Garrett shut off the engine. The new silence seemed deeper than the one before, because everybody now knew the machine could answer if asked. He stepped off, put his boots on the pavement, and walked toward Owen. The crowd parted instinctively, still conditioned to make room for him, although the reason for doing so had changed.
"Five thousand," Owen said. "And the apology."
Garrett reached into his vest and took out the roll of hundred-dollar bills. The money that had sat on a folding table all evening suddenly looked small beside the enormous shift in the room. He held it out. Owen did not take it at once.
"You owe me something else," the boy said.
It was an ordinary sentence, spoken without threat. Garrett heard it as a door opening onto a place he had avoided for years. He could pay money. He could replace a tool, cover a repair, or settle almost any dispute with an envelope of bills. What Owen wanted could not be handed over without Garrett first admitting that he had been the smaller man.
He looked over his shoulder at the riders who had laughed with him. Vince stood near the fence, arms hanging at his sides, no joke ready. A few of the older members watched Garrett with expressions difficult to read. They had followed him because he was decisive, because he gave the appearance of fearlessness, and because he had rarely admitted to anyone that he could make a mistake.
Garrett turned back to Owen. He opened his mouth, closed it, and felt the familiar instinct to attack rising because embarrassment had always been easier to turn outward than to endure. For one terrible second he considered telling the boy to take the money and leave. The crowd might even have accepted it. He looked at the chipped Craftsman wrench resting in the open toolbox and thought of a younger version of himself standing beside a patient father in a Detroit garage.
"I'm sorry," he said.
The words were low and rough. They barely carried beyond the nearest phones, but the people around Garrett were so quiet that everybody seemed to hear them anyway. He swallowed and forced himself to meet the boy's eyes. "I had no right to put my hands on you. Or say the things I said."
Owen had asked only for an apology, and for a moment he did not know what to do with the extra sentence. His body was still braced for violence. The relief of hearing the words did not erase the shove, the spit, or the fear he had felt while sixty people watched. It did, however, give the moment an honest shape.
"Thank you," Owen answered. "I hope you mean it."