It was full dark by the time Maggie turned her bike into the alley behind the AB Garage in Tall Timber. Erlan followed, Maggie watching as he jockeyed the big van into the tight space.

"Couldn’t you get anything bigger?" she said when he finally had the thing out of sight from the street. "We won’t be able to fit the entire garage into it."

"Funny. It was all they had."

They were loaded up in about 30 minutes. Maggie’s few things were already packed and didn’t even fill up an eighth of the truck. Erlan opened the driver’s door and was about to climb in when Maggie jangled her master key at him.

"What about your Mom’s mission?" she asked.

"Let’s not and say we did."

"She’s your mother."

Erlan grimaced. "Make it quick, then."

Keylor’s apartment overlooked Main street. Tall Timber didn’t have street lights, so the only light came from the starry sky and a few neon signs glowing through the small panes of glass in the windows. Erlan felt like he was back in the bad old days. Tossing some place in the dark, heart beating hard with that well-remembered, dry-mouth excitement.

"The footlocker’s under the bed," whispered Maggie. She moved effortlessly in the dark, a shadow in the faint light. She drug something heavy across the floor boards.

"You seem to know your way around in here," said Erlan.

"Good night vision," Maggie replied.

Erlan struggled across the room, even though the hyper-sensitivity he’d experienced at the Roadhouse remained, giving every object a slight glow. The problem was that as soon as he walked in the room, everything’s glow lingered, double and triple vision like scattered photographs. He tripped over a chair concealed by an afterimage of the front door floating over a dim ghost of the bed. He blinked, shook his head and felt his way over to the footlocker. Maggie had already lifted the lid and clicked alight a tiny, single LED flashlight to shine on the contents.

In the dim light, Erlan looked in the box. He found if he kept his gaze still, he could avoid the worst of the after-images. A sealed manila envelope rested on top, big enough to hold a few dozen 8 1/2 by 11 pages. ’Deliver to Dughan Moss’ was lettered across the top in his father’s hand. Dughan Moss? Another half-brother?

Next was a long black rope that Erlan remembered from their trips to the forest. His father had been a genius at throwing it up to loop around the desired branch. At the bottom of the footlocker was a steel ingot 2” x 2” by about 10" long.

There was no sign of the pendant. Erlan put the rope and the ingot back in the footlocker and picked up the envelope again.

"Who’s Dughan Moss?" asked Maggie.

"No idea.” Erlan opened the envelope, shrugging as Maggie gave him a look. Inside were newspaper clippings about something called a crystal mummy some locals had found in the middle of nowhere in Texas a few years back. There were names and addresses of the locals, complete with photographs obviously taken with a long lens.

“What is it?”

“Again,” said Erlan, “No clue.” He replaced the documents and the envelope inside the footlocker, and spent a few minutes looking around the spartan room, running his finger over the tops of door trim and testing the floor for loose boards to make a good show of it.

"There’s nothing else here. Let’s go." He heaved the footlocker onto his shoulder. "Maybe this stuff will satisfy her."

Out in the back lot, Erlan claimed a migraine, which wasn’t half a lie, and asked Maggie to drive. The last thing he needed was the double vision thing on the highway. Maggie shrugged and pulled the loading ramp out of the back of the van. They didn’t see anyone else around, but she kept the rpms down, goosing the heavy chopper just enough to get speed up the ramp without the famous Harley snarl.

Once she had the bike secured, Maggie climbed into the driver’ seat and they headed for her place. She smelled faintly of cigarettes, leather soap, and something indefinably sexy that Erlan didn’t want to think about. He attempted to make conversation to distract himself.

"How did you end up a prospect?"

"My dad was into cycles. He let me help him work on them when I was growing up. I loved it. Became a mechanic, got into doing custom builds. The AB Garage puts out serious work, and when things fell apart at my old garage, I camped on the AB’s doorstep."

"That took some guts."

"I didn’t know the whole situation when I did it, but your dad gave me a shot."

"How’d the rest of the boys take it?"

"Like the guys at most shops I’ve worked. Mockery and disbelief followed by alarm.”

"I get the mockery and disbelief, but what’s the alarm?"

"When they figure out I’m a better mechanic than any of them."

"That’s still a stretch from there to prospect. I’m trying to wrap my head around that."

"You’re a chauvinist?"

"No ma’am. I’m all for equality. I just never heard of anyone else in outlaw bike culture that was."

"To tell the truth, I never even thought about becoming a prospect, until Key asked me if I wanted to."

"So why’d you try?"

"People assuming I can’t do something pisses me off."

Erlan nodded. He could understand that. They drove in silence for a while. He wondered if she really understood what she was getting into.

"What do you think about the Branch?"

"I never worry about someone else’s religion, as long as they don’t get concerned about mine. What do you think about the Branch?"

"No comment.”

"Well, aren’t you the big city slick."

Erlan smiled slightly. "Sorry. This place turns me into a politician. That’s why I don’t like to come out here." He paused. "Some folks believe the AB is involved in illegal activities."

"What MC isn’t?"

"Plenty. The ones full of doctors and accountants out having fun on weekends."

"They’re the ones that buy AB bikes. Bikes with that 1% edge. The kind of bikes I want to build. Besides, those outlaws days are over, right?"

"You really believe that?"

Maggie shrugged. "I wouldn’t fit in one of those civilian clubs. Army brat, moved a hundred times, single father who was away on missions half the time and never seemed to think I was worth a shit. I went looking for trouble. Things got bad enough I finally realized even my old man had more respect for me than the assholes I was with. Went into the army myself. Didn’t have to worry about getting food or a roof over my head. All I had to do was know the rules and do my job. The AB feels right to me."

"Still think you have a chance?”

"I’m not giving up. I read the charter. Once you make prospect, they have to give you the trial."

"You sure it’s worth it?"

"You don’t think I can cut it? I did my time in Afghanistan for my country. I got as much right to ride with those boys as you do."

Erlan looked at her. "The old man never served either."

"I guess you two are the exceptions, then."

"Maybe you’ll make it three."

#

They turned off the highway a couple of miles outside of town and rolled down a farm lane, Maggie directing, to a double-wide prefab home tucked into a dense thicket of young aspen.

Erlan pulled the van around the back again so it was out of sight from the road. The inside of the double-wide smelled of sawdust and fresh sheetrock mud.

"It’s actually your Mom’s place," said Maggie. "She’s planning to flip it. Giving me a couple months free rent to help finish it up."

Erlan started unloading while Maggie worked on the straps that held her bike. The double vision wasn’t as bad, but things still had a tendency to slide apart like a deck of cards if he glanced around to fast, and his eyes turned painfully in their sockets, like he had a flu coming on. He’d be glad when he got some decent sleep.

But first he’d have to deal with this Alderman situation. He’d work out some kind of deal with Boxer, be figurehead on ceremonial occasions. Spend the rest of the time back in Minnesota with Alli. They’d get married on schedule with nobody here the wiser. Erlan would just have to keep the balls in the air until the twins got old enough to take over.

He and Alli had a place lined up to move into together after the honeymoon. They had movers for the big stuff, but there were plenty of smaller items they’d have to take care of themselves. The next time he carried boxes of stuff around like this, it was going to be foreplay.

Erlan saw the moving van and the rooms in his head, with the boxes and big items laid out like a puzzle, thought about how you could organize the move so that mover A had maximum contact with mover B. Not the most efficient way to get the job done, but fun if you got to squeeze past Alli Park’s curves in the hallway.

Erlan dropped a box in the living room, stumbled a bit, his head a foggy. Maybe he really did have the flu. He went for the next box, his mind drifting back to his wedding night fantasy as he returned to the van.

Alli had started taking off items of clothing after each box she carried in. It was dark outside, the neighbors asleep. The normally proper Alli, who wouldn’t move in together until they were married, and who always pulled the shades tight, was down to her jeans and bra as she went back into the house lugging a pair of floor lamps.

Erlan malingered in the big van (He’d rented it again out of nostalgia for dodging that bullet out west) so he could see what she did on the way out. He was betting on the jeans to go next. Surprise, Alli came out topless.

I’m so in love, Erlan thought.

She jogged up the ramp, all smiles and bouncing areolas. In the darkened truck, by the dwindling stack of boxes, Alli pressed him against the wall. She put her chin on his shoulder and rubbed the lobe of his ear with her nose.

"You take after him," she whispered. "The way you move, the shape of your shoulders, the way you smell when you work." She ran her hand down his arm from bicep to wrist.

"What? Erlan mumbled. His head felt tight, the fog pressing in like pillow stuffing.

"The same big hands." She sighed into his ear and stood up on tiptoes. Her tongue flicked the back of his jaw. "The taste."

Erlan’s heart thumped in his chest. He could feel his pulse coursing down his arteries, through branching veins into a hundred capillaries, spreading under his skin like leaves of blood.

He put his hands on Alli’s bare shoulders, made an effort to push her back. She’d get sick, catch his flu.

She pressed harder, grinding her hips against him as she tugged up his t-shirt. Her long hair tickled his stomach. She bent and pressed her lips against the hollow over his breast bone. The tip of her tongue slid down the ridges of his stomach to the top of his pants. Erlan let out a moan as she pressed her tongue behind his belt.

’Holy shit,’ his bad half said, ’We have got to do this fantasy thing more often.’

She rose again, pressed against him, slid her nipples up his body as she stood.

The seat of his mind’s eye tipped backward, and his perception fell into her hands as she explored his body, all his other senses overwhelmed by her touch.

He was his arm, his chest, his stomach. He was his waist as she tugged apart his belt. He slid down his flanks as she pushed down his jeans. Lifted again with the stroke of her fingers up the inside his thigh. Followed as she drew him in a curving path around his balls and to the tip of his cock.

She pressed his head into the delicate folds between her legs and stirred them like dark waters. Erlan plunged in, leaving his body behind.