Nolan: Return to Signal Bend (18 page)

He held still and listened. Over the metallic clanging of the shaking fence, he heard Lilli say, her voice clear and firm. “Just back off, and we’ll all go on about our night.”

“Fucking retard hit me. You need to leash that thing. If you can’t control him, I’m gonna.”

One of the other men said, “He’s just a kid, Jeb”—or some name like that; Nolan hadn’t made it out exactly—“let it go, man. Let’s just let the lady and her weird boy go. We’ll go to Moe’s.”

Nolan sensed his brothers coming up behind him and didn’t need to turn to know they’d come in force. With backup arriving, and knowing that he needed to try to turn this tide before Isaac just ran in and started shooting the idiots threatening his family, he stepped forward, finding the one spot where Lilli might be able to see him through the wall of assailants.

“Backing off is a real good idea, boys. The hole you’re in is deep enough already.”

Surprised to hear him, all the men reacted, all at once. The guy who had Gia tried to grab her, but she kicked him, and he yelped—and then yelped again. The men on Lilli and Bo turned, momentarily distracted, and Lilli went for the guy with the gun—it looked like there was only one gun after all. She did some weird ninja move, and then she had the gun in her own hand, and the guy was on the ground.

Nolan had leapt the fence, and one of the other men ran at him, armed with a knife as big as his own eight-inch hunting blade. But then the guy drew up short and threw his hands up, and Nolan knew his brothers had arrived, and they’d brought heat.

The scene froze, and Nolan looked around. The guy who had been on Gia was on the ground, holding his crotch. Gia had his knife. Isaac went through the gate—he couldn’t have climbed the fence—and hurried to his daughter. Len went with him.

There was still danger; the fourth man had taken Bo in the fracas and now had him in a headlock. Bo couldn’t stand to be touched except by a short list of people he trusted, and he had gone rigid, as if he were a robot that had been shut down.

Lilli was on the man who’d apparently started this mess, and she had his own gun aimed at his head. With her eyes fixed on that douchebag, she said, “Bo. Listen to me. Listen to my voice. You are okay. You be calm, and this will be over, and when we get home, you and I will play Scrabble for one hour. Just be calm and wait until I say it’s okay.”

Nolan didn’t know if Lilli was aware that Bo had hit pause—which was what they all called it when he tuned out. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the guy on the ground at her feet. Nolan assumed, though, that she had a clear sense of her surroundings.

Still in charge, he approached the guy who had Bo. When the guy brandished the knife at Bo’s throat, Nolan stopped. He sheathed his knife and put his hands up. “What’s your endgame here, dude? You see the men behind me? The people you went at are our family. You think you take another breath if you hurt that boy? You think your own family will ever be safe again?”

Looking like he sincerely regretted coming to the fair with his buddy Jeb, the guy said, “You gonna let us walk out of here if I let him go?”

Without checking with his brothers, Nolan nodded. “Yeah. My word. You let him go right now, and you can all just leave. We’ll escort you off the grounds, and you can go on and enjoy your night someplace else.”

Nolan got no argument from any of his brothers or from Lilli, and he felt a rush of pride. They trusted him.

“My word as Horde, man. You let him go, right now, and you will walk away from this fair with no more hurt than you’ve already got.”

The guy took his arm from Bo’s neck. Bo simply stood in exactly the same place, so the guy, giving him a funny look, stepped away himself.

Finally, Nolan looked around the corral and saw that nearly the entire club had come back—everyone but Bart, Dom, and Kellen, who were likely keeping people away from the trouble.

“Cox, Saxon, Tommy, Mel. Walk these men to their rides.” All four nodded and shoved guns into their waistbands. Everyone who’d shown up behind him had brought firepower along.

When it was only the Horde and Lilli and the kids in the corral, Isaac stalked up to Nolan, his arm still tight around his daughter’s shoulders. Gia looked fine—a bit wide-eyed, but fine. “I didn’t get in your way, but you fuckin’ better not think this is done.”

It wasn’t done. The bastards would pay. “I didn’t want that scene here in town. Right? They’ll be at Moe’s. One of them said they’d go there.”

“He’s right, Isaac,” Lilli said, standing now with a still-rigid Bo. “I heard that, too.”

“So we go to Moe’s,” Showdown said.

Double A nodded. “Moe’s has a metal detector. That son of a bitch will have to set his piece away, too.”

Len barked a laugh. “God
damn
, it’s been a while since we got a chance to teach some assholes a real good lesson!”

“Take your family home, Isaac,” Badger cut in. “Make sure they’re all okay. Darwin, help Bart, Dom, and Kellen close up here. Double A and Thumper, keep the town. Isaac, Show, Len, Nolan, we’ll meet at the clubhouse in an hour. I’ll catch Tommy and Saxon on their way back and tell ‘em to join us. We’ll give these assholes a show.”

~oOo~

Tommy and Saxon knew their targets’ rides and were able to point them out in the line of bikes outside Raider Moe’s.

Isaac stormed straight for the door, but Badger grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Easy, brother. We start something in there, we’ll have the whole place in a riot. Better to wait until they come out.”

“Fuck!” Isaac yanked his arm free of Badger’s grip. “They went for my family!”

Nolan stepped up. “He’s right, man. There are women in there. We wait.”

He wasn’t entirely sure that Isaac could be calmed. The big man radiated rage like a nuclear wave. His hands clenched into rock-hard boulders, and his chest heaved.

“Isaac.” Show’s voice was calmer than anyone’s. “Easy. They’ll pay.”

Isaac stared at the entrance to Raider Moe’s. Then he stared at the bikes lined up in a tidy row.

He stalked over to them, brought his massive leg up, and kicked the shit out of the first bike in the row. He set off the domino effect he’d been going for, and at least ten bikes crashed to their sides.

They were going to have to fight more than just the assholes who’d been at the fair.

“Hey!” A random guy headed into the bar called out in protest, then pulled up short when he saw Isaac and his kutte, and his brothers nearby. His courage bobbled, and he took a step back.

Isaac grinned at him—and it wasn’t the kind of expression that eased a mind. “Somebody better let them know inside that there’s an asshole out here trashin’ their bikes.” When the guy just stood there, gaping like a fish, Isaac stomped the bike again and nodded toward the door. “Go on, now.”

The guy went in. The Horde got ready, forming an arc around the front door.

It was only a minute or two before the doors burst open and the bikes’ owners surged out of the bar. Isaac charged forward with a roar and went right for the guy he most wanted. Nolan hadn’t even seen the guy yet, but he saw him double over and then fly back as Isaac hit him with his classic opening combination: left jab to the solar plexus and right uppercut to the chin.

The guy—Jeb, or Jed, whatever—flew backward, and Isaac dropped down and continued the beating. Nolan couldn’t pay any more attention, though—he barely ducked a punch, so his focus shifted, and he got busy with his own battle.

~oOo~

It didn’t last long. Nolan and Badger were able to back off the bikers who’d been collateral damage in Isaac’s burst of impatient inspiration by offering, between punches and ducks, to pay for any damage—and then to explain why they were after the other guys. That turned the tide, and the douchebags from the Spring Fest became far outnumbered.

Within maybe fifteen minutes, if that, those five, torn and bloodied, were on their knees on the parking lot, and Isaac prowled back and forth in front of them. Nolan suspected that the former President had forgotten, in this event, that he was former. He hadn’t deferred to Badger since they’d been standing in the corral earlier.

“You laid hands on my
family
.” He roared. “My
kids
.” He aimed a kick at Jed/Jeb’s knee, and the asshole howled in agony. “You put a gun to their heads. And you”—he snarled at one of the others—“you held a knife to my girl. Motherfuckers. I should end you all right here.”

“Isaac.” Badger’s voice had the timbre of someone trying to soothe a beast. “Your family is okay. We need to be reasonable here.”

Isaac seemed to ignore their President, and Nolan wondered if they were going to have a very big problem. They could not kill five men on the parking lot of Raider Moe’s, in front of two dozen witnesses. Nobody had called law yet, and it wasn’t likely anyone would—unless there were dead bodies at the end of this.

Then somebody among the onlookers stepped up. Nolan didn’t know him, and a quick glance at his brothers suggested that the man was a stranger to them all. “I know these lowlifes. They hurt your kids?”

Nolan did not want anything to get hotter than it already was. “We got this handled, friend.”

The guy nodded at him, acknowledging that he’d heard, then turned back to Isaac. “Got a hammer in my truck. Don’t think anybody here would say you don’t have a right to some Old Testament justice.”

Isaac considered his new friend for long, tense seconds. Then, recollecting Badger’s authority at last, he turned to the President.

Who turned to Nolan. “What d’ya think, SAA?”

“Sounds right. Yeah. Break their hands.”

~oOo~

“You are drunk,” Iris said when Nolan tried to pull her onto his lap as he sat on a barstool.

“Mm-hmm. Celebratin’. Get up here.” She struggled against his hold, and he frowned. “What’s wrong, babe?”

“You will drop me off your drunk lap, and I don’t think that will be fun. Come on, let’s go back to your room.”

“Are we gonna fuck?” He tried to kiss her, but she danced out of his reach again. She was slippery tonight—but she’d come right to the clubhouse when he’d called. “I beat people up! You like it when I do that.”

“If you can get it up, and not puke or pass out, there is a chance you will get lucky, yes. I’m not holding out much hope, though. And first we need to fix your hands.”

“My hands are good. They just need you.”

“Okey dokey. Come on. Let’s go.” She pulled on his arm, and he slid off the stool and almost flattened her. Damn, he
was
drunk.

“You have to help, honey. You’re too big for me to carry.”

“I got him.”

Was that her dad’s voice?

“Where you want him? The dorm?”

Yeah, that was Show.

“Hey, Show. Your daughter’s beautiful. I love her. I’m gonna marry her.”

“Shut up, shithead,” Show grumbled, and then the room flipped upside down, and Nolan felt really sick.

“Oh, fuck,” he moaned as saliva flooded his mouth. How’d he get upside down?

“You puke on me, and we are going to have a bigger problem than we already do.”

The room flipped again, and Nolan bounced. Oh! He was in his room, on his bed.

“Thanks, Daddy.” Oh, good. Iris was still with him.

Show grunted. “I am trying fuckin’ hard not to think about any of this. I’m goin’ home. He’s all yours.” There was a long quiet, and Nolan thought he might be alone. Then Show said, “He did good tonight. He’s a good SAA.”