The place had a reputation disproportionate to its size. Neighbors complained about the engines but still asked riders for help when a car battery died. Local teenagers came to stare at the motorcycles and sometimes were warned away with more force than necessary. Mechanics in the area knew that a call from the Iron Rail could mean a profitable job or an unpleasant afternoon, depending on which side of Garrett's temper the day had reached.
On a Wednesday afternoon in August 2026, Black Fury began making an unfamiliar sound outside Ann Arbor. Garrett heard it first as a slight change in the idle at a gas station. He considered stopping to examine it but had riders waiting in Detroit and disliked losing time. An hour later, on Interstate 94, the engine hesitated twice as though somebody were closing the throttle without touching it.
He eased onto an exit ramp, frustrated more than frightened. The engine recovered briefly, then coughed with a metallic scrape from deep in the cases. He gave it another measured roll of throttle. Black Fury answered with a weak, uneven note and died.
Garrett coasted onto the shoulder and sat with both boots planted, looking down at the tank. Traffic passed in hard bursts of sound, rocking the stationary bike in the wash of moving trucks. He tried the starter again, then waited and tried once more. The engine turned but would not catch. Beneath the silence, he thought he heard a strange thin click, like a piece of metal settling somewhere it did not belong.
He should have stopped after the first attempt and called for a transport. Instead he grew angry, as if the motorcycle were choosing to humiliate him. A passing driver slowed long enough to ask if he needed help. Garrett waved him away. He called his own riders, then called a service truck to bring Black Fury back without exposing it to more needless attempts to start.
The motorcycle arrived at the Iron Rail before dusk. Garrett stood beside it while the driver lowered the ramp and watched every inch of the process with suspicious attention. He could remember his father steadying the front wheel on a different truck nearly forty years earlier. The recollection made him angrier, because grief had a way of disguising itself as irritation when a man had never learned another language for it.
By the next morning, fifteen people had examined Black Fury. They came in waves: the chapter's own riders, two neighborhood mechanics, a retired dealership employee, a young technician who worked on modern bikes, and several specialists whose names were familiar to anybody interested in vintage Harleys. Each person approached the problem through the things they knew best. None paused long enough to learn the complete history of the engine's modifications.