Chester always loved an audience, and he spoke loudly enough now for Cedra and Polly, who sat at the next table, to hear. “I might have thought, Mademoiselle Charbunneau, after all this time you would have taught this blackguard some manners.” The regular breakfast crowd was gone, and except for Lottie, who was banging pots and pans in the back room, the five of them were alone in the café.
“I’ve tried,” Fay said. She smiled and shook her head in apparent frustration, “But I’m afraid he’s untrainable.”
Micah saw Polly and her mother share a smile. The two women wore casual clothing. It was their plan to drive Chester’s buggy to the Pratt place to check on things. The few hands that Emmett kept on in the winter would handle the chores, but they would pay little attention to the house.
“Untrainable.” Chester laughed. “Isn’t that the truth. But I must be as bad,” he added. “I know how dull he is, yet here I am taking him out in an attempt to teach him how to operate a piece of modern machinery. I expect before he’s done, he’ll wrap my beautiful moto-cycle around a tree.”
Fay nodded. “It is risky.” The joking that lined her voice a moment earlier was now replaced with concern. Micah heard it, and it seemed Chester did as well.
Chester waved his hand, brushing away her worry. “Only a little,” he said. “Some risk is necessary if you want to accomplish anything.” He lifted a piece of egg with his fork and shoveled it into his mouth. “ ’Course, I don’t suppose you and Micah would agree with that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Micah asked.
Chester shrugged. “It seems to me the two of you don’t want to take any risks at all—not even the risk of other folk’s disapproval.”
Micah was perturbed with himself before he even responded. He always rose to Chester’s bait. He couldn’t stop himself. “There’s no risk to it,” he said. “We know there’d be disapproval. There’d be scandal.”
“Why, a little scandal would be fun. Now that Sonny’s locked up, Collins is gone, and Anderson’s hiding under a rock somewhere, what’ll we have to talk about?” He took a sip of coffee. “I expect there are places in this country you’d be wise not to visit,” he allowed, “but what does that matter? You wouldn’t want to go to those places anyway. Yes, sir, I think you and Fay raising the eyebrows of the local citizenry is exactly what this town needs.”
Micah met Fay’s dark eyes. The sadness he always saw there seemed magnified. As usual, Chester made things sound so easy. He turned to Chester and asked, “Is there anything in this world that you do not have an opinion on?”
“Nope,” Chester said, stabbing his last bite of egg, “not a thing. And what’s more, I’m always happy to share my opinions with others.”
“Yes,” said Micah, “you’re generous that way.” He stood, offered the women a thin smile, and said to Chester, “Let’s go. Breaking my neck on that fool machine promises to be less painful than listening to your perspectives on life.” He nodded to Polly and Cedra. “Now, you be careful on your errand, ladies. And you should try to make it back before dark.” Since they were taking the buggy out to Pratt’s, they would have to go around the long way rather than over the breaks, which added more than an hour to the journey.
Cedra told them earlier she was not looking forward to going back to the house, but she felt it had to be done. “We will,” she replied. “You be careful, too.”
Once outside, Micah said, “I think I’ll check on Pratt again before we leave.”
“Oh, come on, Micah,” said Chester, “you were over there less than an hour ago. Let’s head out.”
“I don’t know. I think I should take a look.”
Chester threw his leg over the moto-cycle. “He’s fine—cloistered away like a monk.” He patted the cycle’s rail.
Micah grimaced and climbed on. “It seems to me,” he said, “the last time I was on this thing I ended up in a horse trough.”
“That was a fluke,” said Chester. “It wouldn’t happen again in a hundred years.”
“Right.”
“Besides, I’m a much more experienced rider now than I was back then.”
As Chester said that, he started off so fast Micah felt his neck pop. “Yep,” Micah agreed, “I can tell.”
Micah said that with as much sarcasm as he could muster, but right away it was clear Chester was a better rider than he’d been on Micah’s first day back in Probity. His acceleration was smoother, and he leaned into turns with an ease that was graceful. That’s what it was. Micah would have never thought he’d use the word “graceful” to describe anything Chester Hedstrom did, but he had to admit that on this machine, big, lumbering Chester was graceful.
Not only had Chester’s ability to handle the moto-cycle improved from the August before, but the machine itself was better. From Chester’s tinkerings, it had more power and was more responsive. Chester, who had taken apart hundreds of devices in his life and, more often than not, never got them back together, had worked wonders on this particular device.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Chester said into Micah’s ear. He sounded like a father showing off a child.
They rode less than a mile south of Probity to an area that was flat for a few hundred yards before the terrain gave way to rolling prairie. Chester brought the cycle to a gentle stop about fifty feet out from a grove of cedar and pine. Since he would be riding next, Micah was glad to see that Chester pointed the machine away from the trees toward the open flat land.
“You, Mr. McConners, are about to be dragged into the modern world.”
“Come on, Chester, I came out to ride this damned thing, not to listen to one of your discourses.”
“All right, all right,” Chester said with a frown, “let me tell you a little about what we have here.” He pointed to the motor that was built into the cycle’s front frame down-tube. “Uncle Oscar designed this beauty. It’s an automatic inlet valve, two-hundred-and-eighty-eight cubic centimeter engine. I’ve since bored it out and—”
Micah held out both his hands, palms almost in Chester’s face. “Stop right now, Chester,” he said. “I don’t have the slightest idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
Chester laughed. He was enjoying himself. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know the details. All you need to know is that you ride it like a bicycle. You do ride a bicycle, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Micah answered. The truth was he just barely could ride a bicycle. He’d never owned one of his own. They used to sell them in their store, and Micah spent half of one summer trying to master the skill. He did learn, but he was never very artful at it.
“Good. You begin as you would on a bicycle. You start the motor by pedaling, and you control both the ignition and the speed with the speed lever right here.” He tapped a small lever at the front of the cycle’s cross bar. “You push it forward to go faster, pull it back to go slower, pull it all the way back to stop. It’s as simple as that. There’s nothing to it.”
Micah doubted there was nothing to it, but it didn’t look too complicated.
“Are you ready to give it a go?”
Micah swallowed. “All right.”
Chester stepped out of the way, and Micah threw his leg over. He felt an odd nervousness sitting at the controls of this machine. He’d never had this sort of feeling before. He’d grown up riding horses, of course, and if he felt this same way the first time he’d climbed on a horse’s back, he couldn’t remember. He doubted he had. A horse was different. If some fool was about to ride a horse into a tree or over the side of a cliff, the horse would probably let him know this was not the smartest action to take. This thing, on the other hand, was indifferent to its rider’s stupidity.
Micah thought what he was about to do might well be the stupidest thing he’d ever done. He glanced toward Chester, and the big man’s face radiated excitement and pleasure.
Micah took a deep breath and felt his own face curl into a grimace as he lifted his boot to t
he pedal and pushed down. The motor was already warm from their ride out from town. In short order it caught, and the moto-cycle took off. Micah’s stomach leapt to his throat, and he traveled the first hundred feet careening out of control. He didn’t crash, but he was no more steering this device than was President McKinley as he sat at his Executive Mansion desk.
“Whooooooooo weeee! Ride ’em, cowboy!” Chester shouted. His laughter now was a howl.
Micah tried to slow down by dragging his feet, but all he accomplished was to send two huge plumes of dust billowing into the morning air. The moto-cycle was gaining speed at an incredible rate. The only time he had ever felt such acceleration was the first time he had ridden this damned thing with Chester, and now he guessed he was going twice as fast as they had been going then.
Eventually, even through the red glare of his panic, he remembered the lever on the cross bar. He must have pushed it a little harder when he took off than was necessary. He looked down and realized he had the thing all the way forward. He pulled it back, and the moto-cycle began to slow.
“Sweet Christ,” Micah said out loud. His mouth felt as dry as a desert. There had been a moment back there when he was convinced he was about to die. “SweetHolyJesusChristinHeaven,” he said in one nonstop gush. Micah had never been religious, but he was certain if he spent much time on this thing, he would become as pious as the Pope.
Although still coasting at what Micah felt was a dizzying speed, as the cycle slowed, it became more difficult to balance. It began to wobble, and again that red glow of terror filled Micah’s head.
At just the point when he knew he was going down, he gave the lever a shove. The motor roared. His head whipped back so fast his hat flew away, and he was off across the prairie once again. He spewed forth another flood of profanity, but this time he knew what to do. He eased the lever back, and, again, the cycle slowed. He gave it another push—gingerly—and the thing sped up.
Micah realized there was a strange paradox to this motocycle riding: the slower you went, the harder it was to control. It must be, he thought, that the wheels worked like a couple of gyroscopes helping to keep the machine upright. The faster the gyroscopes spun, the more stable it was.
He slowed more, the cycle started getting shaky, and he gave the lever a little push. Sure enough, the line of travel straightened. He gave it another push, and it was at that moment the panic he’d felt earlier vanished. His heart still pounded, his mouth was still as dry as a wad of Texas cotton, but the sheer terror was gone. For the first time Micah felt the smooth sensation of moving on a motorized vehicle over which he was exercising control.
He eased the lever back, and he slowed; he eased it forward, and he sped up. He soon discovered another paradox. When he pushed the left handlebar in order to turn the front wheel to the right, instead, the moto-cycle turned to the left. When he pushed on the right handlebar to turn the wheel to the left, the cycle went right. Micah realized a fella had to change his way of thinking if he was going to be successful riding one of these things.
He practiced these maneuvers around the field, and as hard as it might have been to believe, he was enjoying it. Riding was fun.
He put the machine into a big sweeping turn, and again his stomach made a leap toward his throat. This time it was the thrill that caused his stomach to jump, not the fear. The cycle leaned in its wide arc, and the sagebrush scrubbed his boot. He inched the lever forward a little more, pushed harder on the handlebar, and the cycle leaned over far enough that the sagebrush scraped his pantleg. This was incredible. He hadn’t felt excitement like this since . . . since when, he wondered. When? He thought about that, and all he could come up with was he hadn’t felt excitement like this since his first kiss. Yes, sir, this was every bit as exciting as that.
He felt himself smile. Well, maybe not that exciting, but, damn, it sure was close.
As he brought the bike around, he looked back toward where he’d left Chester, but he was so far away he couldn’t see him. It was hard to believe how far he’d gone in such a short time. From where he was now he could see both ends of the grove of evergreens. It covered a couple of acres of flat land before it climbed over the hill beyond.
He came out of his turn, brought the bike upright, and didn’t even try to resist the temptation to increase the speed. The smooth flow of wind lifted his hair and blew it straight back.
It was a freedom like he had never felt. Micah was certain this was the feel of flight.
He spotted his hat off to the left, veered in that direction, and brought the cycle to a stop so close to the hat all he had to do was bend down to retrieve it. He stuck it onto his head far enough he was sure he wouldn’t lose it again.
He looked back toward the grove of trees, but he still couldn’t see Chester. At first Micah thought that odd. He was close enough now he should be able to see him. He decided Chester must have stepped into the trees to relieve himself. They’d had a lot of Lottie’s coffee at breakfast.
Micah pedaled the cycle, the engine caught, and again he was off. He wondered how much Uncle Oscar and his partner back in Springfield, Massachusetts, were planning on charging for one of these machines. For a couple of years now Micah had expected that someday—perhaps not in his lifetime, but someday—the automobile would replace the carriage for transporting small groups of people. Now, he was convinced the moto-cycle would replace riding horseback for individual transportation. Micah could see the day when everyone—man, woman, and child—would have their very own moto-cycle.
He gave the speed lever a hard shove and rode the machine as fast as it would go. The heat coming off the motor warmed his legs, and the vibrations caused his body to buzz. He squinted into the distance, but Chester was still out of sight.
Micah aimed the cycle into a shallow depression, and when he came out the other side, the machine left the ground and sailed fifteen feet through the air. Though they were bared in a smile, Micah’s teeth rattled when he landed, and he decided it might be wise to ease off a bit.
He slowed to a more reasonable speed and brought the machine to a stop in the same place where he had started his lesson.
Although he had straddled the moto-cycle only a few minutes earlier, Micah knew in that short time something in him had changed. Before he’d had an intellectual understanding of what Chester meant with his endless, mind-numbing descriptions of the many coming wonders of the new century, but now he knew on a deeper level what Chester was talking about. It was exciting. For the first time he grasped in a visceral way—the way Chester did—the extent of possibilities that the coming twentieth century had to offer.
As he listened to the ticks and pops of the cycle’s cooling motor, Micah knew he would never again be quite the same.
“Chester,” he called, but there was no response. “Chester,” he called again—still, no answer. Micah peered into the grove of trees. It was darker in there. The open land where Micah had been riding was dry, but snow covered the ground in the shadows of the big pines and cedars.
“Chester, damn you, stop fooling around.”
Micah looked about to make sure this was the right spot. He had ridden quite a ways. Maybe he had misjudged the place where he started. He was about to fire the moto-cycle up and check farther down the line of trees, when Chester stepped into view.
“Well, there you are,” Micah said. “I wondered where the hell you were.” He ran his hand along the handlebars. “I have to admit, Chester. This is quite the thing. I’ve never—” He was about to go on, but the expression on his friend’s face stopped him. “What’s wrong with you? You look sick.”
“He is sick,” a soft voice from behind Chester said. “Fact is, he feels like he’s about to swoon.” Carrying a Winchester, Sonny Pratt stepped out from in back of a bushy cedar, and with one swift move he swung the rifle like a baseball bat, cracking the barrel against the back of Chester’s skull. Chester dropped like a sack of rocks.
Micah moved for his Colt, but Sonny’s ri
fle was on him before his hand was halfway there.
“Now, now, Mr. McConners,” Sonny said, “are you trying to spoil my day? After I went to all the trouble to follow you two fellas out of town, I don’t want to have to kill you outright. No, sir. I don’t want that at all.” Sonny had been smiling as he spoke, but the smile dissolved. “Now you get off that thing you’re straddling.”
Micah dropped the cycle’s stand and threw his leg over.
“Very good,” Sonny said. “Now take your left hand and reach across and pull that shooter out of its holster. And,” he added, “please, Mr. McConners, you do it real slow.”
Micah did as he was told.
“Now toss ’er over.”
Micah did. The gun bounced once and slid next to Sonny’s boot. Sonny bent and picked it up by the barrel. Without taking his eyes off Micah, he threw it as far as he could. Micah watched it sail end over end out into the prairie.
“Golly,” Sonny said, “that is so much better.”
Micah wondered how Sonny had escaped from jail, but decided at the moment that didn’t matter. He hooked his thumbs into his gun belt and asked, “So, what now?”
“What now? You know, I’ve been asking myself that same question ever since you tied my hands together back at the breaks yesterday afternoon. What now? What now?”
“If you’ve given it that much thought, Sonny, what did you come up with?”
Sonny grinned. “Oh, hell, I never could decide for sure. But with so many fine choices and interesting possibilities, how could a fella go wrong? I reckon I’ll have to make it all up as I go along.” He nodded toward Chester. “You drag that big ox back here into the trees.”
Micah fixed Sonny with his eyes and stood his ground.
They stared at each other, neither blinking. At last Sonny said, “Do it,” and his voice was a soft, hot, semi-liquid. His voice was molten steel.
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