Page 9 of Property of Bigfoot
My attention shifted back to the man in front of me. I leaned over and took his hand in mine. He never woke up, but I felt him squeeze my hand just the same. I hoped he woke up sooner rather than later, because I needed to get back to my life - even if it was sort of a lonely and mostly reclusive existence on my family’s compound.
5.WAKING MOMENTS
BIGFOOT
Everything wasquiet when I woke, and the lights were all turned down low. It must have been late. When I turned my head as far as I could before white-hot pain shot up my neck to the base of my brain, I saw her there - the woman who stopped to help me. She was slumped in an uncomfortable-looking chair. Her hair had been thrown up on top of her head in some messy up-do that looked like it would wobble all over the place if she moved in the slightest. A couple reddish-brown tendrils escaped the knot, and one fell across the bridge of her nose. Either the lighting played tricks on my eyes, or she had freckles dotting her nose and cheeks. It wasn’t something I remembered from before, but she could have been wearing makeup, or I might have been in too much pain to see the details.
I wanted to see her eyes. I needed to know if they were really as mesmerizing as I thought or if I’d been imagining shit. The way she was slumped to the side and curled up into a ball on that chair, I didn’t have high hopes for her feeling great when she woke up. I glanced around to see if anyone else was in the room because I wanted to know why my brothers hadn’t been looking out for her. She should have been given a pullout bed or something. As I scanned the room, my eyes met with my best friend’s.
“Hey, man. Sammy told me you woke up for a few minutes earlier.”
“I did?” I questioned, then wondered who the hell Sammy was. “Sammy?”
Baffle flicked his eyes to the woman in the chair. “Do you remember her?”
“She was there, but I didn’t know her name.”
“You don’t remember waking up before?” My VP asked.
“No.”
“She wouldn’t leave,” he informed me as I continued to stare at the woman. She was beautiful in that girl-next-door way I never really found attractive before. Obviously, she was beautiful, but if we had met under any other circumstances, I might not have given her a second glance. I would have written her off as a civilian who would never fit into my world. She wore jeans that were a little dirty-maybe stained- at the knees and a club sweatshirt that swamped her frame.
“Whose shirt?”
Baffle laughed, though he made sure to do it quietly. “Jester. You might have some competition there.”
“Fucker has an ol’ lady.”
“We both know she hasn’t been around in more than a year.”
I turned my attention back to my club brother. “Fuck that.”
Baffle laughed again and then shook his head at me. “Fucking hell, you’re both smitten with the little crack shot.”
“Crack shot?” That was confusing. What in the hell had she done to earn that nickname? Baffle got up, picked his chair up, and moved it as close to my bed as he could get, on the opposite side from where Sammy remained asleep.
“Do you remember anything about the accident?”
“Her. I remember her.”
“Do you remember anything besides the girl?”
I shook my head, and my VP sat back for a minute and assessed me. “An eighteen-wheeler passed both of you, Sammy was behind you. One of the truck’s tires blew and took you and your bike out. From what we gathered after seeing the dash cam video from Sammy’s truck and what she had to say, that tire didn’t blow. It was shot out.”
“Who the fuck was shooting?”
“Mojave Devils MC. According to his cut, he was their Road Captain.”
“Who the fuck are the Mojave Devils?”
“They have settled here in eastern Arizona, a little too close to the New Mexico border for my taste.” Baffle glanced up at Sammy again before he turned his attention back to me. “She doesn’t know it was another club yet. From what we’ve gathered, they’re working with Rivera Cartel and looking for a better way to get shipments through from Mexico.”
“Shipments of what?”
“Don’t know yet,” he answered.
“Fuck.” I glanced over at Sammy again. Her chest still rose and fell steadily. She was down for the count, but what would they do when she woke up? “The shooter?” I finally remembered that someone had to have been there with us if a tire was shot out.
