Chapter 7 - The Gathering of the Saints
The SanctuaryBy 9:00 PM, the storm had moved east toward South Dakota, leaving the Bighorn Mountains covered in a pristine, six-foot blanket of silent white.
Inside the Iron Saints clubhouse, the mood had transformed from a rescue operation to a war council. Word of what the runaway boy had done—carrying the president’s twins nine miles through a Category-5 whiteout—had spread through the regional club network like wildfire.
They had arrived from three states. By midnight, there were over seven hundred bikers parked around the Sheridan clubhouse. Their custom choppers and heavy touring bikes lined the highway for two miles, their chrome components gleaming under the icy stars. Men from the Black Mountain chapter in Montana, the High Plains crew from Colorado, and the Red Desert riders from southern Wyoming stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the great hall.
At the center of the room, on a long leather sofa brought down from Jaxon’s private apartment above the bar, Tyler Wade lay under three heavy buffalo hides. Dr. Sarah Vance, Marcus Vance’s daughter and the chief trauma nurse at Sheridan Memorial, was kneeling beside him, an IV line connected to a bag of warm saline hanging from a pool cue above the couch.
Tyler’s eyes slowly opened.
The first thing he saw was the ceiling—heavy timber beams crossed with black iron pipes. The second thing he saw was the crowd. Seven hundred men in dark leather, their faces covered in tattoos and scars, stood in a silent, massive circle around him. No one spoke. No one laughed. They just looked at him with an intensity that made Tyler’s heart spike on the medical monitor beside the couch.
Tyler pulled the hides up to his chin, his body trembling with a sudden surge of old, defensive panic. He looked for the door. He looked for a window. He expected the belt. He expected the boots.
"Easy, kid," a voice said from his right.
Jaxon Reed sat on a low wooden stool beside the sofa. He had changed into a clean black shirt, his leather cut back on his shoulders. In his lap, he held a large ceramic bowl of hot beef stew.
"Where..." Tyler’s voice was a tiny squeak, his throat still raw from the frost. "Where am I? Did Dale find me?"
A low, deep rumble passed through the seven hundred men in the room at the mention of the name. It wasn't a sound of anger; it was the sound of an engine priming for a race.
"Dale Mercer is never going to see you again, Tyler," Jaxon said, his large hand reaching out to steady the boy’s shoulder. "You're in the Saints' house. You brought my boys home. You carried them nine miles on your back."
Tyler looked past Jaxon, seeing Seth and Luke standing at the edge of the couch, their cheeks pink, their hands full of sugar cookies Mrs. Eleanor had baked from the kitchen.
"They... they didn't freeze?" Tyler whispered.
"They're alive because of you," Jaxon said, his voice dropping into that quiet, heavy register that carried the full authority of his office. He stood up, turning his back to Tyler to face the seven hundred men packed into the hall.
With a slow, deliberate movement, Jaxon reached down and unhitched the heavy silver buckles of his leather cut. He pulled the leather back, exposing his own bare shoulder—the one covered in a massive, dark circular scar from a rival club's shotgun pellet twenty years ago.
"Brothers!" Jaxon roared, his voice bouncing off the metal roof like a mortar shell. "Look at this boy! Look at what he did for the Saints!"
Grave Stone stepped forward, gently pulling the buffalo hides back from Tyler’s chest just enough to expose the long, purple belt welts across his ribs.
Seven hundred men took a collective, sharp intake of air. In the world of the Iron Saints, violence against a brother was expected; violence against a woman or a child was an abomination that required immediate, absolute erasure.
Hawk stepped to the front of the stage, his hand resting on the heavy brass handle of his hunting knife. "What’s the call, President?"
May you like
Jaxon looked back at Tyler, then down at the seven hundred faces waiting for his word.
"The call is an audit," Jaxon said, his dark eyes turning into cold obsidian. "Every man who can ride... get your iron. We’re going to North Bleek Street."
