* * * *
I didn’t want her to leave, and I was still reeling from her past trauma, but she was an adult and single, so I guess I got it. Joy was none too happy about it, giving her own speech to get Lucy to stay.
“We are so close to a life of safety in a protected Valley,” Joy offered. “We have come so far, and spilled blood to get here. Why would you want to leave now?”
“I appreciate everything you have done for me; we were neighbors for many years back in McKinney. But I’m a loner with no family—just a tagalong in the caravan across the country. You are close to the Valley you call the final destination, but it’s not safety. It’s going to be a battleground and everyone knows it. There is a man here in this other group that all of the women swear is gentle and God-fearing. He thinks I’m pretty and says nice things to me. That’s enough for now. Here, I’m somebody who knows things and can help the group. This is my bird-in-the-hand moment and I want to take it.”
Joy nearly commanded me to give them a year’s supply of alfalfa sprout seeds with four precious mason jars and planting seeds.
“We’ll miss you,” we all told Lucy.
“If you ever change your mind, you know where to find us,” added Joy.
* * * *
Our caravan packed up quickly and headed around the lake to new adventures, only dreamed about by most.
“That was a good thing we did back there, everyone. It surely was,” called out Lonnie over the radio. “And it was all thanks to Jax!”
* * * * * * *
Chapter Seventeen
Mike ~ Heading East, Colorado
Mike left the group, the only true friends he had known outside of his family and former girlfriend, Kelly. He rode unafraid towards the man he knew would take away his new family and friends that he trusted without a second thought.
“I’m coming for you, Baker!” he yelled aloud.
He had forgotten the freedom of the road. Just a man and a bike, cruising winding roads with a bandana-wrapped head and sunglasses. Mike missed the open road, remembering the smell of the earth and the wind in his face when he rode the back roads of upstate New York, and sometimes as far as Maine, cutting through the center of Connecticut before hugging the coastline just north of Boston and straight up.
Before entering the police academy, he flew to Miami. He purchased a used 2001 Harley Davidson Heritage, “a truly classic machine,” he would tell his girlfriend, for the 2,369-mile solo trip to Fort Kent, Maine, at the Canadian border on U.S. Highway 1. The route was the longest north-south highway in the United States, he remembered, when mapping it out.
The girlfriend of the month, like they all were before Kelly, had asked to go but he wouldn’t invite her. If he were pressed, he would have told her he needed to clear his head after his brother’s and sister’s deaths.
The trip could have been complete in a week, but Mike took five weeks—grieving, sightseeing, and looking for ways to calm his vengeful mind. More than a few men fit the bill…from seedy bars to dirty motels, and even a few at a random gas station or rest stop that would disappear, only to be found later once Mike was far up the road. The connections to him would never be made by law enforcement, as the route touched fifteen states from bottom to top. Sure, there were rumors and rumblings, especially after the news of the church janitor killed by Mike and his partner, and the nickname “Cereal Mike” was floated around Brooklyn and New York City. Mike wondered what the record was for justified extermination—not that he was trying to break one, but was only curious.
* * * *
He rode the Indian back the way our group had come, up the mountain, meaning to bypass the lake and continue due south towards his new life, if only temporarily. He could have kept going but couldn’t resist checking in on his newly appointed leader at the lake, making a surprise visit they would surely not expect this soon. The more than six-hour detour would have turned most around, but Mike didn’t sleep much; he never had. He could travel day or night, and couldn’t say which he preferred. He rolled in early, just after lunch, and saw Mitch and his girlfriend teaching a fishing class to many of the now full-time residents.
“All good here?” Mike asked. “As I left it?”
“Yes, sir. There are no more fights or auctions, only people helping people, as it should have always been. Are you looking for the new leader?” he asked.
“Nah. Just tell him I stopped in to check on him. I’ll do so in the future when I can.”
With that, Mike rode out, not concerned about the time loss and considering it a win.
* * * *
The new route took him on roads he had never traveled. He knew the direction of Interstate 25 and the Baker group’s general location, so he didn’t worry too much about the roads with the nimble bike, as long as he was headed in the right direction. He rode north and was lost in the euphoria every rider feels riding across open land. He was aware of his surroundings in a general sense and was not going to run off the road or hit an abandoned car. But he felt also a calm, at peace, like a car driver may feel arriving at work as a safe driver but spacing out on the trip to get there, thinking of a honey-do list…or maybe a new love interest.
Mike rode peacefully into just another part of the landscape when he heard it. The shots echoed in his head—Pop! Pop!—followed by five or six more before he felt the sting in his right side. The heavy bike skidded left,
