The Fire and the Roar
The Fire and the Roar
A Legends of Meager Short Story
Cat Porter ©2020
Wildflower Ink, LLC
Editor
Jennifer Roberts-Hall
Cover Designer
Cat Porter
Special thanks to Lori Jackson, Dawn Compton, Jan Hood, Alison Lenox, Rachel McEwen.
And to MJ Fryer & JoJill Stevens.
Visit my website at www.catporter.eu
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, nicknames, logos, and symbols of motorcycle clubs and bands are not to be mistaken for real motorcycle clubs and bands. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products and locales referenced in this work of fiction. The use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Preview - The Dust and the Roar
Preview - Fury
Books by Cat Porter
About the Author
“Flames the two of us, flickering inside my darkness still.”
- Wreck, “The Dust and the Roar”
Chapter One
1989 - Isi
I blew them a kiss. “Y’all are the best! Thank you, Clove!”
Teddy and Len sniggered, cursing behind me on the small stage as dull clapping rose in the bar.
Yeah. Clove, Nebraska, you suck.
In the winter, playing clubs, bars, and small theaters was pretty great compared to the outdoor festival shows with huge raucous crowds which were our norm in the warmer months. A smaller audience offered a different energy and required different, and that was fun. After all these weeks and weeks on the road, we knew how to deliver.
But tonight, at this saloon in Nebraska? The audience seemed fed up with life. Indifferent. Bored. Not much enthusiasm for Isi and the Silver Tongues. Can’t win them all, I guess. We were a good time. At least we thought so.
Whatever. We’d given it everything we had here tonight. Wasn’t that enough? Maybe I was the one who was tired. Fed up. Lonely…
Oh, I was lonely, all right.
Don’t go there. Not right now.
I was holding myself together like a patched up sail on a boat. One tear, two in those sails, and I’d be a goner. Stuck at sea. The band and I had been at this a while. We’d been on the road for a couple months, playing venues large and small, opening for other bands. We were in this for the long haul. We’d learned to deal. But dealing didn’t mean you didn’t feel disappointed and pissed if it all didn’t go your way, one night, two nights.
My shoulders slumped. I felt as if I’d been carrying the weight of all of our expectations for the past ninety minutes. Now it was over, but there was no relief. No release of tension. Only new tension.
I blew the audience a final kiss anyhow. “Good night now!”
“Ah, Little Mary Sunshine,” said Stewart, our drummer, who came up alongside me as we tracked off the stage.
“I try.” And they all appreciated it, that was a fact.
He twisted a stick in his fingers. “You always do, Is.” He slung an arm around my neck. “You’re a nut.”
“And proud of it.”
In the hallway leading to the communal back room, the bar manager thanked our manager, Phil. “Folks round here don’t get out much in the winter, so an occasion like your band playing here puts everyone in a good mood.”
“Oh yeah?” said Phil, his tone tinted with brittle sarcasm. So brittle, the other man missed it completely.
“We’re glad you came,” the man said, shaking Phil’s hand. “We’d love to offer you each a beer on the house if you like.”
Phil must have been dying inside. Len and Teddy only scowled as they packed up their guitars. Rick rolled his eyes, muttering to himself as he dealt with his keyboard and equipment. Barely anyone came through these parts of Nebraska in the winter, but we were desperate for gigs. They were the best opportunities to hone our sound, our songs in front of a live audience, all different kinds of audiences. Nothing better. Always on the move.
At least, I had to be always on the move.
“That’s real kind of you,” said Phil. “But I think we’re going to get back to our motel. Everyone’s real tired, right, you guys?”
“Oh yeah…” I said, fake yawning. Phil winked at me.
We all packed up our shit, and I plopped onto an old vinyl-covered chair in front of the huge mirror, wiping at the black eyeliner that had smudged under my eyes. One of the waitresses appeared, handing a bottle of booze to Rick.
“Here, take this. Enjoy. It’s on me.”
“Thanks, babe.” Rick gave her “the look” coupled with the warm, growly way he uttered the word “babe”…yeah.
She blushed, her eyes brightening even more. “You guys were amazing. My name’s Mary Jane, by the way.”
“Hey, Mary Jane,” said Teddy, siding up next to Rick, the two of them staring at her curvy chest under her tight bar T-shirt.
We drank, passing the bottle around. Bottom line whiskey if ever there was, but what the hell. Len was being interviewed by some young girl, who had a tape recorder mic up in his face, following his every move. She kept the questions flowing, her eyes shooting to a small notepad, and he answered each one with a sly smile or a scowl. She didn’t look much past a teenager. High school newspaper, maybe? Junior College? She kept inching closer to him. His teeth scraped at his bottom lip, one eyebrow rose. There…
The dimples finally made an appearance. Her tongue shot out and swiped her bottom lip, and I let out a small laugh.
Every. Single. Time.
I’d been on the road with these guys for months, and I knew their tells pretty well now. When each one was bored, or wired from pills, or horny, or brewing frustration into all-out anger and ready to blow, I knew.
There had been breaks in between, where some of them had gone home to South Dakota. I had once, but it had been upsetting. My old man, Wreck, and I were pretending we’d broken up. Underworld outlaws, including my fabulous ex-husband and his MC, were after my brother Leo for money, for his meth operation, for revenge. And since Leo had disappeared into thin air, they might come after me to smoke him out, so I was a nomad, playing it solo. A nomad being watched because I wasn’t “hiding out” per se, but I was being a “normal” singer in a new rock band who’d just broken up with her boyfriend and took off on tour to be all free and shit.
Free.
Although I was free to pursue my dream now, my cousin Georgia having taken over running our family’s general store in town, it didn’t feel so very “free.” Not like I’d imagined it would be.
I was lying again.
I used to lie to my family about singing. I’d sneak out of the house to go to different clubs and bars and parties to sing in the wee hours or catch a favorite band performing. All the while, I’d dream about one day being on my own and wild and free to do what I wanted, which was tour with my own band, and live like a bohemian creative.
I should be grateful I was finally chasing my dream, part of a band, making music, performing. I was. I only wished…
Stop.
The bottle got put in my hands again, and I took a long glug.
When all this crap had broken out with my brother, Wreck could have put me in some sort of lockdown situation by sending me away to the Jacks’ brother chapter in Colorado to stay there under lock and key for months. But he hadn’t done that.
“They’re your dreams, and you deserve to make them come true.” He told me that. What man tells you that? Only Wreck.
Wreck found a way to let me make my dreams come true, but we had to make sacrifices, like be separated and pretend we’d broken up. All under the watchful eyes of Wreck’s club brothers, the One-Eyed Jacks MC, and their friendly clubs, in every state I traveled to.
“Let’s take this party back to our motel, huh?” Teddy, our bassist, said in a loud voice. He shut the clasps on his guitar case. “Let’s get some booze and get going. You coming with?”
“Sure!” The girl interviewing Len quickly put her notepad and cassette recorder away. “I have a few friends with me—”
“More the merrier.” Len winked. Mary Jane stood at the back exit, holding the door open for us as we filed out. Len stopped and flirted with her some more, planting a kiss on her cheek as he strode out the door.
Even though it had been a less than stellar response from the audience tonight, we’d performed at our usual intensity. Now, my adrenaline simmered my current bubbly cocktail of disappointment and a dash of futility. Yes, let’s make merry.
“You’re a pretty thing, you know that? Real hot up there singing.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said to the rosy-cheeked bar manager.
“Can I offer you a special drink?” He leaned over me, a clammy hand landing on my thigh.
“Absolutely not.” I shoved his hand off my leg.
“Hey now—” He got even closer, a putrid smell filling my nostrils. Dirty laundry, stale beer.
“Is, let’s go.” Stewart cuffed my neck with his hand, and I pushed up off the chair, my arm sliding around his middle. The bar manager wiped at his mouth.
“Goodnight!” I said. Ugh. “Get me out of here already.”
“Yeah. Time to party.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Chapter Two
We got on our bus and made our way back to the next town over where our motel was. The town was a typical desolate one road affair like most around here. We were all about the cheap and inexpensive, so this crap motel in between towns was perfect. We were the only guests there tonight. Big plus.
Hopping off the bus, a twinge took hold of my heart, and I pulled my coat tighter around me. This town was nothing but drab. There was no old “frontier” charm of Meager—the vintage lampposts, the ornate storefronts with iron trim, the grand old Black Hills prairie style stone building here and there, the forested granite hills clustering around us. None of that here. The area was flat for miles around, dotted with a row of the same drab, boxy type structures that were probably untouched since they were first built post-WWII. I missed home so much.
The icy wind whipped my hot face, my mittened hands jammed in my coat pockets as I hustled through the parking lot. I wore my older brother’s coat. James had left for Vietnam and never come back. His double-breasted thick and dark-blue maxi coat was a favorite of mine in winter, and now that my other brother Leo was hiding out somewhere on his own, I felt closer to both of them, to a sense of home whenever I wore this stiff wool coat that went down to my ankles. It always kept me warm.
Our rooms were all in a single file next to each other off the parking lot. I was in a room on my own, and the guys had doubled up in other rooms.
A black pickup swerved into the lot and came to a screeching halt. Crates filled with beer and miscellaneous bottles were lifted from its cab. The guys had their rooms open, and people with lazy smiles drifted in and stumbled out, cigarettes lit.
“Isi, you wanna beer?” asked Eric, Teddy’s younger cousin who had just joined our tour doing anything and everything needed. “There’s also Tequila? Or Jack?”
Yes, I want a Jack, goddammit! My Jack!
“Tequila,” I replied.
I wouldn’t be able to sleep even if I’d wanted to. Who wanted to? Guns N’ Roses blared off of Len’s boom box, and I moved to the beat. The aroma of burning weed filled the air. I didn’t want to smoke any weed, though. The hazy sweet high often made me wistful, which led to sad. I’d get to thinking, and then I’d get to missing the one person I wanted most in this world. Then I’d watch the guys getting it on with girls, and I’d miss that. That indulgence, that friction, that thrill.
But I knew what I missed was that intimacy I’d never shared with anyone else, and knew I’d never find with anyone else. Ever.
Eric handed me a plastic cup, and I drank, the harsh liquor burning a trail down my gullet, warming my belly, filling the empty. Ha. Stewart and I moved to the music in the haze. More cars and trucks showed up, more people. I recognized a number of faces from the audience at the bar. With no snow on the roads, the young ones had come out to get their wild on.
Only one lamp worked in the parking lot. The other three were busted, so it was the perfect party hot spot. Couples were fooling around in the dark, drug deals were going down, drugs were being taken in all forms and all ways in the shadows.
From the open doorway of Teddy’s room, people spilled in and out, clutching plastic cups and bottles, drinking, smoking. Clusters of girls laughed loudly, singing along to that Milli Vanilli song. In his room, Len leaned against the wall with that chick who’d been interviewing him on her knees between his legs, giving him head. Her friends were watching. Were they standing in line? Len usually had the most girls interested in him. He was the hot lead guitarist with the long hair, after all. I grinned. That cute waitress from the bar was making out with Teddy, and he had his hand up her shirt. All was right with the world.
I knocked back another tequila and pushed at Stewart’s chest. “Go, go have fun. Go find a girl. You don’t have to stick with me.”
“I am having fun, Is.”
I yanked on his long, silky black ponytail that flipped over his shoulder. My protector. Stewart had become my best bud since I’d formally joined the band. A bit of an introvert with a simple sense of humor. I knew it meant a lot to him that Wreck liked him and trusted him. The memory of our initial goodbye before we left Meager remained fresh in my mind.
Wreck clasped Stewart’s hand like a bro, his bicep tensing. “Watch out for my woman, Longhat.”
Stewart lifted his chin, tightening his grip on Wreck’s hand. A bond between men. “I will.”
A thick roar ripped through the hazy darkness, and I swiveled automatically, heart skipping like I was a little girl in the heat of August and the ice cream truck bell had sounded down the street. But I was no little girl, and it wasn’t ice cream I was craving. That roaring metal scream meant only one thing to me, one person.
One.
All my senses sharpened as a stream of motorcycles swarmed the parking lot. The riders wore similar jackets, sported the same colors. An MC. But there was no familiar gleaming eye skull of the One-Eyed Jacks on their backs. Who were they? Shouts and hooting pressed all around me as I rose on my toes to try to get a better look. Each bike had orange and red flames blowing across its gas tank. Flames on the back of their jackets. I’d seen those before. Oh shit, the Flames of Hell. We were in their territory, weren’t we?
Rugged, bearded faces filled my vision. Stewart moved closer to me, blocking me. He was tall, and I grabbed his arm for leverage as I hopped up to look over his shoulder.
“Is, stop gawking. Let’s move over here.” He led me to the edge of the parking lot. I tripped on th
e buckled asphalt as I strained to see.
“Mary Jane?” hollered a Flame, standing in the center. “I know you’re here! Mary Jane—what the fuck?”
Holy crap. No way.
Mary Jane flinched, her face etched in shock and bright red as a strawberry in spring. But she didn’t let go of Teddy. Teddy wasn’t happy.
Oh no.
“Knew I’d find you here! You fucking—”
“Leave me alone! Stay away from me, Buzz!” came her shrill voice. Wow, at the bar she’d seemed all peaches and cream, girl next door.
“Who’s this asswipe?” Buzz gestured at Teddy. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
In a flash, Buzz’s fist met Teddy’s face with a crack. Mary Jane screamed, gasps and nervous laughs rose from the crowd. Teddy staggered backward, his shirt ripped in two, blood spewing from his nose, on his bare chest. Another Flame punched his side, and Teddy crumbled to the ground. He was no longer in my view.
“Let me up, Stew!” I climbed on Stewart’s back, and he hitched me up to see over the crowd. A couple other Flames closed in on Teddy and kicked at him as he lay prone. Yells, shouts. Grunts and foul curses. The crowd swelled around Teddy and the Flames of Hell. Top entertainment for the masses.
“They’re pounding on Teddy. We have to stop them.” I slid down off Stew’s back.
“I’m not leaving you, not with this shit going on.”
“You go, I’m fine.”
“Get in your room and lock the door.”
“Just goooooo!”
“Dammit, Is.” Stewart charged off toward the fight, scowling at me over his shoulder. “Go to your room!”
Oh. Hell. No.
I had to do something.