Page 73 of Resilience

“We’ll lay the whole story out for you and Monty when we get home,” Eight said. “The important thing we need to focus on here is ... yeah. They don’t vote right next time, we’re tearing the Nameless down. Volkov style.”

“Fuck,” Caleb grunted.

“We’re crew killers, boys,” Cooper responded grimly.

“Couldn’t we find another club to patch over?” Reed asked. “I know we said starting from scratch like we did is too hard—and I agree, it’s been one problem after another—but I don’t see how a hostile takeover is an improvement. Why not see if we can make a deal with another club? One that’s into it?”

“We don’t got time for that shit now,” Eight said.

“Anyway, the Nameless was the right call. They have a huge footprint in Eureka,” Jazz said. “In all of NorCal, really. They were the Big Daddy back in the weed heyday. We want their footprint. Frankly, the shit we’ve seen about these guys, I hope they don’t vote right. They were fucking brutal, and they don’t color inside the lines. Don’t cry over these assholes. Most of ‘em are very bad motherfuckers and deserve every bit of what they’ll get. The cred for putting them in the ground won’t hurt, either.”

“We’re out of time and out of choices, brothers,” Eight said. “Tulsa and Laughlin both need to get ready to ride to Eureka after the holidays and make a little war.”

Sam’s dad cleared his throat. “I know I’m not saying anything most of us here aren’t thinkin’, but it needs to be said out loud. This shit is starting to feel like how we landed in the mess with the Perros. I know I missed the worst of it, but that’s because I got caught up in it myself. We need our eyes open, brothers.”

“You’re right, Si,” Eight said. “Everybody’s thinkin’ it. You got any wisdom that might actually help?”

With a subtle chuckle and a shake of his head, Dad let the question fade away without an answer.

That chuckle with the lowered head-shake was familiar to Sam. It was a sign both he and Mason had come to fear, and the one thing that could shift Mom from disagreeing with Dad to flat-out fighting with him. Such a subtle collection of gestures, but it meant that Dad was at the end of his tether, and he had completely dismissed whomever he was talking to. When Sam or Mason got him to that place, they were about to lose an important privilege or something they cared about—or get some seriously awful chore as punishment. When Mom was on the receiving end of that look, Sam and Mason headed for the hills because the ‘rents were about to have a barn-burner of a fight.

Sam felt a little nauseated, and he didn’t think it was lingering effects of his injuries. He’d never seen the Bulls—his father, his uncles, his friends, his family—so much at odds before. Sure, he’d seen plenty of arguments and quite a few drunken fights, not counting the bouts in the club ring that sometimes seemed more therapeutic than recreational, but he’d never seen them truly angry and in conflict before. Resentment simmered barely below the surface of the table.

Nothing about being a Bull was like he’d imagined.

Except getting shot.

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

They put Ben to rest the next afternoon. A Bulls funeral was something Sam was very familiar with, and this one was little different. They started in the clubhouse, for Bulls and family only. Lonnie, Kai, and Geno did what Sam assumed was a Mojave ritual. Melody, Ben’s ex-wife, was there, and she was definitely dramatic, wailing loudly all over the clubhouse and literally throwing herself over the top of Ben’s casket. Sam wondered why two people who apparently loved each other so much had divorced, but it wasn’t his business.

Lyra and Reed were quiet and stoic, focused on managing their mom. Zach kept close to Lyra, and Sam saw them disappear a few times—he figured Lyra needed some time away to feel her own grief.

After the Bulls’ private rituals were over, they rode out to the cemetery, where a hundred or more mourners were waiting. Many, but not all, were on bikes, showing colors from several different clubs, including some Sam had never heard of. All the remaining members of the Nevada Bulls were his pallbearers, except Geno, whose shoulder was still in a brace. Jay took the sixth position instead.

Lyra gave her father’s eulogy. She read from regular sheets of paper, and they shook in her hand, but her voice was steady.

Sam’s only impression of Ben was a crabby older guy. He always looked angry, even when he was laughing. But in his daughter’s sweet words and shaking hands, Sam understood that her father had been a real good guy. Maybe not a nice guy. Definitely not walking the straight and narrow. But a good person. Somebody who knew how to love.

A little like his own father—though Dad wasn’t grumpy. Just quiet.

After Ben’s casket was lowered to the ground, everybody went back to the clubhouse for the wake.

Not everybody. Reed bailed. Sam heard somebody ask Cooper where Reed was, and his answer was simply, “He’s feeling it the way he needs to feel it.”

Sam had barely known Ben, but he felt low and lonely. Several more old ladies had made the trip from Tulsa to be here for the funeral, but Athena wasn’t among them. They’d been in touch throughout every day, and he didn’t blame her for not coming, but god, he missed her. So fucking much.

It didn’t feel so different from the way he’d always missed her when they were apart, or when he was hurting, except that now the comfort he imagined if he could be with her was deeper. More ... complete. Now they were everything to each other.

Actually, they’d always been everything to each other.

He slipped away to a bunkhouse. He needed to see her, and FaceTime was all he had right now.

––––––––

---