At forty-three, Cole had learned how to live with a remarkable amount of unfinished business. His beard was dark with gray at the chin, his jaw carried a thin scar from an accident he rarely discussed, and his hands looked older than the rest of him. He had worked in repair shops, hauling yards, and temporary jobs in places where people asked only whether he could do the work. He paid his bills, kept his word, and seldom stayed long enough for anyone to become accustomed to him.
Once, he had called the Iron Compass Brotherhood his family. Back then there had been crowded campgrounds, roadside breakfasts, old motorcycles being repaired under borrowed lights, and friends who could recognize one another by engine sound before a headlight appeared. There had been six original members who wore small compass roses sewn by Darla Reeves, a woman in Tucson with steady hands and a wicked sense of humor. The thread was silver because Evan Rowan had insisted on it. A compass should be the color of something that caught light in the dark, Evan had said, not the color of something a man could pawn.
Cole had laughed at him then. Evan had been able to make almost anyone laugh, even when they were stranded beside a highway waiting for a replacement belt or arguing over whose turn it was to pay for gas. His laughter came from deep in his chest and made strangers smile before they knew what the joke was. He was two years younger than Cole, quicker to trust people, and far more inclined to believe that a bad day could be improved by a decent meal and another hundred miles of road.
Cole had carried the compass patch every day after Darla gave it to him. When he left the Brotherhood three years earlier, he removed his responsibilities and the larger chapter insignia he was no longer entitled to display. He kept the old personal compass and a few other worn pieces of leather that belonged to his own history. Nobody challenged him about it. Perhaps they understood that a man's past was not always something an organization could reclaim.
He pulled into Della's Road and Rail Diner because the windshield of his motorcycle had become a sheet of water and his fingers were beginning to lose their feeling. The building sat low against the roadside, its windows glowing amber behind streaks of rain. A faded sign advertised breakfast all day, though the final letter had not worked in years. The gravel lot contained a battered pickup, a tired sedan, and a county sheriff's cruiser with its engine idling at the far end.