Eli almost dropped the cans of soup.
Back at the gas station, Wade Mercer finally noticed the missing motorcycle. He was standing beside the pumps, laughing loudly with the rest of the patched members, when he looked over his shoulder.
“Where’s the prospect?” Wade barked.
One of the men pointed down the long stretch of wet asphalt. A mile away, Eli and his bike were clearly visible on the shoulder, standing beside the old man. Wade’s smile vanished instantly. Without a word, he climbed back onto his bike and kicked the starter.
Five riders followed their president. They returned fast, their engines screaming down the highway.
Samuel did not flinch or take a single step back when the pack of motorcycles swarmed and surrounded him. Wade kicked his kickstand down and pulled off his dark sunglasses, his eyes locked onto Eli.
“What are you doing, prospect?”
“Helping him,” Eli said, standing his ground.
“I can see that.” Wade sneered, looking at Samuel and the ruined groceries scattered in the mud. “Sorry about the bath, Grandpa. Road gets messy.”
Samuel calmly wiped a speck of dried mud from his wrinkled cheek. “Only when somebody doesn’t know how to control his motorcycle.”
Total silence fell over the shoulder. Even the rumble of the passing highway traffic seemed to fade. One of the riders nervously looked away. Wade stepped closer, his chest puffed out.
“You have something to say, old man?”
“I already said it.”
“I’ve been riding for forty years.”
Samuel finally looked away from Wade's face, casting his eyes down to the front tire of the president's bike.
“You entered the water with the wheel angled right because you were too busy watching yourself in the mirror,” Samuel noted, his voice carrying the calm authority of a master mechanic. “Your left hand loosened when the front tire floated. You corrected late. The motorcycle saved you from your own vanity.”
One of the riders coughed into his fist to hide a sudden laugh. Wade spun around, furious, but nobody would meet his eyes.
“Boss,” Eli interjected.
Wade snapped his attention back. “What?”
“You need to see his vest.”
At Eli's words, Samuel allowed his coat to shift open once more. The faded, hand-stitched emblem of the red-tailed hawk saw the bleak November sunlight for the first time in decades.
Everything changed in a fraction of a second.
A heavy-set rider named Owen Briggs—known to everyone in the chapter as Bear—climbed slowly off his motorcycle. At sixty-five, Bear was one of the oldest active members. He had a thick white beard, a jagged scar along his jaw, and dragged his left leg slightly due to a brutal crash twenty years prior.
Bear walked toward Samuel, stopping a few feet away. The color completely drained from his weathered face.
“No,” Bear breathed out.
Samuel squinted, looking closely at the massive biker. “You’re Daniel Briggs’s boy.”
Bear’s mouth fell open. “My father was Daniel.”
“You were nine when he brought you to the old dirt-floor clubhouse,” Samuel said softly. “You stole two root beers from the kitchen. You hid behind the tool shed because you thought Daniel would whip you with his belt.”
Bear stopped breathing. The rest of the club watched in stunned silence.
“I found you first,” Samuel continued, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I told him the bottles broke when I accidentally dropped a heavy toolbox on them.”
Bear slowly removed his sunglasses. His eyes were shining with unshed tears. “Uncle Hawk?”
Samuel nodded once. “Hello, Owen.”
Wade looked frantically between the two men. “You know him, Bear?”
Bear turned his head slowly, looking at his president with a mix of awe and disgust. “He helped found this club, Wade.”
Wade let out a sharp, dismissive laugh. “This old man?”
Samuel looked squarely at the PRESIDENT patch stitched onto Wade’s chest. “That patch explains a lot more than you realize.”
“The club was founded by Walter Hayes and six veterans,” Wade challenged, crossing his arms defensively.
“Five veterans,” Samuel corrected him without missing a beat. “One diesel mechanic who never served. And me.”
He touched the ancient, cracked leather beneath his coat. “I drew the original river. Walter wanted an eagle. I told him every club in America thought it needed an eagle. So I drew a hawk.” He pointed a weathered finger at the black stitching on his chest. “The black river represented the thing all of us had to cross before we finally found one another.”
Bear whispered, “My father told me that exact same thing.”
“He was there,” Samuel affirmed.
Wade still looked unconvinced, his ego refusing to let him back down in front of his men. “Anybody can read old history books and memorize stories.”
Samuel studied the arrogant president for a long moment. Then, he asked a seemingly random question: “Do you still use Walter’s old oak desk?”
Wade hesitated. “In the office?”
“Yes.”
“Left drawer sticks when it rains?” Samuel pressed.
Nobody answered. The silence was deafening.
“Under that sticking drawer,” Samuel said, his voice ringing clear over the wind, “is a string of numbers carved backward into the wood. Those numbers open a steel floor safe hidden beneath the floorboards.”
Bear closed his eyes, realizing the magnitude of the moment. Wade just stared, entirely stripped of his bravado.
“What safe?” Wade asked, his voice trembling slightly.
For the first time that afternoon, Samuel Hayes fully smiled.
“That question,” the old founder said, “is going to become very important.”