Reapers and Bastards: A Reapers MC Anthology (2 page)

“Have you seen Boonie?” she asked breathlessly.

“He’s probably right behind us,” I told her, ignoring Erin’s sharp look. “What happened?”

“There’s a fire at the silver mine—it’s bad. Real bad.”

“That’s impossible,’’ I said, confused. “It’s solid rock down there. What could be burning?”

“Nobody knows, but it’s definitely on fire. Boonie’s stepdad was underground today. So were Jim Heller, Pete Glisson, and Buck Blackthorne. We need to find Boonie and get him up there because his mom’s lost her shit. Nobody knows if they got out or not.”

Oh crap. Boonie’s mom had gone downhill over the years. Not that his stepdad was that hot, but Candy Gilpin was a basket case on a good day. In a genuine crisis she’d be uncontrollable. Like, shooting at people uncontrollable.

“Fuck,” I whispered, running across the dusty ground to my place. Tossing my backpack on the porch, I grabbed my bike and pedaled down the driveway and out onto the road. Boonie couldn’t be that far behind, could he?

Two minutes later I saw him, looking more like a man than a boy as he walked toward me. My bike skidded to a stop so hard I nearly crashed.

“What the fuck?”

“The mine,” I gasped. “There’s a fire at the Laughing Tess. Your stepdad’s underground and your mom needs you.”

Boonie’s face paled and I started to climb off my bike, planning to give it to him. He was already off and running. That’s when I happened to glance up at the sky and I saw it.

A pillar of thick, black, oily-looking smoke was rising slowly, over the ridge.

Holy shit. What the hell had happened down there, half a mile underground in the darkness?

________

Funny how we turn disasters into dry, sterile numbers.

Three. That’s how many days it took for the fire to burn out. Sixty-six. That’s how many self-rescuing breathing devices failed because they hadn’t been repaired or replaced on schedule. Eighty-nine men died, most within the first hour. Some were found
sitting in front of open lunch boxes—that’s how fast the smoke took them out.

And then there was the worst number of all. Two hundred fourteen. Two hundred and fourteen children lost their fathers that day. One of them wasn’t born until months after the last funeral.

Seven days after the fire started, they pulled out two men alive. They’d sheltered under an air vent nearly a full mile below the surface, breathing shallowly and praying as tendrils of dark, poisonous smoke ebbed and flowed less than twenty feet away.

Boonie’s stepdad was one of them.

The
New York Times
plastered a picture of the survivors across the front page, showing them as they stumbled out into the light for the first time. Afterward there were congressional hearings on mine safety, although according to the local union it didn’t change anything. The Laughing Tess shut down for six months. Then she was up and running again, business as usual because the price of silver was rising.

None of this mattered to Boonie and me. His stepdad announced on live TV that he’d never go underground again. Then he packed up the family and they left Callup for eastern Montana.

I didn’t see Riley Boone again until my junior year of high school. By then I’d been dating Farell Evans for nearly eighteen months

“Get your ass up here!” Erin yelled, laughing so hard I could barely understand her words. She’d already scrambled to the top of the embankment ahead of me. My boyfriend, Farell, boosted me up behind her, and I didn’t miss how his fingers slipped under my jean skirt to grope my ass. Someone was horny. He’d started drinking before the graduation ceremony, although I hadn’t realized how much until we were driving up the gulch toward Six Mile Cemetery for the after party. He’d nearly gone off the road twice, scaring the hell out of me.

I hated it when he got like this.

Fortunately, we made it okay and I was definitely ready to party. There were only forty-two students in the class of 1992, so they were more than happy to have us juniors along for the ride. I’d probably be here even if my boyfriend wasn’t a senior. Half the high school was.

I’ll never forget the first time he’d asked me out—it was one of those Cinderella moments. He was tall and strong and smart. Not only that, he played quarterback on our football team. His family had lived in the valley for a hundred years and they owned the White Baker mine. Practically royalty by Silver Valley standards.

My mom already had my wedding dress picked out, although I had my doubts. Farell would be heading to the University of Idaho in the fall and I’d seen way too many couples break up when that happened.

Fortunately, I’d only have to get through another a year before
joining him. My family was broke, but I’d always worked hard in school. I wanted to get a business degree. The school counselor told me that between my grades and our family income, I’d have lots of scholarship opportunities.

I planned to make the most of them.

Popping up and over the top of the bank, I staggered to the side. Farell, Colby, and Bryce followed, then we all started across the darkened cemetery toward the party.

Six Mile had close to ten thousand graves, although you’d never guess it. Back during the gold rush, thousands of people flooded the valley. Callup might only have eight hundred residents now, but in those days we’d been the biggest city in north Idaho—home to a strange mix of miners, whores, gunfighters, and preachers. Even a bunch of nuns. You name it, they came here and when they died, they’d been buried on the steep hillside above Six Mile Creek. Now pine trees had taken over. From the road you couldn’t even see the place.

I loved it here.

Peaceful graves stretched along the thickly forested hillside in every direction, covered in moss and brush. Stone markers, wooden crosses, statues, and crudely built crypts . . . thousands of memorials for people long forgotten.

At night it turned into something else entirely.

“This place is creepy as fuck,” Erin whispered with thrilled glee. She clutched my arm as the boys whooped and wandered off. I couldn’t argue with that. We stumbled along the slope toward the party, which was back behind the memorial for the men who died fighting the 1910 wildfires. A terrace overlooking the grounds had been built out of smooth river stones, and was lined with benches. A rough concrete bowl sat in the center. I think once upon a time it was supposed to be a pond or something. Tonight it would be our
fire pit, with the terrace itself providing the perfect place to set out the kegs.

Yeah, I know. We were horrible kids.

We were also the third generation of Callup residents to party up here, so at least we came by it honestly. Everyone in town knew where the graduation party would be, of course. Same place it’d been for the last twenty years—traditionally the cops gave a free pass on graduation night.

I stumbled on a tree root and tripped, falling into a headstone. Farell came out of nowhere to scoop me up, throwing me over his shoulder and running up the slope like I was a football. I screamed and slapped at his back.

“You’re gonna kill me!” I shouted. Farell laughed and his buddies cheered us on. Then Bryce caught Erin and it turned into a race. We reached the memorial at the same time to the sound of hooting and clapping. Farell lowered me to the ground and pulled me in for a kiss, tongue shoving deep into my mouth. He tasted like beer and the taquitos we’d eaten at his house during the reception.

I liked kissing Farell. Hell, I liked more than kissing him—we’d been sleeping together since I was sixteen and he was usually in tune with my needs. He pulled away and looked down at me, grinning like an idiot.

“Fuckin’ love you, Darce.”

Then he let me go and swaggered off, sharing high fives with the other football players before heading over to the keg. My eyes followed him, feeling that strange sense of loneliness that always came when he turned away. Farell was a bright, shining spotlight. When he focused on me it was like staring into the sun. When he left I found myself blinking, blinded and startled by the sudden loss of warmth.

I looked away, searching for Erin. Instead I saw Riley Boone watching me with those cold black eyes of his.

He leaned back against a tree just outside the circle of firelight. People swirled all around but Boonie stood apart, studying me with a scary intensity. Like always, the sight of him reminded me of that kiss we’d shared so many years ago. We’d hardly been more than kids, but they say you never forget your first.

Gave me chills every time I thought about it.

Boonie lifted his chin in silent greeting and I nodded in return. Then someone stumbled into me, breaking the spell. Good thing, too.

Riley Boone was nothing but trouble.

________

I’d hardly recognized him when he returned to Callup. I guess his stepdad ran off with a younger woman last summer, so his mom came running home to lick her wounds. Took her less than two weeks to hook up with one of the Silver Bastards, a member of the motorcycle club here in town. Boonie’s dad had been one, too, although he’d died when Boonie was just a baby.

I’d heard he was back, of course. Callup was the kind of place where everyone was up in each other’s business. Still, that didn’t prepare me to see him again in person.

He’d pulled up to the high school on a royal blue Harley Davidson, looking like the hero in a movie. You know, one of those teenage tragedies where the naive and foolish heroine falls in love with the gangster. Then she has to watch him get gunned down in the end, leaving her alone and pregnant because things can never work out with guys like that.

I hadn’t recognized him at first. I mean, Boonie had been cute as hell when he’d left, but for all his height, he’d still been a boy. Now he was all man. Six foot three, with a bulky, muscular body and dark hair. His eyes held secrets and he still walked like a
conqueror, only now he was the kind of conqueror who’d cut off your head for crossing him. Farell and his friends learned that fast, too.

Until Boonie came home, Farell had been the king of the school. Now Boonie was, even if he wasn’t interested in taking on the role.

Farell hated him for that.

That was reason enough for me to avoid Boonie—Farell had an ugly temper. While I didn’t think it was reasonable for him to say I couldn’t talk to my old friend, I didn’t want to lose my boyfriend, either. I compromised by staying friendly toward Boonie, but distant. It’d been a tense year, made more tense by the fact that no matter where I went, Boonie’s eyes followed me.

I didn’t know for sure, but I think he and Farell even fought a couple of times—either that or Farell was running into an awful lot of doors. I couldn’t think of anyone else brave enough to take him on.

When they’d finally graduated I think half the town sighed in relief.

Now the party swirled around me in a blur of red Solo cups and cheap beer, punctuated by the occasional kiss or swat on the ass from my boyfriend. By two in the morning, I had a good buzz going. I also needed to pee. I hadn’t seen Farell for a while, but that didn’t mean much. I figured he was off smoking pot, which he seemed to think I didn’t know about. Not that I cared—compared to the pain pills my dad popped like candy, pot was nothing. That’s when I saw my old neighbor, Shanda Reed.

“When did you get here?” I shouted, running over to her. “I didn’t see you at graduation.”

“I couldn’t make it in time,” she said, laughing and pulling me into a hug. “Had a work thing.”

Her words broke through the haze and I felt awkward. Shanda’s “job” wasn’t what I’d want, although she drove a shiny new cherry
red Mustang these days.

Not my place to judge how she earned her money.

Shaking off my dark thoughts, I looked her over. “I really like your hair like that. The blonde is perfect on you.”

“Thanks,” she said. I wondered if she was here for Boonie, not that it was any of my business. “Damn, I need to pee. Wanna go with?”

As soon as she said it I remembered my bladder was about ready to explode. “Yeah.”

“Great. You can tell me all the gossip.”

I followed her back into the trees, stumbling over roots as the firelight and music faded. The night air was warm without being hot, and the sound of crickets surrounded us.

“Here, this spot looks good,” she said, pointing to a clump of bushes. It was completely shielded from the party. Five minutes later we’d finished our business and headed back down the hill. About halfway back I heard a girl laughing, along with the rhythmic grunting that could only mean one thing. I bit back my own giggle, shooting a glance at Shanda. She smirked, catching my arm.

“Hold on,” she whispered. “I want to see who it is.’’

“What?” I asked, scandalized. “No. No, we can’t!”

Her wicked grin flashed. “Sure we can. They’re in the open—fair game.”

I shook my head, but I followed her as she crept through the darkness. Then I stepped on a branch, making a loud snapping noise. The laughter stopped.

“What was that?’’ a girl asked. I recognized the voice—Allie Stockwell. Well, wasn’t
that
nice . . . Allie made a huge production last year about wearing her purity ring, announcing she would never sleep with a boy before she was married. Not only that,
she’d done it while staring me down in the locker room pointedly. I hated the bitch.

“It’s fine, baby,’’ her partner said, the words heavily slurred.

I froze.

“Farell?” I asked, my voice unsteady. No. I’d heard wrong. Farell would never cheat on me—Farell
loved
me. I heard Allie gasp as I swayed, dizzy. This wasn’t real.
It couldn’t be real
.

“Who the fuck is in there?” Shanda demanded, her voice ringing out in accusation. She started forward, pushing through the weeds and I followed, praying I’d been wrong. We’d find Colby back there with Allie, or some other guy. Obviously I hadn’t heard right. Too much booze.

I stepped into a clearing to find them, half naked in the moonlight. My drunken boyfriend had rolled to his back, dick flopping as he tried to pull up his pants. Allie gaped at us like a fucking goldfish.