The patch on the back of his leather jacket was so faded that you could only make out the writing in full sunlight.
“Protectors M.C.”
He stood at the bar, drinking . The barman had left the bottle of Jack Daniels in front of him. It was simply too much effort to keep filling the man’s shot glass every twenty seconds. So instead he concentrated on polishing his beer glasses with a cloth that seemed to be made up of grease and cotton in equal measures, and he left the man to serve himself.
There were only another eight of them in the room, all with the same patch. And they were the sort of men that fill space.
Not only by the dint of their physical size, which was impressive, but also because of their presence. One of them could fill a room. Nine of them would have made the super bowl seem crowded.
These were men with presence.
But, although the barman had never seen them before and despite the fact that a room full of nine long haired, leather clad, visibly scarred, well-hard bikers should have filled him with trepidation – he felt at ease. He could sense that these were men that reacted to violence but they would never be the root cause.
So he provided the drinks and polished the crockery and didn’t mention the fact that smoking indoors was illegal. And anyway, he was thankful for their custom. His pub was situated on an old main road that used to boast traffic and a steady cliental but, since the council had built a bypass, the pub had suddenly found itself in the back of beyond with barely enough traffic to sustain it.
Then he heard the sound of more motorbikes pulling up outside the pub. Big machines with solid throaty engines. Harleys.
The men in the bar went from sitting in a relaxed fashion to standing and alert in one flowing move.
The sound of the bikes stuttered to a halt as the engines were turned off and, seconds later, another group of men walked into the pub.
They were made from the same mould as the Protectors MC. Large, raw boned but incongruously graceful. Long hair, beards, leather, denim. The patches on their backs read, “Bad Moon MC”.
And for the first time the barman noticed that everyone in the room had the same color eyes. He wondered why he hadn’t seen that before. It was so obvious. So undeniably strange.
Pale yellow. With flecks of gold.
Perhaps they were all wearing contact lenses, he thought. Some sort of biker thing. But he knew that these were not the type of men that bothered with cosmetic enhancements. So, instead of dwelling on it he simply polished harder.
One of the newcomers walked up to the man at the bar. The tension was almost visible.
He held out his hand. ‘Lucas Cain?’ He asked.
The man nodded, took the proffered hand. Shook once.
‘Well met,’ continued the newcomer. ‘I be Jack Wishbone. Alpha of Bad Moon.’
‘So you heard the call?’ Asked Lucas.
‘I did,’ admitted Jack. ‘We all did.’
Lucas put his empty glass down. ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
As one the men trooped out of the pub. They didn’t look back. Nor did they bid farewell to the barman.
But when he looked down he saw that, next to the half empty bottle of whisky, the biker had left a pile of notes. A small fortune. Enough to pay for a hundred bottles, let alone the half that he had consumed. He flicked through the notes, baffled at the bizarre display of generosity.
Outside the rumble of engines shook the ground as the combined crew set off.
And the barman, who had fought in both the Falklands and Iraq before he hung up his spurs, couldn’t shake the powerful impression that the group of men that he had just seen were going to war. A war from which they did not all expect to come back from.
If you haven’t read my Forever man series please take a look for it. The first book is FREE…Here is bit of a blurb followed by a sample. Give it a quick read. Thanks again. Craig.