Hondo took a drink of his beer as he glanced around on the room. The airnwas starting to get smoky and the conversations were gradually getting loader. Someone turned on the old June box in the corner and a few drunk patrons gathered around but to drunkenly sing a mix of country and classic rock. Hondo nodded to an empty bar stool on the bother side of Fernando.
 
Hondo:  Join us red. Sit down a spell. Rest you face and hands.
 
Some drunks sort of behind and off to the side of Hondo we're clinking there mugs of beer together in a cheer celebrating life. A couple raised theirs toward Hondonwho held his up towards them. The drunks cheered and they all took a big swig. Off in the back corner sat a shady looking group. They had drinks in front of them but they barely had dranknfrom them. They seemed to be watching people too, but Hondo had an unsettled feeling about them.
 
Hondo: Jefe, back left corner. Not touchin' their drinks. 'Bout 6 or 7 there. Groups likebthat don't come by on these bars to not drink.

"I see them" Fernando says to Hondo, taking the EMS Coin from his pocket and flips in the air. He catches it, and asks for a bottle of the cheapest rot gut on the house. The bartender hand over a bottle half full of who knows what's in it. Fernando opens the cork off it and smells it, it had the odor of the Former EPA SuperFund Site - The Gowanas Canal in Brooklyn on a hot summers day in New York. "What's in this stuff?..." He complains.
 
"Antifreeze, diesel fuel, gasoline, a bit of white white lightning..." The bartender lists off.
 
"Will it burn?" Fernando fills his shot glass with it and then sets it flaming with his cigarette lighter, "Looks like it does." before he stamps it out with the palm of his hand. He then asks, "Tell me about that group over there in the back corner."
 
"Ruff Ryder Boys. Not part of the highway gangs in these parts." The bartender explains.
 
"They been causin' problems?" Hondo asks.
 
"Not in town, and not to the market. But I hear you do not want to be caught alone on the highway with them." The bartender says.
 
"Got a plank of wood?" Fernando asks.
 
"Eh?" The bartender replies.
 
"Something this thick, this wide and this long?" Fernando asks.
 
"What you got in mind, Jefe?" Hondo asks as the bartender puts a plank of wood on the bar.
 
"Hopefully nothing, but just in case." Fernando takes the wood and looking about the mirrors around them to observe those in the back corner as he crosses his leg with the ankle at the knee and shoves the plank of wood into his pants leg, adjusting it into place in his boot covering an area from above his ankle to 1/2 way up his shin. "Jeanette, if any shooting happens, hide behind the bar. Hondo, come with me." He takes the bottle of rot gut with him to the back of the bar where the group was.
 
Walking up to them, he and Hondo notice them nudge each other into attention.
 
"This is a private meeting or can anyone join?" Fernando asks loud enough to be heard as he puts the bottle on the table.
 
"Nobody invited you." The most gnarly looking of the group growls at him.
 
"Let me show you something..." Fernando says as he puts foot on the table, angering them. Then he pulls out his 007 Knife flicks it open and rams it into the side of his shin (where the wooden plank was hidden). They look at him in astonishment for a minute. Fernando then turns to his side and shows off his shoulder and arm patches, "You listen to me - these colors may fade but they never run."
 
They all look at him with the apparent leader telling the ones at the end, "Get these men a couple of chairs."
 
The chairs brought over and Fernando and Hondo takes them.
 
"You a medic?" The leader says.
 
"I would not be wearing these color if I weren't." Fernando says.
 
"So why are you here?" The leader asks.
 
"I'm running a convoy of sick children heading down to Texas, and I'm trying to guarantee that they all get there safe. Since I heard you are riding on these highways, I'm asking for safe and unbothered passage for me and my sick kids. Nothing more." Fernando points out.
 
"What you have to offer?" The leader asks.
 
"Nothing, cause all the food and money I got goes to caring for them." Fernando tells him.
 
"You got nothing to offer and you want safe passage, you must be the dumbest man out there or the bravest." The leader says as the others laugh.
 
"I may have something, it depends on where you are going." Fernando points out.
 
The others continue to laugh, though the leader sit up high, "OK. I'll bite. We're representing at a gathering in the south west. We're just stopping by here."
 
"You mean Sturgis?" Fernando asks.
 
"You know about Store-Gist?" The leader asks.
 
"Sturgis, Burning Man, Real Man, LumberJack Nationals, been to them all though its been a while. As you can see I can't ride anymore, not like I used too." Fernando lists off as he shows off his leg with the knife still stuck to it and then asks, "When is the gathering happening?"
 
"Three weeks, more than enough time for us to get there." The Leader says.
 
"OK, Good. When you hit the roads to the west and get stopped, ask for Dirty Leon, and tell him that the Medic - me - says that he should go with you and represent at Sturgis. It should provide you safe passage through this area and you both will be representing. I'm not looking for butterflies and flower but this should be the start of something big and beautiful, if you get my meaning." Fernando tells him.
 
The leader nods at Fernando. Fernando nods back and then points at the bottle, "That stuff is better in your gas tank than in your belly. If you need anything before you go, we'll be at the medical campers in the back of the lot, I or my friend Hondo here will see what we can do for you. Let's go Hondo."

"Everything old is now new again, Hondo. These gangs do not know of anything about being a gang. All they care about is who they can beat to take what resources that are there. Not like the 1970s when things were more shared and out in the open and helping each other out with the problems that occurred." Fernando explains to Hondo, "Things need to be shared and on top of that, respected. For me it is never about 'Give me! Give me! Give Me!' but about what can we do with what we got for what we need. We need access to these roads. We got services that we can use in trade to get access to these roads, which is why in helping out that fist gang with a wreck they had we got access to the highways here and for the who know how any hundreds of miles. But that is only for this area, out side of that, I do not know what is going to happen. Things can a whole lot better if people shared."
 
He then turns to the bartender, "Any word on the G-Men hitting other towns?"

Moro is inside cleaning Hondo and Valentine's camper and sweeping it as if she has done this before. After all, space ships and their technology do not clean themselves.
 
Jeanette Isabelle

The bar tender notices the patch on Jeanette cloak. "Miss Red, you're really from the city of Spirits?"
 
"I am." Jeanette answers.  
 
"I hear those Spirits fixing old roads and expanding rail lines as far as Denver. Haven't seen anything around here."
 
Jeanette remembers what Moro said about Interstate 35. "Interstate 35 is drivable too."
 
"What's going on? You must know something."
 
"They are big advocates of people using rail systems. Other than that, I don't know what to tell you. I call them hippies and tree huggers. To me that's what they are."
 
Jeanette Isabelle