Bram swallowed.

"I'm so sorry."

Cyrus waved a hand.

"It's all right."

"No, it isn't."

Bram turned toward Trent.

"Come here."

Trent approached nervously.

Bram lowered his voice.

"Do you know what you just did?"

Trent looked down.

"I was enforcing the dress code."

Bram's face hardened.

"That's not what you did."

He pointed toward Cyrus.

"You humiliated the founder of one of the oldest brotherhoods in this region at the engagement party of his own granddaughter."

Trent's face drained.

Meadow looked at her grandfather.

Cyrus simply sat there.

Quiet.

Patient.

Waiting.

The First Motorcycle

Bram turned to Cyrus.

"Please come inside."

Cyrus shook his head.

"Not yet."

"Why?"

"Because your employee needs to understand something."

Trent looked at him.

Cyrus slowly stood.

The cane tapped against the sidewalk.

"You saw an old man."

Trent said nothing.

"You saw a torn vest."

Still nothing.

"You decided those things meant I was less important than the people inside."

Trent looked ashamed.

"I was wrong."

Cyrus nodded.

"Yes."

Trent swallowed.

"I'm sorry."

Cyrus studied him.

"Do you know why this vest is torn?"

Trent shook his head.

"It caught on barbed wire during a wildfire evacuation in 1974."

He touched the damaged seam.

"I could have repaired it."

"Why didn't you?"

Cyrus smiled.

"Because some scars are supposed to remain."

He pointed toward the patch.

"And that?"

"The bison?"

"Yes."

"I made the first one myself."

"When?"

"1969."

Trent stared at him.

"Why?"

Cyrus looked down Main Street.

"Because four men needed somewhere to belong."

He paused.

"We had all seen things we didn't know how to talk about."

Trent's expression softened.

"My father served."

Cyrus looked at him.

"Then you know."

"Know what?"

"Sometimes a man doesn't need somebody to ask what happened."

Cyrus looked at the old vest.

"Sometimes he just needs somebody to sit beside him."

Trent looked at the bench.

Then at Cyrus.

And for the first time that night, he understood that the lesson wasn't about a dress code.

It was about people.

The Call

Inside the Copper Lantern, the engagement party had gone silent.

Someone had heard what happened.

Then someone else recognized Cyrus's name.

Within minutes, the story had spread through the room.

Meadow's friends gathered around the windows.

Isaac stood beside her.

"Your grandfather founded the Bison?"

Meadow nodded.

"Yes."

"I didn't know."

"Most people don't."

Outside, Cyrus was still talking to Trent.

Then a motorcycle engine started somewhere down Main Street.

One.

Then another.

Then another.

Odin heard it.

He looked toward the road.

Cyrus heard it too.

His expression changed.

"Oh, no."

Odin smiled.

"You told me not to call them."

"I didn't."

"Neither did I."

Another engine echoed through downtown.

Then another.

Headlights appeared at the far end of Main Street.

One motorcycle.

Five.

Twenty.

Thirty.

Then more.

The sound grew.

Deep.

Slow.

Thunderous.

Bram looked terrified.

"How many?"

Odin watched the road.