Same names read aloud.
Same stop at the overlook beforehand.
Three weeks after Tommy returned, Graham called an emergency meeting.
Cassie sat in the corner.
She no longer had to ask permission to attend the open portion.
Graham stood.
“I want to move the memorial ride.”
Hank frowned.
“Why?”
“Next month.”
“That’s early.”
“I know.”
“Weather could be bad.”
“Could.”
Maria studied him.
“What are you thinking?”
Graham looked toward Tommy.
Then Cassie.
“Waiting until things are perfect is how fifteen years disappear.”
The room became quiet.
“We have Tommy back.”
“We have the outreach program expanding.”
“We have people asking questions about who we actually are.”
Graham nodded toward Cassie’s notebook.
“I think we do it now.”
Hank raised his eyebrows.
“Bigger?”
“Bigger.”
The vote was unanimous.
Preparation consumed the next four weeks.
Cassie discovered that memorial rides required more planning than almost anything else the club did.
Routes.
Fuel stops.
Emergency contacts.
Weather contingencies.
Road captains.
Ride order.
Guest riders.
Veterans’ groups.
Cemetery permissions.
Food.
Water.
Medical supplies.
Maria pulled Cassie into a different job.
History.
They spent an afternoon in Maria’s sewing room surrounded by old leather.
Cuts that no longer belonged on living shoulders.
Some had been returned by families.
Others donated.
Others preserved by the club with permission.
Maria handled each carefully.
“This one was Hank’s brother Jimmy.”
Cassie photographed the patch.
“Not the whole cut?”
“Family kept that.”
Maria moved to another.
“Bull.”
Derek’s father.
Cassie hesitated before photographing it.
Maria noticed.
“He said yes.”
“Derek?”
“He wants it included.”
Cassie took the picture.
Maria lifted another.
“This is Casey Monroe.”
The patch looked much older.
“First Iron Wolf we lost.”
“When?”
“1973.”
“How old?”
“Nineteen.”
Cassie lowered the camera slightly.
Maria nodded.
“Most of them were children pretending they were men.”
She handed Cassie an old photograph.
Young Graham.
Young Hank.
Casey.
Tommy had not joined yet.
Six motorcycles.
Cheap jackets.
Too much hair.
Too much confidence.
Cassie stared at her father.
“He looks like a stranger.”
Maria smiled.
“He was.”
That night Graham told Cassie more about 1971.
Not everything.
But more.
He had returned from Vietnam unable to tolerate quiet.
Cassie found that surprising.
“You hate loud places.”
“Now.”
“What about then?”
“Silence gave my head too much room.”
He sat at the kitchen table.
Cassie did not open the notebook.
This conversation was not officially part of the project unless Graham later agreed.
“When I came home, everyone expected relief.”
“I expected relief.”
He stared at his hands.
“I was alive.”
“That was supposed to solve everything.”
“It didn’t?”
“No.”
He looked toward the dark window.
“Sleep became work.”
“Crowds felt wrong.”