Snake sat in the deepest corner of Deadwood, SD notorious Number 10 Saloon, wet to the bone. The middle of June and riders were determined to cruise the Black Hills before the factory anniversary, but torrents of rain got the best of them.
The girls knew the brothers were coming, tall, short, rich and poor riders directed their steel steeds across long unforgiving Wyoming roads like the Muddy Gap and over the Continental Divide. Brothers blasted through the California deserts, along Interstate 15 passing Las Vegas like escaping a burning inferno. They came from the East, from Colorado directly south and some hid in the hills between the hot spells dodging the sun under majestic tree limbs along winding two-lane roads.
Deadwood, a town of just 1200 allowed a couple of thousand folks to scramble and gamble every weekend. Nothing stopped them, snow, hail, rain or whatever to hang out on cobblestone streets, meander through 110-year-old buildings and dream of a simpler rugged past.
Snake wasn’t much different, just another rider with a slippery history working his way across the country. He lost his last job behind a redhead, the boss’s wife. Her magnificent green eyes were emerald pools of desire and treachery. She wasn’t about to let her connection to vast riches and security be exchanged for a button-tuck upholstered p-pad and an empty chained leather wallet. He slid out of Seattle and blasted east on his chopped Panhead.
Snake wasn’t all that and a bag of chips, a skinny white-boy with a dash of Hispanic and the long silken black hair to match. He held onto the traditional biker past wearing all-black from his old school engineer boots, his black Levis, black leather belt and old black vest, with one metal badge, a chromed mudflap girl pinned over a single pocket. He wore black leather gauntlets, a black scarf and an ebony-handle knife in a hand-sewn black leather sheath.
Girls took to him like they would to a rock star, his narrow hips moved like a man constantly fucking. He didn’t talk much. His dark eyes captured his voluptuous prey. He moved in close, listened intently, smoked Canadian cigarettes and waited. “Do you want to fuck?” He asked and the girls quit talking and undressed.
The most recent Redhead, a woman so delicious and ready for sex, she quickly got bored with hanging at the bar and roamed away from her crew of bikers to find the leather Snake coiled and waiting for her. He smelled of cigarette smoke and Jack Daniels and they soon hooked up. Busted, groping one another in the loosely lit parking lot beside the Slippery Steed Bar and Grill in Spearfish, SD, there was going to be trouble. A nosey woman from the biker clan returned inside to snitch them off. Snake moved fast. Dark clouds forced him to ride hard into the hills. He got a head start, but they came after him on hopped up M-8 baggers and Dynas.
Snake, cut a dusty trail, the back way along the winding, Jack Pine strewn, Spearfish Canyon, while the crew suited up for the chase. He pushed his Panhead hard on a narrow, steep, sometimes gravel surface along the highway leading to Cheyenne Crossing. His 80-inch, stroked Panhead rumbled against the steep incline into the hills. It was all old school, with Flanders Highbars, Paughco Pipes and a Paughco Sportster tank sans the classic tunnel for a tad more capacity. It held maybe enough petrol to afford his notorious escape into the cobblestone streets of Deadwood, if he was lucky.
He had no notion of his next plan. Usually, a girl held a safe haven from his shady exploits, but he couldn’t stay long. In this case Mother Nature might be his babe, as he left the steep winding asphalt for base, reddish, fine clay construction, and it started to rain. He pushed on when the hail came and he wrapped a scarf around his head and suddenly became a scared Taliban, escaping into the hills, but he wasn’t in search of a mountain cave. He sought the solace of a bar, a tumbler of whisker and the soft curves of a redhead.
He still wore shades as his narrow 21-inch Avon tire searched in the mud for a solid path and his stock springer front end sent surface messages to his rattling bars. The rear wheel was the standard 16-inch star-hub and a tough as nails Firestone tire. It lasted long but gave into to every road surface. He slid in the muddy curves of the construction zone, and the rain intensified, buckets being the optimum description.
He didn’t know whether the following riders would find Highway 85 into the hills more comfortable and a shorter route, or the group would experience abject fear of the impending storm and turn back. He kept going in the dark unable to enjoy the raging adjacent stream, the sheer stone cliffs, the tornado torn pine trees or the winding views. It was a black moonless night. The rain pounded the pavement. He could see only the Bate’s headlight reflection against water droplets the size of pool balls, a slice of broken yellow line and a spot of asphalt little larger than a single bed he wished he was in, but not alone.
Finally, rolling against the icy torrent he reached the highway junction and stopped, pulled his water-pepper shades aside, wiped his mud-splashed face with his black mudflap girl Bandana and peered into the darkness. He wanted a cigarette, but knew he needed to keep moving, before his old Joe Hunt magneto filled with rain water.
He slowed as he reached the outskirts of Lead, where the historic gold mine made scientific progress and life was slow and artsy. Then came Deadwood, a town of gambling, whores, cobblestone streets and violence.
He pulled up to the partially wooden sidewalk alone, no other bikes shared the historic roadway and he wondered as he dismounted. The rotund bouncer opened the thick oak door and Snake sloshed inside and stood under Wild Bill’s chair nailed above the door. Bill was shot in that chair with his back to the door. Snake learned and moved deep into the dark recesses of the saloon and sat so he could observe anyone coming in the front or the back.
Snake lit a cigarette, ordered a drink and stole a steak tip from an adjacent table.
He finished his first drink, borrowed more steak tips and lit another cigarette, when he heard a loud motorcycle pull up out front. Snake yanked his 10-inch Damascus steel blade from his damp sheath and laid it in front of him on the previously carved old wooden table. It took another minute, but finally the rider entered, soaked to the bone. The loan rider stood about his height, and slowly scanned the dark bar, while removing thick gloves and then started to unlatch an all-black full faced helmet. She shook her long amber waves loose and scanned the dark bar for a slithering Snake.
As she found him, a smile broke the smoke-filled din with the nut-shell strewn deck. Even wet to the core, her bright blue eyes sparkled and her ivories glistened. She unzipped her contoured leather jacket and milky cleavage sprang forth.
Snake stood, shoved the long blade into its leather home. He made eye contact and suddenly felt warm all over.
“They punked out in the hail,” she said, “I knew there was a party waiting, but not here. Let’s find a room.”
