Black Rock Guardian. Jenna Kernan
pick up Ty Redhorse in front of all his buddies on his home turf. Tomorrow, well after all the customers in this watering hole had assumed that he’d made a successful score, Beth would let him know who and what she actually was. She suspected that Ty did not want Faras Pike, the leader of the posse, to know what he had done to help his older brother, Kee, and that he was on less than stable ground with the gang. A little more shaking might just get him on their side.
Risk and reward, she thought, and slid from the truck and onto the packed dirt parking area.
“Help me get my sled down,” she said.
Jake lowered the back gate and set the metal ramp. Because of the intentionally disabled starter motor, Beth needed to bump-start her motorcycle. She released the straps holding her bike and mounted the seat, then rolled it down the ramp in second, using the incline to get it going fast enough to allow the engine to engage.
She roared across the street, anticipating Ty’s face tomorrow morning at eight, when he saw her walk into the interrogation room. Between now and then, she intended to find out everything she could about the second-oldest Redhorse brother.
Ty walked into the roadhouse and glanced about. The mix of the usual patrons filled the stools surrounding the rectangular bar, which had seating all the way around except for the hinged portion that allowed the help in and out.
Beyond the center altar to drinking was the stage, which rose a good sixteen inches above the floor level but was dark because the musical entertainment didn’t begin until nine. By then most of these men—working men—would be home with their families. They just needed a short transition between one and the other.
There were exceptions—men who were not drinking after work because they were still on the job. The first, Quinton Ford, sat on a bar stool. Quinton was lanky with close-cropped black hair and a hawkish face that bore acne scars on his gaunt cheeks. One hand rested in his open jacket as he used the half-lowered zipper like a sling. Ty knew his hand was on the grip of a pistol. Quinton faced the door with the other hand on his untouched beer. His eyes met Ty’s, and Ty nodded to Faras Pike’s man. Quinton raised his chin in acknowledgment and then his gaze flicked back to the door.
Ty was no threat to Faras Pike.
There were tables to the left and everyone knew the ones under the wall of highway signs, stolen from all over the state, were reserved for Wolf Posse members. There at his usual spot was Faras Pike, the leader of the tribe’s gang. Perched on his knee was his current favorite, Jewell Tasa.
Jewell wore a glittery sequined gold crop top that featured an unobstructed view of her midriff, which was tight and toned. Jewell’s skinny jeans and biker boots made her a shimmering billboard of gang colors. Her makeup was thick, ringing her eyes like a raccoon, and her long black hair had been bleached blond at the tips.
Faras spotted Ty before Jewell did, and lifted her from his lap. Then he gave her rump an affectionate pat to send her off to the group of women at the nearby table. She spotted Ty and sauntered past him, hips swaying as if advertising what he could not have.
The unattached women at the table gave Ty encouraging smiles. He was not interested in more entanglements with the gang, no matter how tight they wore their clothing. So he turned his attention to Faras.
The head of the Wolf Posse was small with a face that had been handsome once, but the smoking, drinking and responsibilities of his position weighed heavily on that face and Faras now looked like a man nearing forty, instead of twenty-eight. His hair was drawn back in a single braid and he wore a hoodie, jeans, cowboy boots that were all black and several thick gold chains around his neck. His take on the black-and-gold color scheme. His ears were pierced and he wore diamond studs in each that Ty very much feared were real.
Seated between him and the bar was his second man, Chino Aria, his newest favored muscle. Chino could handle most situations if he didn’t have to think or make any decision on his feet. Chino’s appeal came from his size and bulk. The tattoos on his neck and bald head helped discourage trouble.
Ty cut a direct path for the two men.
“S’up, bro?” said Faras as he came to a stop before the circular booth and table.
“That little shit, Randy Tasa, is stealing your stash, is what’s up,” said Ty. He slid into the vinyl seat beside Faras. Chasing off Randy was a risk, because his big sister, Jewell, was already in the Wolf Posse and becoming Faras’s favorite.
Chino looked none too happy at Ty’s appearance, judging from the way his mouth tugged down on his broad jowly face.
“Randy Tasa? He don’t work for me.” Faras snapped his fingers before Chino’s face, redirecting his stare from Ty to Faras. “Chino, we recruit Tasa?”
“Yeah,” said Chino.
“When were you going to mention it?”
“First night, boss. Wanted to see how he worked out.”
Ty scowled. You didn’t earn a bike like that in one night. Chino was lying and Ty wondered why. It occurred to him that Randy would make a very good spy, keeping an eye on his big sister’s business. But that was the sort of thing he’d expect Faras to pull. Perhaps he’d underestimated Chino?
Chino laid his beefy fists on the table, challenging Ty with his stare. Ty set the bag of weed on the padded bench between him and Faras.
“Yo, don’t bring that in here,” said Faras, sliding away.
“He was smoking the product instead of making sales. You get him that bike?”
Faras lifted a brow at Chino, who nodded. Faras glared. He knew how to recruit kids into the gang. Up until this minute, Ty thought the decision of when and who was recruited had rested solely with Faras. From the way he was glaring at Chino, perhaps Faras did as well.
“You picked it?” asked Faras.
Chino nodded.
Ty broke in. “Well, he tried to sell it to me for fifty bucks.”
“That little puke,” said Chino, coming awake. Unfortunately, he forgot he was sitting in a booth and so, when he stood, the bench did not move back and he collided with the table, sending their beer bottles sloshing to their sides.
Faras swore.
“Sorry, boss.”
Chino used his sleeve to prevent the river of beer from reaching Faras’s lap.
Ty tossed Randy’s cap onto the puddle of beer. “I took his bike. It’s out front.”
Faras sighed and lifted a finger to Sancho, the head barkeeper, who was always very attentive to Faras, met his gaze and pointed to the spilled beer. One of the bartenders was out from behind the hinged counter and mopping up before Chino had even sat his big fat butt back down.
“I’ll need to find a replacement,” said Faras. “Deliveries, you know.”
Ty knew there was no stopping that. But Randy had a future. He was a runner. A good one. If he was smart and lucky, he might just run out of Turquoise Canyon and make a life that did not involve allegiances to the posse. One little minnow, escaping the net. Ty felt a longing for a freedom from such allegiances, or at least to become something other than the family poster boy for wasted potential. He wasn’t the only one who thought so.
Kee had been asked to join the Turquoise Guardians right out of med school, as if it was a foregone conclusion. Gaining admission to the tribe’s medicine society was a coup that Ty coveted. But to be asked to join Tribal Thunder, the warrior sect of that medicine society, well, that was an honor above all others. Last month, they’d asked Jake to join.
“Chino, get rid of this and get me another beer,” said Faras.
His man grabbed the baggie Faras pushed at him under