Star Harbor Nights

The bar seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The reality was not far off: it was in western Oklahoma, along a nearly forgotten stretch of highway just a hair's breadth north of the Texas border on the map.

The bar had no name. One probably existed on a tax record somewhere, but it had been many years since the owners had paid taxes or bothered with a liquor license, and even longer since they'd bothered repainting the sign out front. The building and lot were maintained to the minimum standards of utility, though the neon beer signs in the dirty windows were kept in perfect working order always.

There were a few cars in the lot, each one a big boat of thing with a big trunk to match. The newest one couldn't have been less than twenty years old. None of them had been taken particularly good care of. No sense of pride of ownership was apparent in them, unlike the rows of motorcycles that were all gleaming black and chrome.

Separated from all the bikes by a wide and respectful gulf on both sides was a big monster trike. It had obviously been built to suit its owner's needs, as even the front end was wider than any two bikes chained together. It was equipped with what looked like a railroad cowcatcher. There was no plastic or any other synthetic materials anywhere on it. The seat lacked any padding whatsoever.

It was a striking sight, glaring even... but somehow not at all out of place in front of this honkytonk that time forgot.

What seemed more out of place was the man at the far end of the parking lot, out past the ragged edge where crumbling concrete gave way to gravel, out where the grass was winning the struggle with the gravel.

He'd shown up just as the bar was opening in the afternoon, and had remained there since. He stayed in the lot, watching the sky turn from blue to gray to red to deep indigo, smoking cigarette after cigarette. What he was waiting for was anybody's guess, though if any of the bikers who passed through the lot wondered who he was or what he was doing there, they kept it to themselves.

He was a lean, cold man. His features might have been carved from marble, though they lacked the warmth of a statue. His hair might have been platinum and it might have been gray. His eyes were steely. His skin was chalk. He wore tight racing leathers that might have been a white that got dirty or a gray that had faded.

His ride was a lean thing, in contrast to the big Harley hogs that crowded around the road house. It was sleeker and sportier, and unmistakably European. It might have originally been a Ducati, though it had been heavily customized and there was no sign of a manufacturer's logo or maker's mark anywhere on it. The chrome had an odd, dull finish to it and the fiberglass shell was the same sickly white as the rider's gear. A helmet of the same color hung over the handlebar.

The bike's license plate was custom, too. It read "WAIT".

The rider was a patient man, seemingly content to take his own advice. Nobody bothered him. Nobody noticed him.

It was in the minute when the sun has officially set but before the sky has become full dark when the red and gold motorcycle pulled off the highway and into the lot. There could be no doubt that this machine was one of a kind. It was sleeker than the hogs, but more substantial than the pale man's racer. It was built big, to accommodate the woman who rode it. Its lines hinted of speed without boasting. The sound of its engine promised power.

The tall woman on the bike wore blue jeans and a simple white t-shirt with a red leather vest over it. She had bracers to match the vest. The man who rode pinion behind the blonde giantess was tall and thin, but next to her he was in danger of looking scrawny. As soon as the bike stopped he put on the leather cowboy hat that had been tied in back of his neck, pulling it down as low in front as he could and still see out under the brim.

"Remember, Jack, ten minutes," the woman said to him. "And you only get one shot at this before I have to take you on."

"I won't need five," Jack said cheerily. "But I'll take everything you give me."

The bar's interior smelled of beer and sweat and blood and piss. The floor was covered with a mixture of peanut shells and wood shavings. A row of wooden support beams stood in the middle of the room, supporting the naked rafters that held up the peaked roof. There were eight pool tables and six actual tables. A modern CD player jukebox was plugged in not too far from the end of the bar, right next to the broken down ruin of an old fashioned record model.

Some of the bar's inhabitants looked like they'd stepped out of a bad biker movie. Most looked like they'd inspired them. Quite a few of the bikers carried a folded black bandana and a sawed-off pool cue in their back pockets. These men barely spared the newcomer a glance, though plenty of the others muttered and murmured at Jack's entrance.

A waitress handed a biker near the door a big mug of beer, then spotted Jack. She almost dropped the bottle she held in her other hand.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"You looked... I thought for a moment there you were somebody else," she said.

"Who?" Jack asked.

"Somebody who had a bad accident," she said. "You should probably get out of here before I end up being right."

"I won't be long," Jack said. He headed for the jukebox and fed in a bill. "Just came in for a drink... and maybe a game of cards."

"You do not want to do that," the waitress said. "It's best you just get leave before Ogre sees you and gets it into his head to have some fun."

"I'm always up for fun," Jack said pleasantly. "Ogre would be the owner of this fine establishment?"

"No, he just runs the place," the waitress said. "But believe me, his idea of fun isn't pretty."

"So why you still working here?" Jack asked.

"It was the only job I could get," she said. "And once I was here... Ogre doesn't like to let go of what's his."

"Is there a back way out of here?" Jack asked her.

"Yeah, in the store room... but they'll let you walk out the door if you leave now," the waitress said.

"Didn't mean for me," he said. "I think you should probably find some excuse to head that way and then keep walking."

"Mister, whatever you're planning on doing..."

"A thing as ugly as I intend doesn't take planning," Jack said. "And whatever ugliness you've seen in this place is going to pale in comparison."

"Listen to me. Last Wednesday... a week ago today... Ogre caught a stranger cheating at cards," she said in a fierce, fearful whisper. "They beat the holy hell out of him, dragged him outside and set him on fire... after Ogre'd gouged out his eye."

"They didn't catch him cheating," Jack said.

"You're not even listening," she said. "Ogre's crazy mean, and people say... people say he's a mutant, besides."

"Well, that would explain the colorful nickname, wouldn't it?" Jack said.

"He'll kill a man for looking at him the wrong way," she said. "Just as quick and brutal as he killed that man for cheating."

"They did not catch him cheating," Jack said again, more insistently. He turned towards her, looking down from under the brim of his hat, and she saw the fire seething behind his pale blue eye... the left one.

The right eye--or the space where it should have been--was dark.

She choked on a gasp.

"Hey! Who's that you're getting so cozy with, Luanne?" called a voice, full of harsh bravado.

Jack hit random on the jukebox, and it began shuffling its silvery discs. He turned smartly on his heel to face the man who had spoke: Ogre. The name suited him. He was as big across as three men, and as ugly as ten. There was a scar down the right side of his face, starting on his forehead over his eye and continuing on his cheek.

"She was just telling me what a monster of a card player you are," Jack said.  "And I was just telling her I never met a man I couldn't win the shirt off of in draw poker."

Ogre laughed without mirth, showing off a mouth full of crooked teeth. One of his canines had been replaced with a twisted gold fang.

"In this bar, I'm king, and the king doesn't lose," he said.

"It'd be worth my money to see that," Jack said.

"We gotta sucker on the line," Ogre announced. "Who's in, boys?"

"How about we make this first hand just you and me?" Jack said.

"Let's see some color," Ogre said.

Jack pulled out a big, loose roll of bills. He peeled a hundred off of it.

"How's this, for a start?"

"It's a start," Ogre said. He moved his bulky frame to a table in the center of the room. Jack followed his suit, throwing the hundred into the middle of the table.

"Aren't you going to put your money on the table?" Jack asked.

"Well, now, in these troubled times I don't go carrying my bankroll around with me," Ogre said. "But in the event that I lose, my boys will make good for me. Won't you, boys?"

A chorus of ayes came from around the room, from the bikers with the sawed-off pool cues.

"Garcon?" Ogre said. He snapped his stubby fingers, and a greasy looking man came forward to put a deck of cards in his hand. He cut them and shoved them together twice, apparently the best his thick fingers could manage for shuffling. "The king deals. The game is draw poker. Acey, deucey, joker's wild."

"That's a whole mess of wilds. You sure you don't want to make it high-low?" Jack asked as Ogre dealt out ten cards.

"Funny man," Ogre said. He picked up his cards. Jack still had yet to touch his. "Your bet?"

Jack flopped the whole wad into the middle of the table.

"You're in a hurry to be poor, aren't you?" Ogre said.

"I'm on a bit of a timetable, yeah," Jack said, picking his hand up off the table

"I'll see you, then," Ogre asked. "How many cards?"

"None," Jack said.

"Hot cards?" Ogre asked, his gold tooth glinting inside a wolf's smile, all teeth and no lip.

"You could say that," Jack said. He took the card from the end between his thumb and forefinger and flipped it around a few times, too quickly to show its face to the other players.

"Well, dealer takes two," Ogre said, dealing himself two more cards. "I don't suppose you've got another wad of money to throw away?"

Jack shook his head.

"Let's see it, then," Ogre said. He spread his cards out on the table in a fan: three kings and a pair of threes. "Full boat, laughing boy. What do you got that beats that?"

"This," Jack said, laying his hand down. It was three jacks and a pair of eights.

Ogre threw back his head and laughed wildly.

"Something funny?" Jack asked.

"Are you shitting me?" Ogre said. "Jacks don't beat kings."

"No?" Jack said. He picked up the jack of hearts from the end and it twirled it around between his thumb and forefinger again. "I think maybe this one does."

Bright yellow flame sprung up around the edges of the card, burning without consuming it. He cocked his wrist back and flung it across the table. It left a bright streak in the air before Ogre, and behind him where the flaming projectile sliced through the back of his chair and continued on to the floor, setting the wood shavings ablaze where it hit.

The big man stared down in stunned disbelief at the thin tear in his jacket for a moment, then he began beating wildly at it as tiny flames licked along the edges. The fire was out in short order, but still he clawed at his jacket, ripping the hole in it and the shirt beneath open wider to expose an identical wound, which glowed red hot. He toppled over backwards, grasping at his chest.

Jack leapt up on the table, reaching out as if to steady himself against the nearby support column. His hand left a flaming yellow print on the wood.

"Anybody who doesn't have a little bitty pool stick in their back pocket can leave," he announced as the fire began to spread up and down the beam. "Everybody who stays is going to die."

Several of Ogre's men reached to grab their fallen leader where he writhed on the floor, but jumped back as he'd grown to hot to touch. Others reached for their weapons and rushed towards the man on the table. There was a general rush out the door, and towards the back. 

Jack laughed, his left eye glowing madly.

It was just a few seconds short of ten minutes after Jack had entered the bar that he stepped out. Smoke poured out the door and curled out from under the eaves.

The gaunt man stubbed out his cigarette and headed towards the bar, passing Jack without a word.

"Hey, Dwight," the tall woman said to him in greeting. She stood in front of her bike, stroking the handle bars and the snarling wolf's head image set between them.

He didn't respond.

"Dwight?" Jack repeated. "His name is Dwight?"

"No," she said, shrugging. "That's just what I call him."

"And what do I call you?"

"Val's fine," she said. "Can we go now?"

"Yeah, sure. So, you do this, what, this vengeance thing for everybody?" he asked her. "Because I have to say I'd think the world would be a lot less hazardous if everybody who murdered somebody got their comeuppance."

"No, I can't do it all the time," she said. "Only when the circumstances are right... when it can be done inconspicuously and when the murder is unjust."

"Aren't all murders?"

"Not according to the rules. If your killer had been settling a blood debt, or it had been a fair fight or duel of some kind, then you'd have been out of luck," she said. "In this case, since they killed you for cheating when you hadn't..."

"But I had," Jack said. "I did."

"What?" Val asked. "You told me... you swore..."

"Hey, now, I never did swear that I didn't cheat, did I?" Jack said with a roguish grin. "I just said they never caught me at it."

 "Oh, boss is going to love you," Val said.