Bear folded his arms.
“Lady, you're going to discover something irritating about us.”
“What?”
“We don't care.”
Rachel looked furious.
Then exhausted.
Caleb climbed into the passenger seat.
“Mom.”
She looked at him.
“They helped.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Bear saw fear there.
Not gratitude.
Fear.
He had no idea why.
Yet.
Three days later, Bear found an envelope taped to the clubhouse door.
Inside were forty-three dollars.
Mostly small bills.
A note:
For the gas and car repairs. I know it isn't enough. I'll bring the rest when I can. Please leave us alone now.
No name.
None needed.
Bear read it twice.
Rico stood behind him.
“What?”
Bear handed over the note.
Rico whistled.
“She really doesn't want us around.”
Doc walked over.
Bear took the paper back.
“No.”
“She really wants us not to know something.”
The clubhouse grew quieter.
Rico looked toward him.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
Bear nodded.
“Rachel Mercer.”
Doc leaned against the wall.
“Evan?”
Bear stared at the name written nowhere on the page.
“I need to find the archive boxes.”
The Dust Reapers had existed for thirty-four years.
Despite the name, they were not an outlaw gang.
The club began with six mechanics, construction workers, veterans, and oil-field hands who liked motorcycles and had too much free time on Sundays.
Over the decades they organized charity rides, funeral escorts, toy drives, and enough questionable barbecues to keep local firefighters familiar with the property.
They also accumulated paper.
Photographs.
Membership cards.
Old newsletters.
Receipts.
Memorial patches.
Boxes nobody opened because bikers, Bear often joked, believed throwing anything away was betrayal.
The archive room was actually a closet behind the clubhouse office.
Bear spent two hours inside.
Dust covered his beard.
He found photos from 2008.
Then 1997.
Twenty-seven years earlier.
One photograph stopped him.
Fourteen young men stood beside motorcycles.
Bear was there.
Thirty-one years old.
Black hair.
No belly.
Beside him stood Evan Mercer.
Twenty-four.
Tall.
Lean.
Dark blond hair.
Gray-blue eyes.
A crooked smile.
Bear stared.
Then thought of Caleb.
Same eyes.
Not similar.
Same.
Same slight downward angle at the outer corners.
Same expression when suspicious.
Even the hair fell forward the same way.
Bear carried the photograph into the main room.
Doc looked up.
“What?”
Bear placed it on the table.
Rico came over.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Rico whispered:
“Damn.”
Doc sat.
“That boy is Evan’s.”
Bear nodded.
“Has to be.”
One of the older members, Marty Hale, looked at the photograph.
Then at Bear.
“You remember the last ride?”
Bear did.
Everybody who had been there remembered.
Evan disappeared twelve years earlier.
Not twenty-seven.