“Son,” Dad said, his voice barely louder than a whisper, but carryable through the silence that had settled over the parking lot. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Too late for that,” the man snarled.
“I know,” Dad said softly. “I know it is.”
Slowly, without taking his eyes off the leader’s face, Dad released his grip on the man’s wrist. He reached down to the cuff of his own left sleeve. The heavy flannel was buttoned at the wrist with a yellowed plastic button. Dad’s fingers trembled as he fumbled with the button, taking three excruciating seconds to pull it free from the worn buttonhole.
The ten bikers stood in a tight circle, watching him with cold, impatient eyes. One of them spat onto the dust.
Dad took hold of the dark fabric and slowly rolled it up. He pulled it past his forearm, past his elbow, all the way up to his shoulder, exposing pale, thin skin covered in blue veins and dark age spots.
Right on the inside of his upper arm, etched into the skin in dark, heavy black ink that looked almost fresh compared to his weathered skin, was a rough, hand-drawn design.
It wasn’t a standard military tattoo. It was a crude depiction of a dog tag draped over a cracked combat boot, and beneath it, four numbers were burned into the flesh, along with three words in bold block letters:
3RD BATTALION – MARCUS VANCE – 0412
Directly below those words was a small, hand-stitched leather patch that had been surgically sewn or embedded right beneath the tattoo itself—a weathered, oil-stained patch featuring the exact same three-headed bulldog emblem that was embroidered on the back of the lead biker’s leather vest.
The lead rider stopped. His hand on Dad’s collar went completely limp.
His eyes widened as he stared down at the faded leather patch embedded under my father’s skin, his jaw dropping open just enough for his lower lip to quiver.
The silence that fell over the parking lot was so sudden and absolute that the distant rush of highway traffic seemed to disappear entirely.
The leader stepped back half a pace, his heavy boots making no sound on the stones. He looked at the four numbers. Then he looked slowly up into my father’s tired, hollow eyes.
“Where…” the leader’s voice cracked, losing all of its harsh, gravelly power. “Where did you get that patch?”
Dad looked down at his arm, his fingers gently touching the raised edges of the dark skin. “My son,” Dad whispered. “He told me if I ever ran into trouble on the road… to show this to anyone wearing your jacket.”
The lead rider turned around slowly to face his nine men, his face pale underneath his sunburned skin.
— CHAPTER 2 —
The heavy leather hand dropped from my father’s collar so fast it snapped against the humid air.
Doyle—the broad-shouldered leader with the scarred jaw—stared at the faded ink and the coarse leather patch embedded in my father’s forearm like he was looking at a ghost. His mouth opened, but no sound came out for three long seconds. Around us, the heat off the asphalt seemed to rise, thick and suffocating, while the other nine bikers slowly closed the distance, their heavy boots crunching against the loose gravel.
“Doyle?” the younger rider, Shane, asked, stepping around the rear tire of the black Harley. “What the hell are you doing? He scratched the paint down to the primer.”
Doyle didn’t answer him. He raised his hand slowly, his calloused fingers trembling as he reached out toward my dad’s arm. He didn’t touch the skin; he stopped an inch away, his dark eyes tracing the four numbers burned into the flesh beneath the patch.
“0412,” Doyle whispered, his gravelly voice suddenly small, stripped of all its bite. “Third Battalion. Doc Vance.”
My father didn’t flinch. He just stood there in his scuffed shoes, his chest heaving under his faded flannel shirt as he looked into Doyle’s eyes. “His name was Marcus,” my father said quietly. “He was my boy.”
Shane stepped closer, reaching out to grab my father’s shoulder again. “Doyle, I don’t give a shit who his boy was—”
Doyle turned so fast the silver chains on his vest slapped against his chest. He caught Shane by the throat of his t-shirt and slammed him back against the side of our truck. “You lay one hand on this man again, Shane, and I will tear that vest off your back right here in the dirt,” Doyle growled, his voice shaking with a terrifying, cold fury. “Do you hear me?”
Shane stared at him, his mouth agape, his sunglasses slipping down his nose. He looked at Doyle, then at my father, and slowly raised both hands in the air. “I’m sorry, man,” Shane stammered, his voice dropping an octave. “I didn’t know. I didn’t see.”
Doyle let go of him, pushing him back toward the rest of the group. Then he turned back to my father, his chest rising and falling heavily under his dark denim vest.
Doyle looked down at the pale, gouged line running across the custom black fender of his motorcycle. He didn’t inspect the damage. He didn’t even care. He lifted his heavy work boot and kicked the concrete divider behind him, a dull thud echoing across the empty parking lot, before wiping his hand across his face.
“To hell with the paint,” Doyle muttered, his voice thick. He looked at my father’s pale face, at the way his knees were visibly shaking under his worn jeans. “Sir,” Doyle said, taking a step back and softening his posture completely. “Please. Come sit down before you drop.”
He guided my dad by the elbow—gentle, like a man carrying fragile glass—over to a green wooden bench sitting in the narrow strip of shade under the diner’s front awning.
My father sat down heavily, his hands resting flat on his knees to keep them from trembling. I rushed over to his side, crouching down beside him, keeping my arm around his thin back. Doyle didn’t stand over us. He dropped heavily onto his left knee right in the gravel, sitting on his heel in front of my father, completely unbothered by the sharp stones digging into his jeans.
“Where is Doc, sir?” Doyle asked, his eyes locked on my dad’s face. “Is he back at the house? Is he in town?”
My father stared down at his own knuckles, his breath catching in his throat. He tried to speak twice, but his throat locked up. He raised his right hand and rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers gray with road dust.
“We laid him to rest eleven months ago,” my father whispered. “Outside Ridgefield. Near his mother.”
The gravel parking lot went dead quiet. Doyle stayed frozen on one knee. He didn’t move for five full seconds, his eyes wide, his scarred jaw tightening until a muscle leaped beneath his skin.
Behind him, two of the older bikers removed their leather caps, holding them against their chests. Shane stood near the gas pumps, looking at the ground, his face pale underneath his tan. Doyle let out a long, ragged exhale that sounded like tearing paper.