The Sons of Man Read online

  Chapter Two

  Waylon had regretted not going to Florida for the winter. His father Donut, the president of the Marine chapter of The Blue Diamonds MC, was dying from leukemia. Waylon, his girlfriend and baby girl waiting for him in Tampa, knew his father had only weeks to live. Waylon spent his days helping his mother Carrie look after Donut, the weather making it impossible to ride his Harley.

  “If you’re so bored,” Donut said, “why don’t you take out my old snowmobile? Check to see if it still works.”

  Donut had been a big, broad-shouldered man, now wizened from illness; his long gray beard was growing back after many rounds of chemotherapy. His Blue Diamond leather vest, with all of its patches, hung on a kitchen chair, his vintage Harley-Davidson motorcycle in the garage.

  Waylon had to admit that there were days when he couldn’t look at his father, who was wrapped in a crocheted afghan while napping on the couch. Waylon was raised within The Blue Diamond culture of no guts, no glory, so it was one thing for a brother to die on his bike, another to die a little bit every day, a disease eating a man up from the inside. The suffering was unmanly, not in keeping with an outlaw.

  Waylon stared at The Blue Diamond tapestry on the wall. He wanted to send his fist through the grinning skull.

  “Get out of the house, Waylon,” his father said. “Your mother’ll be back from Bingo in a few hours. Go check the snowmobile for me.”

  Waylon chuckled and rose from the recliner. “Can I bring you a beer or anything before I go?”

  “Bring me my bong. And my lighter.”

  Waylon left his father to his natural medicine and went to the garage. He had bundled up in a black insulated jacket and ski mask with thick gloves.

  Donut and Carrie’s house was located in East Marine, a few miles from Bill Neslund’s place, a stretch of power lines separating them. Waylon pushed the snowmobile, a Yamaha, out of the garage to the snowy dirt driveway. He turned the key and the snowmobile started. Plenty of gas. He decided to take it for a ride.

  He turned the lights on and rode up beside busy Farm Road in the dark, keeping away from traffic. He cut through a wooded area off Garland Road to the power lines.

  The headlights did not reveal much except the drifting snow. Another heavy storm was expected. Waylon decided to go deeper into the field.

  Waylon was never one for wearing a helmet and it would be hard to say if a ‘brain-bucket’ would have saved his life. The bullet hit the left side of his head, above the ear, creating a spray of blood, bone and tissue against the snow. The shot was perfect, taking Waylon right out of the seat to the ground. The snowmobile came to a stop, engine still running.

  He would be found hours later, covered in a foot of snow.