The Brotherhood of the Wheel by R. S. Belcher Read Free Book Online

done.”
    Heck heard the hurt in Roadkill’s voice. He recalled when they were both nine and he had made fun of Jethro accidentally shifting into a possum when they were playing by the creek in Heck’s backyard. Heck had teased Jethro as he climbed up the hill, naked, a giant possum’s tail still grown just above his butt, clutching his wet clothes like armor against the laughter. He fought against tears, claiming that his eyes got wet when he fell in the creek.
    Suddenly, Ale had been there, all tall and strong with a mane of gray hair, a thick, long beard the same color, and those kind, strong, stern eyes. Odin, Zeus, the Lord Almighty, and Ale. Ale wrapped an old army blanket around Jethro and turned to Heck.
    â€œWhat to do you think you’re doing?” Ale said to the boy. The smile slid away from Heck’s face. “You going make fun of your best friend because he’s different? You need to rethink that, boy. One day it might be you who’s the different one, Hector, and who’s going to be there for you when everyone is pointing? We’re all on the outside sometimes, Heck.”
    Heck put his hand on the open window of the passenger-side door of Roadkill’s truck. “I’m sorry, man,” he said. “Thanks for sticking up for me. I’ve been an asshole, and I’m sorry. I’ll see you at the clubhouse for the ride.” He started walking. The truck crunched gravel slowly as it pulled up to accompany him.
    â€œWell, stop being an asshole and get in,” Roadkill said. “I’ll take you home to clean up. Your mom’s been worried about you.”
    *   *   *
    They rumbled down Market Street, the throaty growl of big V-twin engines announcing their presence to the pedestrians the way a lion’s roar announces its arrival to the scavengers at the water hole. Gasoline-fueled thunder pealed down the street as the Blue Jocks cruised toward the Road to Nowhere. They were forty riders strong, headed out of the Jocks’ Wilmington clubhouse. They crossed the Cape Fear River on Route 76. They picked up a half-dozen more members joining the pack by the time they were opening up and hauling down U.S. 74 toward Bryson City.
    At the center of the procession, Heck was driving Ale’s old 1941 Harley flathead with a sidecar. In the sidecar, Heck’s mother and Ale’s old lady, Elizabeth Sinclair, sat like a reigning queen in black leather. Her long white hair, pulled back and tied in a ponytail, fluttered in the wind. She wore aviator-style sunglasses but refused to wear a helmet. Clutched in her arms, to her chest, was a small wooden cask. The Blue Jocks’ colors were burned into the cask. It held Ale’s ashes.
    Heck did not wear conventional headgear. He wore a matte-black, open-faced helmet with a polished, stainless-steel face mask that was sculpted to look like a grinning Japanese demon—an Oni—with a leering, tusked smile and short, blunt horns.
    They crossed over into South Carolina and picked up another dozen riders when they passed through Florence, as that city’s chapter of the MC joined the ride to honor one of its founders. Thirty more riders joined them as they rode through Columbia on U.S. 20. The procession also gained other followers, bikers from other MCs who were friends of the Blue Jocks, riding respectfully at the rear of the procession.
    The cities and towns gave way to lush, cool forests of tall, proud trees as they rode through the southeastern tip of Sumter National Forest, a cathedral of green. They picked up a few dozen more riders as they moved through Spartanburg and Hendersonville. They were well over a hundred strong as they headed up I-26. The Asheville chapter, fifty strong, awaited them on the final ride into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Cool, green woods covered both sides of the road as the procession, swelled to close to two hundred riders, now approached