Chapter 8
The afternoon shadows were beginning to stretch long and thin across the asphalt as Jax kicked the starter lever of his flat-black Harley. The engine caught on the second compression stroke, coughing out a plume of blue smoke before settling into a deep, rhythmic, iron-shod heartbeat that rattled the loose change in Leo’s pocket.
Jax swung his heavy leg over the saddle, resting his boots on the pavement while he looked back at the boy. There was no sidecar, no safety harness, and no windshield. Just an old machine, a pair of worn leather saddlebags, and an eight-year-old child who had walked fifty miles of highway with nothing more than a photograph and a prayer.
"You ever been on a bike before, Leo?" Jax asked over the loud, concussive roar of the exhaust pipes.
Leo shook his head, his hazel eyes wide and bright with a mixture of nervous anticipation and absolute wonder. "Only in pictures."
"Grab onto my belt loops," Jax instructed, pointing to the thick leather strap around his waist. "Not my jacket—the belt. Hold on tight, keep your feet up on the passenger pegs, and don't look down at the rear tire. You look straight ahead over my shoulder, understand?"
"Got it," Leo said, his voice barely audible over the engine.
Without another word, the boy stepped forward and wrapped his small arms around Jax’s massive waist, burying his face against the thick leather of the back patch. Jax felt a strange, terrifying jolt in his chest—a sudden rush of protective vulnerability that felt heavier than any engine part he had ever wrenched on. He released the clutch lever with slow, deliberate precision, twisted the throttle grip, and guided the heavy machine away from the curb, leaving the noise, the neon, and the dust of Main Street behind them.
They headed north, away from the crowded tourist traps of Sturgis and up into the steep, winding switchbacks of the Black Hills National Forest. The air grew cooler with every hundred feet of elevation they gained, the smell of hot asphalt and exhaust gradually giving way to the rich, damp scent of pine needles, cedar, and wet earth.
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The ride took forty-five minutes. As the paved highway gave way to packed gravel and eventually to an overgrown logging trail marked by rusted chain-link gates, the forest closed in around them like a protective green fortress. Tall Ponderosa pines towered on either side of the narrow dirt track, their thick red bark glowing golden in the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun.
Jax cut the engine when they reached a small, isolated clearing nestled in a basin between two granite ridges. Standing in the center of the clearing was an old, single-story cabin built from rough-hewn pine logs with a corrugated tin roof that was mottled with patches of rust and lichen. It was rustic, isolated, and entirely invisible from the main road—a perfect sanctuary for a man who had spent a decade hiding from his own shadow.
