The real Indian John, shot by Markus Cuff.
Indian John stood less than six feet. He rode an old Indian chopper with highbars, an oil-dripping flathead engine and a crystal door knob for a suicide shifter. He was old school to the bone, old clothes, old bike, weathered leathers, long hair, and no job. He rode that Indian everyday, drank every day, but there was one human aspect he didn’t do any day, no matter what; he didn’t speak. Throat cancer snatched his vocal cords a couple of years ago.
Indian John lived in the streets with his motorcycle and meager disability payments. It was against his code to be a snitch. Against every cell that filtered through his alcohol soaked veins. He couldn’t get much further than downtown L A on the rickety Indian. He had no escape if he turned to the lowly antics of being a snitch. Everyone in the bar knew that aspect of John’s humble personality.
The three petrified riders at the table weren’t locals. They didn’t know Indian John from Adam. The sharp ratta-tat-tat report from the automatic weapon froze everyone in their tracks. Glass and adobe fragments still fell to the planked floor. The fat Mexican outlaw still screamed in agony. The other outlaw scrambled to his feet, but stood wide of the double-barreled, carriage shotgun in the middle of the table, as if it was just part of the condiments.
Marko snatched the .357 mag off the deck and stepped to the side of a thick wooden pillar to cover the two outlaws in his corner of the room. Dismal Dan, one of the loners, had lost a chunk of his finger. Blood spurted across the table onto Sharky’s black T-shirt–Sturgis 1999. He snatched a doo-rag out of his back pocked and handed it to Dan. Dan hadn’t felt real pain in a couple of decades. He reveled in emotional upheaval and saw every half full glass as stone empty. This was his first run-in with pain and danger and suddenly all his self made depression was gone, replaced with abject horror.
Ron was in terrified shock. He had smacked the charging outlaw in the nuts, and the man was down. His fear centered on his next move. The mad menace at his feet would surely come to his angry senses. And who the hell was Indian John, anyway?
Bandit stood at the top of the stairs tentatively with his H&K MP-5 K submachine gun at his side. He popped the warm empty magazine and replaced it with a fresh 9mm – 30 round unit. He knew he was in a spot. This was his livelihood, his life and his home. These bastards were barking up the wrong tree and he didn’t know why. If he killed them all, more would come to avenge the slayings. If he won he would lose. If he lost–that wasn’t a thought provoking option.
Time was a factor like a lit fuse on a suicide bomber in Israel. The club boss knew the score. His name was Thirty-Eight and he kept two in shoulder holsters under his vest. They were secured snub-nosed revolvers in upside down holsters. The rig was tight over a club sweatshirt, and he practiced drawing and firing both weapons daily, in the desert outside Dallas. His fingerless gloved hands rested uneasily on the edge of the thick oak table, but he knew that he was in unfamiliar territory and at a disadvantage. He was confident that a single man didn’t want a problem with an entire outlaw organization.
The short tough, curled into a painful ball on the floor beside the loners, moved. A bullet split the hardwood floor next to his head and he froze, again. “Will the boss come forward?” Bandit’s voice from the stairs asked.
The four men in the booth spilled out like pythons from a cage and lined up against the wall of red vinyl tuck and roll booths. The light from outside waned and the bar darkened. Nyla hadn’t the time to light the table candles. The smell of gun powder tickled their nostrils with the scent of certain death.
“Indian John ain’t no snitch.” Bandit said stepping down the stairway toward the dining room. “He can’t even talk.”
The boss, Thirty-Eight, was now in his prime. He was unencumbered by the booth, where he felt like a sitting duck. Now he could draw and wanted to. Two of his members were down. One was still whimpering on the deck and that pissed him off. Two trusted brothers stood on either side of him. They were both armed and speed raced through their veins
“Fuck you,” Thirty-eight barked. His steely gaze analyzed Bandit’s every step. His teeth ground with sheer meth induced rage. “My brother is doing time in Texas because of that sonuvabitch, and fuck you anyway. No one hurts a Pistolero and gets away with it.” He was average height and moderate weight. He appeared small beside the large muscular outlaws at his side.
Marko assessed each man wearing cowboy boots planted at shoulder width. The first held his club belt buckle firmly an inch from the .45 automatic stuck, barrel first, in his waist band. The second, was the boss, obviously positioning himself to draw. The third had his hand firmly on a carved ivory handle of his leather Bowie knife sheath. Marko was familiar with the night lighting in the Cantina, but so were the club members who frequented Dallas titty bars. Marko eyed the last man, spotting his slithering gloved hand as he reached under his vest for a shoulder holster.
“You’re in my bar, my home motherfucker,” Bandit said. “No one fucks with my people or my home.”
From across the room neither Marko, Bandit or the girls could tell that every club member in the room had been up for 72 hours riding hard, to the coast, from Texas. Their brother was indicted for killing a dancer who wouldn’t perform for him. The member professed his innocence to his boss and told him that Indian John, from SoCal, had killed the girl, snitched him off and ran to the coast on a hopped up Road King.
The hours without sleep and the meth soaring through their veins, like methanol in a fuel line, whipped all logical thinking from the boss’s brain cells. He was a bomb with a short fuse–lit.
“Who the fuck cares,” Thirty-eight snapped and both hands flew under the flaps of his vest. Simultaneously the last outlaw reached deeper into his vest, and the first outlaw spun to grab the automatic in his belt.
“Indian John rides a 1947 Indian,” Bandit said loudly in a firm voice, and snatched his very short and compact weapon, dangling at his side, into a ready position. The shit was going down.
Dismal Dan, Rotten Ron and Sharky were dead center of the room and completely aware of their treacherous surroundings. They dove for the deck. The stocky outlaw on the floor sensed the violence in the air, as if someone spun a siren in his ear. He scrambled for the front door on all fours. The scrawny member near the shotgun dove for the weapon. Marko cocked the stainless revolver and sited for the last outlaw’s forehead, while the man reached for his shoulder holster.
Even Nyla snatched her H&K from under the bartop and crouched down behind the bar.
“Whoa,” Thirty-Eight shouted releasing his weapons and snapping his hands into the clear, empty. Empty-handed he lifted his arms above his head tentatively. “Brothers hold up. What did you say, Bandit?”
“I said he rides a ’47 Indian.”
The man stood still for a long moment. The room was as quiet as a chilled tomb. Marko released his index finger pressure on the stainless trigger. The members looked at their leader in relief and dismay. Thirty-Eight held up a hand indicating truce, reached into his vest and retrieved his cell phone, dialing hurriedly. At the same time the rumble of a motorcycle could be heard outside as it neared the door. Nyla set her weapon down and came around the bar. Even in the heat of war she looked hot, her nipples visible in her frilly top, see-through from sweat. She unlatched the door and in walked Indian John.
Thirty eight eyed John suspiciously as he muttered something into the phone. Bandit came down the stairs motioning for Thirty-Eight to come outside and see what John was riding. His ’47 Indian Chief clicked and hissed as the rain drops sizzled on the black engine.
The boss looked up at Bandit with tears in his eyes. “I’ve been betrayed,” he said.
“You’re alive, goddamnit,” Bandit said, “Let’s party. I’ll put your members up for the night.”
As they looked at John’s classic chopper, that obviously didn’t rush John home from the panhandle, the sky cleared and the moon lit the harbor once more.
“Margaritas all around,” Bandit said as he took Nyla by the waist, held her close and shook Marko’s hand. He eyed the sexy Mandy behind the bar, still quivering from fear. “Take special care of the loners, will ya, babe? And ask the Chinaman for some grub.”
As Bandit approached Indian John, John handed him a note, his only form of communication. It read, “So where’s all the action tonight?”
