I frequented the clubhouse on occasion but hadn’t become an integral part of “the life” until my father brought Eva home with him, pregnant with my little sister, Ivy, about five years back. Whenever I asked, she’d always shrug and say, “It’s typical.”Įva and I were both biker brats, but whereas Preacher raised her inside his clubhouse alongside his boys, I was raised at home. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue how Eva put up with all the female attention he got around the club. But it was his grin that got him into trouble.
His graying hair was long and blond, usually pulled back, and a short beard framed his face. He was tall and broad, thickly muscled, with a pair of sparkling ice blue eyes identical to my own. Grinning, he planted a big, wet kiss on my forehead.Įven at fifty-three, my father was a great-looking guy. My very first memory was of being three years old, metal and Harley Davidson wings gleaming in the sunlight, the thick, acrid smell of exhaust fumes, clouds of cigarette smoke, stale sweat stained yellow on white T-shirts, the bitter sting of alcohol filling my nostrils, worn and cracked leather soft against my cheek, grease-stained hands lifting me up into the air, accompanied by loud, raucous laughter. It was the smell of my childhood, the smell of safety and home. The scent of bike fumes, sweat-stained leather, and cigarette smoke filled my nostrils and I inhaled deeply.
“Hey, darlin’,” he said, swinging a thick, heavy arm across my shoulders and pulling me into a hug, crushing my face against his leather cut, the vest worn from age and use. Across the yard, my stepmother Eva, her friends Kami and Dorothy, and a few bikers and their old ladies were deep in conversation.
My father, Deuce, the Horsemen’s president, stood off to the side of the party, drinking beer with his father-in-law, Damon “Preacher” Fox, president of the notorious Silver Demons Motorcycle Club run out of New York City. The voices of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson were belting the lyrics of “Highwayman” through the speakers, the sizzling scents of cooking meat floated tantalizingly along the warm breeze, and children were running back and forth playing with inflatable beach balls and water guns. If the sun was shining and the weather decent, this was how the Miles City, Montana, chapter of the Hell’s Horsemen Motorcycle Club, or MC, unwound. Slipping on a pair of sunglasses, I stepped out of the clubhouse into the bright midday Montana sun and surveyed the backyard where my family, both related by blood and not, were enjoying a Saturday afternoon cookout.
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