Damn. He felt like a grandpa. Yeah, he’d like to rest and enjoy his life. Ride until his back finally gave it up. Fuck Lilli as long as he could get hard. Ride horses with Gia. Work wood with Bo. Live his life.

“Talk to you, Isaac?” Show had come up on Isaac’s other side.

“Sure, boss.”

Show shook his head. “Don’t do that.” He turned to the Prospect. “Parrot—just a Bud.”

As Show sat next to Isaac, Len got up. “See you in the Keep, brothers. I’m gonna find my old lady.”

When they were essentially alone, at the bar, anyway, Show said. “Been workin’ on something, and I want your vote on it.”

“Okay.”

Show turned away from Isaac and stared at his new bottle of Bud. “In the Keep, tonight, I’m passing the gavel.”

Rage Isaac stormed into his head, making his eyes pulse. “What the
fuck
? Show, you son of a—”

Show held up his hand, turning again to face Isaac straight on. “Hold on and listen. I’m passing to Badge. He’s already talked to the officers he wants. It’s known that this has been a plan. The vote’ll go the right way. But you’re a fuckin’ legend around here, and if you balk, that could send the vote sideways. I don’t want that to happen. I want to take a seat next to you. That’s where I belong. If you want the gavel back, I’d take that seat next to you. The one I had. And not one vote would go against you. Badge wouldn’t want it if you did. If you want the gavel, it’s yours. Do you?”

Isaac swallowed down his Jack and waved Parrot away when he came back to refill. He thought about that. Did he want to lead again? Was he fit? He’d asked himself that question over and over during the dark years. He’d always had the full faith and trust of his club. He’d never made a unilateral decision. And yet he had led them into mayhem. Whether he had done so as a good leader or not was irrelevant to Isaac. He had been the vanguard, and they had swum in blood.

It was more than that, though. He didn’t know the town like he had. He didn’t even know the club like he had. Everything was different, and he wasn’t sure yet where he fit. He couldn’t lead from a place of disorientation.

And most of all, he was done. He was weary. He wanted his quiet life. He wanted to ride his bike and fuck his wife and raise his kids and… “No. I don’t. My time was the past. But Show, you’ve done great with the gavel. The club is stronger than ever. Why pass it now?”

Show took a long drink. Staring at the shelves of liquor behind the bar, he said, “You and I are a team, Isaac. We always have been. Far as I’m concerned, we always will be. I kept the gavel in your absence. I don’t want it in your presence. Simple as that. I’ll sit at the end of the table with you.”

His eyes burning sharply, Isaac reached over and clapped his hand on his best friend’s shoulder.

~oOo~

Isaac supported the vote, and Badger was unanimously elected the fourth President of the Night Horde Motorcycle Club of Missouri. He named Double A his VP and Nolan—Havoc’s kid, who was twenty-fucking-five years old now—his SAA. Damn. The times had really changed.

The leadership change happened first off, and Badger led the rest of the meeting. Listening to the new President discuss club business, seeking input and mediating discordant opinions, Isaac tried to remember the skinny, nervous, shy kid with the zits who’d come in as a Prospect fourteen years ago. It was hard to reconcile the confident, mature man at the head of the table with that urchin of the past. He still had the same long hair and beard, but otherwise he was almost unrecognizable. He even seemed
taller
.

And Nolan—he was a man. A young man, but certainly no kid. Isaac saw an edge to him, a shadow. That kind of darkness was an asset to an outlaw SAA, but in these quiet times, he could afford some light. The only thing the Horde seemed to do that was even remotely dangerous was some legit protection work. There was no longer a call for a man who could use pain to make someone talk or pay.

Other than the change of leadership, most of the business—all new to Isaac, who’d been almost completely out of the loop since he’d been transferred to Pennsylvania—seemed routine, except for a charity run coming up the next month. It was a massive national run, cross-country, coming straight through Horde turf. They were picking up with it at home, opening the clubhouse and business buildings for an overnight stop, then joining the run all the way to LA, where they’d meet up with the Night Horde SoCal, where Bart was still VP.

Isaac wanted on that run. He didn’t know how to make it work with his parole, and he didn’t know if his back would let him get all the way across the country, but he was going for it anyway. He’d see if Lilli and the kids would drive along. The rally in LA was a big, family-friendly do. A vacation in sunny Southern California. A chance to see Bart. A national charity run. There had to be a way. There had to be a string to pull or a palm to grease somewhere to get him okayed for that trip.

He stopped his thinking right there. He’d ask for approval. If he didn’t get it, then he’d stay home and be content to party during the stopover. There would be charity runs when his parole was over. Until then, he was keeping his promise to his family. He would not risk violating.

Badger gaveled the meeting to a close, and the Horde went to the bar to toast the new officers. As they tossed back a third shot after a third toast, Isaac searched his heart to see if there was disappointment or resentment lurking there. Sitting at the opposite end of the table—the place for the wise old men—would be an adjustment.