They ride in a tight pack, almost a perfect square of sun-seared faces and blackened leather, hot sunlight dripping from their metal machines.
A rush of fear and doubt seizes me and suddenly I think Dad’s plan won’t work. The riders have too much time to see the logs, too much time to slow down, to maneuver—
GRUNTCH.
With a squeal of anguished metal, the first rider rams a slice of solid oak. He flips like a pancake, somersaults into the meadow as his bike roars away under him.
A cry goes up from the swarm behind him, a frantic voice: “Hold up! Hold up!”
But it’s too late.
Pop! Another rider lifts into the air, shooting like a cork. His motorcycle slides by, its front tire nothing but rags.
The riders begin to shout.
“Spread out! Watch out!”
But we’ve scattered logs all across the road. There’s nowhere to go.
That shiny steel wall breaks against those fat oak logs and melts into a pile of steaming metal. Riders are tossed from their seats. Motorcycles grind into solid wood, crumple, and die. One roars on even after its rider is thrown into the field. It runs almost to Sam’s front porch before it finally catches a log dead-on, rises, and goes end over end, tires still spinning, straight into the trees.
“Ooooh-weee, take that, Hoodlums!” Sam shouts from his rocking chair. He slaps his knee and lets loose a raspy laugh.
In the meadow the riders—now just staggering men—look up in confusion and disbelief. Amid the din of gasping motorcycles, we hear their cries of surprise and frustration.
Then comes a single, ear-splitting shriek. It comes from up the road. It comes from Crash Callahan.
He is still on his bike, still rolling down the road. Astonishment blazes across his red face at the sight of his horde lying wrecked and dazed and humiliated before him.
Crash jams on his brakes and slows, weaving in and out of the logs and busted motorbikes, leaning over the road at impossible angles. He rides through a sea of his gang’s wreckage, licking his lips, howling in defiant rage.
He roars right up to us.
“Nice work, old man! We’ll be back. Tonight! And tomorrow night! And every night for the rest of your life!” He spits again.
Before any of us can say anything, the rifle is gleaming in Sam’s hands again. There’s a crack like lightning and Crash’s front tire pops.
“Come back anytime!” Sam hollers. The rifle cracks again. Crash’s back tire pops. “Anytime!”
With a face like paper, Crash guns what’s left of his bike and takes off down the road, his tires flopping like rags.
But the shooting is too much for Butch. At the sound of those rifle blasts, my dog bolts. He bounds off the porch, right into the sea of defeated motorcycles and angry men. There’s just one problem: he takes Frankie with him.
Dad dives for him, fingers snapping shut on empty air. “Let go!” he shouts.
But Frankie can’t let go. His arm is looped through Butch’s collar. Facedown, he’s dragged alongside my German shepherd—right into the road.
Dad charges after him.
“Sam, cover us!” Pete shouts as he charges too.
Sam’s rifle cracks like corn in a hot skillet. He pops tires. He clips branches. He rains leaves down on the men in the road and at the edge of the field. He makes the dust spit at their feet.
Between that and my dog, the riders decide enough is enough. Those that can, right their bikes and pour back up the road in a last thunder-roll of choking diesel and dust. The rest take off running through Knee-Deep Meadow.
And now I’m running too: jumping steaming piles of motorcycle wreckage, chasing after my dog and my cousin. At first I don’t see them in the swirling dust of the road. Then I see Butch, without his collar, chasing the last of the riders into the high grass.
Ahead of me, Dad and Pete jump over the motorcycles that lie panting like dying animals in the dust, running for the shape of a boy lying facedown in the dirt.
Frankie! A lump rises in my throat. But when I get close, I see he’s sitting up. He holds Butch’s busted collar in his hand, looks as if he’s wondering what it is. He’s a mess. He’s got grass in his hair and stones down his shirt. One shoe is missing. Somehow he’s still wearing his glasses.
“You all right, son?” asks Dad.
Frankie runs his hands over his chest, his arms, his legs.
“I think so,” he coughs. He looks around. “Where’d they all go?”
Except for the logs and the wreckage of the motorbikes, the road is empty. Butch’s barking comes now from halfway across the meadow. There ain’t a single rider in sight.