Bringing the Crew to the Black Hills.
The Brothers sat drinking in the log built with creaking decks, Deadwood, Number 10 Saloon from the 1800s and asking locals questions about the area. Bandit scratched and pulled at his mustache while pondering catching a flight back to the coast. Marko fresh from the gym, stretched, drank a virgin Mary and Jeremiah bitched and pondered his wounds and dinged motorcycle. He needed a shop.
Back on the coast the harried crew scrambled to load vans.
The streets of LA turned to a shit pile of homelessness, anti-cop action, needles and crime—a shit show literally. Some attempted to turn the once glorious city into a third world country. Illegals poured into the streets looking for handouts and gang connections.
Bandit dreaded it but jumped on the next plane back to the coast to help with the harried migration out of the once golden state. As the plane touched down, the stained movement in flapping tents showed its varied colors along the edge of the cracked tarmac. Homeless encampments lined the concrete. Illegals over-took massive hangers and hung Muslim support flags proclaiming jihad against everyone on the outside of the once stellar buildings constructed to house state-of-the-art aircraft.
The LAX airport turned disaster zone packed with homeless, illegals, drug dealers and protestors was once the gateway to the magnificent city of the stars. Bandit pushed his way through the ill-smelling throng to the chipped concrete curb, where Toby the welder, with his thick scruffy, tangled gray hair waited in Jeremiah’s sparkling metallic blue Toyota pick-up smoking one Canadian cigarette after another. “Over here,” he shouted out the window and honked his horn.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Bandit said tossing his backpack into the bed of the truck.
“Grab it,” Toby shouted, “Or at the next intersection someone will steal it.”
Bandit snatched it out of the bed and jumped inside.
“We’re ready,” Toby said. “Let’s go to the land of freedom.” The congestion remained thick as thieves all the way from the sprawling airport through the South bay interrupted momentarily by a climate protest blocking traffic. Area bikers moved them out of the way, so traffic could edge along into the Port of Los Angeles. It shifted from commuters to jammed container truck traffic. Infrastructure repairs were promised and never received. Funds were shifted from the working man to free drug programs and illegals.
The truckers, snarling behind the wheels of fish delivery trucks and container 18-wheelers sought to find a moral compass in a corrupt political system. To a man, they wondered whether one party desperately pushed America purposely toward a 3rd world status leaving the middle class to fend for themselves.
Bandit and Toby struggled through the muck and mire that once was a magnificent Los Angeles. They ultimately found the Cantina crew huddled around a couple of tall loaded vans at the designated meeting place on the edge of a dilapidated marina, slash homeless encampment.
Bandit jumped out of the shiny blue metallic pickup truck and pondered the dichotomy of a society gone wrong. The pickup glimmered with state-of-the-art construction and technology while society crumbled under corruption.
His crew jumped to their feet. Margaret stood front and center with her teenage son, Jimmy. The large round Chinaman constantly adorned in chefs, slightly stained, white attire came forward with a plate of tacos followed by his adopted Hispanic family. Tina and Mandy waved from the back and pointed to their packed suitcases. Shiela, the bodacious blonde fell off the wagon and disappeared into the free-drug slums of Long Beach. A week later she was discovered Ode’d in an alley.
“We’re packed and ready,” Margaret said and wrapped her arm around her son who she stopped enabling and he became a competent electrician.
“I have enough gear and supplies to feed us all the way to New York, if that’s what it takes,” the Chinaman said, and his Hispanic crew nodded.
“Let’s roll,” Bandit said. “If your gassed up we will hit it out of town. Let’s meet in Primm, Nevada at the Neon Buffalo. We’ll relax for a minute and check the traffic in Vegas. It might be a good notion to wait until nightfall before rolling north through Sincity.”
They mounted up and meandered through the constantly cramped city congestion. Slowly cutting from one freeway to another they finally rolled into the intersection of Highway 10 and interstate 15 where traffic lightened, and they picked up
speed.
Two motorcycles followed. Clay who had no other place to go or family on his FXR and Toby riding a hopped-up Sportster used for racing in the Canyons. The Cantina crew was everything to Clay and the only group who stood beside him through thick and thin. He bought a used Evo FXR and Eric Bennett, of Bennett’s Performance, dialed it in before the EPA forced him to close his doors and escape to Tennessee.
They gassed up in Primm, on the Nevada Border, checked the traffic and decided to slip through the city. By nightfall the caravan slithered through the neon wonderland of Las Vegas and spent the night at a Best Western in St. George, Utah. The next morning the crew awoke to a brilliant sun sparkling over verdant fields of vegetables and somewhat open roads. They ate breakfast and hit the highway north and east into the center of the state.
The day glistened until they reached Provo and Salt Lake City loomed in the briny distance. Traffic snarled and the crew rolled off the interstate to gas up. Off the freeway, under the pillars of dozens of historic Mormon churches and into a gas station. The crew scrambled out of their vehicles. Two other traveling scooter tramps refueled their Pan Ams and their multiple panniers were packed with spare fuel tanks.
“What’s the deal?” Clay asked one of the fully suited riders wearing fluorescent full-faced helmets.
“It’s scary,” a rider flipped up his face shield and looked concerned. “No Fossil Fuels are allowed in Colorado.”
“What do you mean?” Clay said not wearing a helmet only a sweaty bandana around his forehead.
“Yep,” the other rider said and lifted her face shield. The two riders in their full space-suit-reflective uniforms were uni-sex until their faces appeared. “I once agreed with the blue birds, but it hasn’t worked. You’ll see. Only electric is allowed in Colorado. You’ll need to snake around the state using two-lane highways.
“Thanks,” Clay said and passed on the news to Bandit who checked his maps. Toby, took off his helmet to smoke. The caravan slipped onto highway 40, and then sliced north on Highway 191 past Flaming Gorge. At every intersection they encountered stalled trucks. At one small gas station on a knoll someone set up a diesel powered crane to remove containers from semi-trucks and line them up so horse drawn carts could pick up goods and meander into Colorado. Some electric car owners tried to attach small flatbed trailers to their chassis, but without bumpers and mounting abilities, it was tough.
Some tried and bolted trailer hitches to EV frames, but the electric systems didn’t respond. Some caught fire, some electronically shut down and left electric cars, trailers and cargo alongside dusty roads leading into Colorado.
The crew rolled around the corner of Colorado, caught the 80 and gassed up in Rock Springs where a row of massive wind turbine propeller trucks rested alongside the highway leading into Colorado. “This makes no sense,” one trucker snapped while unhooking the long trailer from his cab. “This is my last run. I can’t make a delivery.”
“We aren’t allowed to deliver the oil to lubricate the joints in these bastards,” another trucker pulled off the highway at the intersection in the middle of nowhere, crawled out of his cab and lit a cigarette. “I don’t get it. Doesn’t anyone read anymore.”
He unloaded a pallet jack out of the back of his box truck on the lift gate. With the jack in tow, the big man started a slow process of unloading 50-gallon drums of lubricating oil out of the back of the box truck and just setting them neatly on the edge of the asphalt tarmac in orderly rows. “There’s 80 gallons of lubricating oil in each major wind turbine, except in Colorado. They’re running dry!”
Bandit decided to pull the crew into Rawlings for the night, but most of the motels were booked up with travelers to Colorado being turned away. He tried a seedy motel on the edge of town and ran into an upscale gent heading toward his high-dollar Mercedes.
“No rooms?” Bandit asked.
“Not a one,” the tall, well dressed doctor raised his eyes under bristling eyebrows from the pavement. “I’m a cardiologist and there’s no sense trying to treat patients in Colorado. We can’t get gear or fossil fuel based medications, which most are. Hell, we can’t use sterilizing machines. People are starting to die.” He shrugged his shoulders and the gray-haired gent slipped into his two-seater luxury car and headed back to Salt Lake to catch a flight.
Bandit found a single room in a motel on the edge of town. The crew huddled their caravan of vehicles and motorcycles outside the door in the parking lot. They formed sort of a U-shape fort and the Chinaman’s Hispanic crew pulled a barbecue out of one of the vans and started a fire. They all had access to the motel room bathroom and the girls shared the two queen beds.
With folding chairs and milk crates they huddled around the fire and the crew became quiet in the silent moonlit night. The sky was amazing with final tints of crimson against the dark star-studded sky.
The rotund Chinaman was about to tell a story about the back streets of Chinatown when a couple of hippy looking guys slammed the door to the motel office and headed back to their dinky electric vehicle when they spotted the Cantina crowd around their barbecue fire.
Bandit watched as one of them looked into the compact sedan and nodded toward the crew. Suddenly out popped a long-haired mixed-race woman wrapped with vast, multicolored lengths of materials. He couldn’t tell whether she wanted to be a muslim, a terrorist or just an angry hippy. She was definitely angry and started to scream in their direction followed by her pair of seemingly unarmed guards.
“What are you doing?” She snapped at no one in particular. “It’s people like you who need to be eradicated from the planet and your fossil fuel motorcycles.”
Toby rounded the corner of one of their white vajns. Heavily armed he stormed to the rescue, but Bandit held him off. “Is there a problem?” Bandit asked and studied the marching woman.
Wrapped from her sandled feet to the top of her head in colorful berka type garments. Her face drawn and tight with angry expression.
“You know by now!” She hollered. “We’re coming for your motorcycles and your cars and trucks. How could you still drive when the planet is burning up.”
Bandit nodded to Toby to watch the other guys. “Can you read?” Bandit asked calmly.”
“I’m a graduated from UC Berkely!” She snapped.
“Is that where they taught you plant food is a pollutant?” Bandit asked moving close to her.
“All fossil fuels must be left in the ground,” she stammered.
Bandit straighten his vest over his flannel shirt while checking out her team. They were both wearing outdoor hiking boots and flannel shirts. Both had on hats, were young and fit. One hosted a knife sheath on his leather belt. The other came to a halt and folded his arms defiantly.
“So how many products are made from fossil fuels?” Bandit asked and didn’t back down. “How many health products?” He asked and stepped forward.
“I don’t care,” She stammered.
“You will,” Bandit said and stared directly into her dark eyes. “When you need a doctor or a hospital in Colorado. I suspect that’s where your headed, correct?”
“You damn right,” She snapped but her furfur diminished.
“Good luck,” Bandit said. “I hope we can suck all the CO2 away from Colorado and see what you can do with a state unable to grow food.”
She looked a tad cross-eyed trying to figure out what he said.
“What’s your issue with the motel?” Bandit asked.
“They have no rooms and no charging stations for our car,” she said. “We can’t get much further.”
“We have a diesel generator,” Bandit said and Toby went after it. “We have tacos cooked on a propane stove and Corona beers from our ICE vehicle generator charged fridge.” Her guards perked up when Mandy, her waitress-self sprang into action and delivered chilled brews.
“What’s your name?” Bandit asked. “Are you from Colorado?”
“Samatha,” she said. “We escaped the shit streets of Olympia.”
“Come on over and get warm,” Bandit suggested and the Chinaman approached with a plate of tacos and his masterful fresh guacamole with diced red onions and jalapenos. Samatha and her crew dug in.
“We heard illegals are pouring into Denver,” Bandit said.
“You’re right and we hope to land in Boulder before the drugs and homeless parade arrives,” Samatha said, bit into a fresh coleslaw and salmon taco. Her face finally lit up into a satisfied smile. “These are amazing.”
“So, you’re not onboard with all the Progressive policies?” Bandit asked and Margaret brought him a Jack on the rocks in his favorite glass tumbler.
“No one is,” Samatha said. “No one in their right mind, but there are activists bullies who are pushing this shit constantly. That’s one reason we left. It’s over the top.”
“We’re headed to the black Hills of South Dakota from LA,” Bandit said. “Where America is still a free country.”
Samatha took another bite of the Chinaman’s magnificent marinated salmon taco, crunched and sighed satisfied.
“I’m afraid the progressive movement is coming for everyone and anyway they can. Somebody’s got to fight back and quick.”
Bandit stared into her sincere eyes. He knew, but he never heard anyone say it.
“They started in the schools,” Samatha took a swig of beer. “It’s as if it was a college class. ‘Let’s see if we can take over the country’ class and they’re doing it. Even if your senator in South Dakota is a freedom loving Republican, his staff is Woke and trying to change shit. I’ve lived it. It’s bullshit, but it’s like living in Nazi Germany. You toe the line or you’re fucked, no job and no friends. Hell, they’ll run you out of town. That’s what happened to us. We weren’t all-in playing the game and got asked to leave.”
Bandit listened intently while watching her lieutenants nod. “I’ve seen it try to edge its way into the biker community.”
“Why go to Colorado?” Bandit inquired.
“We’ve been fed the racist line against anyone who isn’t blue,” She muttered while Toby and Clay helped one of her guys hook up their car to a Honda generator set for charging. Marko yanked the cord and the little engine fired to life and warmed to its gas-powered rhythm.
Bandit took a swig of whiskey and thought for a while. “Do your thing,” Bandit said. “But know the majority of Americans want their lives back. They just want to do good, build shit and protect their families. If you run afoul of bad policies again, come find us.” He handed her his card. “The address is no good, it’s a California address, but the phone will work.”
Bandit got up and moved around the little parking lot fort, checking on stuff and his staff. Concerned, he checked the vans and Margarete followed. They grew close and she tugged on his arm. “Everything okay?” She asked.
“Yeah,” Bandit turned and looked into her sparkling blue eyes. Her brilliant gaze always warm and alert. He gave her a hug and a deep kiss. “I’m concerned. The next group we run into might not be so forthright and open. I look forward to South Dakota.”
She hugged him hard, and he wished he could scoop her up and find some warm place where they could be alone. It had been too long.
“Tomorrow,” she said as they continued to check the vans and all the crew.
Toby approached and reported the watch system for the night. The girls went inside the dinky motel room and shared the beds.
Little Juan from the Chinaman’s crew took the first watch, and then Clay and Toby managed the final few hours. About 5:00 a.m. the Chinaman and his crew went to work preparing breakfast.
Samatha slept on the floor of the motel room in a sleeping bag. Her and her team got up early, had a cup of coffee and prepared to hit the road with her car charged. “We can get almost three hundred miles,” she said to Bandit. “Thanks so much.”
“Stay in touch,” Bandit said. “We will build a new life near Sturgis. There are plenty of jobs for folks who want to get along and prosper.”
She seemed relieved, there were people of hope in the world and gave Bandit a hug. Her crew also thanked Bandit profusely and shook his hand.
Bandit pulled himself into one of the packed vans and fired it to life. He didn’t pray much, but as he watched the sun clear the dark sky and add warmth he hoped for clear weather, open roads, no-breakdowns and the lack of violent encounters.
“I’m asking for one too many,” He muttered as Toby put out his cigarette and fired up his Sportster.
“What’s that?” Frankie, Margaret’s son asked pulling himself into the van.
“Nothing,” Bandit said, shifted into drive and rolled out of the parking lot and through motel row into the old section of town with block building from the ’30 and brick city buildings built after the war.
He turned left onto 287 heading almost due north through the muddy gap almost through the center of the Wyoming and thought about the problems they encounter the last time on bikes.
“We got everyone?” Bandit asked and Margaret touched his shoulder from the jump seat.
“Yep,” I checked twice. “Everyone is excited.”
As Bandit turned onto the lonesome highway north he pondered the miles ahead, the object of their journey. They just needed to pass through the gap and into Casper. They would be halfway across the state. He thought about his girl in Thermopolis and the fun they had.
But mostly he hoped for safe passage. He reached down beside the seat to check on the red-handled, deadly sharp machete. He checked the console for his .357 magnum and leather pouch of extra ammo.
Bandit harbored a constant confidence in the outcomes of almost anything and the ability to overcome any obstacle. He took a deep breath and said to himself, “Relax,” and shoved the van to 75 mph and set the cruise control. They were on their way.
