Out on the prairie Red and I often eat at McDonalds. And why not? Abundant, cheap, and relatively biker friendly — Micky Dee’s is a fair bargain. Recently one summer, being broke and hungry, we wheeled into the parking lot of one such example just outside Williston, North Dakota.

As we were pulling off our helmets, a beautiful Native American child about three years old and his equally beautiful young mother, both with jet black eyes and raven hair, were passing by on the sidewalk.

“Momma, momma, momma,” yelled the little boy. “Look, momma — bike! Bike, momma, bike!”

The laughing mother struggled to hold the child with both hands as he scrambled to get to our Wing. I offered to let him sit on the bike, but the mother, embarrassed for some reason, politely demurred.

After we’d had our pancakes, bacon, and coffee, we returned to the bike and began to gear up. An older gentleman, as neat as a pin, stood watching us as we prepared to leave.

“D’ya mind if I watch you go, ” he asked. “I saw you come in, and I’m interested in motorcycles and motorcyclists…….”

I was bemused. “Not at all,” I replied. “Feel free… not much to it, really….and did you own one, sir?”

A unmistakable sadness came into his eyes.

“No, ” he said. “I’ve always liked them, and I’ve always admired those that rode them…. but I’ve never owned one. To tell you the truth, I’ve never even ridden one.”

I stared at him.

“And I’ve recently been diagnosed with colon cancer…… too late, now… for sure.”

Red was getting that look in her eye that means she’s about to cry, so I held the bike upright while she got on, and then I pushed the starter. The Wing, as always, fired to life immediately. “Well, ” I said while searching for something to say. “Never too late, sir. Never too late…….” But both of us knew I was lying. It was too late for him by any measure.

We pulled out, Red waving to the neatly dressed old man, and then we headed South on Highway 85 towards Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the Little Missouri National Grasslands, and Devil’s Tower National Monument. As the Wing picked up speed on the straight, clean, free highway, I thought of the little Indian boy and the old man, and I wondered about dreams realized and dreams stillborn, and the difference between them.

When I was still in high school – and still being forced by my mother to wear corduroy pants – there was a boy in our small town on the Snake River named Lester Curtis. Lester was small, almost dwarfish, and had long ago dropped out of school. He worked as a laborer in a big grain elevator that loomed over that bleak, wind-swept town like a huge metal watchtower. He had no parents that we knew of, no siblings, very few friends… and he moved among us wearing greasy jeans, and with a padded welder’s cap jammed backwards down on his oversized head. He lived alone in a battered house trailer with weeds and packed earth surrounding it, and every son’s mother’s lips grew tight and pinched when Lester was near. There was little reported crime in that miserable village, but when one was, within moments old Deputy Gray would park his war surplus Willys jeep with the red spotlight at Lester’s trailer, and remain inside for hours, doing what and saying what we could only imagine. Of course, we were all banned by our parents from associating with Lester.

One summer afternoon, in 1959, little Ritchie Campbell came running into my back yard.

“Holy Shit,” yelled Ritchie. “Lester’s went and done got him a Harley! Come see!”

 We both then ran to the only service station and garage in town… and there sat Lester on a glaring red and chrome Harley-Davidson Sportster… the first any of us had ever seen. Lester was actually smiling, grinning, his strong teeth yellow, as a crowd of hot and excited teenagers milled around begging him for rides. I stood thunderstruck, unable to speak. I can remember to this day how the hot metal of the bike smelled, and how it ticked and popped like something alive as it cooled.. I couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten enough money. He must of starved and saved for years.

And suddenly, I was overcome with the most bitter sense of envy I’ve ever experienced…ever…

For a time, Lester’s life was cream. Suddenly popular, he wore his motorcycle jacket like a Roman soldier’s tunic. It was not uncommon to see Lester roaring through town, a gasping teenage girl clinging to his back like a spider monkey, her pony tail flying, her voluminous skirts hiked above her knees. But the responsible adults of the town were less than charmed, and storm clouds gathered … and peaked in the fall when Lester and his date were refused entry into the high school’s Homecoming Dance. “Undesirable Element” was the only explanation offered to us. In a fantastic scene, Lester in his leather jacket and our Principal in his usual three piece suit – with the polished elk tooth and golden watch chain dangling — actually locked arms and scuffled in the doorway of the gym, knocking over floral and crepe paper displays. African elephants wandering free and unattended through the streets of our town would have generated less excitement, less delicious drama. Our teenage hearts were on fire.

The Monday following the dance scene, sitting in Algebra class, I heard a gathering  roar outside and ran to a classroom window, as did everyone else in school. There, on the street fronting the school, Lester Curtis roared back and forth on his straight pipe Harley. Occasionally he would brake to a sliding stop, ferociously gunning his well-tuned engine and saluting us all with an outstretched left hand, middle finger held high and proud. Once, twice, maybe five times Lester made his run. On his final trip, he flawlessly executed the first motorcycle wheelie I’d ever seen! I was mad with excitement and joy. The roar of that engine… my fellow students screaming like demons… the Principal shouting through his phone to Officer Gray… it was the most memorable moment of my life up to then. 

Lester Curtis left us that day, never to return. I know he’s not…but I like to think he’s out there yet, his engine roaring, his exhausts spitting fire, his middle finger up and proud!  There’s a place in the human story for leather-faced Harley riders, the real ones. They continually remind us how invincible we are, and how free we could be, and how we can always have an effect on things around us – regardless of the crushing odds – if we only we can find the courage.

Several years ago, I was skiing “off the jacket,” (not on ski patrol duty), and riding up a chairlift on Snoqualmie Pass– when I noticed a group of striking elderly men, still straight and graceful, all skiing in single file, all dressed totally in white, all carving nicely linked, expert turns one right after the other….

“What the devil,” I muttered, turning around to watch them as they passed under me.

They were headed for a sort of flat area, where I noticed several tables being set up and a small crowd of people milling around. I got off the chair and dropped quickly down off the main face to get to the flat area, to see what was going on. I soon discovered that the men in white were survivors of the U.S. Army’s WWII 10th Mountain Division! Put together by Minnie Dole, the founder of the National Ski Patrol, The storied 10th Mountain – an infantry unit made up of ski patrollers, ski instructors, mountain guides, and lumberjacks – passed into history for its brilliant and valiant efforts in the Italian campaign during WW II, and is still in existence today – based in Ft. Drum, New York, and carrying the brunt of the burden in Afghanistan. I was thrilled to the core.

As I rode up the chair with one of the 10th Mountain veterans, a lean fellow from Colorado with a full head of white hair, I turned and said to him:

“This is great! You guys have been my heroes forever!”

“Well,” he said, fastening his clear blue eyes on me, “I don’t know about being a hero, but I’m just so, so grateful to be here, to just be able to come up here and still ski! Just so grateful that I can still do it.” He then told me that he was eighty years old.

“Damn,” I said, glancing around. “All you 10th guys look pretty good! In shape and solid!”

“Yes,” he said. “Skiing is something an old fellow like me can do for a long, long time…almost forever…long as he’s willing to pay his dues!”

“Dues? What are the dues?”

The old warrior grinned at me. “Constant exercise and constant smart living… only way to pay your dues up here, son…..only way.”

I’ve never forgotten that conversation with that brave old warrior. I am sixty seven now, and have already had a full and good life. But I am not ready to be done, not just yet, not just yet, and I am ready and willing to pay and keep paying my dues, pay them to that inevitable last, breathtaking ride, to the inevitable last, heart-hammering ski run, to the day that someone bends down and closes my eyelids for me. And I hope that when he does, I will have a smile on my parted lips, with the flush of life and blood still in my cheeks…. God, I love living! It won’t last forever, but I plan to wring every last drop of joy and love and adventure out of every passing moment!

Here are my dues:
-Twice a week, I climb, winter or summer, a 1700′ mountain trail here near my home…. I have two or three routes to choose from
-Three times a week (when not climbing), I walk 3 miles to meet my wife at her school, and then three miles back with her…
-Two times a week, I lift weights, with light weight and slow, high repetitions, according to the following menu:
- Squats (3X10 plus); leg extensions (3X10 plus)
- Bench Press (3X10 plus)
- Bent-over Dumbbell rows (3X10 plus)
- Elastic tube pull across and pull aways, for my rotator cuffs, (3X20plus)
-During the weekends, in the summer I go for a long hike; in winter, I ski Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday……
- I quit smoking before 1970, and quit all alcohol in 1989…

With this regimen, I hope to be skiing and riding a motorcycle, and more importantly, loving my wife, my son, and all our friends and family, until I’m eighty or more. It may not pay off that much, I may die in my sleep tonight, or be hit by another deer and die tomorrow…..but then again, pay off it might! In the meantime, I’ll pay my dues and drink deep of everything life offers!

He kept coming back to it, the sleek gray bike with the high chrome pipes and black vinyl bench seat. For three days in a row now he had come and stood mutely before it. He reached out and touched the shining rubber grips with his finger tips gently, like a lover tracing the palm lines of a woman’s hand. The fuel tank was narrow and angular and paneled with rubber. He could smell the acrid, fresh rubber of the tires.

“How much again,” he asked.

The irritable salesman brought the front legs of his tipped chair down smartly and squinted at the boy through a cloud of tobacco smoke. He sighed, bored with the question.

“$895 plus tax and license. Out the door.”

“Is the insurance gonna be much,” asked the boy, his faded army jacket had the outlines of corporal stripes and a combat patch.

The salesman shrugged. He drew hard on his cigarette and then stared at the boy.

“Glad to be back, glad to be home?”

The boy didn’t look at him.

“Home where,” the boy asked.

And then.

“How’s the gears work?”

The salesman got up, walked over, pointed down.

“See that lever down there? Push it with your toe. One down for first, all the rest up…..just like a car. This here’s the clutch lever…… it’s easy, really.”

The boy nodded, almost imperceptibly. He then walked to the salesman’s desk and dug from a cargo pocket a thick roll of currency. One by one, two by two, he smoothed the wrinkled and torn twenty dollar bills, which he stacked on the gray desk. As they both watched, the stack grew.

The salesman stood perplexed.

“Is this gonna be cash,” he asked, scarcely daring to hope.

“Yeah,” said the boy. “All cash. How long’s the paperwork, can you do it tonight?”

“Hell, yeah! You’ll be riding it outa that door right over there!”

Twenty minutes later, the motorcycle idled smoothly in the wide doorway of the bike shop…. outside the door, acres of city lights were now sparkling in the summer dusk, gleaming against a lilac-hued sky. The boy released the clutch lever with a jerk, and the bike bucked and stalled.

The salesman grabbed his arm.

“Nah, man! You gotta let it out easy, let out the clutch easy and twist the gas easier! Gotta be smooth on that throttle, man, smooth.”

The boy smiled, and restarted the bike. He gunned the throttle a couple of times, and then looked up at the salesman.

“You know that question you asked, about being home?”

The salesman nodded.

“Well, I’m not any smarter than when I went over there….so…I don’t know, man, not a clue really…….”

The boy let out the clutch, and the bike wobbled off into the street. He made a shift, then another, and then his taillight faded into traffic.

The salesman stood for a moment, and then he lit another cigarette…. and walked back inside.

Still awake in the tent and listening to the Alaska rain drum down on the fly, I heard the big twins come rumbling in. Trying not to wake my wife and child, I rolled to the tent door, unzipped a little bit of flap, and looked out. The sun doesn’t set much in Alaska, and in the half-light I could easily see the three big Harleys and the hard-looking, patch-wearing men riding them. They picked a spot and parked the bikes not far from us, and then crawled off, open bottles of beer appearing in their hands like magic . Ugly fellows, all three of them… their stringy long hair plastered flat against their scalps, their beards scraggly, the rain coursing unheeded down their gaunt cheeks… big, mean looking men.

I sighed, and zipped the flap back up. Usually when riders like these appear, we break camp… we pack up, and move on down the road. Staying in proximity to them is just not worth the risk, especially when your pretty wife is on the pillion and your child in the sidecar -but we had just finished a five hundred mile day and I was very reluctant to wake them. I touched the cool metal of the loaded 870 Remington by my side, and decide it’s worth the minimal risk. We are close enough to the highway that the possibility of “social” trouble is probably remote. Besides, I’m very familiar with the pump gun… very familiar with it, and while I hope to never have to use it for self-defense, I would – in a heartbeat. “Turning the other cheek” only works in those societies that harbor a respect for the well-being of other people.

When I awake, the sun burns through the green tent fabric, and my wife still snores gently beside me, but my kid is gone — his sleeping bag a limp, empty testament to his early rising. Hurriedly, I pull on jeans and boots. grap the gun by the barrel, and crawl from the tent. There in the bright northern sunlight, his uncombed hair spiky and his rubber boots on the wrong feet (again), my young son sat on a log in rapt conversation with three hard core bikers.

“Hi Dad,” he yells. “Look here, this man’s name is ’Pig!” Ha ha, Dad… a man named ‘Pig!’ Ha ha ha!’”

The three men looked at the shotgun at my hands and then at each other. Pig then grinned and said to me, “Josh here has been telling us about his life in a sidecar. Nice kid you got…….”

“Thanks,” I said, walking over and leaning the shotgun inside the sidecar well. I didn’t move far from it. “Hope he hasn’t been bothering ya….”

“Nope, he ain’t………”

Josh stirred the muddy dirt at his feet with a stick, and turned to Pig. “So… tell me again, Pig, why dontcha take baths?”

Pig looked up at the sky. “Well, ya know…. I don’t go to school, got no pretty lady, and baths, well, baths just make me itch! All over!”

“Yeah, ” my six-year-old laughed. “Itchy all over! Me, too.”

“C’mon, son, ” I smiled. “Time to fix breakfast.”

While water heated on our camp stove, the three patch wearers broke their camp, striking their cheap discount store tent. Pig stuffed his old army sleeping bag into a black garbage bag, and then carried it and two similar bags to his shovelhead Harley and dropped all three of them on the muddy ground by his rear wheel. He grinned at Josh and me.

“Matched luggage!” He shouted.

Josh laughed and I grinned.

In moments, the three were ready to go. The sky had suddenly clouded over and the omnipresent rain had begun again, but the patch wearers paid absolutely no attention to it. Josh and I walked over and huddled under a small tarp I had stretched the night before. Pig hesitated, staring at his bike, and then walked over to us, rain streaking his forehead…..

“Well, good bye little bud!” He grinned at Josh. “Hope you get your own bike someday…. but you know, you gotta be thankful for your sidecar, now, you gotta be thankful that your mommy and daddy care enough about you to take you with ‘em. That ain’t no little thing!”

“Okay, Pig, ” Josh laughed. ” I will…See ya later! Keep your rubber down!”

Pig laughed and then turned to me. “And you take care, ol’ son, that that there pump gun don’t go rust in this rain.” His voice was soft, level, his eyes direct.

“Yup, ” I said. “And…well…. thanks… thanks for what you said to him.”

Pig bowed his head, just once, and then turned and walked to his machine. Within a few minutes, the Harleys had all been started, and the three men headed out onto the highway, going south, the thunder of the their exhausts rolling up against the roadside peaks. I put the gun deeper into the sidecar away from the rain, and, while Joshie played with his hot cocoa, I carried a cup of coffee to Red, still asleep – and still safe – in the tent.

I hate lightning… hate it beyond reason and logic. Lightning is like a mortar barrage: malevolent and impersonal and yet deeply and horribly intimate when it builds and strikes, when it seems to threaten you personally, when it seems to threaten you above all other living things on earth– and it seems that every road that Red and I ride in lightning country will lead directly toward the area of most danger, the area of the darkest and dirtiest cloud and storm. The road never seems to run away from the storm, but instead seems inevitably drawn right toward it.

 And the threat is real. Unlike auto drivers, motorcyclists are not protected by a comforting cocoon of metal running on rubber tires to redirect and channel harmlessly that unearthly violence around you. No sir! Get struck by lightning while riding your bike and you are are dead, dead, dead….a bolt through your face shield and out the heel of your favorite riding boot leaves no room for argument, no question unanswered, no appeal… you are simply deep-fried and cooked at your handlebars… ticket punched… time expired… dead.

Once, early in our riding career, Red and I were in Greybull, Wyoming, and trying to leave it (not an uncommon impulse in Greybull), trying to get out of town and go east over the beautiful Big Horn Mountains. Often in the U.S., the summer jet stream will dip down and stake out a parabolic line clear across the country, a line of battle where cold fronts and warm fronts square off, where the great towering anvil-shaped storm clouds gather, where the deadly lightning lurks…. They call such events “Summers of Fire.” It was during one of these “Summers of Fire” when we tried to leave Greybull one afternoon..

“It doesn’t look too bad,” said Red. “Does it?”

Red is by nature much braver than I. I looked at the Big Horn mountains, at the masses of vapor and the gathering, boiling, angry energy above them.

“Uuuuuhhhhhhh,” I said.

 I hate to say no to Red.

“Why don’t we give it a try?” Red was patient, cajoling. “If it gets bad, we can always turn back!”

 “Uuuuuuhhhhh,” I said again. “Well, alright…….I guess…..!”

I started our old Wing and we pulled out on Highway 14, a beautiful two lane road heading almost directly into the heart of the developing monster. Everything went well…for about 45 seconds …and then…

KaChuunkkkk!

A bright blue bolt of incredible beauty, as straight as a ruler, full of energy and horror, came ripping down from the heavens, ripping straight down on Highway 14, straight down right smack on the center line! No more than 300 meters ahead of us! The centerline! 300 meters!

 I immediately wheeled the Wing into a tight, 180 degree turn — one of the tightest I have ever made, by the way — and we headed straight back to Greybull and to the nearest cheap motel.

“That’s it, “ I yelled. “I get the message! That’s my Higher Power’s way of saying, ‘This road closed until further notice!’ Not even a night in Greybull could be more threatening than this!” Red hung on tightly and said nothing……

 The next morning we rode over the wonderful Big Horns in bright, calm sunshine, and at the summit, we could see The Great Plains of America spreading before us, an immense patchwork quilt of farms and prairies… stretching east as far as human eyes can see.

You deal with lightning on nature’s terms, not yours.

On another trip, again during another “Summer of Fire,” we were returning home through Montana and wanted to ride Highway 43 along the Wisdom River. It’s a ride of haunting beauty, along a penultimate Rocky mountain river, complete with the sad historical site of the Big Hole Battlefield, where the U.S. Army attacked an unsuspecting camp of the Nez Perce Indians. Firing at first light through buffalo skin lodges and killing many women and children, the Army initially drove the Nez Perce to flight, but the warriors quickly regrouped and one by one and two by two, fighting from bush to bush, pushed the U.S. troops back to the top of a high knoll, where the soldiers hung on for their lives. Definitely not one of the Army’s finest moments. The last stand trenches scraped out by the frantic troopers with mess tins, cups, and bayonets are still there — silent, overgrown hollows in the ground, still filled with a faint aura of desperation and horror.

Highway 43 at it’s eastern terminus near Dillon runs between the high walls of a deep canyon. And that’s where Red and I found ourselves when the first bolts rained down several years ago…. I could actually see the strikes hitting on the ridge tops, the impact areas marked by great balls of orange fire. It was the most dramatic electrical storm I had ever witnessed with strikes coming 2, 3, and even 4 times per minute. The wind was also screaming, with rain and hail flying sideways.

I stopped the bike and turned and yelled at Red. “Should I turn around?”

“And do what, go where” yelled Red back. “It’s as bad behind us as it is in front!”

And so we went on, our hearts in our throats and in genuine fear for our lives,  although we were actually in little danger since the strikes seemed confined to the ridge tops. Eventually we stumbled across a five-star restaurant catering to rich fly fishermen and took refuge in it, dawdling over an expansive and expensive meal that we couldn’t afford, while the storm played itself out among the ridges and the sun broke through again.

 You deal with lightning on nature’s terms, not yours.

This year was another of the “Summer of Fires” with storms plaguing us throughout the season. In September, Red and I rode to Colorado and back for the Steve Saunder’s Nassir rally.

 We rolled out of Utah on Highway 40, and then took Highway 139 south toward Montrose, Colorado, our ultimate destination.  Highway 139! Occasionally, the motorcyclist will get very lucky and stumble upon a road like 139. Deserted, well-paved, winding through lovely, interesting country – Highway 139 was our discovery of the year. We were  absolutely loving it; roads like these are the reason we ride; but the hour was growing late, and in the west, over our right shoulders, still miles away but coming our direction, towered one of those building, rising, anvil-shaped clouds. And in the back of my throat I felt that old metallic taste, the taste I remember from all the other thunderstorms I’ve ever seen.

“Damn,” I muttered to Red. “I hope we get in before that sucker gets here….looks ugly!”

 “We will,” smiled Red. “Don’t worry, we’ll be alright…..!” Red is by nature more optimistic than I. Much.

 But the storm came steadily down upon us, and great bolts of powerful lightning were beginning to streak down from it’s ugly, roiling mass. I kept stealing anxious looks over my shoulder, and it was getting dark now, getting dark fast. And we had sixty miles to go…

Suddenly, my whole cockpit lit up in a blinding flash.

 “Holy Crap,” I yelled to Red. “How close was that thing?!!?”

 “How close was what,” she yelled back.

“The lightning bolt! It was close, didn’t you see it?”

“No,” she replied. “I didn’t see anything!”

We rode a little more, and, suddenly, another blinding flash reflected off of my windscreen, instrument panel, and mirrors.

“Holy Damn,” I screamed. “How close was that one?”

 “How close was what,” asked Red. “I’m not seeing anything!”

 “You have to be!” I yelled at Red, exasperated beyond measure. “I have to know how close they are, which way they’re coming from…..!”

“I’m not seeing them,” said Red, equally exasperated.

 Another blinding flash…. And by this time I was absolutely terrified…

“Jesus!” I yelled “Look for a building, a barn, something! We gotta get under cover!”

“I don’t understand it, “ muttered Red. “I’m not seeing anything…….!”

And then I got a glimpse of her in my mirror.

“Hey,” I yelled. “What are you doing back there?”

“Nothing…taking a few pictures is all…….”

 “And is the camera flash going off when you’re doing it,” I asked.

There was a moment of silence from the rear seat, and then we both burst into wild laughter. Red often takes photos off the rear seat, and the lightning flashes that were terrifying me so were coming from her camera.

We barreled into Montrose minutes ahead of the powerful storm, still safe,  still ahead of the real lightning. Still laughing like demons, we quickly unloaded the bike and tumbled into the warmth and security of our cheap motel, where we ordered up delivery pizza, and ate it on the bed while enjoying the flashes outside our motel window.

 You have to deal with even non-existent lightning on nature’s terms, not yours!

The Decision

He looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup. She smoked cigarettes like she did so many things: quickly, decisively, almost biting off the smoke, and blowing it hard out of the corner of her pursed lips. Her beauty, although softening now under the twin assaults of tobacco and alcohol, was still present, still formidable, and still as alluring as when he had met her in class, two years before.

“Well,” she asked him. “Are you gonna pull those grapevine stumps for me, or not?”

He blew over the rim of his cup, thinking of how to handle the question.

“Can I ask you something,” he asked.

“What?”

He exhaled audibly, and said, “are you gonna tell me what to do every day for the rest of our lives together?”

She laughed, but it was a short laugh without humor. “Somebody should! Jesus, how many times do I have to say something before you do anything? I want the new lawn sodded in before Labor Day….before my folks come over for the rodeo. How hard is that to understand?”

“I wanted to climb the ridge with the Freds today…..”

“Climb the ridge! What good does that do for anybody? Big mountain climbers….. irresponsibility personified, that’s the two Freds for you…. why don’t you start doing something more social, more usual…… like take up golf, or go back on the softball team?”

He felt the resentment beginning to swell,  rising along his spine, his fingers beginning to shake. Careful, he thought to himself, careful……

“That softball team, those goons you’re so enamored of, they’re nothing but a bunch of drunks, another excuse to party.”

“Yeah, you think so?” She ground out her cigarette on a saucer.. “But at least they know how to enjoy life, not like you….you’re just jealous of them… I’ve had enough of this crap. I’m going over to Renee’s and help her pick out her living room paint. Pull the stupid stumps, will you please? Please?”

He walked over to a living room window, and looked out at the crest of the Cascade Mountains, the grey peaks dusted with an early season snow storm. Thick clouds driven by maritime winds swirled and streamed down the alpine gullies.

“Naw…..” He laughed. “I think I’ll buy a motorcycle instead!”

“That would be the day…. that would be just about the stupidest thing you could do…..”

Without another word, she pulled on a coat and went out. After a moment he heard her drive away.

He called his friend, one of the Freds, and let him know he wouldn’t be meeting them at the trailhead, and then he went out into the garage. He pulled the scissors jack from his old car, got a length of old climbing webbing, and a shovel, and went around the house to an old garden he and his wife were turning into a patio and small lawn. He dug around the first of a row of dead grapevine stumps, and wrapped the climbing web around a few thick roots he’d exposed with the shovel. Draping a loop of the webbing over the bearing plate of his jack, he turned the handle until, with some effort, he pulled the stump from the ground like a dentist pulls a dead tooth from a gum. After nearly an hour and a half, he’d pulled three stumps.

He wiped the sweat from his face and looked up again at the Cascade Mountains. As he did so, a sun break formed in the lowering clouds and the white and gray face of Mt. Stuart was bathed in bright sunlight. The effect was breathtaking. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Stuart… you beauty, you!”

After a moment, he looked at the dirty loops of nylon webbing in one hand and  the jack handle in the other. He looked again, once more, at the row of stumps yet to be pulled, and then he threw the webbing and jack handle at them. “Screw it……,” he muttered, and then went into the house.

He used the toilet and washed his hands, and poured himself another cup of coffee. He stood a moment before the window, again looking at the mountain still painted with brilliant sunlight, and then he put his coffee cup down and went over and picked up the morning paper. With shaking fingers, he found the ad again:

“For Sale: 1978 Suzuki GS750, runs good, new rear tire,

16,000 miles, $600 firm.”

He walked to the phone and dialed the number from the ad. After a moment, he said, “Yes, I’m calling about the bike. Do you still have it?” He listened for a moment, and then said, “can I come over this morning to see it?  He’ll be home when? And the address?”

He jotted the information on a pad, and then hung up the phone. He then left the house and went to his bank. He left minutes later with $600 in crisp $100 bills tucked into his breast pocket; he sat for long minutes at the wheel, his fingers shaking, his breathing ragged. He felt ready to cry. “Gotta do this,” he muttered aloud to his reflection in the car mirror. “Gotta do this or you’re gonna be pulling stumps for the rest of your life!” At a quarter after twelve, he started the car and drove to the address he had written down on the kitchen pad.

…..

The owner of the bike, home for lunch, wiped his hands with a napkin, and grinned at him. “Yeah, I still got her….. she’s in the garage, come and see…. They walked together around the corner of the trim, neatly painted house. “She’s a one-owner, that owner being me, and I take good care of my stuff… changed the oil every 3000… runs as good now as she did when I picked her up from the dealer’s ….. you’re gonna like her…….

He raised a garage door and walked inside. He carefully removed a soft cover from the bike. It was a dark green color and the chrome fender gleamed. The vinyl seat was new and shiny, and he ran his hand over it.

“I recovered this from a kit, looks good, huh? And the rear tire is brand-new…. you’re not gonna find another bike this good for the price.” The owner looked at him. “Do you ride a lot?”

He looked into the owner’s friendly eyes. “Used to. Used to ride all the time….but the biggest bike I had was a Honda 305 Scrambler….. this thing looks huge!”

The owner laughed. “Yeah, I came to this from a Kawasaki 350! I felt the same thing, but you would be alright after about a mile or two! A bike’s a bike, and you would be comfortable at 65 or 75 miles an hour within minutes…. honest! The weight and size just seems to disappear at about ten miles an hour. If you rode a 305, you can ride this.”

“Ah… I don’t even own a helmet, anymore.”

The owner glanced up from the bike. “Well….tell you what…. I’ve got an old one, one I use on a snowmobile…don’t look like much, but if it fits, and if you buy the bike, I’ll throw it in.”

He blew out a long breath, and looked at the owner.

“Test ride?”

A few minutes later, in a tight, battered, orange helmet, he was riding the big bike alongside the Yakima River. The bike’s engine thrummed richly under him, and although he was tentative in the turns, he felt in control, and the old skills came flooding back. Just like skiing, he though, just like skiing….. “Yes,” he yelled unheard into the wind’s roar, “Hell yes, I can still do this!” All around him, the trees flowed by in a joyous riot of green, yellow, and gold…..the road, smooth and empty, curled ahead of him like a living, breathing partner.

He rode back to the owner, gave him the bills from his pocket, and took the keys and signed-over title. The owner laughed, and said, “fun, ain’t she?” He, too, laughed and said, “yes, she is that…. I’ll come back and get my car later.” And then he went back to the river and rode the twisting curves for hours.

……

He was sitting in a chair in front of the TV,  eating canned chili over rice  when she finally came in the front door. He could smell the alcohol on her from yards away.

“Hi,” he said.

She didn’t reply, but took off her coat and dropped it on the couch. She sat down very  carefully, lit a cigarette, exhaled, and stared at him for a moment.

“What is that outside,” she asked.  She slurred the “s ” in “is.”

“That’s my new bike,” he replied.

“Shit.” She drug deeply on the cigarette. “How’d you pay for it?”

“Took it out of savings….$600…..”

She shook her head wearily. “That just about rips it… you know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Thought it probably might…. so who moves out? Me or you?”

“I’m not going anywhere!”

“Yeah… well, you’re probably gonna get the place, anyway. I’ll look for an apartment tomorrow.”

She got up, looked at him for a moment, and then went into the kitchen.

After a moment he got up and walked to the front door. He opened the door and looked at the rich, green of the bike’s tank gleaming under the front porch light, the glowing chrome of the front fender. “Tomorrow,” he said to no one in particular. “Tomorrow, I gotta get another helmet, and maybe look at St. Vinnie’s for an old leather jacket.”

It had been a good run — over Lolo Pass into Montana, then over Beartooth Pass into Wyoming, then and out over the Bighorns onto the High Plains. The bike, with the heads I had to have rebuilt that spring because I had screwed up and timed them 180 out, ran sweet and cool – but in a campground at Springfield, Missouri, I hurried an oil change and stripped out the threads for the filter basket. 

“Damn, ” I said to the Redhead, who sat on a picnic table watching me.

“What now,” she asked gently.

“Ah, hell.” I looked at her while rubbing oil off my fingers. “Can’t believe I stripped it! I’ll try and borrow a big wrench and turn the thing in anyway. I just hope it doesn’t leak and that it lasts the trip!

I borrowed a big crescent off a drunk in a Chevy and slowly and carefully tapped the cross-threaded nut into the soft aluminum of the engine case. I tightened it as much as I dared, and then I started the old Gold Wing up and we both watched the gravel underneath for new oil drips, watched with our hearts in our mouths.

After a moment, the Redhead looked at me.”It’s not leaking, huh?” 

I grinned at her.  “That’s good. That’s real good!”

The rest of the Missouri Ozarks went well, and then we dropped into velvety Arkansas, with its twisty roads and heavy, muggy air. And then we were in Louisiana, where the red eyes of alligators gleamed in the swamps at night, and New Orleans, our destination this trip, lay less than 100 miles ahead.

We stopped at a convenience store to refuel. Black and white youths milled around the pumps, both speaking a beautiful, soft and lilting dialect that we could barely understand. A smiling man, drinking from a wine bottle in a paper sack, looked at our license plate.

“G’lawd, man,” he sang out.. “You is a long way gone, now, hain’tcha?”

I grinned at him, “Yessir.. A long way gone is a good way of putting it!”

“Washin’ton,” he said. “Nevah been thar…. no, I hain’t!”

“It’s nice.” I said. “Just like this place!”

He kept grinning at me. 

I went inside to pay for our gas.. At a formica-topped table, drinking a soda, sat the oldest black woman I had ever seen. Her face was corrugated and lined and weathered, like pine wood that had been exposed to the sun and wind for a hundred seasons. “Over a hundred, ” I thought to myself.  “She’s at least a hundred years old.”  She watched me as I put my helmet down on the counter and dug for my wallet.

“Y’all wear that big thang to protect yore brain?” 

Her voice was vibrant, suprisingly youthful, and she stared steadily at me with gleaming eyes that I could barely see. And then, somehow, I sensed the merriment in that ancient face.

I grinned at her and said, ” You are telling me that is hardly worth the bother, huh?” 

She laughed gently. Her laugh, like her voice, was youthful, gentle, compelling. 

“Why’y’all ride them thangs, anyhow? Doncha get wet when it rains?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “We get wet sometime….. but it’s cheap this way. And fun. And we feel free when we ride.” 

The old lady took a deep swallow of her drink. She stared at me for a moment. 

“Wahhl…,” she said. “That’s awright, Ah guess. All freedom …even the middlin’ kind … is worth havin’.” 

The young black girl waiting for my card to be approved said to the old woman gently, ” leave him be, now, Auntie, he’s got somwhar to go….” 

Outside my wife stood by the bike laughing with the man with his bottle in the bag. 

“Who were you talking to,” she asked.

“Some ol’ lady that knows more ‘n me,” I answered. 

“Lots of them around!” She grinned. 

“That’d be ol’ Auntie,” laughed the man with the bag. 

We geared up and pulled out, accelerating gently in the dusk, watching for the shining eyes of deer and the first glow of New Orleans. So far, it had been a very good run, very good indeed…..