Chapter 4

Jake made the ferry line up with plenty of time to park his ride and walk over to the ferry terminal restaurant and ate a hearty meal. Steak and potatoes, and hold the vegetables. Jake figured there wasn’t much better in life than a well-grilled steak. This was not one, but it filled the hole and warmed his belly.

It had been a tough day. He was looking forward to snoozing during the two-hour ferry ride from the mainland to Vancouver Island. He was bagged.

Bikes are the first vehicles to be brought onto the ferry. Jake road to the front end of the ferry, parked where directed, threw a tire chalk under his back wheel and started towards the stairway that would guide him up and into the lounge area where he intended to find a soft seat and nap.

Other bikes and vehicles continued coming and parking around the car deck.

There was the truck! The fucking white, one-ton dually, with the five amber lights that had screamed past him atop the pass! Jake was sure of it! The vault of wrath swung open!

Looking into the windshield, in search of the driver’s face, Jake saw the side of a head rising above the truck’s dashboard, then a left eyeball. The fucking coward was trying to hide from him. He had ducked down under his dash when he saw Jake approaching him.

It was like a neon sign was flashing off and on saying guilty bastard right here! Inside! Hiding!

Jake wanted to keep on going, yank open the driver’s side door and drag the little dick in a big truck wimp, out onto the ferry deck and boot fuck him to death. Yea!

He didn’t. He held himself in check. His temper had gotten him into more scrapes than he had time to recall right then, but he bit his tongue, turned and walked over behind a bulkhead plate and waited. He would wait to get a good look at this little looser before he taught him a lesson. A fucking life lesson!

At fifty years old, riding Harley for thirty of them, living by the honour code of the old west, his lifestyle had placed him in numerous situations where he found himself forced to fight and fight to win. Fighting usually hurts. Losing always gets you hurt worse. Jake had long decided he preferred winning to losing. Smart guys usually won. He wanted a plan.

Jake had wandered one car row over and a car and half a truck up from the corner. The wimp would have to come this way if he was going to go upstairs. The law required he leaves his vehicle and makes the trip above deck.

Jake was looking through the side windows of a truck box cover. He could see well enough to retain who he would see come around the corner.

Ten minutes later, he heard a vehicle door slam shut. Then around the corner came a red ball-cap-wearing, sandy-haired, short, maybe five-foot-eight, twenty-something-year-old kid.

Slightly built, company-provided brown pants, dirty white, high top running shoes with open laces, pants held up with an HD buckle while atop that he wore some biker event, black tee shirt.

“Oh, fuck.” thought Jake. ‘I’d kill him if I hit him.’ “Fuck!” he quietly barked into the parked cars after the wimp went up the ferry stairs.

As Jake wandered the ship, scoping out the cubby hole in the cafeteria, the shithead thought he was hiding in. ‘Like a kid pulling his blanket over his eyes and thinking he is hiding,’ Jake’s disgust grew.

In his travels about the ferry, he saw a group of one-percent bikers in the eating area. He figured they’d be going out for a smoke soon, and an idea was emerging. ‘That fucking coward shouldn’t be driving a truck like that. I wonder who owns it?’

The bikers left, down to their bikes, where they had an understanding with the local ferry crew. The bikers would smoke beside their bikes, and the ferry staff would leave them alone. It was better for both. Hurt no one.

Jake had followed the group. Had wandered up to about twenty-five feet away and stood looking over at the group in general. There was always an element of risk in approaching one percent motorcycle riders. They don’t take to strangers well.

Jake understood. He lived his life on the fringe of the one percent world. He still wasn’t sure he wouldn’t join the next group he found he could respect.

One of the bikers stepped forward a couple of steps, “You want something.” The guy’s tone wasn’t rude or sharp—just a reasonable question in an appropriate tone.