CHAPTER 57

I wait and Mitch comes back after a few minutes and sits down opposite of the table with me. We talk a little about the Union and how Jim runs things pretty well. I discovered the friendly Old Man that I know has a pretty gruesome history and caused some chaos for a couple rival groups including Devil's Best until new leadership took over.

"I knew he was a tough man but damn," I remark as a busty Latina woman brings out a plate for Mitch and me.

"Thanks darlin'," Mitch says getting a kiss as she heads back," Wife loves to cook for people sadly most don't want to eat here."

I dig in and I do not understand why people don't want to eat her cooking, it's pretty good. I finish the whole plate in record time and check my clock to see it's a little after eight in the morning before asking if they have a card reader for payments. Mitch points me to an ATM and I get out three hundred in cash and go to hand him half but he declines.

"No thanks Kid, Jim said you were family to him and that's good enough for us," Mitch tells me and I smirk.

He looks at me funny as I head into the kitchen and find the cook, Guadalupe is his woman, and hand her the money, getting an odd look.

"Ma'am that was the best meal I've had in days, go get something nice and surprise Mitch with it," I tell her with a wink and a smile.

She laughs a little and I get a hug before exiting the kitchen and shake hands with Mitch before mounting up on Pale Horse and heading back down the road towards Wyoming. The trip is more time consuming and I discover the city I'm heading to is in rancher territory as I am passing large plots of land in the mid afternoon on Saturday that lead me to what passes for the center of town, it's not huge but quaint and livable. My presence however gains a bit of attention as a good portion of people here are country western and I'm metal. I search around for a bit and settle on a place in town to hold up in, it's a nice little hotel that looks nothing like a commercialized one and I figure that is worth something. I pay the friendly yet wary woman behind the counter and get myself settled. It's about dinner time and I take the silencer off my pistol and store it in my bags and holster it in my coat before heading down stairs and figure I'll go look up somewhere to eat. I settle in at a bar and grill and get to suffer through the country music and dancing going on at the other half of the restaurant when a very top heavy blonde woman in what I can assume is her early forties welcomes me to Old Hand's Grill and hands me a menu.

"Never been here before," Trudy, her name plate gives it away, asos, stating the obvious.

"Nope, never been to Wyoming before," I reply looking at the menu, at least the food has meat in it.

I place an order for the steak plate with barbeque fries and a soda which Trudy takes happily before leaving me to my silence. I shoot my girls a text letting them know I'm in town and promise I will try to be polite. They send their love and I look around at the locals, god do I stand out, aside from my jeans I'm wearing the wrong boots, my combat boots are not cowboy boots. My black leather jacket with a hood isn't brown and worn and I don't have a cowboy or baseball cap. It takes a while but I'm served and it's good food. I get about halfway through my meal before nature calls and I'm gone for maybe five minutes before coming back to find my table has been overtaken and there is a guy sitting in my seat with a woman on his lap eating my fries.

"Excuse me this is my table," I state in a non threatening tone.

"Well hell you weren't here," the man in the white hat says chuckling.

"Regardless, that's my food you're eating and my chair you're sitting in," I tell him, stating facts and not trying to threaten.

"Well kid this is my chair now and my table so why don't you order something for yourself and go sit somewhere else," the man laughs and his friends laugh with him.

I don't want to fight and figure I'll just settle for half a meal, catch Trudy and she looks happy to see me save for the fact that I only hand her a twenty for the meal when it was more like thirty five and start to leave. A hand on my shoulder from her stops me.

"The tab is thirty five honey," Trudy tells me and I'm not in a mood to argue.

"Well take that up with the man eating my food and sitting in my spot," I tell her, pulling out a second twenty and handing it to her before heading for the door.

I'm about ten feet away from Pale Horse when I hear two people running to catch up to me on either side. They come into view and it's two of the jackasses from my old table. I start to step past when my hand on my shoulder turns me and I'm blindsided by a fist to the side of my head. There is some laughing and talking when I feel one go through my pockets and I hear keys jingling, my keys.

"Thanks for the ride kid, new in town tax," I hear the asshole who took my seat.

I get kicked in the gut a couple times and once or twice in the back before the beating stops and I'm left alone to hear my bike start up and pull away from the restaurant. It takes me a minute and I can hear a couple people talking when I see some familiar red and blue flashing lights.

"Sir, place your hands on your head and get on your knees," A female officer tells me and now I'm pissed and confused.

"Help me, some asshole and his friends just took my bike," I state with some pain turning to face the officers.

"Sir I won't repeat myself now place your hands on your head and get on your knees now," the female officer says again only louder.

"Wait I get jumped and my bike is stolen and you're arresting me," I ask, starting to get pissed off.

I do what she says and it's a few seconds later that my pistol is taken out and I'm cuffed before being put in the back of a local Sheriff's car. I get driven to their jail and find they have two cells as I am sitting in a chair with the female officer going through my wallet and running my information. I stay quiet till someone decides to talk to me.

"You wanna explain what you were doing starting a fight in the parking lot of Nathanial's restaurant," a male deputy asks but I remain quiet," can you hear me kid I asked you a question?"