Chapter 5: The Night Ride
The night was cold and black and wet, the kind of Montana night that swallows sound and light. The rain had settled into a steady drizzle, and the wind moved through the pine trees along Route 9. The Iron Wolves rode out of the Dusty Spur's parking lot in two groups, their headlights cutting through the dark, and behind them, Sheriff Dana Whitfield's cruiser rolled out with its lights flashing.
Bear rode at the front of his group, with Tommy beside him. The wind pressed against his jacket and found every gap in it, cold as river water, but he barely noticed. His mind was on the road ahead, and on the woman they were looking for, and on the boy back at the roadhouse who had trusted him with the most important thing in his world. He had made a pinky promise, and Bear Calloway had never broken a pinky promise in his life.
They rode slow. That was the rule Bear had laid down before they left: slow, careful, eyes open. A fast rider misses things. So they rode at half speed, their headlights sweeping the shoulders, the ditches, the pull-offs, the farm gates. Every time they passed a place where a car could have pulled over, one of them would slow down further, lean out, and look.
"Sarge, check in," Bear said into the radio clipped to his vest.
"Sarge here," came the crackling reply. "We're past Miller's farm. Nothing yet. Road's clear to the bridge. Doc says the ditches are full of water. If she went off the road, we'd see the tracks."
"Copy that," Bear said. "Keep going. Slow and steady."
Tommy pulled up alongside Bear at a wide spot in the road. His young face was serious under his helmet, and his voice was tight when he spoke. "Bear," he said, "what if she's hurt? What if she's out there and she can't call for help?"
"Then we find her," Bear said. "That's what we're here for, Kid. Worry doesn't find people. Looking finds people. So we look."
Tommy nodded, and they rode on, two more miles, three more miles, the rain spattering against their visors, the pine trees crowding close on either side. Bear thought about the first time he had ridden this road, twenty years ago, when he was young and angry and certain the world owed him something. He had been wrong about that, the way young men often are. The world did not owe him anything. But he had learned, over the years, that a man could choose to be useful, and that being useful was a better way to live than being angry. Tonight, on this dark road, that choice felt like the only thing that mattered.
Behind them, Sheriff Whitfield's cruiser moved at the same slow pace, its headlights sweeping the other side of the road. The sheriff was a careful, thorough woman, and she had brought a deputy and a spotlight, and she was checking every driveway and every side road the way a person checks the rooms of a house when someone is missing.
They reached the old bridge. Bear slowed to a stop, and Tommy stopped beside him, and the two of them sat on their bikes in the rain, looking out over the dark water below. The bridge was narrow and old, with wooden rails that had been patched more times than anyone could count. Bear remembered Noah's words: "Past Miller's farm. Past the old bridge. She always says it's the long way, but it's the safe way."
"She'd have come this way," Bear said quietly. "She'd have come right through here."
Tommy peered over the rail. "No tracks in the mud," he said. "No broken rails. She didn't go off here."
"Good," Bear said. "That's good. That means she's further along."
They rode on. The road climbed a low hill, then dipped into a hollow where the fog liked to gather. Bear's headlight caught something on the shoulder ahead: a glint of metal, a flash of blue. His heart gave a hard thump, and he raised one hand to signal Tommy to stop.
There it was. A blue sedan, parked crooked on the shoulder, its hazard lights dark, its windows fogged with rain. The dent in the back was exactly as Noah had described it. Bear pulled up behind it, killed his engine, and sat for a moment in the sudden quiet, listening to the rain tick against his helmet.
"That's her car," Tommy whispered.
Bear got off his bike and walked up to the car, his boots crunching on the wet gravel. He put his hand on the hood. It was cold. The car had been sitting here for hours. He cupped his hands and looked through the driver's window. The car was empty. The keys were gone. A thermos sat in the cup holder, and a bag of goldfish crackers lay on the passenger seat.
"She's not here," Bear said. "She got out. She walked."
He looked down the road, toward town, where the lights of Cedar Falls glowed faintly through the rain, miles away. A woman, alone, on foot, in the dark, in the rain. He felt the same tightness in his chest that he had felt when Noah ran into the roadhouse.
"Radio Sarge," Bear said. "Tell him we found the car. Tell the sheriff. And tell Preacher to tell Noah that we found his mom's car, and that we're closer than we were."
Tommy was already on the radio. Bear stood beside the empty car for a moment longer, looking down the long, dark road toward town. Somewhere out there, a mother was walking home to her children. She was cold, and tired, and alone, and she did not know that a whole town was looking for her.
Bear put his helmet on and swung his leg over his bike. "Come on, Kid," he said. "She's on foot. She can't be far at all. We ride on, and we find her, and we bring her home. That's the promise."
The engines roared to life, and the two riders rolled forward into the night, their headlights sweeping the road ahead, searching for one woman walking home. Hope rode along.