Page 10 of Ridin’ Dirty

She nuzzled him once more then obediently plopped down across the bench seat with a sigh, her eyes still trained his direction as though she, too, had every intention of keeping him in her sights.

Shifting his attention beside him, Pistol answered, “Nomad—I’ve been dreamin’ of one of Viv’s bacon cheeseburgers with a hot fudge bourbon milkshake for so long, it was startin’ to feel like a nightmare. Waited one thousand, one hundred, and thirteen days—think I can wait an hour more.”

Nomad chuckled, started his engine, and began to make the drive back to Missoula without further prompting. They rode in silence for a while, Pistol staring out the window. It surprised him how much he missed the view that came with traveling eighty miles an hour on I90. There was so much he longed for while he was locked up, the freedom he felt now was almost overwhelming—like unpacking a trunk he didn’t realize he managed to stuff so full.

The thought of being home, of mounting his hog and riding in formation with his brothers—it made him emotional even thinking about it.

He cleared his throat, afraid he would legitimately get choked up if he didn’t break the silence. “Fill me in. What have I missed?”

It had been a couple of months since Nomad’s last visit. They were usually few and far between, at Pistol’s insistence. During his first several weeks inside, a handful of his brothers visited whenever they could, trying to get answers out of him—answers as to why he did what he did to land him in the clink in the first place. Answers he wasn’t willing to give.

Assault and battery of a Copper King was what put him in cuffs.

A judge and jury were who found him guilty.

But for three long years, it was the unfinished nature of it all that left him up at night.

He kept his mouth shut because he didn’t want his brothers cleaning up his spilt milk.

Moreover, he made a promise.

So far as his fellow Stallions were concerned, his reasons for why he did what he did were his own. He got caught and paid the price. He wanted no retribution. No battles or threats of war. What business he left undone, he planned on finishing himself. Soon.

But even when the visits became less frequent and his brothers let him be, Nomad never stopped dropping in on him. The bond between the two was forged during Pistol’s darkest days, when he first became a fully patched member of the club—right after he lost his mom to a battle with breast cancer that took her faster than either of them imagined. The pain of her absence made him dangerously reckless; but Nomad kept him from going over the brink. To this day, he was the voice of reason Pistol trusted above all others.

“Not much to tell,” said Nomad. “Got a new probie roamin’ among us. Couple months in. Pretty fuckin’ green if you ask me; but I’m not rulin’ him out. Gettin’ his hands dirty at the shop. Nighthawk has him on as an apprentice. Don’t worry, though—your job’s still there.”

“Never doubted it,” Pistol replied. He meant it, too. He’d been a Stallion going on fifteen years, and under Nighthawk’s leadership for a decade. He knew his place, and he had the rank and the patches to prove it.

“Got your hog fueled up and ready to ride. Spurs planned a route for a welcome home tour. Soon as your stomach is full, we’ll head to the clubhouse, gather the guys and roll out.”

Pistol pulled his eyes away from the road in order to look at Nomad. “Welcome home tour or a full-strength message?” he asked.

The corner of Nomad’s mouth twitched with a smirk that came and went just as fast.

“And why would we be needin’ to send a message?”

When Pistol didn’t respond, Nomad glanced over at his brother. Something in his expression made Nomad chuckle before he redirected his attention out the windshield.

“Still keepin’ that shit to yourself, I see.”

“The Kings stirrin’ up trouble?”

“No more than usual.”

Pistol nodded to himself and replied, “Then, yeah—keepin’ that shit to myself.”

Missoula wasn’t the biggest city in Montana, but it was large enough for two rival motorcycle clubs to exist. Ten years ago, when the Stallions were looking to expand beyond the borders of Wyoming, it so happened there was a plot of land in town owned by a family member of one of their own. It was more than big enough for what they needed, so they bought half of it and built the compound with the clubhouse and the garage.

When they moved in, they were aware of the Copper Kings. The club owned a body shop on the northside of the river. Same industry, different purpose. Nighthawk reckoned the two outfits could coexist in peace—until they caught wind of what the Kings got up to after hours.

Even when the Wild Stallions were in the drug game, they weren’t the real players. They were the muscle assisting Alvarez’s operation in the movement of drugs across the Canadian border. They didn’t deal and they didn’t partake. The Copper Kings were smugglers and dealers, making them the competition Alvarez was up against in the college town of Missoula.

Even before Bull took over, the Stallions didn’t want in on any sort of turf war between Alvarez and the Kings; instead, they established a neutral territory free of drug dealing of any kind. It wasn’t easy, but it turned out to be worth the trouble—especially when the Kings decided to start a stable of prostitutes. After the way things went from bad to worse under Scorpion’s leadership, no one wanted hookers turning tricks in Stallion territory.

Yet, the peace they found was disturbed a few years later when success warranted growth. Expansion on the compound was easy enough. They bought the other half of the land they already established, added a few more bays to the garage, and built an auto-parts store. But it was the addition of Route 66 that ruffled some feathers. It was outside the perimeter of Stallion territory.

While Vivienne had made it perfectly clear to Nighthawk she planned on running a welcoming establishment, open to friend and foe alike, he wasn’t about to let his ol’ lady run a business on King land—so, they took what they needed, winning the fight because they were the bigger club. But their victory came at a cost. The tension between the Wild Stallions and the Copper Kings remained tight enough it could snap at any moment.