Gideon cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “Don’t worry,” I explained. “I googled it. I didn’t automatically know that.”

  He smiled. He was always saying what a brainiac I was when I just read a lot of books. “Well, a brother from a club that wants to pleasure women is okay in my book. Then there’s Dust Bunny, who’s been around for a hundred years but has never patched into any club. I guess he’ll have to start at Prospect level, too.”

  “And Dingo’s already a Prospect.”

  “And Dingo, of course. Oh, and I’m going to ask Papa Ewey if I can take Sledgehammer and Yosemite Sam.”

  I chuckled. “Yosemite Sam? Seriously?”

  “He’s called that because he likes to carry a Smith and Wesson fifty cal. And he’s a short, scruffy, scrappy guy that no one wants to mess with. Those are my two true brothers from the Assassins in Bullhead. I think they’d make excellent Avalanche charter members.”

  “Sledgehammer is a true blue friend.” As we spoke, Sledge was already at the mine. He’d taken over the thankless job of unearthing and cataloging dead bodies. He’d found ol’ Reed Smoot, and was pretty sure he’d dug up Monte Brough. He’d just texted Gideon a side-by-side comparison of a gruesomely decomposed man next to a photo of the old mine manager, Immanuel Zabriskie. That could’ve been Gideon, I thought. It still could be, if we don’t play our cards right. “And I’m sure Yosemite Sam is too.”

  “I came up with Sam since the short pants days. We were together during some…well, some pretty fucked-up times as teenagers.”

  This was the first time I’d heard about his rough childhood. I wasn’t one to pry, but I had a burning need to know everything about Gideon. This part of his life was one enormous blank. His mention of it seemed like an opening he wanted to give me. “Yes, in Bullhead City, right?”

  “Right. You know I had a horrible son of a bitch for a father. A major alcoholic who took all his frustrations out on me and my brother.”

  Yes. The brother in the photo at the Temple. “Right. I take it he was abusive?”

  “Oh, when wasn’t he abusive?” Gideon snorted. “He could hold it together sometimes for Sunday pancakes, and that was it. He’d race out the door for his bar. Anyway, that’s why I was on the streets at a young age. It seemed better than sitting around waiting for the next beating.”

  “Yes, but how’d you provide for yourself? Minimum wage doesn’t pay much more than rent.”

  “Minimum wage? Hell, I didn’t need no McDonald’s job. Not a looker like me.” He stabbed out his cigarette angrily. I had no idea what he was driving at, so I kept quiet. He finally added, “There’s plenty of easy money to be made if you’re willing to inhale the oyster.”

  I was confused. “Is that some kind of drug?”

  I could tell by his cynical look that it wasn’t. “Give a piston job, swallow the sword, slob the knob. Or let them do it to you.”

  My heart nearly stopped. This explained a lot about why Gideon felt such a camaraderie with poor Dingo and his compatriots. They’d all come from the streets, from a hustling lifestyle. I didn’t know what to say.

  “That’s where I met Sam. We joined the Marines together, but he was assigned stateside while I was shipped in country to Afghanistan. When we got out, we looked around for something meaningful. We wanted to have muscle behind us, so we’d never be taken advantage of again.”

  I nodded, serious. “And your brother Chad? He was…living with you and Sam?”

  Gideon couldn’t even look at me now. “No,” he said tightly. “Chad was stuck at home. Dad said he’d kill him if he didn’t get his high school diploma. So one day he beat Chad to death.”

  I sucked in air loudly. Holding my hand to my chest, I was overcome with emotion. Lamely, I put my other hand over Gideon’s. “Oh my squash,” I whispered. “Was he charged with murder?”

  I could tell Gideon was holding back tears, looking at the warm scarlet red mesas. He gulped, and gulped again, keeping it down. “No,” he finally said. “He claimed Chad fell off the balcony of our apartment. My mom was equally to blame, because she covered for him. She…she sold herself to strange men, too.”

  “Sweet Jesus. He got away with it?”

  “Yes.” That one terse word told me everything. He exhaled in a whoosh and said quickly, “Once I get this mine business sorted out and sell my Bullhead house, I want to buy another house that’s for sale down on Little Wing Street. Kimball and her kids can stay there, maybe protected by Sam or Sledgehammer. We need our privacy. I know you’re used to being crammed in with other people, but I’m not. I like to spread out.” He grinned and squeezed my hand back. “We’ll keep Dingo, of course.”

  “That sounds fine. I’ve got an interview today in St. George. Bookkeeping for some trucking company.”

  To my surprise, Gideon said, “No. I want you to focus on this nonprofit shelter.”

  I frowned. “What nonprofit shelter?”

  He stood, patting his jean pockets to feel for his wallet, his phone. “The one on Little Wing Street you’re going to run.”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to get more sister-wives out of Cornucopia, aren’t you? This sounds like a human welfare situation that you can get 501 exemption for, no?”

  “Well, yes.” I’d never thought of it that way before. I could benefit Gideon by being a nonprofit tax write-off. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? “But Kimball wants to get a job. She wants to help. There are some babysitting jobs in St. George she could do.”

  Gideon frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. Why go all the way to St. George and leave your kids alone? She’ll just wind up paying a babysitter the same amount of money she’s making. No. Tell her to stay here and be a mom. She can help you with the Little Wing project. We’re going to repopulate this ghost town.”

  “You’ll be mayor,” I joked.

  Vonda came out then. “Mom, Dingo’s going to give me a ride to school.” It was her fourth day at the new St. George school, and so far, she loved it. She’d made a few friends, even. I wasn’t so keen on her riding on Dingo’s pussy pad, but if I did it, I couldn’t forbid my daughter from doing it. “Hey, Dingo told me a Mormon joke.”

  Dingo appeared behind Vonda, a motorcycle helmet in his hand. “Yes. Listen to this. Take my wives. Please.”

  Gideon burst out in a guffaw, but I didn’t get it. In fact, Gideon held his stomach, it was so funny. The three of them were lost in their own hilarious world, and I was vexed. I thought about my secret hair appointment in Cedar City. I was going to cut off some or most of my waist-length hair as a symbol that I wasn’t attached to Allred or Cornucopia anymore.

  “It’s all right,” Gideon finally wheezed. “The busses don’t go where you live, Mahalia. It’s one of the reasons I love you.”

  “We all love you,” corrected Dingo.

  “Hmph,” I said.

  Gideon said, “Dingo, meet me at the mine when you’re done at Vonda’s school. We’ve got a sit-down in Bullhead with Papa Ewey and the rest. You can’t come to the table, but you can meet some of the other Prospects down there, serve beer, that sort of shit. I’ve finally got to face the music about Breakiron.”

  Vonda asked, “Wasn’t that that big colossal asswad you used to hang around with? You gave him a beatdown in Cornucopia in front of The Prophet’s office.”

  I shot Gideon a warning glare. We’d kept the details about Breakiron’s demise from her. No sense in her fearing my old man. Gideon said, “Oh, he decided the club no longer held any value for him. He took off for parts unknown.”

  “The Streaked Wall Bench,” giggled Vonda.

  Gideon and I shared glares now. I asked, “What about the Streaked Wall Bench?”

  “There are bodies in there.”

  Gideon took a step toward Vonda. “No, there aren’t. If anyone says that, tell them it was an old miner who fell into the pit a hundred years ago and that’s it.”

  “Old miner,” repeated Vonda dutifully, but I could tell she was repressing a laugh.

  When they left, I put on my new red dress. It came to just above my knees and was held up only by narrow, one-inch wide straps. Some of my ample cleavage was even on display, and I loved it. Gideon had bought me red shoes to match. It was still hard getting used to the two-inch heels, but practice would make perfect.

  My truck’s radio was turned to rap when I started it up. Vonda. She was reveling in everything the newfound world had to offer, but rap wasn’t on my agenda. I turned it back to the R&B I loved in Provo. I passed by the High Dive bar. A few Lazzat Un Nisa “scoots” were parked outside at this early morning hour. It struck me that the bar would make Gideon and his Assassins a great clubhouse, if only they could get rid of that Skippy Cavanaugh creepazoid. I was learning new words from Vonda, too.

  The hairdresser recommended by my sister did a wonderful job. I’d succeeded in keeping this appointment a secret from Gideon, and I couldn’t wait to show my short hairdo to him. Then I realized he might not be back until late if he had that “sit-down” in Bullhead City.

  I was flying high on dopamine, the feel good chemical. But nothing could wreck my mood as I went shopping for four very excellent T-bone steaks. Perhaps I couldn’t surprise Gideon by doing a strip tease through the kitchen doorway, but I could at least have a good dinner waiting for him, even if it was cold by the time he returned.

  It was probably around four in the afternoon when a knock sounded on my front door. Vonda had stayed after school to play basketball with her new friends and I was waiting for the call to go pick her up. Kimball had taken her kids downtown to rent a movie from a Red Box, a thrill they’d never known. I’ll never forget, I was reading a slim volume of Lawrence Ferlinghetti poetry. Gideon had trained me to look through the little peephole when someone was at the door, and that’s what I did.

  It was just some delivery guy. I could see his truck behind him, a pickup with one of those slap-on magnetic signs saying he was with a florist. He even had a large bunch of flowers in his hand, so who was I to argue? I mean, who would be skeptical of that? No one.

  “Flowers!” I cried, holding out my hands for them. “I assume these are from Mr. Gideon Fortunati?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the delivery guy, who was starting to look awfully familiar. Had I ever stopped in to his flower store before? “Courtesy of Mr. Gideon Fortunati.”

  As I accepted the bunch of flowers from him, he lunged at my stomach with his other hand. A loud, sharp crackling like a live wire flailing on the ground filled my ears. A strange, unfamiliar but all-encompassing pain wracked my body. He pressed something against me that sent out electrical shocks so strong they zapped my brain, and I fell on the ground like a twitching epileptic.

  My brain felt scrambled—I was no longer able to think in a linear fashion. I’m pretty sure the fake flower delivery guy stunned me with his Taser again, and again, maybe when I showed signs of coming to life. The next thing I knew, I was in the back of his king cab pickup truck, my hands bound behind my back with something like a zip tie.

  “You’re taking me to Allred,” I yelled. I sounded drunk, though I’d never been drunk in my life.

  “Sure as shooting.” He sounded terribly cheerful for a guy who had just kidnapped and tased a woman.

  “You won’t get away with this.” I didn’t realize until later that I sounded like bad movie dialogue.

  “Oh, yes, we will.”

  “Who are you? I know you.”

  “You don’t remember me? I’m Monte Brough. The Prophet sent me back from Texas just to take care of you.”

  Monte Brough. Monte Brough. The name sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it, with different hemispheres of my brain wrangling for control. “So there really is a Texas compound?”

  “Oh, there’s a Texas compound all right. Why’d you doubt it?” Monte Brough adjusted his rearview mirror so he could look at me. “The Church of Good Fortune is twice as big in Texas. I think he aims to send you back with me.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  GIDEON

  The sit-down with Papa Ewey and my brothers went as well as could be expected.

  It was a sober meeting. I sat next to my man Yosemite Sam. We hadn’t even brought to the table the issue of him and Sledgehammer coming with me to form the new chapter. The main agenda item wasn’t even the new chapter. It was the disappearance of Tim Breakiron.

  Papa Ewey bracketed his hands on the table. “I’ve already discussed this in full with Gideon here. I wanted you all to hear it from his own mouth. You all know I sent Breakiron up north with Gideon last month as penance for the error he made in dealing with a member of the Bent Zealots.”

  Men nodded and murmured. “Yeah.” “Fucking rape, man.” “Sort of twisted.”

  Papa Ewey went on. “And I sent Gideon with him as penance for getting too handsy with my old lady.”

  The mood in the chapel instantly lifted. Men chuckled and said shit like, “Who wouldn’t?” “She’s a hot mama,” and “Can you blame him?”

  “In the interim, Gideon has made a good name for himself up there in Utah, establishing solid connections, getting in good with the fundies that we need to funnel our iron. Breakiron wasn’t in on any of this, because the main polyg only wanted to deal with Gideon. He even managed to get full title to a productive working mine. Don’t ask me how. But I stand behind that sort of tactic, whatever it was. Now we’re all wondering what happened to Breakiron. Seems he went a little off his rocker when he heard I wanted Gideon to establish a new chapter up there.”

  “I had to shoot him in self-defense,” I said to a table full of mean, nasty, lowdown bikers. My brothers. Standing, I lifted my shirt to show them the bullet wound where part of my liver had been removed. “He busted in in the middle of an iron transfer on fundy property, waving a piece around. He started to shoot a woman I’m in love with, and I happened to get in the way. So I shot him.”

  I figured it would be simpler this way. Clean and direct, to the point, like my bullet wound. Most men looked to Papa Ewey for guidance now. I figured that. They wanted to know his reaction before letting me know theirs. Yosemite Sam was the only one nodding and murmuring on my behalf. That was because I’d already told him about Breakiron’s demise.

  Papa Ewey said, “While of course I don’t approve of brothers burying brothers, it appears Gideon acted as any man would. His gunshot wound is evidence. And we’ve all known Breakiron has been capable of some loose cannon type of behavior.”

  Now that it appeared Papa Ewey would stand behind me, men nodded and looked at each other. “Yeah.” “Damn straight.” Wishbone even said, “Remember that Mr. Magoo murder in Laughlin? Breakiron did that for the fun of it. I was there. Mr. Magoo was just coming out of a Target with a bag of M&Ms and a cheese grater. Breakiron just popped him in the head for the hell of it.”

  “How’d you know he had a cheese grater?” someone asked.

  Wishbone said, “Because Breakiron took his bag. He was pissed there was only a cheese grater. But he ate the M&Ms.”

  Those details seemed to lend color and credence to Wishbone’s story. Anything that backed up my actions was fine with me.

  Papa Ewey wanted to know, “Who’s this gash you’re in love with?”

  “No gash, Papa. My old lady. I busted her out of that joint. Her and her daughter are living with me now, along with my Prospect. We’re busting at the seams in that house. I’d like to add to the agenda a discussion of using funds to purchase another house that can be used for money laundering as well as saving other poor innocent women and girls who are being forced to marry dirty old men at an alarming rate. I can contribute my own funds from the sale of my house here in Bullhead.”

  Papa Ewey nodded. “We can add that to the agenda for next chapel, but a few of us have to go to the Lions Club now.” We were huge Lions Club supporters. They let us use their hall for larger functions our clubhouse couldn’t handle, and in return, we offered protection. I wanted to set up similar scenarios in Avalanche. “Where’s Sledgehammer going to go when you sell your house?”

  “That’ll be part of next chapel’s agenda. I aim to take Sledgehammer and Yosemite Sam here with me, if you approve.”

  Papa Ewey didn’t seem surprised. He even offered one of his current Prospects, but I said I was plumb full up on those. The meeting adjourned and an enormous load was lifted from my shoulders. Everyone seemed to agree that Breakiron wasn’t the sort of spokesman we wanted for our club. I’d been dreading explaining what happened to him for so long. Now I had to thrash it back to Avalanche to be with my old lady. Papa even gave me a PROPERTY OF patch to give Mahalia, but I thought it was too soon for that. I took the patch, but wondered when I’d give it to her. She might never be ready to be anyone’s property after what she’d been through.

  Yosemite Sam wanted to come back with me immediately, but I told him to stay. I didn’t really have any room for him yet, what with being chock full of Morbots and other brothers. I did give him a key to my house and ask if he’d contact a Bullhead City realtor we knew who owed us a favor, and walk him through my house. I didn’t have the fucking time to put my own house on the market.

  I don’t remember when exactly I started feeling uneasy as I drove back to Avalanche. I started riding faster and faster once I passed St. George, risking getting a Fast Riding Award and getting my first ticket in the state of Utah. Dingo rode faster to keep up with me, too. Contrary to popular belief, outlaw bikers don’t haul ass down the highways, tearing it up. In fact, we want to stay within the law even more than regular riding clubs, to avoid unwanted scrutiny. But that day, I just let worries take control.

  I was about out of my mind by the time I thrashed it past the High Dive. Dingo was probably wondering what news I’d received to make me drive that way. Seeing Mahalia’s truck in my driveway didn’t calm me one shred. Harleys belonging to Sledgehammer and Dust Bunny were both there. As I parked, I checked my phone. No calls or texts, so logically nothing was wrong. I still felt uneasy. A few long-stemmed dyed carnations were scattered on the stoop. They seemed a strange symbol for something terrible.

 

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