Hers were pale blue, almost gray, and they carried something in them that Hank recognized. Not fear exactly, though fear was part of it. It was the look of someone who had learned to expect the worst from every hand that reached toward them. She took the bottle with both hands, clutching it against her chest.
"Thank you," she whispered. Her voice was barely audible. Hank nodded, then stood up. The girl hurried toward the counter where the cashier, a young man in his 20s, was scrolling through his phone.
"She yours?" the cashier asked Hank without looking up. "No, she comes in sometimes." "Lives a few streets over, I think."
"Always by herself." Hank watched through the window as the girl crossed the parking lot, the water bottle gripped against her small body like a shield. She walked carefully, deliberately, the way someone walks when every step costs them something. He paid for his coffee and a pack of beef jerky, then stepped back into the heat.
He straddled his bike but didn't start the engine. He sat there holding the coffee, watching the spot where the girl had disappeared around the corner of a dusty side street. Hank Mercer had spent 23 years riding with the Desert Iron. He had weathered bar fights, territorial disputes with rival clubs, police harassment, and the slow erosion of friendships that comes with a life lived on the margins of polite society.
He had buried two brothers from the club, one from a heart attack at 51, the other from a highway accident that still visited Hank in his sleep on bad nights. He had lost his marriage when his wife Karen decided that the club was a mistress she couldn't compete with and he had lost his daughter Brooke when the custody ruling came down like a gavel on his entire existence. Brooke would be 19 now. She lived in Flagstaff with her mother.
They exchanged texts sometimes, short, careful messages that said everything and nothing. Happy birthday, Dad. Thanks, sweetheart. That was the shape of their relationship now.
A handful of words stretched across a distance that couldn't be measured in miles. Hank started the engine, felt the familiar rumble beneath him, and pulled out of the parking lot. But as he rode through Prescott's quiet streets, past the courthouse square, and the old Victorian houses, and the shops selling turquoise jewelry to tourists, he couldn't stop thinking about the girl in the long sleeves, who couldn't lift her arms to reach a water bottle in the middle of an Arizona summer. Something was wrong with that picture, and Hank Mercer, for all his rough edges and calloused hands, had never been the kind of man who could look at a wrong thing and keep riding.
3 days later, Hank saw her again. He had ridden past the Bradshaw Junction gas station twice since that first encounter, telling himself it was on the way to the clubhouse, which it was, though not by the most direct route. The third time, he wasn't pretending anymore. He parked his bike across the street and waited.
She came around the corner at 4 in the afternoon, walking with that same careful measured stride. Today she wore a different long-sleeved shirt. This one a faded navy blue, a size too large, the cuffs swallowing her small hands. The temperature was 101°.
Hank crossed the street and fell into step beside her, keeping a respectful distance. "Hey," he said. "I remember you from the gas station. You doing okay?"