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Chapter One
Hunter
Somewhere outside Billings, Montana
As much as I hate it, the air here smells like home. Fresh, clean, the verdant green that seems to only happen beneath the big Montana sky before the brutal summer heat sets in. That special period when the winter snows are gone, and the life kept below the ice reveals itself in rolling green hills, blooming wildflowers, and a blue skyscape that seems to stretch into eternity.
It’d be beautiful if I didn’t hate it so much.
Each breath brings with it the memory of cigarette smoke and cheap beer; each time the breeze rustles the hair on my arms, it stirs the memory of bruises and black eyes; alongside the distant sunset scream of a bobcat, I hear my father’s violent voice saying everything you shouldn’t say to your child, and my mother’s voice saying nothing, despite her knowing everything that happened to me.
I release sigh and squeeze the handlebars of my Harley, my eyes drifting back over my shoulder at the road behind me, the open highway that leads to the freedom that is anywhere but here. I should leave — home is no place for me.
But there’s a voicemail on my phone that’s called me back after all these years of wandering.
I take my phone out and set it to play.
“Brother, look, I know it’s been a while and we don’t talk much, which is fine. I get that. After all that mom and dad put you through, I understand. You got your thing doing who-knows-what off in who-knows-where, and I got Kate and the trucking business, and that’s cool. Fuck, I’m rambling. Sorry, I haven’t slept much in the last few months. Which is why I’m calling you. I could use your help around the trucking company, for one thing. There’s this creep, Vic Moretti, who’s been pushing me to run some cargo for him, and I need to get him to lay off. He’s a bad dude, Hunter. But also, there’s someone you need to meet. I don’t know how else to put this, but you’re an uncle. Charlie was born four months ago, and, well, I’d love for him to meet his uncle. Can you come by for a while? We can make up my old room for you — sorry, Charlie’s in your old room, since it’s bigger — and catch up. It’d really mean a lot to me. Love you, bro.”
As much as I’m drawn by the idea of meeting my nephew and welcoming the first Hayes kid born to decent parents, it’s those last three words that really grip me: Love you, bro. It stirs a fear and excitement in me that’s just as strong as anything I ever felt going into battle with the Army Rangers. It hints at family. A connection I never had. A chance to sit in my old house — a place that used to be full of screams and curses, bad memories and ghosts, and where the walls bear the obvious signs of patches from punches — and be surrounded by people that actually love me. I’ve never had that. Never knew how much I wanted that, either.
I rev my engine and get back on the road, and the closer I get to my destination, the more I feel something come alive in my chest. It spurs me to crank the accelerator, each heartbeat syncing with the roar of my ride. The wind whips through my hair, and for a moment, I allow myself to imagine what might wait for me beyond the horizon. A life where bear hugs replace bruises. Where survival isn't about dodging fists, but living for the next family BBQ.
Billings comes into view, its familiar outline etched against the setting sun. I slow down, navigating through streets that bring back more than just memories. I take a side road that leads to the outskirts of town, then a side road off that which leads to the old family home. Asphalt turns to gravel under my tires and I slow down as the sun dips low behind the foothills. Then go slower still as I see a strange glow in the distance, a glow that soon sets off a sickly black spire of smoke into the late-evening sky.
It isn’t fire season. The land’s too wet and green.
Realization hits me as the wind shifts and my nostrils take in the scent of the familiar being scorched to ashes.
I crank the accelerator, gravel flying.
I pull into the old driveway bathed in red from two directions — the setting sun behind me, the burning home in front of me.
“Tyler!” I scream at the top of my lungs as I leap off my bike and run to the front door. Never thought I’d feel so sick to see this place burn. “Tyler, are you OK? Kate? Can you hear me?”
The front door is hanging off its hinges, half-swung open, as if someone had forced their way through in a hurry. The stench of smoke and burning wood mingles with a more metallic scent. Blood. I charge in, heart pounding like a war drum.
"Tyler! Kate!" My voice echoes against the charred walls, swallowing the silence that follows. The living room greets me with a scene straight out of my worst nightmares. Tyler lies sprawled on the floor, eyes wide open but lifeless, blood pooling around his head. Kate is next to him, her hand stretched out toward him as if she tried to reach him in her final moments. The abject terror on her face makes my heart hitch in a way I’ve never felt before. Every battle, every aftermath, every dead body, it all pales compared to the incomprehensible mix of love and fear on Kate’s face.
A roar builds up inside me, primal and fierce. But before I can let it out, movement catches my eye through the back window — two figures darting through the backyard. Instinct takes over; I lunge toward the door, gun out, and I fire several shots.
I see faces, see the weapons in their hands, see the patches on their clothes. Squinting, I take in their insignia. The Iron Brotherhood.
Then I hear it — a soft wail from upstairs. A baby crying.
“Charlie.” I stop dead in my tracks, torn between chasing down these bastards and saving my nephew. I can only do one. The cries grow louder, more desperate. The house creaks ominously as flames lick at the walls, the smoke thickening by the second.
With each passing heartbeat, the men who killed my brother and my sister-in-law get closer to escape; with each second, the last surviving member of my family gets closer to death.
I make a split-second decision and sprint up the stairs two at a time.
He’s flat on his back in his crib, crying his eyes out, while smoke gathers against the ceiling and the old wallpaper begins to peel and brown.
“I got you, little man,” I say as I approach the crib and scoop him up awkwardly. How the fuck do you even hold a baby? It’s only after I have him in my arms that I realize probably should put my gun away. “Fuck, sorry,” I mutter and holster my weapon. A cough racks my chest, and Charlie does the same. “Didn’t mean to scare you. How about we get you out of here, huh? That sound good?”
Just as fast as I ran up those stairs, I run down them, my feet remembering every step as if it were yesterday instead of fifteen years ago. At the base of the stairs, I stop a moment and look toward the living room, where Tyler and Kate lie. “Goodbye, brother,” I whisper, then I slip a shielding hand over Charlie’s face — he shouldn’t see this, it doesn’t matter how young he is — and I step through the open doorway and into the front yard of my childhood home. An ember flutters down and lands on my cut, next to the nomad patch and the space where a club rank would be, if I had a club. Or a home.
But I don’t have either of those.
