Can you ride this? You bet I can. The Nevada Sun hung low on Highway 95, painting the asphalt in shades of copper and rust. Jackson Reeves felt the familiar rumble of his Harley beneath him. A 2023 Road King black as midnight chrome gleaming like polished bone.
The wind carved around his leather jacket, around the faded Hell's Angel's insignia on his back, around 20 years of choices he couldn't take back. He was 58 years old, old enough to know better, too old to change. The highway stretched ahead like a promise no one intended to keep. Empty, endless, just the way he liked it. Jackson had left Carson City that morning with no destination in mind.
Just needed to ride. Needed the engine's growl to drown out the silence in his head. 6 years since Diane died. 6 years, two months, and 14 days if anyone was counting. He was counting.
The town of Dusty Ridge appeared like a mirage. A scatter of buildings clinging to the roadside, desperate and defiant. Population sign said 342. Jackson figured that was optimistic. Places like this were dying, slow, bleeding people to the cities, to anywhere with a future.
He wasn't here for the future. His gas gauge hovered near empty. His throat was dry. And there up ahead, a diner with a flickering neon sign that read Holloway's rest in letters that had seen better decades. Jackson downshifted, felt the bike respond beneath him like a living thing.
The parking lot was cracked asphalt and faded yellow lines. Three vehicles total, a rusted pickup truck that looked like it had survived the Cold War, a Honda Civic with mismatched panels, and something else that caught his eye. A Harley, old, dusty, sitting off to the side like a forgotten promise. He pulled into a spot and killed the engine. The sudden silence was louder than the ride.
Jackson sat for a moment, hands still on the grips, breathing in the desert air. Sage and dust and gasoline. The smell of the American West. The smell of going nowhere. He swung his leg over the bike and stood.
His boots hit the ground with a sound like judgment. 6'2", 220 lb of muscle going soft around the edges. Gray threading through his beard. Lines around his eyes from squinting into too many sunsets. The diner looked like it belonged in a different era.
Metal sighting, big windows, a handpainted menu board visible through the glass. The kind of place that served coffee in thick ceramic mugs and didn't give a damn about Yelp reviews. Jackson started toward the entrance, then stopped. A sound faint but unmistakable. An engine trying to turn over, failing, trying again.
The wet choking cough of a flooded carburetor. Then a woman's voice, low and fierce. Come on, you son of a [ __ ]. Don't do this to me. Jackson turned toward the sound.
Around the side of the building in the gravel lot behind the diner, he saw her. A woman, old, maybe 70, short gray hair, catching the last of the sunlight, thin framed shoulders squared like a boxer's. She stood beside the Harley. He'd notice one hand on the handlebars, the other gripping the starter with white knuckles. The motorcycle was a soft tail.
Mid '90s Jackson guest. Maybe a 1995 heritage. It had been beautiful once. Black paint, chrome accents, leather saddle bags worn soft by years and weather. But time and neglect had done their work.
Rust bloomed along the exhaust pipes like cancer. The chrome was dull spotted. The leather cracked and faded. The woman yanked the starter again. The engine coughed, sputtered, died.
God damn it. She kicked the rear tire hard, like it had personally betrayed her. Jackson found himself walking toward her. He didn't decide to. His feet just moved.
Ma'am, his voice came out rougher than intended. You need some help. She spun around. Her eyes were sharp blue, the kind of blue you see in winter skies just before a storm. She looked him up and down the leather jacket, the tattoos visible on his neck and hands, the beard, the boots, the angel's insignia, reading him the way you'd read a warning label on something dangerous.
I don't need charity, she said. Wasn't offering charity, just asking a question. They stood there in the gravel, sizing each other up. The sun slipped lower, shadows stretched long across the desert floor. "You know bikes? " she asked finally.
"Some? " She gestured at the Harley with something between affection and contempt. This piece of junk was my husband's. He died 9 years ago. I haven't touched it since. Haven't even tried to start it until today.
Jackson moved closer, studied the bike with a mechanic's eye. The tires were cracked, dry rotted. The fuel line looked suspect. The battery was probably dead as last year's dreams. "Why today? " he asked.
The woman's jaw tightened. Her right hand trembled slightly. She noticed him noticing and shoved the hand into her cardigan pocket. Because I need to get to Boulder City. My car's dead.
The bus doesn't run out here anymore. Taxi won't come this far. And this, she patted the Harley's dusty tank, is the only other option I've got. Boulder City's 45 minutes away on a good bike. This one, I know, her voice cracked just for a second.
Then she pulled it back together, rained it in like a horse about to bolt. I know it's a long shot, but I need to try it, though. Jackson crouched beside the bike, popped open the inspection cover. The smell hit him immediately. Old oil gone thick.
Gasoline that had turned to varnish. 9 years of sitting still while the world moved on. What's in Boulder City that's so important? The woman pulled a prescription bottle from her pocket. Empty.
She shook it like it might magically refill itself. Medication for Parkinson's. Her hand trembled again, more visibly now. She didn't try to hide it this time. I ran out this morning.
The pharmacy here closed 6 months ago. Nearest one is Boulder City. I need to get there today before. She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to.
Jackson stood slowly, looked at the bike, looked at the woman, looked at the sun getting lower, the desert getting darker. This bike won't make it, he said. Spark plugs are shot, carburetors probably varnished shut. Batteries dead than disco. Even if we got it running, it had died 10 miles down the road and leave you stranded.
The woman's shoulders sagged instead. Just a fraction, just enough for Jackson to see the weight she was carrying, the weight of being alone, of being sick, of being out of options. Then I guess that's it. She turned away from him, stared out at the desert, at the emptiness. I guess that's just it.
Jackson thought about his own bike, thought about the road ahead, thought about Diane in a hospital bed, her hand in his, her voice barely a whisper. Promise me you'll help people, Jackson, when you can. Promise me you won't just ride away from everything. He'd promised. Then he'd spent 6 years doing exactly what he'd promised not to do.
Ma'am, he said, "Look at me. " She turned, those blue eyes, that storm sky blue. My bike's out front, running good. I can get you to Boulder City in 40 minutes. I don't know you. No, you don't.
You could be anyone. Could be dangerous. I'm someone with a working motorcycle and 40 minutes to spare. And you're someone who needs help. He paused.
Sometimes that's enough. She studied his face. He let her look. Let her see whatever she needed to see. The lines around his eyes, the gray in his beard, the roadworn leather, the club insignia that marked him as either salvation or trouble depending on who was looking.
"Why would you do that? " she asked. "For a stranger? " Jackson thought about that about Diane. About all the promises broken and kept about 6 years of running from everything that mattered. "Because someone I loved would want me to. " The woman's eyes softened just slightly. Just enough.
She looked at her husband's Harley one more time. Ran her hand along the dusty tank. A gesture of goodbye or apology or both. Then she looked back at Jackson. What's your name?
Jackson Reeves. Beatatric Holloway. She extended her hand. The tremor was visible now. She didn't try to hide it anymore.
People call me be. Jackson took her hand. Her grip was stronger than it looked, stronger than it had any right to be. Let me get my medication bag from inside. Beatric said.
Give me 2 minutes. She started toward the diner, then stopped, turned back. Jackson: Yes, ma'am. Can you ride, I mean really ride, fast enough to get there before dark, before the pharmacy closes? He looked at her, looked at the desperation wrapped in dignity, looked at a woman asking a stranger for help because she had no other choice and no other hope.
I can ride. Beatatric nodded once, sharp, decisive, like a drill sergeant accepting a recruit's oath. Then she disappeared around the corner. Jackson stood alone in the gravel lot with the dying Harley. He ran his hand along the tank, felt the grit and rust under his fingers.