The Ballad of the Wild Wolves

“And the dust in throat I crave
Only knowledge will I save
To the game you stay a slave

Rover, wanderer
Nomad, vagabond
Call me what you will...”

Metallica,
Wherever I May Roam


“I looked out on the big field, on the big field
It opens, like the cover of an old bible
And out come the wolves
Out come the wolves!
Their paws trampling in the snow of the alphabet
I stand on my head and watch it all go away...”

Rancid,
Junkie Man



***

The Last Ride

Rugged engines growled their warnings
Belting out a chorus
of gasoline rage across
the asphalt
and the dead wastes
Skysteel blades and chains
Spiritshot rifles and worn knuckles
Teeth sharpened for the sunrise war

The Last Ride

Every Wolf knew it
Every Wolf laughed it off
with high howls in the wind
and the rising sun
The Dead Beasts didn’t know
the force they’d stirred and sullied
The Pack...

Val raised her leather fist
and the howls intensified with engines revved
in a guttural metal hymn
Loud enough to make The Dead Beasts
pause...

And the fist came down
and the Wild Wolves were riding...

*

Drive back
reverse along the road
and see these desert hills and bluffs
for what they were then
The Terrain of Pain
Bone dry Valley of Tears
and fears
aplenty
The Faceless Possessed
and countless wandering devils of
every size and sinister smile
rode through the barren corners
of distant, bygone America
All cities and civilized minds
miles beyond
and those left behind to tend
roadhouses and depots
small towns and knuckle-busting farms
were at the mercy of long shadows
and bitterly dark nights

This was country without sentinels
Maximus Drake carried on in the east
Mary the Mountain was long gone
The Green Lady stayed in the woods and fields
and The Drifter’s feet only carried him so far so fast
Heroes died in agony
and solemn desert glare
and the cackling crow laughter of Hell

Lots of ways they say it started
The old road mechanic who came to Arizona
had a knack for ideas with skysteel
and bullets of old magic
Some say it was when big bad Lobo Loco
lost his eye in the Barnstorm barfight
where he killed three dark mage riders
with his own two hands
Young riders, full of stories
will say
it was the Stand at Whiskey Street, in the sands of Nevada
when the full Pack
shot down and beat down
Beretta Bob and his Midnight Tramps
But one thing they all say
and we all know…

When they heard the howling whistle of Val Krieger,
Ol’ Alpha Mama herself,
the Pack howled back
and rode where she pointed her leather fist

Her mother a Navajo, her father a highway badge
One gunned down before she knew him,
the other teaching her spirit magic in the long nights
before road devils took her, too
Val was a sinister force to sinister forces
A leather glove studded with her mother’s
turquoise beads and sweat and blood
She rode an old trooper hog stripped to the chrome
and carried a scratched skysteel knife she killed for
No devil, no specter, no hellspawn bastard dealing death on the road
screwed with Mama Val Krieger

She grabbed Lobo Loco and his big bear’s bellow of a laugh
She brought in Angel Barrister and her brother Boozer
Screwy Sam, that old nut
introduced them all to his wares and weapons
his engines and toys of death to demons
and to the man who kept him alive and kicking
the infamous Throttle Jack

No one knows if his mother really was
that voodoo woman who walked alone,
but Throttle Jack wore the dreadlocks of her people
Dark as the asphalt of a new paved road
Were his skin and his eyes
A jaw and muscles forged in fistfights to the death
And a pair of rusty dog tags
he never took off
Throttle Jack could fight
Goddamn it, he could fight
like a madman only just holding in check
his eyes would flare
and the demon before him
knew it was going back to the void on a bareknuckle freight train
He could fight
He could ride
He could shoot and lead
And he could look the Alpha Mama in the eye without flinching
She looked right back
and loved him

Lobo Loco laughed his broad ass off
during that Barnstorm fight
the skuzzy skull of a road devil in each hand
and hollered
“You’re lobos like me, goddamn it!
Mira! Look at you growl and bite and fight!
We’re all wild wolves!!!”
And the name stuck
and was cheered with beer across all roads


Demons and ghouls
Specters and fools
would hit the hills screaming
when they heard those wolf engines coming
when they saw Krieger and her Wild Wolves on the ride

After a spell…

The demons and devils
and all their kin
hid in the small places
retreated to the cities and far forests
The wild highways weren’t safe for their shadows anymore
Not with those engines howling and howling high…
Because when you were a spirit of evil
sucking down the souls and hopes
of people just trying to move along
When you were a spirit of evil
and the Pack found you…

Val raised her leather fist
and the howls intensified with engines revved
in a guttural metal hymn
Loud enough to make demons and all of Hell
pause...

And the fist came down
and the Wild Wolves were riding...


One day in the dead of dead days
They came
Abominations in leather
Chromeye Callaghan showed
with helliron stitched into his mottled skin
His succubus slut on the back of his bike
her eyes spitting fire, her grin promising pain
They came leading demon creatures on wheels
to take the roads back
No one had seen the Pack
Since quite a while back
The road was ripe for The Dead Beasts’ attack

She came for Lobo Loco in El Paso
She found Screwy Sam coughing up a lung in his garage,
enough spit and piss left in him
for one more fix of skysteel and demon death
Angel and Boozer left Vegas the second they heard the word
Throttle Jack…
He hadn’t seen Val in seven years
Not since she’d lost the light they made…
She had no idea if he’d show

Mustered in a burned down roadhouse,
the Pack drank and smoked
laughed and joked
They knew they were outnumbered
to hell and back
and still raised mugs to the morning’s attack

And then Throttle Jack…
He walked in with eyes on hers
Eyes that fought
Goddamn it he could fight
And Val knew
he could love
And all that night before death and glory,
He loved her
Their Alpha Mother

Then
The Red Morning
The Last Ride

Every Wolf knew it
Every Wolf laughed it off
with high howls in the wind
and the rising sun
The Dead Beasts didn’t know
the force they’d stirred and sullied
The Pack...

Val raised her leather fist
and the howls intensified with engines revved
in a guttural metal hymn
Loud enough to make The Dead Beasts
pause...

And the fist came down

Blood both red and black
Guns fired and blades hacked
A dusty storm of death and magic light
flashing to kill
Engines
Cries
Roars and screams
And howls
Holy hell and mother in heaven, the howls…

Angel took the succubus’ head before
a demon claw took her heart
Boozer shot down all six of the beasts that mauled him
before his bourbon breath gave out
But it took fifteen
FIFTEEN
of the bastards to take Lobo Loco to the ground
laughing his broad ass off
to the very end

Chromeye Callaghan had lost an arm
The helliron hand he still had left
was on Throttle Jack’s bleeding throat
bleeding him out in a cruel joke
before that scratched skysteel knife found his heart
and Val still held it when she fell
the shots to her stomach too much for even her
she fell
into Throttle Jack’s arms
and there they laid in the dust and the blood and the victory

Did you hear
a boy the Beasts had taken
told the story of that Last Ride
Did you hear
They found the weapons
and the bikes
and the dust and the blood
and the shells of the Beasts
but no bodies of the Pack

Did you hear
that when the sun is high on the highway
Did you hear
that when the moon hangs low over the desert hills
When a devil or a vamp
or a specter or a plain evil scamp
makes deals to take the roads all back
you can hear…
you can hear the howls of the Pack…

Their rugged engines will growl a warning
with teeth sharpened for one more war…