Chapter 1

Fifty years young Jake Strand stepped out the door under the old cowboy bar’s shaky stoop roof. It was dark out, the dreary dark a thunderstorm hides within.

Jake stood six feet of solid manhood. His broad shoulders sat upon a well-muscled frame earned working every summer of his teen years in a powdered flour packaging plant.

His first job was to load twenty-five-pound sacks of flour eight hours a day, five days a week, for ten weeks. The work paid him twice what any of his friends were earning. This earned him big credibility and muscles on his young muscles. He worked there from thirteen to eighteen. Every summer. He grew into a well-formed man.

His last two summers, before joining the Canadian commandos, his job was to load one-hundred-pound sacks for the day. He held every speed and weight moved record the crew he worked with invented to challenge each other and help them pass the time.

His cut short, chestnut brown hair sat over green eyes, green eyes that many said could be mesmerizing. The ladies sure liked them. He wore a full beard and moustache. Biker fashion. Long, bushy and coloured with reds and oranges, browns and now grey, fighting for turf. He kept it clean and trimmed more than most.

He had no trouble attracting female company. Never had, never would, his mother had said.

He had decided long ago that he preferred people keep their distance. It wasn’t that he didn’t like people. He couldn’t stand wimps, idiots, cowards and liars, in that order.

He preferred to select who he spent his time with. He was known as a hard man, a man to be respected. He felt he gave what he got.

He looked at his old, cheap, cracked, black, turning-to-grey, leather-strapped Timex wristwatch. He thought, ‘It just keeps on ticking.’ Smiling at the foolishness of the thought.

It was two in the afternoon, and automatic headlights were active in the cars passing by on the old highway, not fifty yards away, across the parking lot. Jake couldn’t see much beyond the old two-lane roadway through the drizzle that was threatening more.

Then the sky exploded in a flash of light. Lightening! Sheet lightning! It tore across the sky. For the beat of a second, he could see across the highway, as far away as the foothills, for the second.

Then a sonic boom! A crack of thunder so loud that it would make the Viking god Thor jump. Jake stopped smiling.

The sky river opened up, and down the rain came in sheets. Torrential was the better word.

A flood of water so fierce he lost sight of the highway. He shook his head.

“This is going hurt,” he confirmed to the Gods at large.

He raised the collar of his dark brown Australian oil slicker over his ears. He knew the wind would blow the collar back down, but for the moment, he felt a little warmer. Still, a shiver ran through him. He considered what he was doing.

‘Dam, maybe I am a fool.” He gave his head another shake as he began doing up the iron snaps up that would hold the slicker together in the worst of winds—bent over, closing up the bottom snaps of the slicker, the bar door swung open behind him.

Finished snapping down the slicker, he shook himself like a dog, settling the belt buckles of his jeans and leather chaps into the right place on his gut. He withdrew his shades from the top of his head and positioned them on his nose and over his eyes. Then his gauntlets from the slicker’s pocket.

He caught a whiff of perfume. It seemed odd with the wind howling and the rain cascading down. The scent mingled with the sweat, salt and mechanical smells the slicker released into the air.

He couldn’t help but smile. At his age, perfumes were starting to pull on him more than the stink of oil and hot exhaust pipes. ‘Times, they are a changing,’ was his thought. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his head to see who had slid out.

It was the blond. Always the blond. Jake smiled to himself and nodded an acknowledgment to her. He had met her a thousand times in a hundred bars over the years.

The bar was a highway stop. Originally intended as a place, the cowboys of the area could come by on a Friday or Saturday night to drink hard and chase around the local gals.

The rest of the week, the place barely got by in these times. A doomed business that was being allowed to slowly deteriorate until the day the old owner passed away or gave up; from Jake’s assessment, that wasn’t far into the future.

A dyed blond. Her roots offered a much darker brown under the dye. Her eyes reveal laugh lines and hard times. Sometimes only laughter could get us through hard times. He knew. He’d had his share of bad days.

He thought she was probably pretty cute back in her day. Unfortunately, cute had passed her by now. She was easily pushing forty, and the cigarettes, long nights and drink were showing.

“It’s looking pretty harsh out here.” Another flash of lightning exploded in the afternoon gloom. Then a thunderous crack kicked the lightning out of the sky! The gods were at war today.

His black leather gauntlet gloves, now on, pulled as deep onto his fingers as they would allow. He was ready.

“Another day, another ride, another adventure,” he smiled while he said it but wasn’t sure the old saying applied today. This was going to be ugly.

“Lunch rush is over,” she giggled at her joke. There had only been three other patrons in the bar.

“Benny says I could take the rest of the day off.” There was an offer here that she wasn’t openly saying. He didn’t respond to it.