Chapter 21: Floodlights

Roz's POV

The club came down the track in a long line of headlights and stopped in a half ring around us.

No one spoke.

Bronco lay in the dirt with his hands over his face.

Ronan stood on the packed white ground and did not step off it.

Cyrus got off his bike.

He walked past me, past Ronan, and stopped over his nephew.

"Get up," he said.

Bronco rolled onto his side and got to his knees.

"Uncle, they jumped me. You saw it. He tried to strangle me."

"Get up."

He stood, swaying, with blood to his chin.

Cyrus took hold of the front of his vest with both hands.

The patch on the chest said VP, in white thread, stitched by a woman in Cyrus's family thirty years ago.

He tore it off.

The threads gave with a long sharp rip.

He tore off the one on the back that said Iron Saints, and the rocker with the state name.

He dropped them all in the gravel at Bronco's feet.

"You are not a Saint," he said, loud enough for every bike. "You are not my sister's boy. I will not have you at my funeral."

Bronco's mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

Far up the quarry road a siren began, and then another.

"The Red Hound woman called them when the tape started," said a man behind me. "Said she wasn't waiting for anybody's permission."

The cars came down the track with their lights going.

Two deputies climbed out first, and a tall woman in a campaign hat after them.

She looked at the half ring of bikers, the broken man, the old president in the headlights.

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