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Bud was big, 6’4”, 250 pounds, an ex-Army grunt and ex-construction worker with muscles on muscles on muscles. He saved his money, lived modestly, and at 50 was living the Harley Dream on the open road. Did his banking online.
Stayed in hometown motels that catered to seasonal hunters and welcomed bikers; made some extra cash as an itinerant handyman–decent at drywall and plumbing and a little off-the-books electrical.
Brown hair shot with silver, kept military short, some outstanding tats, themed around roses. Olive skin, pale blue eyes.
He belonged to a couple of do-gooder bike clubs: raised money for animal shelters while burning up state highways in cross-country rallies and signed up in a group that supplies escorts for victims who testify in court against their abusers. Proud that he passed the background check with flying colors.
Last time happened a month before this story when a big-city defense attorney convinced an inexperienced small-town judge to overrule the prosecutor’s request for a taped or live video testimony. Maybe some deadline was missed, or the case did not qualify for an exemption. But Bud liked to be there for someone who needed him. He sat in a courtroom, stoned-faced; the young woman bravely talked about unspeakable things while the jury listened.
The court’s comfort dog, a big dopey yellow lab, was curled around the witness’ legs, out of sight of the jury.
Bud was wearing his full dress leathers, the black and silver ones with the crimson skulls dripping blood and red roses. When the victim looked at him, he would smile and nod that little nod that told her, the young woman who Bud had promised to protect, that if the creepy defendant (known as “It” in Bud’s mind), the man in the Brooks Brothers suit sitting at the defendant’s table, looking so serious and concerned, if It breathed wrong, he, Bud, personally, would vault over four sets of oak courtroom pews, reach his hand down Its throat, and pull out Its lungs.
And, then he would put a great hurt on It, while It gasped for breath, watching Its own lungs pulse, pink and moist, on the old oak table in front of the judge.
Bud, a very gentle man, would watch the victim sit up a little straighter, chin up a littler higher, and speak up a little louder.
On this last occasion, the case was dismissed on a technicality.
Bud waited for It outside the courtroom, after he made sure the victim was safe with family and friends. He promised to come by later to talk.
The big biker slouched next to his Harley Fatboy, name of Belle. He stared at the front door of the courtroom and waited.
It, who had been on Its way to celebrate Its win, saw him, and Its heart stopped. It grabbed Its lawyer’s shoulder, yanked her close, and whispered in her ear, pointing. Bud could read Its lips:
He’s looking at me, that one. The one from the courtroom. Make him stop.
The lawyer made soothing motions with her hands, indicating that It should stay where It was. Then, she walked towards Bud.
There are two kinds of lawyers in Bud's world. First, the ones who swell like puffer fish and give Bud the one-two-three about Civil Rights and Lawsuits and Too Bad If He Lost That Pretty Bicycle in a Judgment. Bud would not say a word. Just smile and nod. They would scoot back to their client and hustle It away.
The second kind? Like this lady. She walked up and turned so the client could see only her back. She mouthed the words “Thank you. Sorry, had to do my job. Did it too well.”
Then she stepped back and sighed. She walked away from Bud to her BMW, got in, and laid a little rubber as she drove away, abandoning her client, who stared at the departing car, then scurried back into the courthouse. Eventually, Bud mounted Belle and roared off.
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Just wanted you to know who Bud was, the kind of man he was, so you wouldn’t judge him too harshly after what happened when he walked into the bar half of that good Mexican restaurant in Kearney, Nebraska and saw the blonde with the cropped hair, sitting alone at a table, nursing a bottle of some Colorado craft beer.
(Would tell you right away it was Mary Winchester, but you knew that, right?)
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There were murals of mesas and desert animals and blue skies and a thin strip of ocean and gulf waters on the walls in cartoon colors, but nice, like someone cared.
Sports and news channels silently mimed on big screen monitors, with the captions turned on. A Top 40 playlist, spanning a decade, looped through the speakers.
She wore a classic green-and-black checked flannel jacket, just a shade leaning to the loose side, over an old, long-sleeved black t-shirt, a tad on the tight side. There were a pile of used plates and napkins and water glasses scattered on the table, and a half-eaten platter of fries drenched in melted cheese and chili.
She was watching, with apparent delight, a noisy pool game a few feet away, half-lit by hanging lamps, where it looked like some tall, sweet-faced frat boy was losing a pile of money to a group of well-dressed conventioneers. (Regional, mid-sized agribusiness VPs, mostly from Omaha and Ames, meeting in the Younes Convention Center, jackets on hooks on the wall, shirtsleeves rolled up, ties loosened, and wobbly drunk).
Bud strolled to the bar and parked himself on a stool, where he could watch the blonde watch the pool players.
He conferred with the bartender, who drew him a Dos Equis Amber from the tap and put up his order of a bowl of green chili and a stuffed chicken burrito, smothered with melted jack cheese and more chili, with beans and rice. Pico de gallo and chips on the side.
Bud leaned against the bar and watched the blonde. A cone of light from a copper fixture nearby pooled around her face and shoulders. Grey-green eyes, lovely cheekbones, and a big smile. She found something funny in the pool game, kept laughing, hiding behind her hand. Picked at the fries, didn’t mind getting messy. Licked her fingers. He liked that.
Took two failed marriages to learn that he had some variation of Relationship Deficit Disorder. He could be a great friend; not such a good husband. Needed a higher order of focus and attention to detail; didn’t have the Long Game.
Liked women, really liked them, how they smelled and tasted. Was good to them. Preferred them smart and funny. Had friends with benefits in several bigger cities. (Two where his ex-wives lived.) Would stop and make sure Belle got tuned up and serviced right every few months. Parked himself as well, sometimes for a week or more.
But mostly he connected with strangers, with benefits. Nurses, police officers, single moms running businesses in small towns, college professors, hardware store managers. He liked when a woman had a purpose; liked to hear her story. He would cook breakfast and sometimes lunch. Take them dancing. Always left them smiling.
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A gaggle of young women came in on the bar side, just old enough, preening while the bartender carded them, shining a UV light on their licenses and squinting at their faces. They took up a booth, giggling and ordering a pitcher of Coors and a platter of nachos. Probably from UN-Kearney, with part-time jobs and scholarships. Six girls. Nice. He could tell.
But the blonde, in her mid-30s, held more appeal. In profile, he liked her strong nose. Made her look like a beautiful prizefighter. There’s a good fantasy, he thought.
She turned to look at him. He smiled, nodded, raised his beer glass in greeting. Waited. She cocked her head, evaluating him and the situation for a handful of beats. Bent an index finger, then pointed to the table. He grabbed his beer; the bartender followed with the green chili and burrito hot from the kitchen. She moved the pile of plates to the side. Bud took a moment to set up, stealing fresh silverware from a neighboring table.
Exchanged names. Mary and Bud. Hoisted glasses and clinked. She offered a greasy fry, dripping with cheese; he took it, bit, chewed, and smiled in approval. Finished it off, and in turn dipped a chip into the fresh salsa. She let him feed it to her. Yep, that fast. Life is short; some people learn too late.
He saw the wedding ring. She noticed the glance and pulled up her jacket’s sleeve, pointing to her memorial bracelet.
“He’s been gone a while. Marine. Fought the good fight. I know he is waiting for me,” she said.
“Should I leave?” Bud asked. Mary shook her head.
“No, not at all.” She bit her lower lip, like she was thinking something over, then smiled. Another big smile.
The pool game was getting noisier, more moaning and groaning. The good-humored taunting acquired a little bit of an edge, louder. The drunken frat boy, who, now that Bud had time to look closer, was not so young, despite the grunge band clothing, and not so drunk.
With hesitation, and much cat-calling from the gallery, the too-old-to-be-in-college kid cleared the table from his break without a miss and gathered up three, no, four piles of money in his big hands. He walked towards their table, stumbling just a little. For effect, Bud decided.
Mary was choking behind the napkin she had held up against her mouth, face turning red from laughing too hard.
She dropped the napkin in her lap and took a deep, steadying breath. Bud quickly bussed the piled-up dirty dishes to a side booth. He grabbed a clean cloth napkin rolled around a set of silverware, dumped it out with a clatter, and spread the cloth in front of Mary, just in time for the pool shark to drop the bills on top, as if an offering to a favorite goddess.
The pool player, now stone cold sober, was giving Bud the lookover, head tilted, but then leaned over the table and held out his hand for Bud to shake. He was as tall as Bud, maybe 15 years younger, fit under the layers of worn plaid flannel, long hair like an artist, good-looking, with feral hazel eyes that glinted with moss and amber.
Said his name was Sam.
His hands were strong, but he didn’t play the macho game. Just a firm, professional handshake. Like a lawyer in a courtroom. Shake hands and come out fighting.
Sam straightened up, but then a small ruckus broke out behind him. It appeared that one of the corporate agridudes, the one who probably lost the most money, realized he’d been taken. His buddies thought it was funny, so he decided to avenge his honor and rushed the table, swinging at Sam with a pool cue like it was a Louisville Slugger®.
Suddenly, the beer-fueled agridude disappeared, as if the floor had opened up beneath him. From the shadows around the pool table a tall, broad-shouldered man in a green denim jacket emerged. He was holding a pool cue, which he likely used to knock the poor loser to the ground–probably, Bud thought, with a well-placed hit to the back of the knees.
The man in the denim jacket, still holding the pool cue, had a big smile on his face, and his green eyes twinkled. He stepped over Poor Loser’s inert body, which was heard to moan.
The other agribusiness buddies, pragmatists, were apologizing to Sam and Pool Cue Guy, helping their friend out the door.
It was then that Bud noticed the gun, a “baby Glock", cradled in Mary’s hand.
“Not necessary,” said Sam, looking mildly anxious.
Mary mouthed an “oops” and slid it behind her, under her shirt into the waistband of her jeans.
She shrugged at Bud, and he shrugged back.
For the first time, Pool Cue Guy seemed to notice Bud. He kept grinning, but his eyes stopped smiling. Bud knew the look. He held up his hands in surrender.
“Dean,” said Mary, using what Bud recognized as a Mom voice, “This is Bud. He is a friend. Sit down, and finish your fries.”
Took more than a couple minutes to sort things out. So, Mary, Sam, and the guy named Dean were sister and brothers. Mary was the youngest, but being a typically bossy tomboy, always ruled her older siblings, calling them “her boys”. She had drifted out of their lives for a long time after the death of her husband, but they'd recently been reunited by a very old family friend and were traveling together. Lived in Lebanon, Kansas. They’d all been brought up in the family business: bounty hunting.
“Not like that weird crew on television?” asked Bud.
Mary looked puzzled. Sam recoiled in mock horror and laughed.
Sam and Mary did most of the talking. And Dean ate and glared. He ate all of the remaining fries, then started in on Bud’s chips and pico de gallo, making a big point of fishing out the chopped up fresh Serrano peppers with his fingers and eating the pieces until his cheeks flushed red and his eyes watered. Only a coughing fit and a glare from Mary stopped him.
Bud simply pushed the bowls closer to Dean and bought the next round of beers. And more chips and salsa and smothered fries.
Bud talked about the road and his work with the animal shelters and the courts and the victim’s support program. When he started to talk about Belle, Dean sort of woke up. The two men disappeared outside for a while so Dean could introduce Baby to Bud, and Bud did the honors with Belle. Sam peeked in on them from the front door and reassured Mary that they wouldn’t have to dispose of any bodies that night.
Mary liked Bud. Liked his blue eyes, his smile, his broad shoulders, and his gentle demeanor. Liked his good manners and the strength that he carried well. He made her feel girly, something she hadn’t felt since returning to Earth.
She still felt confused about John. If what she experienced the last 20+ years in Heaven was an artificial construct of her family, and John was not in Heaven and appeared to be MIA from a hundred worlds, according to the latest reports, what was her status? Was she a widow? A war widow, with a missing husband, address unknown?
When she began to piece together what had happened after she died and learned about John’s second family and his dalliances, where did that leave her?
Meanwhile, at the very least, here was a very nice man, no shrinking violet, who barely lifted an eyebrow at the sight of her gun. And was not intimidated by Sam and Dean, even though Dean was playing Bad-Assed Older Brother to the hilt. Was surprised her son hadn’t gone out to the Impala and brought back a brace of guns and the grenade launcher to clean, maybe stripping down to his underwear and flexing, showing off his anti-possession tattoos and battle scars.
Mary excused herself from the table and negotiated with the bartender for a take-home pint container of the excellent salsa and a half dozen of the chicken burritos for tomorrow’s breakfast–for her and Dean.
(Sam had his Sam food ready at the bunker for his favorite fast-breaker: a yoghurt berry smoothie and an egg white omelet with green veggies. Broccoli. Yeah, broccoli.
Dean kept asking, at every meal, if Sam was adopted.
“You can tell me, Mom. The pregnancy was a fake, right?”
Dean and Mary ganged up on Sam one night and asked him if being poisoned by demon blood as a baby had cursed him with a lifetime of preferring carrots to cheeseburgers.
“Ha-ha-ha,” was the Stanford honor graduate’s reply.)
It was getting late. Home for the Winchesters was just a couple hours south into Smith County in Kansas. Bud asked Mary if she would like to ride back with him on Belle. She put a hand on the biker’s arm and smiled up at him.
“Always carry a spare helmet,” Bud said.
“I bet you do,” muttered Dean.
The two men faced each other, and Dean took a step forward.
Dean was about to make a fool of himself and try to play Dad in Absentia, while Sam pulled Mary back a few steps. Wouldn’t do for Mary either to end up as collateral damage or put both men in their places, denting their manly manhood.
-----
Fate intervened. The college girls, who were divvying up their bill a few minutes before, rushed up en masse to the Winchesters and Bud, all talking at once.
Mary took charge and calmed them down.
“Our friend Molly,” said one of the girls, gasping out the news. “She went to the bathroom a while back and disappeared. We can’t find her.”
Except for the bartender, the cook, and their two small parties, the bar was empty. The agribusiness guys had left long ago.
Or had they?
Dean and Bud headed out the front door, while Sam and Mary raced out the back.
The parking lot mostly was empty. Belle and Baby sat next to the front door, side by side. On the drive over, the girls had squeezed into an oversized gray Hondo Civic belonging to one of their fathers, which was parked off to the side. Around back were the two old beaters that were owned by the cook and bartender, both family men whose spare change went for prom dresses and college funds, not fancy cars.
And in the corner of the lot, next to a line of cottonwoods by a drainage ditch, a late model black SUV huddled. Had a rental car sticker on the driver’s side window warning potential thieves that the vehicle was LoJacked.
Mary and her three amigos all arrived at the SUV at the same time.
Someone had turned up the volume on an oldies classic rock station. The air around the SUV vibrated with a bass line set on stun.
Even so, they could hear a woman’s higher pitched voice, yelling a man’s name.
“So,” Dean said. “We gonna save the day or look like total jackasses? Or both?”
“I can live with that,” said Bud, thinking of the once-pretty girl who sat in the witness box the year before in Missouri, long hair drawn over her face to cover the scars from the business end of a broken beer bottle. And still, the It at the defense table nearly got away with rape and attempted murder because a lab technician fumbled a test.
Fast forward a moment. A week later Sam and Dean debated if Bud might have some supernatural ducks in his gene pool. Sam ate grilled catfish and a pile of homemade coleslaw with cream dressing while Mary and Dean and their new best friend, William Xavier Butler, aka Bud, gnawed through their third pile of the best Buffalo wings Kansas City, MO had to offer.
“Naw,” Bud said. “No magic.”
“I was just…upset.”
Back to our story.
And so it was the upset biker kicked in the passenger window of the SUV–it was self-defense, he later told the police detectives–with his steel toe biker boots. Then, he yanked the passenger door off with a growl.
Dean and Sam watched appreciatively, while Mary stepped forward. The woman’s touch, you know.
“Molly,” she yelled over the music, now pouring out of the SUV at top volume,
The side door slid open. What appeared to be one of the corporate VPs, stripped down to a dress shirt and brown socks, leapt from the interior of the vehicle and raced away at full speed.
About five feet into his flight he was tripped flat on his face by Dean. The downed agriguy squealed when his naked nether parts hit the pavement, hard.
Dean smiled and held up two fingers. Whether flashing a victory sign or counting coup for the evening, Bud was not clear. Then Dean planted his workman’s boot on the small of the downed Prince of Commerce’s back, which still was discreetly covered by his Lands End® white oxford shirt. Dean pushed down enough to get the dude weeping from the pain of naked, vulnerable flesh being ground into the gravel. Maybe Dean twisted his boot, just a little, for effect.
The cook and bartender had followed the crew out, called the cops, and went back into the restaurant and put a fresh pot of coffee on to brew. The cook made stacks of pancakes–on the house–as sort of a thank-you present. Kept the girls inside and occupied.
Sam held Bud back from where the culprit lay, talking him down. Mary said later it was like watching two first-string NFL players push it out with the big game on the line. (She did not say “looking hot” in front of her impressionable boys, but told Bud so two nights later, curled up in his arms in that really really nice Hampton Inn down in Derby, Kansas, the one with the luxury mattresses and thick walls.)
Mary retrieved Molly from the SUV. The college girl was okay, meaning traumatized and embarrassed, a few bruises, and the ruin of a favorite sweater. Just thought it would be a little necking, she said to no one in particular. The man just would not take No.
Parents began to arrive in a ragged convoy of station wagons, second-hand sedans, and farm trucks about the same time as the police. They comforted their crying daughters, who had morphed into little girls, at least just for the night. The fathers and brothers were upset and red-eyed. The women, well, let’s be glad that none of the fairer sex had brought any sharp objects with them. Lots of quilters in Kearney, the kind who use long-necked shears.
Dean allowed the agribusiness VP up on his feet and back into the SUV to put his clothes on. Something Bud whispered in the man’s ear under Sam’s protective eye, while they all waited for the police to arrive, made the man eager to confess everything to local law enforcement, including his being late on his child support payments, stealing two six-packs of beer from a convenience store in Seward the month before, and filing questionable tax deductions on his returns, circa 2008-2014.
Sam opined later that the poor slime bag would have confessed to Jimmy Hoffa’s murder if they had asked. Bud never told the Winchesters what he said.
Dean, Sam, and Mary swore that Bud’s kicking in the SUV's window was self-defense, and the cops were too tired to argue. Bud rode off with Mary that night.
“Don’t wait up,” she said.
Dean stood as if to follow, but Sam talked the cook into batching up a big pile of bacon and thick Texas toast, which put his brother into a comfortable food coma until they got back to the bunker, where he slept it off, and woke feeling okay, having sloughed off the weird feelings of protectiveness (jealousy?) and replaced them with some satisfaction that Mary was maybe having a little fun, something to ground her to this world so she wouldn’t want to call for Billie’s services too soon.
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Mary and Bud showed up in Lebanon a week later and met Dean and Sam for coffee in the town’s lone café. It then was decided that a get-to-know-you road trip over to KCMO for the best wings was in order.
Mary looked happy, Dean had to admit. She was wearing a red Harley t-shirt, which turned out to be a great color for her. (Behind her right shoulder a new tattoo hid, a small bouquet of red, sweetheart roses. Decided to wait until hot weather and bathing suit season to explain them to her boys.)
So, Mary found a friend with benefits, and Dean and Sam found a new ally. A very good ally it turned out…because when the three Winchesters decided to tell Bud about the Family Business over the wings and catfish, he interrupted them about four sentences in.
“Hunters. Cool. You guys do good work,” he said and ordered another pile of chicken wings. And another round of beers.
Applause, for the good guys.