The Chain Run got planned the way most things in Hartwell got planned: around the big table at the back of the Blue Plate, with coffee nobody was charged for and Sal Moretti feeding opinions out of the kitchen window whether anyone ordered them or not.
Deputy Mark Sellers brought the county map and a highlighter and the particular patience of a man who has routed fair parades, funeral processions, and one memorable escaped-cattle roundup. "Hundred and four miles," he said, tracing the loop. "Out past the covered bridge, up through Millersburg, around the reservoir, and home down Route 8. No gravel if we can help it. Two fuel stops. Rest stops at the grange hall and the reservoir pavilion, with water and shade. I'll take the lead car, and we'll have a sweep truck with a trailer for anybody who breaks down."
"How many bikes can the road take?" Walt asked.
"Run in staggered groups of twenty, five minutes apart, and Main Street can hold the finish if we close it from Oak to the courthouse." Sellers looked up. "Ruth, that's the county commissioners' call, not mine. But I put in the word. A charity ride that's raising money to keep the diner's taxes in this county β that's a speech even Commissioner Hale can give."
Dale Kershner, president of the Iron Mile Riders, had the sponsorship ledger open in front of him, and his big handwriting filled it line by line. "Every mile marker gets a sponsor. Twenty-five dollars a mile from the businesses, a hundred for the mile past their own front door. Yoder's feed store took four miles and paid in cash before I finished asking. Hardware store took the bridge mile. The funeral homeβ" he paused.
"The funeral home took a mile?" Megan said.
"Two. Said it was the best advertising in the county, everybody alive at the end of it." Dale turned a page. "We're at three hundred and eighty pledged riders, Walt. Half the chapter thinks we'll clear five hundred."
Sal leaned out of the pass-through with a spatula still in his hand. "Then let me tell you about my problem, since everybody's confessing. Five hundred riders means five hundred lunches at the finish, plus the town, plus the band, plus every cousin who ever heard the word free. That's nine hundred plates, near enough. I need six grills, forty pounds of onions, and a potato salad operation that would shame the Lutheran church supper. I've got the grills. I need hands."
"You'll have them," Ruth said. "The Methodist ladies have already called me. Twice. They want the coleslaw concession, and Marge Tilley says the Baptists can have desserts because, and I quote, 'the Baptists need the practice.'" A ripple of laughter went around the table, and for a moment the whole improbable machine of it β the ride, the money, the deadline, the developer with his bulldozer drawings β felt less like a desperate gamble and more like what it actually was: a town deciding, in public, what it was for.
The details multiplied the way details do when people care. Megan designed the registration table layout on a napkin and then, embarrassed by the napkin, redrew it properly on graph paper. Walt took charge of the route markers and the sweep arrangements and the long list of small mechanical mercies β spare cables, tire plugs, a cooler of water every twenty miles β because Walt had ridden forty years and knew exactly how a good day goes wrong. Somebody's cousin had a flatbed and a PA system. The Lions Club offered their bingo tent for registration, rain or shine. The high school band director volunteered the drum line for the finish. The radio station in Millersburg offered spots for free.
Late in the evening, when the table was covered in maps and lists and empty cups, Ruth stood at the head of it with her pencil behind her ear and looked at what they had built.
"October eleventh," she said. "Registration at seven, first group out at nine, last bike home by three. Sal feeds whoever's standing. And every dollar β every dollar, Dale β goes in the bank account with a receipt, the way Ellen showed me. We're not just saving a diner. We're saving it honest, so nobody can ever say otherwise."
"Hear, hear," said Dale, and banged his coffee mug like a gavel.
Walt said nothing at all, which was his way, but on his way out he stopped by the register where Sophie's drawing of the diner β blue crayon, wobbly, with a sun in the corner wearing sunglasses β was taped at child's-eye height, and he stood looking at it a moment longer than a man looks at a drawing.
Then he went out into the parking lot, where the October air had gone sharp, and rode home under a sky full of stars, thinking about the route, the miles, and all the small links that would have to hold.
Chapter 13: Hannah