"Shaking. Tired. Pissed."
"Good. Anger's better than being scared."
Banshee, on his other side, "She rode bareback through that third barrel, Prez. Half the brothers have her run pulled up on their phones already."
"I know they do," Phantom says.
He doesn't slow his stride.
The man walks the way he leads church—steady, unrushed, like the night has all the time he needs.
I match his pace because I always match his pace.
We reach the clubhouse. Floodlight burns over the front door.
Eight to ten brothers are already inside.
The screen door is open to let the heat out, and the kerosene smell of the patrol lanterns is still in the air from sundown.
Phantom walks past me and through the door. Banshee follows him. I'm the last in.
The table is full when I sit down.
Phantom at the head. Blaze on his right. I take the seat on his left.
Bullseye across from me, Thunder beside him, Longhorn at the far end with his hat on the table, Shadow, Blight, Banshee.
Rogue at the end of the table with his laptop open and the screen tilted down so the glow doesn't catch on the wall behind him.
Buckley and the prospects are at the main house with the ladies, standing guard.
Phantom slams the gavel once. The room goes quiet the way it goes quiet when he's about to talk.
"Abilene was a kill attempt," he says. "Cinch was cut three-quarters through, underside of the strap, while Spur's back was turned for ninety seconds at the trailer pad. My daughter rode through the third barrel bareback and finished her run."
A round of low sound from the table—the brothers acknowledging without speaking.
Phantom keeps going. "What we know about him. He's a man, forties to fifties. Smokes Camel Wides. Knows our property well enough to get into the hayloft without tripping the dogs. Knows Dakota's circuit schedule. Has been watching her for at least a month—the photos started in April. He's been close enough at trailer pads to ask about her schedule and walk away unmade."
Bullseye sits forward. "What we don't know is the important shit."
Phantom looks at him from across the table. "His name. His connection. Whether he's working alone or for somebody."
Thunder taps the table. "Could be a club. Could be old business."
"It could," Phantom says.
Shadow leans back in his chair, arms crossed. "Could be the Copperhead Kings. Sure, Venom’s dead… but we let some of the stragglers and prospects go. We thought they’d run, never look back. Turns out someone is rebuilding their ranks. Heavier than they were before."
"Like phoenixes rising from the ashes," Phantom answers. "Cash mentioned it last time we talked, said he thought he saw a couple boys running around with some cuts out there. The part that gets me, his guys said he saw them near the city, and crossing over the border. They’re building something."
Thunder taps the table once. "For us?"
"For somebody," Phantom says. "But it's not this. This just feels different. Whoever he is, this man's working alone. Or he wants us to think he is."
Longhorn doesn’t say a word.
Longhorn never says anything in church unless Phantom asks him to, and the table knows it.
