Then the repo man took the car. Turns out Arthur Miller didn't leave much of a paper trail, and without a ring on my finger, I was just a roommate to the state of California. Cole felt a slow, heavy guilt settling into his gut. When Dutch wrapped his bike around that semi-truck, the club had thrown a wake. They drank whiskey until they couldn't stand, brawled in the street, and burned a set of tires in his honor.
They mourned the biker. They completely forgot the man had a life outside the clubhouse doors. "Why didn't you reach out?" Jimmy asked, flicking his cigarette into the dust. "You had to know where to find us.
Oakland charter. Reach out for what?" Selena snapped, her eyes flashing. "Charity? Protection?
Dutch kept us separate for a reason. He loved the life, but he knew what it was. I wasn't about to bring my son into a clubhouse full of outlaws begging for diaper money." She looked away, staring down the long empty stretch of Route 93. "We packed what we could carry, got on a Greyhound heading east, ran out of money here.
The owner of the Oasis lets us sleep in a broken-down Airstream out back in exchange for double shifts." Cole looked past her to the diner. He saw the teenager still behind the counter, oblivious, and thought of the rusted, dilapidated trailer hidden behind the grease traps. He looked back at Chris. The kid was peeking out from behind his mother's denim jacket, his blue eyes fixed on Cole.
"He built that toy for him." Selena whispered, her anger suddenly draining out into the hot wind, leaving only exhaustion. "Spent 3 months in the garage machining the parts, painted it to match his own rig, gave it to Chris for his fifth birthday. A week later, he was dead on the tarmac. The silence returned, heavier this time.
Wyatt stared at his scuffed boots. Jimmy looked off towards the horizon. Two young prospects standing near the bikes stood rigidly at attention, silently absorbing the heavy reality of the life they had signed up for. Cole reached into his chest pocket and pulled out his sunglasses. He slid them onto his face, hiding his eyes.
He needed a barrier between himself and the raw, unvarnished pain radiating from the woman standing in front of him. "He was a good man, your Dutch." Cole said. It sounded inadequate. It sounded cheap.
But it was true. "He was wild and he made his mistakes, but he took a bullet for me once. Didn't even blink. Just stepped in the way." Selena swallowed hard. ""He thought the world of you, Cole.
He mentioned your name a lot."" Cole nodded slowly. He looked at the kid again. "Chris." He said, pitching his voice so it carried over the ambient hum of the highway. ""You like the Evo engine, huh?"" Chris peeked out a little further. He nodded once. ""You ever sit on a real one?"" Selena tensed, but Cole held up a hand. ""Just to sit, Selene.
I ain't taking him anywhere. I swear it on the patch."" Selena looked at Cole's weathered face. She looked at the heavy leather, the scars, the dirt. Then she looked at her son, who had spent the last two years dragging a piece of metal through the dirt, pretending it was the only piece of his father he had left. Slowly, she unhanded Chris's shoulder.
Cole turned and walked toward his bike. It was a massive, stripped-down Road King, painted matte black, smelling of hot oil and scorched rubber. He threw a leg over the saddle, righted the heavy machine, and kicked up the stand. He patted the leather seat in front of him. ""Come here, kid."" Chris walked forward, hesitant at first, his sneakers dragging in the gravel. When he reached the bike, he stopped, craning his neck to look up at the massive chrome handlebars.
Cole reached down, grabbed the boy under the armpits, and hoisted him up. Chris was shockingly light. Cole settled him onto the front of the saddle. "Grab the grips." Cole instructed.
Chris reached out and wrapped his small, dirty hands around the thick rubber grips. His face broke into a wide, awestruck smile. It was the exact same lopsided grin Dutch used to flash right before he did something incredibly stupid. "Now." Cole said, reaching down, "Turn this."
He guided Chris's hand to the ignition switch. With a heavy click, the electrical system engaged. ""Hit the starter. That button right there."" Chris pushed it with his thumb. The starter motor whined for a fraction of a second before the massive 103-cubic-inch V-twin exploded to life. The exhaust note was deafening, a concussive roar that vibrated through the frame, up through the saddle, and straight into the boy's chest.
Chris gasped, his eyes going wide as saucers, but he didn't let go of the grips. He laughed, a loud, genuine, chaotic laugh that cut right through the mechanical din. Cole let the bike idle, that heavy, rhythmic potato, potato, potato sound echoing off the diner walls. He looked over at Wyatt and gave a short, sharp nod. Wyatt didn't need words.
He knew the drill. The big man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thick leather wallet attached to a heavy silver chain. He opened it and pulled out a wad of cash, hundreds, 50s, crumpled 20s. He didn't count it. He just folded it in half.
He walked over to Jimmy and held out his hand. Jimmy pulled out a roll of bills from his front pocket and added it to the stack. The two prospects hurried over, emptying their pockets, tossing in their meager cash without hesitation. Wyatt walked over to Selene. He held out the thick bundle of paper.
It had to be close to $3,000. Selene took a step back, shaking her head aggressively. ""No, I can't. I told you I don't want club money."" "It ain't club money." Wyatt grunted, his deep voice brokering no argument. "It's a debt.
Dutch paid into the fund for 15 years. When a brother goes down, his family gets looked after. We didn't know you existed. That's our failure. Consider this back pay."
"I don't need "Take the money, Selene." Cole called out over the idling engine. He killed the ignition and the silence rushed back in. "You're living in a tin can behind a grease trap. Dutch would crawl out of his grave and beat us all half to death if we left you here like this."
Selene looked at the money. Her hands trembled. $3,000 meant a security deposit on an apartment. It meant clothes that fit Chris. It meant a bus ticket back to civilization. Slowly she reached out and took the cash, clutching it tightly against her chest.
Tears finally spilled over her lower lids, tracking through the dust on her cheeks. "Thank you." She whispered. Cole lifted Chris off the bike and set him gently back on the ground. The boy immediately ran to his mother, wrapping his arms around her waist, still clutching his red toy motorcycle in one hand.
Cole reached into his vest, pulled out a small black Sharpie, and grabbed a napkin off a discarded tray near the ice machine. He scribbled a phone number on it and walked over to Selene, tucking the napkin into the pocket of her denim jacket. "That's a direct line to the Oakland clubhouse." Cole said. His voice was entirely devoid of sentimentality.
It was pure, hard business. "You get out of this dust bowl, you get a place, and if you ever need anything, if a landlord leans on you, if a boss cheats your hours, if the kid needs school books, you call that number. You tell them Cole said Dutch's boy needs looking after. Understand?" Selene looked at him, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
She nodded. ""I understand."" Cole looked down at Chris. ""Keep practicing that idle, kid. When you're 18, you bring that red bike to Oakland. We'll see if you can ride a real one."" Chris nodded solemnly, his blue eyes shining. Cole turned his back on them. He didn't say goodbye.
Bikers rarely did. He walked back to his Road King, strapped his helmet on, and threw his leg over the seat. Wyatt, Jimmy, and the prospects mounted up behind him. Cole fired the engine. The others followed suit, a cascading thunder of iron and combustion that shook the ground.
Cole kicked it into gear, rolled on the throttle, and let the clutch out. The pack peeled out of the cracked asphalt lot of the Oasis Diner, kicking up a massive cloud of white dust. They hit Route 93 and accelerated hard, shifting up through the gears, forming back into their tight, staggered wedge. They left the diner behind, just a speck in the rearview mirrors. But as Cole stared down the long shimmering ribbon of highway ahead, the ache in his back didn't feel quite so bad.
The Nevada sun still beat down mercilessly, and the dust still caked his boots, but the heavy silence inside his own head had shifted. They were outlaws, criminals to some, ghosts on the highway to most. But, out here in the brutal heat of the desert, they had paid a debt. They had balanced the scales. Cole rolled the throttle back, leaning into the wind, and let the roar of the engine carry him home.