Blood Brothers

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Author's Notes

  Review CTA

  Want More Austin Conrad

  About The Author

  Also By: Blood Brothers

  Also By: No Time To Bleed

  Also By: Blood Out

  BLOOD BROTHERS

  An Austin Conrad Novella

  by

  Dusty Sharp

  Copyright © 2018 Dusty Sharp

  All rights reserved.

  For Harry Bush, and all the other bikers I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.

  Please forgive me my trespasses.

  One

  The sun was dipping below the ridge at the far end of the canyon, casting the small clearing in gathering shadow. I shifted on the seat of my Harley and looked around once more.

  Frosty was sitting on his bike, next to mine, picking his nose. An old Indian shack made of crumbling adobe with a rusted tin roof sat behind us at the far end of the clearing. The place was nestled deep in a ravine on a remote section of the reservation, surrounded by manzanita and scrub oak. Me and Frosty had arrived just before dark, after spending a couple of hours at the nearby casino.

  Frosty was one of my brothers in the Rattlers Motorcycle Club, though I wouldn’t exactly call him a “friend”. You’ve probably heard of us, if you’re from Southern California. Or anywhere in the western states, for that matter. The Rattlers MC has been on the front page of your local fish-wrap a time or two. Or in your social media news feed, such as things are these days. Frosty and I belonged to the Riverside chapter. Riv wasn’t the “mother chapter” of the Rattlers—that distinction belonged to Barstow, of all places.

  But Riverside was the biggest. Some might say the strongest. Others the meanest. Much of that rep was owed to Tillman, our chapter president. More on him later. But it wasn’t a stretch to say that Riv was the dominant force in the club, whose 23 chapters sprawled across most of the western United States.

  “Ain’t never been to this drop before,” Frosty said as he looked around, flicking a plump booger into the dirt. He spoke with a subtle hillbilly drawl, probably from Arkansas or southern Missouri. He was a stout man in his early fifties, maybe five years or so older than me. He was just slightly taller than average, at about six foot, so I had almost a half foot on him in height. I wasn’t sure if his nickname was borne out of his ill temperament, or if it was a tribute to his pale skin—uncannily smooth and unwrinkled for a man his age—and unkempt snow-white hair. If he’d had an icicle hanging from his nose he’d have looked like the Snow Miser. But I never asked where the name came from. Didn’t know if it was something that might trigger him. And he triggered easily. Frosty had a well-deserved reputation for being cold-hearted and quick to anger, so that seemed a good enough explanation of the nickname for me.

  He was an old-timer in the club; he’d prospected in right before my old man passed away back in ‘89 while I was off to the Army. I never knew Frosty back then, since I’d enlisted a year before that, fresh out of Raincross High. Go Ravens.

  I finally came home for good in ‘02, a bit jaded from my time on Uncle Sam’s payroll. After bumming around for a few years I finally found a home right back there in the MC. Like father, like son I suppose. Tillman sponsored me in, said he was returning the favor for my old man, who had brought him in so many years before.

  But Frosty was already a fixture around the club house by then. He hazed me a bit more rigorously than the rest of the brothers while I was prospecting, so I guess I just always thought he was an asshole. And he’d never done anything to change that assessment, in my eyes. But after I’d patched in he never really fucked with me again. Turned out he wasn’t as dumb as he looked.

  But he was never ambitious. Frosty seemed content to just plug along in the rank and file, never really distinguishing himself other than just being a fucking prick. So I passed him up pretty quickly in the club’s unofficial hierarchy, even though I never became an officer. I didn’t have the time or patience for meetings and politics and all that bullshit. But I was known as someone who could Get Shit Done, so I was handy for all sorts of odd jobs. And a good tool tends to get used frequently.

  That’s why I was the point man on this particular operation, and Frosty was bitch.

  We were sitting on our bikes in the middle of the clearing, waiting for the drop. With our backs to the old Indian shack we were facing the dirt road we’d come in on, which entered the clearing through a gap in the trees. One way in, one way out. The clearing was about a mile and a half up a rutted dirt path from the paved road that ran through the reservation. Our voices were the only sound other than the ticking of cooling engines and the incessant buzzing of the cicadas.

  “I’ve been here a couple times,” I said as I pulled a shaggy, bent cigar out of my vest pocket and lit up. I favor the cheap ones for work like this, since I tend to go through ‘em like shit through a tin horn. So its usually a foil pack of Backwoods or Ugly Coyotes, or even Swishers if I’m really slummin’ it. I took a drag, then looked around as my eyes re-adjusted to the growing darkness after the bright flare of my lighter. “The Indians don’t come up here much anymore,” I said. “It’s a good spot. Secluded.”

  The club moved these drop locations around, never using the same one twice in a row, though we might come back to a spot after a month or so if it still seemed clean. There were a handful of places we used for work like this. A hunting cabin out near Palomar. An abandoned nursery over in Bonsall. An industrial building near downtown Escondido. I liked that place best, even though it was in town. It was huge, empty and on the market, so we could pull everything inside to make the transfers behind a closed roll-up door. All of these drop spots were situated in northern San Diego County, conveniently close to the interstate but far enough off the beaten path to make a short run up the back roads to circumvent the border patrol checkpoint out on Interstate 15.

  “Yeah well these fuckin’ Injuns give me the willies,” Frosty said, looking around nervously.

  I laughed, coughing a bit on my cigar smoke. “What do you think they’re gonna do? Come pouring out of the bushes in feathers and warpaint? Scalp us for the $43 you beat ‘em out of in Blackjack?”

  “Fuck you, Austin. It’s just creepy out here.” He was rubbing the palms of his hands together like a boy scout at a campfire, his eyes darting back and forth as the light faded.

  “Well you creep me out,” I told him, truthfully. “A herd of bloodthirsty savages ain’t got nothin’ on you.”

  “Fuck you, Austin,” Frosty said again, as the sound of a truck engine began to rise from the direction of the dirt path. “Let’s just get this shit over with and get the hell out of here.”

  “I’m all for that,” I said as I stood up from the bike, dropped the stub of the cigar and mashed it under my boot. These exchanges usually went smoothly, but out of habit my hands performed a silent inventory of my weapons. My trusty old Loveless chute knife was strapped to my boot, underneath my right pant leg. A tactical folding knife hung inside the pocket of my Levi’s on a spring clip. A compact 9mm auto pistol was tucked into a concealed holster at the small of my back. Lastly, my fingers glided over the stainless steel links of my wallet chain.

  I knew
Frosty was well armed too—it was just part of doing business. He stood a few feet away, impatiently shifting his weight from side to side as we watched for the truck to appear through the gap in the trees.

  The truck finally came into view, shuddering like a dog shitting a peach pit as it trundled slowly up the bumpy dirt road, springs squeaking, engine laboring. It was a bobtail box van on a medium-duty Freightliner chassis, with its lights off even though it was now nearly dark. The truck rocked back and forth on its suspension as it moved up the rutted path, the high corners of the van body sweeping through the overhanging limbs of the ancient live oaks that lined either side of the road.

  Two

  The truck skirted the edge of the clearing, nearly completing a full circle around us and our bikes. In the lingering twilight I could barely make out “MUEBLERÍA SANTIAGO” in faded letters on the side of the van, over a logo that depicted a sofa, table and chairs. The truck came to a stop next to the old shack.

  The driver and passenger doors opened and two men climbed out. I recognized both of them from previous drops. They were both shorter than average, the driver a scrawny little thing, the passenger a bit stockier. They walked up to us.

  “Austin, what’s up compadre,” said the driver, whose threadbare Padres jersey hung loosely on his wiry frame. He took a long look at my partner, then looked up at me and said, “Who’s this, Casper? He don’t look so friendly.”

  “Close. He goes by Frosty,” I said, and turned to my partner. “Frosty, this is Guillermo. And…Joaquín, is it?”

  The driver nodded and stepped forward, offering a hand to Frosty. “You can call me Billy. But Joaquín just goes by Joaquín. Don’t call him Jack. He hasn’t gotten in touch with his inner gringo yet.”

  Joaquín said nothing. He just stared at Frosty through half-squinted eyes, set amid a tableau of high cheekbones and a broad, sloping nose. His skin was the color of burnished metal with a hint of rust. He might have had about a teaspoon of conquistador in him, but the rest was pure Aztec. Put a headdress on him and you’d have Montezuma, apparently still a bit pissed off about that whole Spanish conquest thing.

  Frosty’s temper was already on a short fuse. “The fuck you starin’ at, beandip?” he said as he stepped aggressively toward Joaquín.

  “Goddammit,” I said, and started forward, my hand moving swiftly toward my pocket.

  Joaquín reached for something wedged into his waistband behind his back, but I already had my folder out of my pocket, the Tanto blade swung open with a click as I stepped forward.

  “Woah cabrones!” Billy yelled as he stepped between Frosty and Joaquín, arms spread, palms open, weaponless. “This is fuckeen stupid! Joaquín, cálmate antes de que te calme!” He looked over his shoulder. “Austin, call off your pinche albino!”

  I shot an angry glance at Frosty. “Step off brother. Not the time or place.”

  Frosty looked at each of the men in turn, finally settling on Joaquín’s squinty stare. I could see his lips twitching, as if he was fixing to unleash some smart-ass comment. Then he loosened his stance and backed a few steps away.

  Billy also relaxed.

  Joaquín didn’t relax—I’d never seen that motherfucker relaxed. But he took a conciliatory step backward, and swung his squinty eyes away from Frosty.

  I took a deep breath, folded my knife, and slipped it back into my pocket.

  “Alright then,” I said. “Now that the pleasantries are over with, what do you got?”

  Billy shook his head as if to say see what I have to work with? And started walking toward the back of the truck. The rest of us followed.

  “Six mojados,” Billy called back over his shoulder as he walked. “Fresh from Michoacán. Or was it Zacatecas? I don’t fuckeen remember. Can’t say I give a fuck, to be honest. El Jefe just tells me where to take them.” He pulled a key from his pocket and slid it into a padlock on the door, pulled the lock off and rolled the door up on its tracks. “Vámonos!” he yelled into the cargo space. “Date prisa! Muévete!”

  As usual, several large pallets of shrink-wrapped furniture and cardboard crates with the MUEBLERÍA SANTIAGO logo imprinted on them were packed tightly inside. The illegals were hunkered behind them. It wasn’t very thorough concealment of the contraband—you’d think it was a sloppy job of smuggling, if you didn’t know better. There were no false floors or walls to hide them behind, no fake fuel tanks to stuff them into. None of that shit would pass a legitimate secondary inspection these days anyhow.

  These shipments just used a few large, empty furniture boxes toward the front of the load, with holes cut into the cardboard on the side of the box away from the roll-up door, for the illegals to crawl through. There had to be at least enough concealment to allow a greased border patrol agent to go through the motions of a cursory cargo check before waving the driver through. Even dirty cops need their plausible deniability.

  Frosty and I watched as four men and two women threaded their way over and around the crates, and climbed down from the back of the truck. They ranged in age from teenagers to about 60. They seemed to be in good health and dressed in nice clothes, though they looked tired and disheveled. “Small load this time?” I asked casually.

  “We already dropped off las zorras—” Billy cut himself off abruptly. Frosty shot him a hard stare.

  “Say again?” I said. “Dropped off what?”

  “Joaquín’s cousin,” Billy said, after a beat, nodding towards his partner. “He wasn’t really part of the official load, since he was family. But he had to ride in the back because, well, you know why. We dropped him off already. Back in Escondido. He’s heading up to LA for work.”

  I turned to Billy’s partner. “That so?” I asked.

  Joaquín nodded once. I watched him for a moment, studying his face. The Mexican’s squinty eyes didn’t waver.

  “Alright then,” I said finally, then turned and gestured toward the shack. “Go ahead and take them inside. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  We watched as Billy and Joaquín led the six immigrants over to the small shack and stepped inside. I signaled for Frosty to follow me, and walked over to my motorcycle. I hunkered down next to the curbside saddlebag and started unbuckling straps as Frosty stepped up beside me.

  “What do you think that was about?” I asked as I rummaged through the contents of the saddlebag.

  “What what was about?”

  I found what I was looking for, pulled a small manila envelope out of the saddle bag, and stood up. I leaned in and spoke low to Frosty. “That shit about the cousin they dropped off in Escondido. Did that sound like bullshit to you?”

  He thought a moment, then shook his head. “Hell, I can’t tell. Everything comes out a beaner’s mouth is bullshit, you ask me.”

  “Goddammit Frosty cut that shit out,” I said. Fucking redneck, I added silently. “It just sounded like bullshit to me. I never trusted that Joaquín motherfucker, ever since they started sending him along. But it ain’t got nothing to do with him being Mexican. He’s just an ornery looking son of a bitch. The way he looks at you, and never talks. I don’t even know why they started sending him along with Billy. It ain’t like its a two-man job.”

  I glanced toward the shack. “I always thought Billy was a straight shooter though. Its just…something about that cousin bit sounded like bullshit to me. You think they’re hiding something?”

  Frosty considered for a moment, his gaze following mine, toward the door of the shack. “Honestly? I don’t like either one of them sumbitches. But I didn’t read anything janky in any of that. These wetbacks haul each other around everywhere, always heppin’ each other out, you know? Poolin’ resources. Kinda like the way they’ll cram twenty, thirty people into a single shithole of a house. I dunno. It sounded legit to me. What else could it be?”

  I thought a minute, then said, “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. I’m probably just paranoid.” I held up the envelope. “Besides, there’s only six ID’s in here. I guess tha
t adds up.”

  I turned and walked to the shack, and Frosty followed.

  Three

  We found Billy and Joaquín sitting on a dilapidated countertop, rattling something off in Spanish. The six immigrants they’d brought were all sitting on the floor against one wall, silently drinking bottled water and eating Pringles from the supplies a Rattler prospect had dropped off there earlier in the day.

  I doled out the ID packets, handing each one directly to the person it was made for, based on their photos, which had been printed on the ID’s. That was part of our protocol, handing each ID packet directly to the immigrant it was intended for. They had paid for them after all. Who knew whether the coyotes gathered them back up after we left.

  “You know the drill,” I said as I stepped over to Billy. “This place is guaranteed clear until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Then you’re on your own. Make sure your people have been picked up by then. If not, and some shit happens out here with the tribal police, it could look bad for all of us. And you know what that means.”

  “Yeah yeah Austin, I hear that fuckeen speech every time. 10 O’clock. We’ve never missed it.”

  “I know that. But it needs to be said.”

  Billy nodded. Joaquín stared through his squinty, unmoving eyes.

  “Alright. Now the money.”

  “OK OK, hold your horses, cowboy,” Billy said as he hopped down from his perch on the counter. He dug his phone from his pocket and tapped at the screen a few times. “You got the key?”

  I pulled out my wallet and reached inside, careful of the razor-sharp hunk of steel concealed within it, tethered to the wallet chain. I pulled out a folded piece of paper with a square block of black and white patterns printed on it. I held it out to Billy, who pointed his phone’s camera at the QR code until it chimed.

  “Monero, still?”