The Road That Remembered
The Nevada sun hung low over Highway 95, turning the asphalt copper and the distant mountains the color of old bruises.
Jackson Reeves rode through the heat with one hand loose on the throttle of his 2023 Harley-Davidson Road King.
The motorcycle was black as midnight, its chrome catching the dying sunlight in sharp flashes. The engine beneath Jackson seemed less like machinery and more like a second heartbeat.
Low.
Steady.
Familiar.
At fifty-eight years old, Jackson had learned that some roads were easier to travel than others.
The road beneath his tires was simple.
Straight.
Empty.
Honest.
The road inside his head was another matter.
He had been riding since Carson City that morning without a destination. He had passed towns whose names he never bothered to remember, gas stations with faded signs, abandoned motels, trailer parks, and stretches of desert where the only living things were scrub brush and circling hawks.
He had no reason to be anywhere.
That was exactly how he liked it.
The faded Hells Angels insignia on the back of his leather vest fluttered in the wind.
It had been twenty years since he first earned the patch.
Twenty years of highways.
Twenty years of friendships.
Twenty years of choices.
Some good.
Some unforgivable.
And six years since Diane died.
Six years, two months, and fourteen days.
Jackson still counted.
He hated himself for counting.
Diane had been gone long enough that people expected him to have moved on.
They said things like, "She's at peace now."
They told him he needed to get back out there.
They told him grief had a way of changing shape.
Jackson had discovered something nobody warned him about.
Sometimes grief didn't change.
Sometimes it simply learned how to sit quietly in the passenger seat.
He had stopped talking about Diane years ago.
Stopped visiting the cemetery.
Stopped answering questions.
He rode instead.
Whenever memories became too loud, he twisted the throttle.
Whenever loneliness became unbearable, he found another highway.
The engine drowned everything.
At least for a while.
Near three-thirty in the afternoon, a green highway sign appeared.
DUSTY RIDGE — 2 MILES.
Jackson almost kept going.
Then he noticed the fuel gauge.
The needle was sitting dangerously close to empty.
"Figures," he muttered.
Dusty Ridge appeared around the next bend.
Population 342.
Jackson saw the sign and snorted.
"Optimistic."
The town consisted of a gas station, a hardware store, a church with peeling white paint, six or seven small businesses, and a row of buildings that looked as though they had been waiting twenty years for someone to tear them down.
At the edge of town stood a diner.
Its neon sign flickered.
HOLLOWAY'S REST.
The last two letters in HOLLOWAY barely worked.
Jackson slowed.
His throat was dry.
His stomach was empty.
And the Harley needed fuel.
He pulled into the cracked parking lot.
Three vehicles sat outside.
A rusted pickup.
A dented Honda Civic.
And an old Harley parked behind the building.
Jackson noticed it immediately.
He always noticed motorcycles.
He killed his engine.
The sudden silence seemed enormous.
For several seconds he remained seated, hands resting on the grips.
Then he heard it.
A cough.
A sputter.
A starter motor turning over again and again.
Then a woman's voice.
"Come on, you miserable piece of—"
The engine coughed.
"Damn it!"
Jackson smiled despite himself.
He swung his leg over the motorcycle.
His boots hit the ground.
He walked around the diner.
And that's when he saw her.
An elderly woman stood beside the old Harley, one hand gripping the handlebar, the other pressing the starter.
She was maybe seventy.
Short gray hair.
Thin shoulders.
A faded cardigan.
Work boots.
Her posture was surprisingly straight.
The motorcycle wasn't.
It was a mid-nineties Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail.
Once beautiful.
Now tired.
Rust had spread along the exhaust.
The chrome was dull.
The leather saddlebags were cracked.
The tires looked old enough to remember another president.
The woman tried the starter again.
Nothing.
She kicked the rear tire.
"Don't you dare do this to me."