Chapter 17: The Memorial Run

The clerk sold us a charging cord for nine dollars, and he would not take a tip.

Ronan plugged the burner into the dash and stared at it until the screen showed four percent.

"Misty's gone," I said.

"I know."

"He'll bring her tonight. He needs her to tell Cyrus I'm lying."

"Then we go where he goes."

We went back for the Sportster.

It lay in the trees where Ronan had hidden it, with the handlebar bent.

I straightened it against a fence post with a tire iron in four hard pulls.

Ronan watched me do it, and the corner of his mouth went up.

Then he walked to the guardrail, where a prospect's bike sat with no key.

A road captain can start anything.

He had it running in under a minute.

We rode into the dusk with the burner zipped inside my jacket, still charging off a cord I had run from my battery.

Seventy miles later, we came to the quarry road.

The line of bikes stretched back as far as I could see.

Hundreds of headlights moved down the gravel in a slow, grinding column.

Club after club from three states, in their colors, with the dead brothers' names painted on their tanks.

Memorial Run.

My father had ridden it every year for thirty years.

He had made me ride it at nineteen, behind him, with my arms around his waist.

I took my place at the back of the column.

Ronan fell in behind me.

He rode last, the way he had for two years.

But he rode with his headlight right on my rear wheel, and it did not feel like being followed.

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