Eight Hundred Engines Came for the Forgotten Man. The Last Rider Carried a Secret Buried for Fifty-One Years. 009

Chapter 1: THE THUNDER BEFORE DAWN. 009

At exactly 4:47 in the morning, Walter Briggs opened his eyes because the ground beneath his farmhouse seemed to be shaking.

For several bewildering seconds, the seventy-eight-year-old widower remained frozen in the wooden chair beside his kitchen window. His first thought was that the storm had returned. Rain had pounded Cedar Hollow for most of the previous night, and although the worst of it had passed sometime after midnight, droplets were still falling steadily from the roof while the cold wind nudged at the old windowpanes.

Then Duke raised his gray muzzle from Walter's boot.

The old dog's ears lifted sharply.

Another low vibration rolled through the floor.

Walter pushed himself upright.

That was when he recognized the sound.

Engines.

Not one motorcycle.

Not five.

Not even twenty.

Hundreds of them.

The distant rumble traveled through the valley like approaching thunder, becoming steadily louder until the coffee cups inside Walter's cabinet began clicking against one another.

He crossed the dark living room, reached the front door, and pulled it open.

A blast of freezing dawn air struck his face.

Then Walter saw the road.

Headlights were pouring toward his property.

An endless stream of motorcycles rounded the distant bend, two across in some places, three across in others, their chrome flashing whenever the weak gray light of morning touched them.

Walter started counting before realizing he was doing it.

Fifty.

A hundred.

Two hundred.

After that, numbers became meaningless.

Motorcycles kept coming.

They turned through Walter's gate and spread into the wet field beyond his barn until the land around the farmhouse looked as if it had been occupied by an entire moving city of steel, leather, and headlights.

Walter stood on the sagging porch in faded flannel and worn work trousers. He had pulled on his old boots without socks. His thin white hair moved in the wind.

Inside his right hand was the photograph he carried every day.

Eleanor.

His wife had been gone for six years, but Walter still carried that picture tucked over his heart as though some part of him believed she might disappear completely if he ever stopped touching it.

He pressed the photograph against his chest.

Along the far edge of the property, townspeople were already beginning to gather near parked cars. The engines had undoubtedly awakened half of Cedar Hollow.

Among the observers stood Cole Dempsey.

Cole was the banker preparing to take Walter's land before winter.

He watched the motorcycles with the uneasy interest of a man who feared what was happening but seemed almost pleased by what he imagined it meant.

Walter understood.

For nearly half a day, men wearing leather riding vests had been appearing all over town asking one question.

They had gone to the gas station.

The diner.

The feed store.

The hardware shop.

Everywhere, they asked the same thing.

Where does Walter Briggs live?

Nobody knew why.

Nobody except Walter knew about the woman he had discovered beside the road during the storm.

And even Walter did not know who she was.

The final motorcycles entered the field.

Then the engines began shutting off.

One.

Then another.

Then dozens at once.

The thunder faded piece by piece until the valley became completely silent.

That silence frightened Walter more than the noise had.

Beside him, Duke breathed heavily.

Then, from the center of the enormous crowd of riders, one man dismounted.

He was huge.

Even with age visible in his silver beard and weathered face, he stood well over six feet and remained broad across the shoulders. His dark leather vest strained across his chest.

The riders near him moved aside without being told.

The giant removed his gloves.

Then he began walking toward Walter's porch.

Walter's body urged him to retreat.

He refused.

Instead, he folded Eleanor's photograph into his palm and tightened his fingers around it.

The large biker crossed the yard.

Walter swallowed.

"If this is trouble," he murmured, speaking more to Eleanor than to himself, "I guess it's already found me."

The stranger reached the porch.

He stopped on the last step.

His face revealed nothing.

Walter's knees shook slightly.

The biker slowly raised one enormous hand.

Walter closed his eyes.

And only twelve hours before, none of this had existed.

May you like

Walter Briggs had not always been a man people overlooked.

There had been years when almost everyone in Cedar Hollow knew his name.

For seven summers, he had coached local boys in Little League. He had repaired broken tractors for families who could not afford mechanics. He had helped neighbors pull calves into the world during freezing January nights and had once worked thirteen hours beside volunteers rebuilding the church roof after a tornado ripped half of it away.

Walter had once been young.

He had once been strong.

More importantly, he had once been needed.

But the feeling of being necessary had left his life so gradually that he had barely noticed until it was gone.

Age came first.

Then money problems.

Then Eleanor became sick.

When she died, Walter discovered that some forms of silence never became easier simply because enough time passed.

An empty room remained empty no matter how many mornings a person survived inside it.

Walter still woke before sunrise because sixty years of farm work had trained his body better than any clock.

Some mornings he rose from bed and automatically thought about making coffee for two.

Sometimes a board creaked in another room and he turned, almost expecting Eleanor's voice.

It never came.

Duke became the only creature who heard most of Walter's conversations.

"You think I'm losing my mind, don't you?" Walter would ask while warming soup.

Duke would stare at him patiently.

Walter would nod.

"That's fair."

One habit never changed.

Every morning Walter reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and touched Eleanor's photograph.

It had been taken near the river in 1973.

Eleanor was twenty-five years old in the picture.

Walter had been the one holding the camera.

A sudden gust had blown her dark hair across her face just as she started laughing.

Technically, it was an imperfect photograph.

Walter considered it the finest image ever made.

Its corners had softened after decades of folding and unfolding.

Whenever fear or loneliness became too heavy, Walter's fingers found it automatically.

Lately, that happened often.

Especially after Cole Dempsey began sending letters.

The Briggs farm contained forty acres that had belonged to Walter's family since his grandfather first cleared the northern pasture with horses.

But history did not pay bills.

Eleanor's final illness had consumed nearly everything Walter had saved.

He would have surrendered the house gladly if anyone could have promised him one more healthy year with his wife.

Nobody offered such a bargain.

So Walter had lost Eleanor while keeping the debt.

Cole Dempsey ran Cedar Hollow Community Bank and possessed a remarkable ability to make cruelty sound professional.

Three weeks before the storm, Cole had come to Walter's kitchen.

He sat across from him wearing a charcoal overcoat and polished shoes that looked absurd against the worn boards and traces of farm mud.

"I need you to understand," Cole had said, "this isn't personal."

Walter looked down at the foreclosure papers.

"It's strange how often unpleasant things begin with that sentence."

Cole gave him a patient smile.

"You've missed six payments."

"I know."

"We've extended your deadline twice."

"I know that too."

"The property is worth considerably more than what remains on the loan."

Walter lifted his eyes.

"So you'll make a good profit after you remove me from it."

Cole's smile faded.

"No one is removing anyone."

"What would you call it?"

"Business."

Walter looked toward Eleanor's empty chair.

"Easy word to use when it isn't your father's house."

Cole gathered the documents.

"You have until the end of the month."

After the banker left, Walter remained at the table.

Nearly an hour passed before he spoke.

Nobody was there except Duke.

Still, Walter said the words aloud.

"I don't think anyone would notice if I simply stopped."

Duke gave a quiet whine.

Walter immediately leaned down and rubbed his head.

"Not you. You'd notice."

But beneath the joke was a belief Walter had carried for years.

Cedar Hollow had already begun forgetting him.

He had no children.