Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(57)

Badger thought that showed the steel in Cory’s backbone. No matter how she’d folded right after she’d lost Havoc, she was finding her strength again. Maybe finding more than she’d had. That’s what coming out on the other side of Hell did—if it didn’t break you completely, it made you stronger. Like tempered steel.

Badger was finding that out for himself, too, maybe.

So Nolan had become a club project of sorts. Len was teaching him to fight. Isaac was continuing his training with guns. Badger was helping him build his bike, and Show was teaching him to ride, using one of the Horde bikes they sometimes loaned out when they were doing an extensive repair or a customization job. Show was also teaching him to drive—the kid hadn’t even had a learner’s permit yet.

As young as he was, there was little question that, if he wanted it, Nolan would, in a few years at the most, be Horde. The first legacy patch since Isaac himself. The only other legacy patch so far in the club’s history.

“Can I ask you something, Badge?”

“Sure, man.” Badger finished with the wrench and leaned over for a screwdriver.

“Why—why are you Horde? Why did you want to be?”

Badger stopped. That was a hell of a question. Two questions, in fact, with different answers, neither of which he was sure he could articulate.

“I don’t know if I know how to say it.”

Nolan just looked at him, waiting.

Badger spoke as he thought it out. “When I was a kid, the Horde was everything to this town. They fixed people’s problems. As much as anybody could. Things got real bad around here. I was just a kid, but even I could see the way things were dying. People losing their homes. Their jobs. Everything. My folks lost their farm—had to sell it off in parcels. Land my great-great-great-great-I don’t know how many greats-grandparents staked. Now my dad earns hourly working somebody else’s land. The club couldn’t save all that—they were hurting, too. But they kept people from starving. They made work for people where they could. They didn’t give handouts, and people didn’t want charity. But they found them something to do.

They found some day work for my dad, before he got the gig he has now. My mom got her job because the Horde sent her over. She’d never had a job before, but they hired her on the spot. Len—when I was twelve, I went to him, looking for work, trying to earn something so my folks didn’t have to worry about me. He put me to work on his place, paying me fifteen bucks an hour. A twelve-year-old kid. After I did whatever work he gave me, he fed me and taught me. I wanted to be him when I grew up. It wasn’t just that, though.

The Horde takes care of the town. When the police up and left, they kept order—something we still do now.

“That’s why I wanted to join. Because they were heroes. They took care of people, and people loved them for it. And they were clear about justice. People loved them for that, too. When somebody did wrong, the Horde made sure they paid. When somebody got a lesson, when the Horde collected on a debt, everybody in town knew it was right. No question. Because of the Horde, Signal Bend hung on. We hung together.”

He turned back to Nolan. “I’m Horde because I know that’s who we are. Even when things go wrong.

No matter what, that’s who we are. Isaac and Show and Len—they won’t let us down. Not the club or the town. I trust them. All of them. I got wound up in my own shit and forgot that for a while. But as f*cked up as things are, I know I can trust my brothers.”

Badger stopped talking and stared off into a distance beyond the walls of the garage, lost in memory.

After a minute, he shook it off. “My brother, Jason, started hanging around the club around the time I started working for Len, and he had all kind of stories about how awesome it was. Jason does everything better than me. He’s smarter, better looking, stronger, whatever. He went to college on a baseball scholarship, and now he makes sacks of money as an engineer. He always did everything first and better than me. But when I got my patch? He was jealous. That felt damn good.”

Again, he brought his focus back to the moment, back to Nolan. In explaining it, Badger had found some clarity, some peace for himself. “I’m Horde because there’s no stronger family anywhere. No bond tighter.”

Nolan nodded. “Yeah. That’s what Hav said, too.”

Cory came to the door. “Dinner’s about ready, boys. Come clean up, please.”

They both nodded, and she headed back to the kitchen.

They gathered up the tools and began settling them back in their proper places. As he did so, Badger said, “Len told me that Hav saved me. He kept me going that day, before he died. I owe him my life.” He stopped and looked Nolan straight in the eye. “I got your back, Nolan. I’ll always have your back. That’s true for the whole club, but it goes double for me.”



CHAPTER THIRTEEN



“How about this? Would this work?”

Adrienne straightened up in the window at Fosse’s Finds and brushed her hands, then looked over her shoulder at Marcia, who was holding up a big, goldtone clock from the Fifties or Sixties that had radial spokes all around it, making it look somewhat like a sun. “Yeah. I can work with that. And that chest Dora was working on yesterday—she was doing that gold crackle thing. Is that ready?”

“I’ll check.” Marcia turned and went to the workroom in back.