Chapter 35
?
— Holden —
F our months later Dutch called church on Saturday morning. No agenda posted. No heads-up. Just a text to the officers and a second one to the full roster thirty minutes later.
When I walked into the room, the table was already full.
Dutch at the head, Colt to his left, Handful across from him.
Glitch in the corner with his laptop closed for once.
Brothers filled the rest of the chairs and lined the walls.
The room had the particular quiet of men who knew something big was happening but not what.
Dutch waited until the door was shut. Then he reached under the table and set something on the surface in front of him.
A cut. Leather. New, but not stiff — someone had worked it, softened it. The back patch was ours. The front had a single name stitched in gold thread.
Anchor.
“Almost a year ago today we lost a prospect on a run,” Dutch said.
His voice was steady, the president’s voice, but underneath it was something else.
“Danny Curtis. Nineteen years old. Eight months into his prospect period. He stepped in front of a bullet that was meant for one of us.” Dutch looked at me.
Held it. Then looked back at the table. “He died asking if he’d proved himself. If he was a brother.”
Nobody moved.
“He was. He’d been one for a long time before that night, and we all knew it.
” Dutch set his hand on the cut. “This should have been his. We never got to give it to him. Some of you know why we waited. You’ve been sitting at this table long enough to remember.
For those of you who don’t — King put a rule in the bylaws.
No posthumous patch until a year’s out. Had his reasons.
A prospect got patched in the early days and the story wasn’t what anybody thought.
Brother found out. Burned the cut in the parking lot.
” Dutch paused. “A man’s patch means something.
You don’t put it on someone until you’re sure it’s going to stay there.
” He looked around the table. “We’ve had our year.
We know who Danny was. So we’re doing it now.
” He looked around the table. “All in favor of patching in Danny Curtis — posthumously, as a full member of Venom Riders MC.”
Every hand went up. No hesitation. No count needed.
“Unanimous,” Dutch said quietly. He picked up the cut and turned it so the entire room could see the name.
“Handful,” Dutch said. “You want to tell them why?”
Handful cleared his throat. He looked uncomfortable in the way he always did when something mattered too much to joke about.
“The kid never rushed anything. You could stand over him while he changed a tire and he’d do it right, every time, same pace, didn’t matter if you were yelling at him or not.
” He glanced at me. “Holden used to lose his mind about it.”
A few brothers smiled. I couldn’t argue.
“He held things steady,” Handful said. “That’s what an anchor does. Holds you where you need to be. Danny held us.” He stopped. Swallowed. “That’s it. That’s the name.”
Dutch nodded. He looked around the table. “Anchor’s cut stays here.” He paused. “The anniversary’s Tuesday. That day belongs to his mother and I didn’t want to intrude.”
He nodded to Colt, who stood and opened the side door.
Lindsay Curtis walked in.
Her eyes swept the room, taking in the brothers, the leather, the table. She looked nervous. Betty was behind her. Of course she was. She guided Lindsay to the chair Dutch had left empty beside him, and then stepped back to the wall.
Lindsay sat. She looked at the cut on the table and her hand went to her mouth.
The room was silent. Not the awkward silence of men who didn’t know what to say. The held silence of men who were giving her space to feel it.
“Mrs. Curtis,” Dutch said. “Your son earned this. We wanted you to be here when we put it up.”
Lindsay’s eyes were wet but she didn’t break. She reached out and touched the leather — ran her fingers over the road name.
“He would have loved this,” she said. Her voice cracked on the last word but she kept going.
“He talked about getting his patch every single day. He’d come home from the garage with grease on his hands and tell me about the ride he’d planned or the route he’d learned or the tire he’d changed.
” She looked at me. “He talked about you the most. ‘Holden says I need to pick up the pace. Holden says the route has to be clean. Holden says —’” She stopped.
Pressed her lips together. Then. “He wanted to be like you.”
My throat closed. I looked at my hands on the table. “I didn’t deserve that,” I said.
“Maybe not then.” Lindsay’s voice was steady now. “But you do now.”
Dutch stood. He picked up the cut and carried it to the wall behind the head of the table — the wall where the club’s history lived. Photos of fallen brothers, framed patches, the names of men who’d built this chapter. He’d already put a hook there. He hung the cut and stepped back.
Danny’s cut, on the wall. His name in the room where his brothers met. Not a memorial plaque. Not a photo. A cut — the thing he’d wanted more than anything, the thing he’d died still asking for.
Dutch turned back to the room. “Anchor.”
“Anchor,” the room said. Every voice. One word. Fists hit the table and boots stamped the floor — one heavy beat that shook the room.
Lindsay was crying now. Betty shifted from the wall — then stopped, just for a second, and looked across the room to where Indira was standing. A question in it. Indira gave her a small nod. Betty went to Lindsay’s side and put her arm around her shoulders.
I stood. I didn’t plan it. I just stood, and I walked to where she was sitting, and I crouched beside her chair the way I’d crouched beside Danny in the dirt a year ago.
“He was the best of us,” I said. “He was patient, steady. He never cut a corner. He did everything right. He just did it slow.” My voice broke on the last word. “I’d give anything to watch him take twenty minutes on a rear wheel one more time.”
Lindsay put her hand on my face. Both hands. “He’s watching,” she said. “He knows.”
She let go. I stood up.
Dutch closed church. Brothers filed out slow, stopping to touch the cut on the wall as they passed — a hand on the leather, a nod, the quiet gestures of men who’d lost one of their own and were saying so the only way they knew how.
Handful was last. He stood in front of the cut for a long time, not touching it, just looking. Then he straightened the collar where it hung on the hook, the way you’d straighten a brother’s cut before a ride.
“See you out there, Anchor,” he said. He touched two fingers to his temple, held it for a second, then dropped his hand and left.
I walked Lindsay to her car. Betty had already said goodbye inside, holding Lindsay for a long time without saying anything, and now it was just the two of us in the parking lot in the late morning sun.
“Thank you,” she said. “For making sure he got his road name.”
“It was Dutch’s idea. The whole club voted.”
“I know. But you’re the reason they remembered.” She opened her car door, then stopped. “Tuesday. You’ll come?”
“I’ll be there. Yellow roses and all.”
She drove away. I stood in the lot and watched her go.
Then I went back inside to church. The room was empty now. Danny’s cut hung on the wall. I stood in front of it for a while.
“You earned it, kid,” I said. “You earned it.”
I stood there a while longer.
“You were the anchor. Then and now.” I put my hand on the leather.
“You slowed me down. I hated it at the time. Turns out that was the thing I needed most — someone who wouldn’t let me skip ahead to the next plan, the next route, the next problem to solve.
” I let my hand drop. “I’m here now. Present.
Paying attention to the life I’ve got instead of racing through it.
That’s you, Anchor. You taught me that and you didn’t even know you were doing it. ”
I turned off the light and closed the door.