The Savage President

long brick building squatted at the edge of the dead mill yard with its windows boarded and its roof patched in three kinds of tin, and over the steel door someone had wel

n the morning, alone, with th

lnut ran down the middle of the floor, twelve chairs on each side and a thirteenth at the head, and above the table hung the skull-and-chain flag that h

f the table s

ur presidents before him had held it. Two of them had died in office. One had walked away with a bullet in his spine. Cade had picked it up at twenty-

ad sat three seats down on the left. His chair was empty. It would stay empty until the c

e out on Monday nigh

and for a moment he

's older brother, Daniel, then twenty-four and the only family he had left, had been running errands for the Saints. A small debt, a small delivery

He remembered the room. He remembered the smell of cheap beer and old blood. He remembered seeing Daniel on the floor with

er, afterward, was mos

in voices still shaking, that the kid had gone into a place nobody could follow, that he had not shouted or cursed, had not even looke

said, looking at the bloody bar and the boy sta

use a name like that kept people from testing you, and a man who

he was proud. Then one wet night on the river road a truck had crossed the center line, and

yes. The Foundr

◆

nna freeze

offee balanced in one hand, her dark hair shoved up in a clip that was losing its fight against gravity. She was twenty-six years old and had been a paramedic for fo

ine,"

and dropped into the chair at his right. "Boone

talks t

ied his face with a clinician's eye, the way she studied the people she dr

es

he

day. Pr

r jacket and slid it across the walnut like a poker chi

than he had known. For a minute the only sounds were the crinkle of fo

" Tessa said at last. "She

o ash in his mouth. "

e said he'd been scared for weeks. He told her he'd seen something at the Parkersburg hando

N

you

Tess. What did you

hed across the table and caught her hand. It was cold

pushed him. He was trying to tell

x it by punis

tch

house's only unboarded window, where the first blade of dawn had begun to cut through the d

no pro

s fingers once and stood.

ays you've got a new bartender. Says she's got a mechanic's

talks t

Tessa said, and went ou

◆

Foundry had b

and the first tired Saints trailed after. Cade moved among them with a nod here and a word there, and at each

room. Ten days ago he would hav

ne since they were boys, and Cade made himself smile and did not flinch. The blood he had seen on Hatchet's sleeve at the river road was gone. The

ation Hatchet had offered in a week, an

hell, brother

d see the

t was a good grin, the same one that had gotten them out of a hun

t y

he

n I

d, and shrugged, and moved on to the coffee. And Cade watched him go and thought, with a feeling

door bang

d, and skidded to a stop on the concrete with his chest heaving. In his arms he carried so

rez, somebody left th

d. His chair scraped back across the

nut table and, with fingers th

ast, where the patch should have been, there was a name stitched in white thread: KELLER. And pinned beneath it with a rusty nail, so that it wou

ident of the Reapers' Ghost, the man

him on Tuesday morning. Cade had stood at t

hat someone h