The biker hesitated for a fraction of a second, then gritted his teeth and grabbed the rear fender. "On three." Stan rasped, his voice cracking from disuse. "One, two, three." They heaved.
Stan's bad shoulder screamed, a hot flare of pain shooting down to his elbow, but he locked his jaw and pushed. The heavy bike groaned, the suction of the mud releasing with a wet, tearing sound. They lifted it just enough. The third biker reached into the gap and dragged his trapped brother backward into the rain. Stan let go and the bike slammed back down into the ditch.
He stepped back, breathing hard, rain running in rivers down his face. The injured rider was awake, clutching his left leg just below the knee, cursing in a low, continuous stream. The bearded man looked up at Stan. The hostility was still there, a default setting, but it was tempered by something else. "Shops over there."
Stan shouted, pointing the flashlight beam towards the glowing bay windows of the garage. Get him inside. You'll freeze to death out here. We don't need your charity. The third biker snapped.
He was younger, with a shaved head and a deep scar cutting through his left eyebrow. He looked at Stan like he was a bug waiting to be crushed. Stan felt a familiar flare of irritation. He hated pride when it got in the way of survival. It's not charity, it's geometry.
Stan fired back, his voice cutting through the wind with a dry, sharp edge. You're wet. It's 34°, you stay out here, you go hypothermic in 20 minutes, or you going to bleed on my highway, or are you going to get out of my rain? The bearded man, clearly the one calling the shots, stared at Stan for a long moment. Water dripped from his nose.
Then, he looked at his injured brother. Doc, grab his other side. The leader commanded. They hauled the injured man to his feet. He couldn't put weight on the left leg, hopping and leaning heavily on his brothers.
What about the bikes? The younger one, Doc, asked, looking back at the machines. Leave them. Stan said. Get him by the stove.
I'll open the bay doors. We'll push them in after. Stan turned his back on three members of the most notorious motorcycle club in the world and walked away. He didn't check to see if they were following. He just went to the side door, propped it open, and walked over to the main bay.
He hit the heavy chain hoist, pulling the rolling metal door up. It rattled loudly, opening the shop to the screaming wind. A minute later, they stumbled into the light. The shop was warm, smelling of pine smoke and engine grease. The three men looked out of place, wild and feral under the harsh fluorescent lights.
Water poured off their leathers, creating dark pools on the concrete floor. They lowered the injured man onto an old rolling mechanic stool near the wood stove. He was pale, shivering violently, his teeth clicking together. Stan grabbed a stack of clean shop towels, the good thick cotton ones he usually saved for final polish jobs, and threw them onto a workbench near the men. "Dry off."
Stan said. He walked over to a metal cabinet, rummaged past a row of solvent cans, and pulled out a faded green first aid kit. It was a surplus combat medic box he'd bought at a swap meet a decade ago. He tossed it to the bearded man. "Leg broken?"
The leader caught the box and knelt beside the injured man. He took a heavy hunting knife from his belt and sliced the wet denim of his brother's jeans open up to the thigh. Stan watched clinically. The leg wasn't deformed, no bone poking through, but it was already swelling horribly, an ugly purple bruise blooming across the shin. "Don't think it's snapped."
The leader muttered, probing the bone with thick calloused fingers. The injured man hissed, swatting his hand away. "Probably a hairline or a deep bone bruise." "He's lucky." "Luck's got nothing to do with it."
"He laid it down right." "Kept the bike from crushing the ankle joint." Stan observed quietly. The leader looked up, his dark eyes locking onto Stan's. "You ride?"
"Used to." Stan said, turning away. "Until my knees decided they didn't like the vibration." "I'll go get the bikes." "Doc will go with you."
The leader said. It wasn't an offer of help, it was a statement to ensure Stan didn't do anything stupid out there in the dark. Stan didn't argue. He walked back out into the storm, the younger biker following close behind. It took them 30 brutal minutes.
The two standing bikes were easy enough to roll up the slight incline into the shop, though they were heavy and sullen dead weight. The third bike, the one in the ditch, was a nightmare. They had to hook a tow strap to the front forks and use Stan's ancient rusted winch on the front of his flatbed truck to drag it out of the mud. By the time they wrestled the last bike into the bay and Stan hauled the heavy metal door shut, locking the storm outside, both he and Doc were shivering. The silence inside the shop was sudden and heavy, broken only by the crackle of the wood stove and the ticking of the cooling engines.
Stan stood near the door, catching his breath. He looked at the three men. They had stripped off their cuts and wet jackets, hanging them over chairs near the fire. Underneath, they wore thermal shirts, arms heavily inked with fading prison tattoos and club slogans. "I'm Bear."
The bearded leader said, wiping his hands on a towel. He pointed to the younger man. "That's Doc, the idiot who doesn't know how to trail brake his slider. Stan." The old man replied.
He didn't offer his hand. Bear didn't offer his. It was an understanding. Stan turned his attention to the machines. They were beautiful, terrible things.
Stripped down, built for speed and aggression. High compression engines, custom exhausts, minimal chrome. They were meant to be ridden hard and put away wet, but right now, they were broken. And in Stan's world, broken things demanded attention. The injured bike was a mess.
Stan dragged a drop light over, hooking it to the handlebars. The harsh yellow glare revealed the extent of the damage. The front forks were twisted, the left foot peg was sheared clean off the frame, the clutch lever was snapped, and the primary cover was cracked, leaking a slow, dark puddle of primary fluid onto the concrete. Bear walked up behind him, arms crossed. "It's dead.
We'll have to call a truck in the morning from Reno." "I didn't say it was dead." Stan muttered, running a calloused thumb over the cracked primary cover. "Um, forks are bent." Bear stated, stating the obvious with a tone that dared Stan to argue.
Stan grabbed a heavy rubber mallet from his bench. He didn't look at Bear. He just stepped up to the front wheel, aligned himself, and swung the mallet with a sudden, vicious force. Whack. Bear flinched slightly.