'You came back.'
Sully looked at him for a long moment. 'I said I would remember.'
Hank interrupted with the indignant confidence of a man accustomed to claiming the first and last word. 'Whoever you are, this boy is in my custody. He ran away from a state placement. The deputy here is helping me return him.'
Sully slowly turned his head. 'And you are?'
'Hank Dawson. His foster father.'
The title seemed to strike Sully harder than the man's size or the bat on the ground. He looked at Leo again, then at the bruises beginning to show beneath the boy's collar. He did not need an explanation for every injury to understand that something was terribly wrong.
'Is this the man you were afraid of?' he asked Leo.
Leo nodded once. The movement cost him more than he wanted anyone to see.
Sully stepped between the boy and Hank. 'Then you take your hands off him.'
Hank spread his arms. 'You can't interfere with a legal matter.'
'What legal matter?' Sully asked. 'The one where a seventeen-year-old is bleeding on the ground while you wave a bat at him?'
Deputy Higgins cleared his throat. He had recovered enough of his composure to remember that the patch on his sleeve represented an office larger than himself. He squared his shoulders and stepped out from beside the vehicle.
'I'm Deputy Carl Higgins, Mohave County Sheriff's Office,' he announced. 'You men need to back off. We have this under control.'
Sully looked at the deputy's vehicle, then at the boy's injuries, and finally at Higgins. 'Under control looks different where I come from.'
'You don't understand the situation.'
'Then explain it to me. Start with why that kid asked for help and you didn't give it.'
Higgins opened his mouth, but no answer came quickly enough. Behind Sully, a tall rider with a broad braided beard had stepped away from the front row of motorcycles. His cut identified him as Arthur Callahan, though everyone knew him as Ox. At six feet seven inches he was imposing even among the men around him, yet he walked with the careful balance of someone who understood exactly how much space he occupied.
'Nobody needs to touch a gun,' Ox said quietly to the deputy. 'Not with a boy standing in the middle of all this.'
Higgins's fingers hovered near his holster. He looked past Ox and saw the wide semicircle of riders watching every movement. Some had phones out. Others stood with helmets under their arms. The fact that so many people were paying attention made the deputy more frightened than shouting would have.
'You threatening me?' Higgins asked.
'I'm telling you everyone here wants this to end without a shot,' Ox replied. 'That includes you.'
Higgins lowered his hand. He tried to look offended, but he took one step backward and stayed close to his vehicle.
Sully turned toward Leo. 'Talk to me. Who hurt you?'
Leo's voice came out small. 'Hank. Before I ran, too. He broke my ribs. He made us work for him. He keeps food locked away. There's two other kids in that house.'