Elijah said nothing.
Hank rubbed his right thigh slowly.
“Eddie died last June.”
“We rode together forty-six years.”
“Same club.”
“Same roads.”
“Same stupid arguments.”
He smiled faintly.
“We made a promise when another brother died twenty years ago.”
“Whoever went first, the other would ride to Eagle Ridge every anniversary.”
“Sunrise.”
“Two minutes.”
“No speeches.”
“Then ride home.”
Elijah asked:
“You did that for nineteen years for somebody else?”
“Eddie and me.”
“Every year.”
“Tomorrow’s his first.”
Hank swallowed.
“I already failed him plenty while he was alive.”
“I won’t fail him dead.”
The rain battered the roof.
Hank pulled a roll of money from inside his leather vest.
“Son.”
“I’ll pay.”
“Whatever it costs.”
“I’m not asking charity.”
Elijah looked at the cash.
Then at the old man.
He thought of James.
Years earlier, a thunderstorm had stranded a family beside Route 12 after their radiator hose split.
James stopped.
Elijah was seven.
They were supposed to be going home.
Instead, James spent ninety minutes helping people he did not know.
Elijah complained.
Hungry.
Tired.
James said:
“When somebody is broke down in the rain, son, you don’t ask what helping is worth.”
“You help.”
Elijah remembered being annoyed.
He understood now.
He rolled his sleeves higher.
“Put your money away.”
Hank stared.
“Mama Lo.”
Elijah called.
“Coffee.”
Loretta appeared.
“How bad?”
“Bad.”
“How long?”
“All night.”
She nodded.
“Then I’m making biscuits too.”
Hank covered his face.
For a moment, Elijah thought he was laughing.
Then realized the old man was crying.
Quietly.
Hands over his eyes.
Relief sometimes looks more painful than grief.
Elijah turned away and began removing the cylinder head.
He gave Hank privacy.
The next eleven hours became the longest repair Elijah had ever attempted.
At 5:02, he had the upper end apart.
At 5:47, the damage was confirmed.
The gasket had failed.
The sleeve showed a hairline crack.
The ignition coil weakened dramatically when heated.
Carburetor jets were almost blocked with varnish.
Correct replacement parts existed.
Just not in Pine Hollow.
Loretta called two suppliers.
Closed.
Elijah called a vintage-bike contact in Macon.
No answer.
He checked online.
Nothing available before the weekend.
Hank sat quietly.
Rainwater dried slowly on his boots.
Elijah walked toward James’s workbench.
The bench had not been moved in six years.
He still used it.
But certain areas remained exactly as James left them.
The mug.
The vise.
The unfinished carburetor.
An old Iron Horse Custom Cycles parts catalog sat against the wall.
Elijah dusted it every Sunday.
He did not know why James kept it.
When Elijah was seven, he asked.
James smiled.
“I don’t throw away things I’m grateful for.”
That was the whole answer.
Now Elijah reached beneath the bench.
Dragged out a heavy steel toolbox.
Behind it sat two cardboard boxes labeled SCRAP.
James never threw away useful metal.
Neither did Elijah.
In the second box, he found a salvaged engine sleeve from an old Buick block.
Wrong dimensions.
Wrong application.
But enough material.