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Lyra collected her bag and headed to the shop door. Before she opened it, she said, “I love you, Mom. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Her mother said nothing. The only sound she heard in response was the jingle of the bells on the door handle.
CHAPTER SEVEN
With Eight riding withthem, of course they didn’t even make it four hundred miles; it always took two overnights when he was on the run. This first night headed home, they stopped in a nothing Arizona town on the edge of the Pueblo of Zuni and took rooms at a funky motel that had fully embraced every culture of the Southwest: Native, Mexican, and cowboys, all rolled up in one bizarre, pink-neon-wrapped package.
There was absolutely nothing to do in this dirt patch but drink at the shack of a tavern next door to the motel, and nowhere to eat but either the same tavern or the McDonald’s inside the gas station, so once they had their rooms and ditched their packs, they all strolled over to the tavern.
Like most taverns in interstate-passthrough towns, this place was dim, threadbare, and mostly empty. Three calcified old cowboys sat at the bar, their soiled hats—two straw cowboy hats and one red baseball cap—perched beside their glasses or bottles. All three turned in tandem to watch the Bulls enter. An equally calcified bartender, skin weathered and tough as jerky, stepped to the edge of the bar and crossed thick, and thickly inked, arms.
There was a feeling to coming into a bar outside their turf when they were together and sporting colors. Depending on the circumstances, and the Bull in question, it was excitement or wariness. For Jay, it was pure excitement. For Zach, it was a mix of both, probably leaning a bit toward wariness.
A group of men in kuttes, all of them looking like men who’d wear kuttes, almost always drew notice, usually the notice of the entire population of the room they’d entered, and there was always, even in the roughest establishment, a sense of anticipation. All those people wondering at once whether the bikers who’d just rolled in meant trouble.
This wasn’t the first time the Bulls had stopped for the night here, but it happened only when Eight was along. For Zach, who did this run most times but not every time, he’d now been here twice. He didn’t recognize the bartender, or the old cowboys.
The bartender, however, seemed to recognize Eight. He nodded tersely. “Fellas.”
“Hey,” Eight said, returning the nod. He turned to the row of cowboys and greeted them the same way.
“Y’all lookin’ for a meal, cook’s out sick,” the bartender said. When all the Bulls pulled up short and exchanged a frustrated glance, he added, “We got some of them frozen pizzas. I can toss a couple in the oven if that’ll do you.”
Eight faced the rest of his crew. “What d’ya think? McD’s or frozen pizza?”
Gargoyle looked over at the bartender. “Beer and booze is flowin’, yeah?”
“Like a river,” the bartender answered.
“I vote frozen pizza and cold beer,” Jay said.
Everybody else agreed, so Eight said, “We’ll take four of the pizzas, all with some kinda meat, and two pitchers of whatever you got on tap and a bottle of Cuervo for the table.”
“You got it.” The bartender grabbed a pitcher.
The Bulls pushed two of the four tables together and sat. As soon as they were settled, one of the old John Wayne wannabes turned and said, “Go ‘head and start the juke, if you want. Just none of that city kinda music.” He was looking dead at Christian when he said it.
“City kind of music?” Jay asked, keeping his voice low so only the table heard him.
Christian said nothing, but Dex made a face. “You know what he means.”
Jay’s frown said he didn’t know, so Zach leaned over and said, “Black singers. Rap and shit.”
“Ah.” He laughed, then turned to Christian, who was not laughing, and finally really got it. “Oh. Shit. That’s some kind of racist slap at you, right?”
