Just as Grizz straightened back up, however, Dirk was on him, a flurry of punches sending the giant crashing to the floor.
"They may have been out of line, but nobody lays hands on a Mutineer," Vince said, standing beside Dirk as the two men Grizz had put on the floor rose to their feet. Vince stepped around the three men and sat down at the bar, ignoring his cohorts kicking Grizz in the face and ribs as he rolled around and tried to cover his face.
"You never answered my question earlier. Is it Lexington? Yeah?" Vince asked me.
My voice was small and distant. "Please. Please make them stop hurting him. Don't kick him anymore."
Bo had attempted to come to the rescue, but the two remaining Mutineers stopped him, hitting him with pool cues, leaving him on the floor, bleeding. The waitresses cowered and the remaining customers exited as quietly as they could. The Mutineers appeared to be in charge now.
Where the hell was Huck?
Albert passed behind me, moving toward the office, but Vince stopped him. "Hold it right there, short bus. Just move right back where I can see you. Everybody relax.
"Deuce, get that blonde, she's going with us. Finish teaching these two their lessons and let's hit the road." Vince instructed one of his lieutenants, the man who'd first struck Bo, to grab Brianna, the youngest of our waitresses, a bottle blonde who looked like she belonged in high school. She was terrified. I wanted to scream out, to do something. If they took her there wasn't anything that would happen to her that she would be able to live with for the rest of her life.
"Huck!" I called out. "Huck!" This couldn't be real.
Suddenly Bo sprung to his feet, ignoring the beating he'd taken. "You boys gotta come harder than that," he exclaimed, grabbing the cue ball off the nearest pool table and firing a strike to the back of the head of "Deuce" and knocking him to the floor. He then leapt across the table and knocked the second man down with a hard right hand, advancing toward us. Vince calmly pointed Dirk in his direction while the kicks continued to punish Grizz.
Bo and Dirk met, exchanging vicious punches, neither man giving an inch. Bo conceded close to one hundred pounds, and he bled from the earlier pool cue assault, but he showed no fear. The fight was savage, crashing across the table and down to the floor where no one could see them, save the screaming girls huddled in the corner.
I struggled to swallow a panic attack, my stomach for violence left back in my Kentucky bedroom where the devil from my past had given me my first black eye for daring to question him over a text message on his phone.
Finally, rescue came, not from the police, as it may have in another bar, and in another town, but from the Calloway brothers. Huck and Hayes burst through the front door, Hayes holding a double barrel shotgun, which he fired once into the ceiling, ending all hostilities.
"What the hell, Vince?" Huck demanded.
"Nobody move!" shouted Hayes.
Vince sipped a beer, strangely calm. "Huck, you know I can't let anybody lay hands on my brothers. Your boys are just getting what's coming to ‘em. Don't get yourself in any trouble here."
Huck walked directly to where Vince sat, extending a hand for Grizz and pulling him up. He looked awful, battered and beaten.
"Summer," Huck commanded. "Take him in back and see to him. Where's Bo?"
I noticed then that Dirk had risen from behind the pool tables, but Bo had not.
"There's a piece of him down here. Another over there," for the first time, Dirk spoke. He sounded as if he gargled with razor blades. His face, especially his mouth, was covered in blood. He wiped blood from a knife off on his shirt.
Huck's eyes flashed with rage. "If he gets up, put a hole in his chest," he said to Hayes, pointing to Vince.
Huck walked over to where Dirk stood, surveying what must have been Bo on the floor.
Expressionless Dirk stared Huck down. Before any of us knew what happened, Huck was on Dirk, tackling him to the floor and viciously pounding him into the grimy, dusty hardwood. Hayes racked his shotgun and kept it trained on the leader of the Mutineers, the rest of them standing mute.
I stood by in borderline shock. The amount of violence I'd witnessed in just the last 15 minutes was enough to last me a lifetime. I felt dizzy and warm. Everything was too closed in, I could barely breathe from the terror.
When Huck was finished, he shook his bloodied hands out, opening and closing his fists. When he reached the bar, Albert had two buckets of ice water waiting for him. Huck winced as he sunk his hands into the buckets. The girls tended to Bo, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief, fearing he'd been killed. But I still shook. I couldn't stop.
"Here's how this is going to work, Vince," Huck commanded. "My brother and uncle caught up with three of your boys out on the edge of town. They can disappear into the mountains, right now, if I make the call. Understand?"
Vince nodded.
"I say we're even," Huck continued. "Your side drew blood tonight, and so did mine. The psychopath piece of shit over there on the floor might be dead. I don't know. I stopped beating him when I couldn't feel my hands anymore. I don't like the way he was staring at Belle all night, but hey, it's a free country and she's a pretty girl. But the minute anybody puts a hand on her or anybody who works for me, you answer to me.
"Now we can have this out here and now, you and me. Or you can gather up your crew, get on your bikes, and leave town. And cross Whitmer off your maps. Don't ever come back. Or, if you're man enough, get up off that stool and take your best shot," Huck stared daggers through the Mutineers' kingpin.
Vince rose to his feet and walked slowly toward Huck, stopping just inches from him. The two men locked eyes and stared a good, long while, tension so thick it could be cut with a spoon, never mind a knife.
"You don't like our money, we'll spend it elsewhere, Huck. But if he don't wake up," Vince nodded in the direction of Dirk's prone form. "You better sleep with one eye open. Forever."
"Acceptable," Huck answered.
Vince nodded, and two Mutineers scooped Dirk up off the floor, carrying him to the door.
The remaining bikers gathered to leave under the watchful eye, and shotgun, of Hayes Calloway. His usual goofy grin had been replaced with a scowl from hell.
Vince turned to have the last word. "Bye, Bluegrass," he said, directly to me. "Be seeing you."
"You ever see her again; you can be sure I'll be nearby. And it won't turn out well for you. Take your trash and get the fuck out of here," Huck spat at him.
Hayes followed the group outside, and I heard engines rev and motorcycles leave the lot under the morning sun.
Hayes came back inside, still holding his gun, turning a stool to face the door.
Huck sat down across from me. "Coffee. Black. How'd you like your first Friday night at The Side Pocket?"
He was half smiling at me, but I couldn't take it anymore. I immediately fell to the floor, a puddle of sobs, pain, and relief.
8
"Belle!"
I could hear Huck's voice calling to me, but he sounded so far away, like he was calling to me from the outside of a hole in the ground. Except I was in the hole and I couldn't get out. That's how I felt, anyway.
I was too preoccupied with what was happening to me. I suddenly had such a sense of impending doom that I was sure this was the end. That I was going to die.
My heart was hammering against my chest and I could feel the sweat sliding down my back. The dryness of my mouth made me desperately want a drink of something, but I was too scared to speak. The fear was overwhelming and I couldn't get past it. I'd felt it before and I'd hoped running away would keep me from feeling it ever again.
But I'd been wrong. The fear never left. Even when I had.
Everything was out of my control in this moment. That was the worst part of this; the lack of being in control.
I felt his arms around me, just like that first night when he'd carried me back to my hotel. This time I was shaking and I knew I was crying, but I was too scared to be embarrassed about it.
His voice was closer now.
"It's okay," he said. "I've got you. Nothing can happen to you. Belle, I'm right here."
I could feel myself clutching his shirt and pressing my face into his chest.
I didn't know where he was taking me and I didn't care. I just needed something to hold onto. And there was nothing I wanted to hold onto more than Huck.
All I could remember was him gently placing me inside his truck. Then the sound of gravel moving underneath it as it drove away from the bar and all the hell that had happened there.
I'd been huddled against the passenger door then, my cheek pressed against the glass as I looked out at the Montana morning that was emerging outside my window.