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“Seven or eight guys?” Ripper said. “There was only supposed to be two. Do you think you got spotted?”
“Maybe,” Wyatt said. “Maybe somebody saw us getting into position in the alley across from the pawn shop and they called in their boys.”
Ripper shook his head. “Sounds like bad luck. And that Death’s Head has more manpower than we thought they had.”
“We always knew they had the numbers,” Devil said. “Down in the city, man, they’re thick as rats. So what do we do now?”
“I’ll tell you exactly what we do,” Ripper said. “We ramp things up. We start calling in other charters as reinforcements. We get some more serious firepower.”
There were a lot of nods and murmurs of assent all around the table. Griz noticed that Ripper seemed to get charged up off of that, getting more and more assertive as he went.
“Our prospect Pony had the right idea when he took a rifle along tonight,” Ripper said. “Assault rifles, full autos… we’re at war, and we should have weapons like an army. Hell, I’ll take a rocket launcher if I can get one.”
“You want to start shooting rockets around our town?” Wyatt said. “Maybe blow up a school by accident?”
“You want to lose?” Ripper said.
“No,” Wyatt said, “but I don’t want to see the streets of our town turned into a World War Two movie, either.”
“We don’t have a choice, Wyatt. We’re at war,” Ripper said.
“Nobody needs to tell me that. I got a hole in my leg that tells me that.”
“So?” Ripper said. “You win a war by killing the enemy.”
“Listen, I want to fuck these guys up as much as anybody,” Wyatt said. “But let’s get real. We’ll never kill them all. It’s impossible. There’s never been a war that ends like that.”
“So what are you saying, Wyatt?” Devil asked. “How do you think we should handle Death’s Head?”
“This guy Mal is the issue,” Wyatt said. “He’s the one who needs killing. We hunt that bastard down, make a fucking example out of him, balance the books on Boomer and send a message to Death’s Head at the same time. Put an end to this shit.”
“Like it’s going to be that simple,” Ripper said.
“There’s nothing simple about it,” Wyatt said. “But it’s a lot more realistic than thinking we’re going to somehow wipe out all of Death’s Head just because our balls are bigger.”
“What do you think, Griz?” Ripper said. “You want to let your old man lie in that bed, unavenged?”
Griz hesitated before speaking. He didn’t want to have to say anything; he just wanted to sit here and let other people do the thinking for a while.
But, the eyes of the room were heavy on him, so he finally said, “It can’t be about me. It doesn’t matter what my feelings are. None of that is worth your lives.”
“I appreciate that, bro, but Ripper seems to have a point,” Devil said. “We should take things up a notch. Maybe a bunch of notches.”
Griz found himself thinking about Becca and how their relationship had recently taken hold. It was bad enough to see his dad and his brother hurt, now, if she got hurt as a result of this war, he wouldn’t be able to take it.
But what was the right move? Avoiding the war could encourage Death’s Head to attack, but escalating it might lead to even more of their people getting shot up, including Becca.
“I want to see these bastards bleed for what they’ve done to my family,” Griz finally said. “To my town. But I rushed in too fast and got Wyatt shot as a result.”
“I told you, Griz…” Wyatt said.
“No, I know, Wyatt,” Griz said. “What I’m saying is, if we do this, we should do it smart. I know you all are ready to fight a war to avenge my Dad, but we need to make sure we’re doing this the right way, the smart way. I’m not sure I know what that is.”
“The smart way is to get enough guns and enough men to ensure that we fuck these Death’s Head assholes up,” Ripper said. “Rather than the other way around.”
“Okay, Ripper, but where are you going to get those kinds of guns?” Wyatt asked. “They don’t grow on trees. We’re not talking about a handful of pistols that we can pick up through our regular people.”
“I’ve got a line on something,” Ripper said. “I haven’t gotten too serious with it yet, because I was hoping we wouldn’t need to, but now… I’m thinking we need to.”
