“Every damn time.”
Cassie looked around.
“That’s the story I want to document.”
Derek folded his arms.
“That was fifty years ago.”
Cassie faced him.
“So?”
“So things change.”
“Then I document that too.”
“You think you can understand us in a couple weekends?”
“No.”
Derek looked almost disappointed by the answer.
Cassie continued.
“That’s why I’m asking for months.”
Maria chuckled.
“I like her.”
Graham turned toward the group.
“I’m staying out of the vote.”
Cassie stared at him.
“Dad.”
“You wanted to earn it.”
He moved toward the bar.
“So earn it.”
Hank smiled.
“That mean we actually have to vote?”
Maria raised her hand.
“I say yes.”
A man near the jukebox raised his.
Another followed.
Then another.
Derek remained seated.
Hank looked around.
“Anyone strongly opposed?”
Derek lifted a hand halfway.
Everyone stared.
He slowly lowered it.
“I said strongly.”
That earned another laugh.
Hank pointed toward Cassie.
“One month probation.”
Cassie blinked.
“Probation?”
“You ride when we ride.”
“You show up when you say you will.”
“You don’t publish anything without clearing private details.”
“No photos of members who don’t agree.”
“No club business that could hurt anybody.”
“And if someone says something is off record, it stays off record.”
Cassie nodded.
“Agreed.”
Hank extended a weathered hand.
She shook it.
“Welcome to the experiment, kid.”
Cassie smiled.
She thought the difficult part was finished.
Three days later, she discovered she had been catastrophically wrong.
Her first official ride began at 5:40 on a Sunday morning.
Cassie walked into the garage behind her house wearing two sweatshirts beneath a borrowed riding jacket.
Graham looked at her.
“You’re going to roast.”
“It’s forty-two degrees.”
“It won’t be in two hours.”
Cassie looked skeptical.
Graham pointed toward a storage cabinet.
“Take one sweatshirt off.”
She did.
He handed her gloves.
“Helmet.”
“I have one.”
“Show me.”
She brought it out.
Graham inspected the chin strap, padding, and certification label.
“Good.”
Cassie sighed.
“You know I’ve ridden with you before.”
“Ten miles to get ice cream.”
“It still counts.”
“It absolutely does not.”
The Iron Wolves assembled at Rusty’s before sunrise.
Twenty-two motorcycles stood in rows beneath parking lot lights.
Engines coughed awake one after another.
Cassie climbed onto the passenger seat behind Graham.
Derek noticed.
“So much for documenting independently.”
Graham looked at him.
“She’s seventeen.”
“Just saying.”
Maria smacked Derek’s shoulder as she walked past.
“Try surviving one morning without being annoying.”
The group pulled onto Highway 9 shortly after six.
For the first thirty minutes, Cassie understood why people romanticized riding.
The town disappeared behind them.
Streetlights became trees.
Cold autumn air rushed around her helmet.
The sunrise appeared over distant hills in bands of orange and pale yellow.
She felt the rhythm of her father’s Harley beneath her.
Nothing separated her from the landscape except speed.
Then the romantic part ended.
Her lower back began hurting.
Twenty minutes later, her knees hurt.
Then her shoulders.
Then muscles she did not know existed started protesting.
The wind that had felt exhilarating became exhausting.
Every time a truck passed in the opposite direction, the pressure pushed against her helmet.
After two hours, she was silently begging for a stop.
She refused to say so.
At the first rest area, Graham parked.
Cassie climbed off carefully.
Her legs nearly folded.
Maria saw.
“Enjoying freedom?”
Cassie glared at her.
Maria laughed.
“First long ride kicks everybody’s ass.”
Cassie stretched.
“I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.”
Maria handed her water.
Cassie drank half the bottle immediately.
Maria leaned against her motorcycle.
“Your father tell you why they let me ride with them?”
Cassie shook her head.
“No.”
Maria lit a cigarette.
“1978.”
“My husband, Luis, rode with the Wolves.”
She looked toward the mountains.
“Good rider.”
“Better mechanic.”
“Terrible dancer.”
Cassie smiled.
Maria’s expression grew distant.
“He was killed eleven miles from here.”
Cassie stopped smiling.
“Drunk driver crossed the center line.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Forty-seven years ago.”
Maria exhaled smoke.
“Still hurts on certain mornings.”
Cassie looked toward Maria’s vest.
“Were you already a member?”
Maria laughed.
“Women weren’t members.”
“Not then.”
“What happened?”
“I showed up to Luis’s memorial ride wearing his cut.”
Cassie stared.
“That was allowed?”
“Absolutely not.”
Maria smiled.
“Hank nearly had an aneurysm.”
Across the parking lot, Hank shouted, “I can hear you.”
“You were an idiot!”
“I was thirty-two!”
“Exactly.”
Maria turned back to Cassie.
“I told them I was riding.”
“They said no.”
“So I rode anyway.”
“For two years, I showed up.”
“Rain.”
“Heat.”
“Funerals.”
“Breakdowns.”
“Charity runs.”
“Everything.”
“And eventually?”
“They stopped asking when I was leaving.”
Cassie looked at Maria with new respect.
Maria flicked ash onto the pavement.
“That’s how places like this work.”
“Your father got you through the door.”
“But if you want them to tell you real things, you keep showing up.”
She glanced toward Derek.
“Especially when somebody makes it uncomfortable.”
As though summoned by his own name, Derek walked over.
“Break’s over in five.”
Maria smiled.
“See?”
Cassie tightened her ponytail.
“I’ll survive.”
Derek looked her over.
“We’ll see.”
The next section of the ride lasted nearly three hours.
Cassie stopped thinking about comfort.
She watched formation changes.
Hand signals.
The way riders communicated with gestures instead of words.
When a member near the rear experienced mechanical trouble, everyone pulled over.
Nobody complained.
Nobody left him behind.
Hank and Graham crouched beside the motorcycle while Derek removed tools from a saddlebag.
Within twenty minutes, the problem was solved.
Cassie scribbled notes furiously.
At a roadside diner outside Millbrook, the group occupied four booths.
Cassie barely finished sitting before Hank dropped into the seat opposite her.
“You want history?”
“Yes.”
He wrapped both hands around his coffee.
“1969.”
Cassie opened her notebook.
“My brother Jimmy and I bought bikes within a week of each other.”
“Mine was blue.”
“His was red.”
“We spent money we didn’t have and lied to our mother about what they cost.”
“What happened?”
Hank stared into the coffee.