“And?”
“Some were good men,” he said. “Some weren’t.”
“And what do you think I am?”
Tommy smiled. “I haven’t decided.”
He took his food outside, and Beau watched Tommy through the front window until a pair of tellers from Quarryville Bank & Trust interrupted his contemplative observation with an order for seven lunch plates to go.
The rest of Beau’s day was uneventful. Dinner that evening consisted of the last of the deer stew, and Bethany joined him in bed that night for a physical reminder of what he risked losing.
Friday was different from Thursday only because Beau received his weekly meat delivery at 10 a.m. and dinner that night came from the Dairy Queen because Bethany was too tired to cook.
Saturday brought a slew of unfamiliar faces to the smokehouse counter, people who had seen the magazine article and had ventured out of their way to experience Quarryville Smokehouse’s limited menu. The phone also rang more than usual, with people phoning for directions or asking questions. Amanda answered most of the calls.
Just before 2 p.m., after they had sold out of ribs but still had brisket and coleslaw, Amanda picked up the ringing phone, listened for a moment, and then said, “There’s no one here by that name.”
After she hung up, Beau asked, “What was that about?”
“Some guy wanted to speak to ‘Stick.’”
Beau looked out the window, saw nothing unusual, and then told his girlfriend’s daughter, “You should head home.”
“But you still have brisket.”
“Not much,” he said. “I can handle the last few sales.”
Amanda removed her apron, hung it by the office door, and was on her smartphone to one of her friends before she stepped outside. She turned back just long enough to wave her fingers before sashaying down the street toward the Dairy Queen, where her best friend had yet to master the art of making dip cones.
Beau watched her walk away, glanced at Tommy sitting at one of the picnic tables outside, his nose buried in yet another magazine, and examined the other remaining customers—a young couple outside making goo-goo eyes at one another over a single lunch order of chopped brisket, and a somewhat older couple wrangling two young children at a table in the service bays.
Deputy Marshal Arquette had been in Midland Thursday and Friday and was returning to the San Antonio office when she decided to take a slight detour to check in on Beau James and taste his brisket. Her unmarked black SUV entered Quarryville from the north, avoiding the east-west state highway that bisected the town. In a rush, she parked behind the Quarryville Smokehouse, climbed out, and hurried into the women’s restroom.
The veterinary clinic closed at 2 p.m. that day, and Bethany was almost home when she saw a dozen motorcycles pulling into the Quarryville Smokehouse parking lot. The colors affixed to the backs of the bikers’ jackets matched the tattoo on Beau’s arm.
As the bikers parked and silenced their motorcycles, Beau stepped out of the former showroom and suggested the couple with children clear out. They didn’t hesitate. The couple at the outside table also wrapped up their things and slipped away. Tommy Baldwin closed the magazine he’d been reading and watched as the bikers dismounted. None of the bikers paid attention to him as he slid the pistol from the holster at the small of his back.
As Bethany pulled her pickup into the driveway at home, she retrieved her smartphone from her purse and dialed the number Beau had made her memorize.
The roar of the motorcycles brought Amanda and her friend out of the Dairy Queen, and they captured the scene with their smartphones.
Two of the bikers entered the showroom, where Beau stood behind the counter. The others began overturning the tables in the service bays and tearing apart the limited decorations.
Bethany ran into the home she shared with Beau and shoved her smartphone into her pocket before she unlocked the gun cabinet and retrieved her deer rifle. She loaded it as she ran back outside and braced her arm on the hood of her pickup. She peered through the scope at the two men inside the showroom with her boyfriend. Both were armed. Beau had one hand beneath the counter.
“Been a long time, Stick,” Chainsaw said. “You’ve put on weight.”
Though they were of similar height, Chainsaw weighed more than twice what Beau weighed, heavy muscle hidden beneath rolls of fat. He wore a sleeveless jean jacket revealing arms liberally decorated with violent tattoos, and a crown of thorns was tattooed on his bald head. A chainsaw hung from his left hand, a .38 from his right.
Beau replied, “Not long enough.”
Chainsaw glanced around. “Looks like this here’s your last supper.”
The deputy marshal in the women’s restroom looked down at her cell phone when it rang. A call was being forwarded from the office.
Chainsaw raised the .38 he carried in his right hand and aimed it at Beau.
Bethany had Chainsaw’s head squarely in her crosshairs. When he pointed his revolver at Beau, she squeezed the trigger, hoping the window separating them would not deflect her shot.
Before Arquette could answer her phone, she heard gunfire through the concrete wall. Then she heard the roar of a shotgun.
At the sound of the first shot, the ten bikers tearing apart the seating area in the former service bays drew their weapons.
The sounds catapulted Arquette, her sidearm drawn, from the restroom and around the building into a firefight involving a gang of bikers hiding behind overturned picnic tables in the former service bays, Beau James behind the smokehouse’s counter, and an old man hiding behind one of the pillars supporting the canopy outside. What she didn’t see was the woman on the far side of the railroad tracks using a deer rifle to pick off bikers.
The bikers had superior firepower, including automatic weapons, but expecting no resistance they had trapped themselves in a box. The entire melee lasted less than ten minutes and left the Quarryville Smokehouse riddled with bullet holes and every biker dead or dying. Sorting out the chain of events took much, much longer and involved the use of video provided by Amanda and her friend.
The coroner was unable to determine if Chainsaw was killed by the single shot to the head or by the dual shotgun blasts to the abdomen. Slugs retrieved from the other bodies also came from more than one weapon.
No charges were brought against Bethany or Tommy, and after intervention from the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. attorney’s office declined to pursue charges against Beau for possession of a sawed-off shotgun without proper tax-paid registration.
When the smoke cleared, Beau James refused the U.S. Marshals Service’s offer to relocate him. He had survived being outed, and the Lords of Ohio had disbanded, the few remaining members in Columbus absorbed into the local Hell’s Angels chapter.
At Bethany’s insistence, Beau did not patch any of the bullet holes before reopening the smokehouse. A significant increase in business followed, not just from being named the ninth best barbeque joint in the Lone Star State, but also from the notorious reputation the smokehouse had gained from the shootout.
The smokehouse had been highly rated for the quality of its brisket and ribs but lost points for the limited menu. So Beau added two sides—macaroni and cheese, made from Bethany’s recipe, and potato salad made from Tommy’s mother’s recipe.
Business increased so much that Beau could no longer handle it all himself. Each morning at eleven, Tommy rolled up the service-bay doors and worked behind the counter with him until closing. On weekends Amanda and two of her high school friends waited tables.