Chapter 21 Missing
Baffle
My back tire hit something, and next thing I knew, I was going down.
I managed to get my bike into a controlled slide at the side of the road before I bailed off her.
I was fine, minus a little road rash on my arm and leg.
My Harley’s paint job was fucked, but she was still in working condition.
The problem was the fucking back tire was shredded and it wasn’t like I carried a spare in my saddle bags and there wasn’t a plug kit in the world that could fix the mess my tire was in.
To top that off, there wasn’t a signal and I couldn’t get cell service.
I had to hoof it a couple miles to get to a little gas station that looked like it had seen better days.
They were able to send someone to grab my motorcycle while I cleaned up and used their phone to update my club president about the situation and try to get someone to get a tire to me.
“Do you know anything?” I asked Bigfoot as I waited for my motorcycle to get to the gas station.
“Brady, and some woman we don’t know, found Nell.
They came across Nell’s cell phone at the RV shop and got worried.
Thank fuck they did. They were driving over to the clubhouse to hand it back to her when they discovered Nell on the ground near the entrance to the Morton’s property just off the highway.
She’d been hit by a motorcycle. Some asshole apparently tried to run her over.
From what I gathered, your wife fucking went David and Goliath on his ass and threw a rock at his noggin.
Your woman is a badass and managed to knock him off his Sportster and the fucker died from head injuries.
Not sure if it was from the hit she gave him or the one he took when he fell. Either way, he’s fucking gone.”
I was silent for a minute, trying to process everything my best friend threw at me.
“Sammy and Jester took your wife to the hospital. She passed out shortly after Brady found her, so they didn’t want to chance waiting around for an ambulance to arrive.
Sammy drove so Jester could tend to her on the way.
She has a broken leg and some serious bruising up and down one side of her body, man.
Brady mentioned to Sammy that she had walked from the shop down to the highway and was maybe on her way to the clubhouse on foot when she encountered the asshole. ”
“Anyone check his ID?” I asked. At the mention of the Sportster, I already had a good inkling of who it was.
“Nah, and the cops showed up shortly after they got your woman in the van. From what I’ve been able to find out, they are calling it a motor vehicle accident.
” Bigfoot sighed. “Look, I need to deal with this shit that just walked through the door. Hell of a welcome back here. We were literally thrown into the middle of a shit storm from multiple sides. Knuckles has to give me an update on Flagstaff. Grease and Glitch are on their way in with Roxy and Lila. Sammy’s sticking by Nell’s side and she’ll send more news as she has it.
As soon as you get that tire, head on out and ride safe, brother.
You can’t be there for her if you’re laid up in another hospital or worse. ”
I grunted my acknowledgment and hung up. Every bit of this fucked up day hinged on that call from Roxy and she was not going to get away unscathed. I vowed that to myself as I waited for the tire and worried over my wife.
BAFFLE: Had a bit of an accident on the way to you, but as soon as I get my Harley up and running again, I will be by your side.
I wasn’t going to send another text, but I kept coming back to Bigfoot’s David and Goliath comment in my mind.
BAFFLE: Heard you took a fucker out with a rock. That’s my beautiful warrior. I’ll see you soon, I promise.
By the time I was back on the road, my phone was dead.
Six and a half hours after I left Truth or Consequences, I finally made my way through the doors of the hospital in Springerville.
I was dog-ass tired, sore from the bail out I’d made, and frustrated beyond belief because my phone died along the way and I wasn’t able to get anymore updates on my wife’s condition.
All I knew was that she had been hit by a motorcycle, passed out, and was taken to the hospital.
Bigfoot said she had a broken leg and other minor injuries.
I didn’t fucking know if that was the extent of her what happened to her or not, and it was killing me.
“My wife was brought in earlier today,” I said to the woman at the reception desk when I made my way inside.
“Visiting hours are over. It is almost two in the morning.” She gave me a look like I should have known better. Then again, she saw my cut and probably assumed I’d been partying instead of being there for my woman.
“I was in an accident and got here as quickly as I could.” I held up my arm to show her the fucked up sleeve of my hoodie.
It was shredded at the elbow and a bit bloody.
My leg didn’t look much better, but I knew that it was all superficial shit and I cleaned the wounds at the gas station before heading out.
That didn’t mean there was a way to repair or replace my clothes that were shredded during that slide.
“I’m sorry to hear that, but it doesn’t change the fact that visiting hours are over.”
“Look woman, my wife was assaulted today, run down my a motorcycle, and last I heard she was unconscious when she was brought in, now someone here needs to tell me what the fuck happened to her and how she’s doing.”
“Baffle?”
I turned to see Jimmy, the older security guard who worked the graveyard shift at the hospital. “Jimmy.”
“Your wife’s name Nell, by any chance?”
“It is.”
He nodded for me to follow him off to the side away from the nosy receptionist who refused to help me.
“She’s already been discharged but Brenda takes her oaths seriously.
” The man rolled his eyes as if it was all bullshit.
“Nell left with a casted leg, so I’m assuming it was broken.
Don’t know what else happened, but I do know another lady took her home. ”
“Thanks, Jimmy. I laid my bike down hours away and had to wait for parts, then my phone died, so last I heard from anyone she was still here. Appreciate you looking out.”
“Anytime. Tell the boys I said hello and I hope your wife heals up real soon.” He tipped his chin toward my battered hoodie. “You too, for that matter.”
“I’m good. Just a little road rash.”
It was almost three in the morning before I made it back to the clubhouse.
I was dragging ass and ready to collapse.
The only thing keeping me going was that I needed to see Nell with my own two eyes.
As soon as I made my way through the door, a glassy-eyed Knuckles shot a lopsided grin my way as one of the club girls danced in his lap.
He’d gone a little nuts lately with the club women after finding Simone, his wife, cheating on him with some suit from Albuquerque.
“The fuck you doin’ here?”
“Came to check on my wife since the hospital sent her home.”
Knuckles cringed and pushed his hair back out of his face. “Man, she’s not here.”
“What the fuck? Where is she?”
“Brady put her up,” a woman responded from over by the bar. I turned to see Sammy giving me the stink-eye. I left Knuckles to his new vice and headed toward my president’s ol’ lady.
“Brady put her up where?”
“One of the cabins. She didn’t want to come back here. I’m pretty sure she’s pissed that you left without someone looking out for her today and put her in danger while you went off to play hero for Roxy.”
“The fuck I did!” I yelled as I approached Sammy.
“Check yourself!” Bigfoot said as he inserted himself between us. “Knuckles said you put the prospect on your woman today.”
“I did. The Heath kid.”
“He never showed up today. Asshole came by a couple hours ago to say how sorry he was but that his grandma got sick and he had to tend to her.” Bigfoot growled angrily, “Fucker! Never bothered to let anyone know he couldn’t come either, so he is no longer a prospect.”
“What about Brady? He was there with her today, right?”
“You do know my uncle is running a business and had to work, don’t you?” Sammy asked defensively.
“Yeah, but usually he’s working out of the RV shop.”
“Well, he had other stuff to attend to and you never bothered to check that your wife had her shadow with her,” Sammy tossed the responsibility of what happened to my wife back on my shoulders. “Then you ran off at Roxy’s beck and call.”
“It wasn’t like that!” I yelled.
“We know brother. My woman is just a little defensive of yours after what she’s been through, today. Sammy’s going to take it down a notch.”
“Sammy’s gonna take this bottle to his head is more like it,” the woman growled as she spoke back to her old man.
“Sam!” Bigfoot admonished.
“Travis!” She mocked his tone.
“She’s cranky. It’s been a long day. If you need to lay eyes on your woman, she’s in cabin three. Not promising you’ll get through the door. Might want to clean yourself up first.”
I shook that advice off and headed out the door.
It took me five minutes to get over to the Morton compound and another one to figure out which was cabin three.
When I pulled up, it was very clear that my wife wasn’t lacking for security any longer.
Brady stood from the chair he’d been perched on.
He had a shotgun in his hands and racked a new shell into the chamber even though he could see exactly who the fuck I was.
“She’s out for the night.”
“I need to see her. Laid my bike down on the way home and had to get it fixed or I would have been here sooner.”
That seemed to take Brady by surprise. “I appreciate your position, man, but her last request of me before she took her pain meds and passed out was that she did not want to see you until she was ready to deal with her feelings about everything.”
“What happened to her?”
Brady gave me the rundown of everything happened. “She has a mild concussion, some pretty serious bruising along her one side and her left tibia was fractured. It was a clean break. She’s in a cast and the doctors were pretty optimistic that she’s going to heal up just fine.”
“A concussion? Why isn’t she still in the hospital?”
“Miss stubborn refused to stay there. She’s got Angel waking her every three hours as recommended by the staff at the hospital. And I’m out here keeping unnecessary stress away.”
“And I’m unnecessary stress?”
“Tonight you are,” Brady confirmed my fears. “Don’t know what you were thinking chasing after that conniving cunt when you never even made sure your own woman was secure today, but I do know that Nell is not happy about it. Actually, that’s a ridiculous understatement of how she feels.”
“Fuck! It wasn’t Roxy I went for. There were only three of us who could go and supposedly there were a handful of devils down that way. We needed to make sure the bastards weren’t trying to settle in.”
Brady shrugged his shoulders. “Doesn’t change things, if you think about it. Your woman still ended up hurt while you went to rescue another one. Might as well go back to the clubhouse and try again tomorrow after you’ve both had some rest and time apart.”
“I need to see for myself that she’s okay!” The demand came out a bit louder than I meant it to and the front door pushed open. My sister glared at me before she stepped out and eased the door shut behind her.
“I had to wake Nell up to check on her. She heard you out here and sent me with a message.” A message coming from my wife instead of her inviting me inside wasn’t a good sign. “Go back to the woman who is truly more important to you, Rick. I’m clearly not her.”
“Son of a bitch! That is not true,” I yelled back so she could hear me. “You are my everything, Nell. She’s fucking nothing.”
“Maybe you should have remembered that before you canceled date night with your wife to run off and rescue Roxy,” Angel said.
Then, my sister turned around and walked back into the cabin.
At some point, Brady had parked his ass back down in the chair on the porch, but that didn’t mean he relaxed his shotgun.
“Go on back to the clubhouse. She’ll still be here after you get some sleep.”
What choice did I have? I knew I’d fucked up the minute I sent Nell that text earlier, but there was nothing I could do to take that back. I turned around, hopped back on my motorcycle, and left.