A man who steps across and tells the truth when he doesn't have to is a different category than a man who talks because he's cornered. I agree with that, Marcus said from his position at the bench. Hutchkins looked at Marcus. It was the first time Will had seen them in the same room since the sheriff's office yesterday, and he watched the acknowledgement that passed between them. The two men who operated from different codes and had found over the course of a day that the codes weren't as far apart as the surface suggested.
Mr. Hayes, Hutchinson said, Sheriff, Marcus said, I want to say something, Hutchkins said. He was looking at both of them. What happened yesterday could have gone several different ways. I've been a sheriff for 15 years and I know what it looks like when 31 people arrive in a town with a problem and I know how it can go. He paused.
It didn't go that way here. Nobody got hurt. Nothing got broken. What I got out of yesterday was a solved case in a town that can breathe again. He looked at Marcus directly.
I appreciate how you handled that. Marcus looked at him without the almost smile with something more straightforward. We're not what people think we are, he said. Not always. Not entirely.
No, Hutchkins said. I'm beginning to understand that. He put his hand out to Marcus. Marcus shook it. Hutchkins put his hand out to Will.
Will shook it. If you need anything from me for the case, Will said. Statement, testimony, whatever Reeves and the others gave you. Anything else? I'll call, Hutchkins said.
But I think I have what I need. He looked at the triumph. Carl Briggs going to be happy. He's going to be very happy," Will said. "I'm calling him this afternoon."
Hutchkins nodded. He looked at the shop one more time at the bins of parts and the tools on the bench and the photographs on the corkboard, and the look was that of a man taking something in rather than assessing it. "Take care of yourself, Will," he said. "Always have," Will said. Hutchkins went out.
They heard his truck start pull out head down the road. Marcus picked up the side panel. "Hand me the 7 mm," he said. Will handed him the 7 mm. They went back to the Triumph.
Th Tuesday morning, Marcus' men gathered in the parking lot of the Highway Motel at 8:00. Will was there. He driven out at 7:30 early enough that the lot was still half dark, and the frost was on the bikes, and the men were moving through it with the ease of people for whom early mornings and cold were simply the condition of being alive rather than an imposition. He stood in the lot and watched them prepare. The rituals of it, the checking of equipment, the adjustment of gear, the particular competence of 31 people who had done this thousands of times and had no wasted motion left in the doing of it.
He watched and he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. Not nostalgia exactly. Nostalgia implied a wish to go back. And this wasn't that. It was the simpler thing of recognizing something you loved and being glad it still existed in the world, even if it was no longer yours in the way it had been.
Marcus came to stand beside him. "You could ride out with us," Marcus said. "To the highway at least." "My bike's not ready," Will said. "The Norton," Marcus said.
"You've been finishing it for 3 years." "I finish things in the right order," Will said. "Finish the Norton," Marcus said. "And come find us in the spring. Will looked at him, the weight of the offer, not rejoining, not returning to something he'd left and left for reasons that still held.
But the other thing, the thing Marcus was actually offering, which was the door being left open, the number staying current, the understanding between men who knew each other across decades, that knowing each other across decades was its own form of belonging that didn't require you to be the same person you were when you started. In the spring, Will said, "The Norton better be ready," Marcus said. "It'll be ready," Will said. They stood together while the men finished their preparations. The morning had the cold, bright quality of the day before Montana November, doing what it did indifferent and clean.
Somewhere in town, Tommy Ree was opening the hardware store. Lou Baitman was unlocking the pharmacy. Patty Gould was turning on the diner lights and starting the first coffee of the morning that she'd pour for George Watts at 8 Sharp. Marcus, Will said. Yeah, Jimmy would have loved yesterday, Will said.
He would have absolutely loved it. Marcus was quiet for a moment. He looked at the ground and then at the sky and then at the bikes lined up in the lot. He would have talked about it for years, Marcus said. He would have made it a better story than it was every time he told it.
It was already a pretty good story, Will said. It was, Marcus agreed. Reeves came over and said something to Marcus in a low voice. The practical business of departure, route, and time, and the logistics of moving 31 people from one place to another. Marcus listened and responded and turned back to Will.
"We're rolling in 10," he said. Will nodded. "They did what they'd done in the parking lot on Road 9 two days ago, except it was different now. The weight of it different because two days ago they'd been moving towards something, and now they were moving away from it, and the moving away had its own texture." Marcus put his hand out.