The rider lowered the kickstand and sat without moving. For several long seconds, the only sound was the ticking of hot metal. Then the man took off his helmet, looked down at his machine, and cursed with a weariness so deep it sounded older than anger.
He was a giant compared with Leo, with a scarred cheek, a gray-streaked beard, and a leather vest covered in patches. Across his back was the familiar red-and-white winged skull that Leo had seen on television and on motorcycles passing through Reno. The letters beneath it read HELLS ANGELS. On his chest, a name patch said SULLY. Another identified him as a sergeant at arms.
Leo stepped away from the window. He had enough trouble without introducing himself to an outlaw biker whose machine had just died in the desert. But when the man tried to lift his left arm, Leo saw the dark patch spreading across the shoulder of his shirt. The leather had been torn, and a narrow ribbon of blood ran down toward his elbow.
The biker looked toward the highway, then back at the engine. He produced a small tool from his vest and crouched beside the motorcycle, working quickly despite the injury. Leo heard a wrench strike concrete, followed by a sound like a frustrated growl. The man stood, took several steps into the road to study the empty horizon, and returned to the bike with the anxious impatience of someone who knew time mattered.
Leo understood the situation in pieces. The bike was leaking. The rider was hurt. The road had gone quiet, yet the man kept glancing behind him. Whatever had happened before he reached the station, it had not ended when the engine stopped.
He waited for the rider to find a solution and leave. Five minutes passed, then ten. The evening light thinned. The man pulled a roll of electrical tape from a saddlebag and attempted to wrap it around a damaged section near the engine. Leo knew enough to understand that the tape would not survive the heat or the fluid moving through that part of the bike.
He could stay hidden. That was what his experience told him to do. He could watch the sun go down, let the stranger face his own problem, and return to his bicycle. Yet the sight of a broken machine worked on by somebody too hurt and hurried to think clearly stirred a memory he had carried since childhood: his father kneeling beside a stranded tourist's truck in the rain, saying that you did not have to like a person to keep him from being stranded.
Leo put the photograph and the drawing back into their tin. He crossed the garage and pushed on the side door. The rusted hinges complained loudly enough that the biker turned at once.
'Tape won't hold that,' Leo said.
The man's posture changed in an instant. His right hand moved toward his belt, and his eyes fixed on the skinny teenager in the doorway. 'Who are you?'
'Leo Gallagher.' Leo kept both hands visible. 'I was staying here. I heard the bike.'
'Well, you've heard it. Go back inside.'
'Your fuel line's torn, and there's a crack in the primary cover. I think I can get you moving.'
The biker stared at him, then gave a short, disbelieving laugh. 'You look like you can barely get yourself moving.'