Part 5 – The Letter
I’ve been in enough chases to know when the deck’s stacked.
Gravel spitting under the Harley, headlight carving a tunnel through night, Diesel lunging at the leash from the sidecar like a guided missile—this wasn’t about speed. It was about grit. Whoever had the letter was younger, quicker, and already had a head start.
But they didn’t have Diesel.
He howled once, sharp and electric, the kind of sound that snaps your muscles tight. He pivoted in the sidecar, nose cutting the air like radar. He pulled me right. I yanked the bars, engine snarling, sparks spitting off the peg as we slashed the turn.
The alley opened into a maze of dumpsters and broken glass. Our guy was fast, but he didn’t know he’d just run into Diesel’s element—shadows, scent, movement. I killed the headlight and let the dog work.
Diesel growled low, body locked toward a stack of pallets.
“Flush him,” I whispered.
He leapt from the sidecar, claws hammering asphalt, disappearing behind the pallets. Two seconds later came a yelp—not Diesel’s, but the kind a thief makes when a hundred pounds of Shepherd takes his ankle for collateral.
I rolled up slow, swung off the Harley. The thief was on the ground, hood back, maybe twenty years old, eyes wide and wet. He kicked uselessly, Diesel planted on his chest, teeth inches from his throat but not breaking skin. Just waiting for my call.
“Letter,” I said, calm as winter.
He fumbled in his jacket and tossed the envelope like it was poison.
I picked it up. Torn but still salvageable. My hands shook more than I wanted to admit.
“You don’t know what you’re playing with, kid,” I said.
The thief spat blood where his lip had split. “They paid me. Said old man would come crawling after it. Said it mattered.”
“Who’s they?”
He clamped his jaw shut, defiance kicking in now that Diesel hadn’t eaten his face.
I leaned closer. “You think I’m the scary one here? You should meet the ghosts you’re working for.”
He blinked, swallowed. “They called him Lieutenant once. Said he’s not finished yet.”
I felt the old man stiffen behind me.
The kid tried to roll, but Diesel pressed harder, a warning snarl vibrating through the night.
“Go,” I told Diesel.
The Shepherd stepped back, still growling, but gave the kid room to scramble. He bolted down the alley, limping hard.
The old man sagged against the fence, face ashen. “They’ve got their hooks in me after all these years. I told you. The war doesn’t end.”
I pressed the envelope into his hands. “Then let’s end it ourselves.”
The Unopened Words
We waited until we were back at the garage, heater hissing, Diesel curled tight at the door like a sentry carved from muscle.
The old man sat on the couch, envelope trembling between his fingers. He stared at it the way some men stare at coffins.
“I can’t,” he said.
“You’ve carried it fifty years,” I said. “Time to read it.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. Her words… they’ll split me open. I couldn’t bear it when I came home, and I can’t bear it now.”
“Then let me,” I said.
His eyes locked on mine. Long seconds passed, heavy as anvils. Finally, he nodded. “Do it.”
I slid a knife from my belt, cut the brittle flap. Inside was a folded sheet, yellow with age but the ink still sharp, written in a neat, steady hand.
I read aloud.
To the one who came back when my son did not,
My Harris always wrote about you. Said you were stubborn, but good. Said you’d pull him through hell if anyone could. When the officer came to my door, I hated you. Hated that you were alive when my boy wasn’t. But then I found his last letter to me. He wrote that if he didn’t make it, he wanted me to find you. He said you were his brother. And a mother keeps her son’s last wish.
If you’re reading this, I forgive you. Come see me. I have a chair at the table and a story to share. Don’t let his sacrifice bury you. Carry him by living.
—Mrs. Eleanor Harris
The words slid into silence like a knife into soft wood.
The old man bowed his head, shoulders shaking. No sound. Just tremors rolling through a frame that had carried too much weight for too long.
“She forgave me,” he whispered.
I put the letter in his lap. “Fifty years ago.”
His fists clenched. “And I never went. I never gave her peace. I let her die waiting.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But her words are still here. Her daughter’s still here. That means the chance isn’t gone.”
The Decision
We sat there until the heater ran out of gas and the garage went cold again.
Finally, he lifted his head. His eyes weren’t broken anymore. They were lit with something dangerous: purpose.
“We go to her,” he said. “To the daughter. To whoever’s left. I’ll face it.”
“That’s the first smart thing you’ve said,” I told him.
But even as I said it, a thought gnawed at me: the man in the coat, the thieves, the chase. Someone else wanted this letter just as bad. Maybe worse.
“What’s really in this?” I asked. “Why are they chasing you for fifty years?”
His jaw worked. “Because the letter isn’t the only thing Harris left behind. And if they find it first, they’ll use his name to bury the truth.”
“And that truth is…?”
His eyes dropped. “Not tonight. I need strength for that.”
The Call
Later, when the old man slept under the blanket, Diesel sprawled across the floor like a furry blockade, I sat with the letter under the flicker of a single bulb.
The words haunted me. Carry him by living.
I thought about the brothers I’d lost, the weight of their patches on my back, how I’d ridden highways like penance. Maybe I wasn’t so different from the man on my couch. Carrying ghosts. Running from forgiveness.
The phone on the wall buzzed. I didn’t even remember plugging it in.
I picked it up.
A voice, low and oily, said, “We want the letter.”
I didn’t answer.
“You have until tomorrow night. If you care about the old man, you’ll bring it to the corner of 12th and Grant. Otherwise, he disappears again. Permanently this time.”
The line clicked dead.
Diesel’s ears twitched. He growled, even in sleep, as if he’d heard it too.
I hung up slow, the receiver heavy.
I looked at the old man. His face twitched in restless dreams, lips moving, maybe calling to Harris, maybe to Valor.
I stroked Diesel’s head, whispered, “Looks like tomorrow’s gonna be a fight, boy.”
He licked my hand once, then went still.
I folded the letter back into the envelope, slipped it inside my jacket, and felt its weight against my chest.
Some fights you choose. Some find you. And some… some have been waiting fifty years.
Tomorrow, we’d find out which kind this was.
Part 6 – Road Trip of Redemption
We left before sunrise because trouble sleeps in the city and wakes with the lights. I didn’t tell the man in the coat we weren’t coming to 12th and Grant. I figured he’d take my silence personally. Good. Let him chase ghosts. We had a different appointment to keep—one that was fifty years late.
Diesel hopped into the sidecar like it was church pew number one, nose high, tasting the dawn. I strapped the letter inside my jacket, right over my ribs, where the important things ride. The old man stood in the garage, helmet in his hands, looking at the Harley like it was a horse that might remember him.
“You sure?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “But we go anyway.”
He slid on the helmet. It didn’t fix the tremor in his hands, but it quieted something in his eyes. I kicked life into the engine. Thunder answered. If the city was listening, it would know we were gone.
Miles eat thoughts. They grind them down, polish them, throw back only what can hold its shape. By the time we’d crossed the river and picked up the interstate, the old man’s shoulders had settled. Diesel tracked the air like a radar dish, catching scents I’d never know: alfalfa wet with dew, diesel fumes, the sweet rot of last night’s garbage clinging to a dump truck three cars ahead.
We rode west. It felt right. Harris had been a Kansas boy; the letter smelled like fried chicken and summer porches even through the paper. The address on the envelope—County Road 7, Dalton—was a smudge of ink and hope. I let the highway roll under us and kept the throttle where the wind could do half the thinking.
Two hours in, we hit a truck stop that had been born a diner and grown up to be a rumor. The neon OPEN was missing its O. Inside was coffee tar-black and eggs that fought back. The waitress had a wedding ring and a tattoo of a sunflower where a bruise might go.
She kept staring at the old man like he was a picture she almost recognized. “You headed far?” she asked, topping off my mug to the point of a spill I knew she’d catch.
“Kansas,” I said. “Dalton.”
She nodded slow. “Got kin there?”
“Sort of,” the old man said. His voice carried like a dry leaf. “A boy I should’ve brought home.”
The waitress didn’t pry. People who’ve lost something big can smell the same on others. She slid a paper sack across the counter. “For the road,” she said. “On the house.”
Outside, Diesel sat between the pump and the curb and watched the parking lot with the same intensity he gave squirrels and men who lied. When the old man came out, Diesel stood and pressed his shoulder to the man’s leg like a vow.
“What do I call you?” I asked, back at the bike. “Besides ‘old man.’”
He took a long breath. “Mason,” he said. “Mason Cole.”
“Mason,” I repeated. “All right.”
“Yours?”
“Most people say ‘Rook,’” I said. “It stuck.”
He grunted. “That mean you’re new, or you only move diagonally?”
“Depends on who’s watching,” I said, and he smiled for the first time since I’d met him. It made him look twenty years younger and just as tired.
We made state line by noon. Sun took the edge off the wind; the wind still took its share. The road opened, then narrowed, then opened again, like hope does. Somewhere east of Wichita a black sedan slid in behind us and stayed. Not too close. Not too far. Diesel noticed first. He angled his head back and to the right, nostrils quivering, then flicked his eyes to me. That’s his third language: count the shadows.
“Yeah,” I said to no one. “I see him.”
Mason turned stiff. “They found us.”
“They found the highway,” I said. “We’re just scenery.”
I took the next exit like I’d planned it all week. The sedan stayed straight. Could’ve been a coincidence. I don’t believe in those when men in coats are involved.
We cut south, then west again on a county road that didn’t bother with paint. The land flattened into sheets of winter wheat and stubble, the sky big enough to stack three cities in. Diesel put his head back into the wind, satisfied. Mason’s grip on my jacket loosened a notch.
At a lonely crossroads we passed a VFW—low brick, flag snapping, a sign that read CHILI COOK-OFF SAT. Parking lot held six pickups and one Buick that had survived more wars than its driver. I pulled in.
Inside smelled like old varnish and new stories. Men in ball caps nursed beers and stared at the TV without listening. A wall of photos watched us—all ages, all uniforms, all years. The bartender looked like he’d once been shot and apologized to the bullet.
Mason stopped at the wall like he’d found a mirror. His hand hovered over a young face in black and white, not touching. “He could be any of them,” he said.
A man at the end of the bar tipped his hat. “You served, sir?”
Mason swallowed. “A long time ago.”
The man nodded. “Still counts.”
I ordered two waters and a bowl of chili that could remove paint. While we ate, a woman came out from the back carrying a box of raffle tickets. She took one look at Mason and softened like cream in coffee.
“You headed to Dalton?” she asked, just like the waitress had. When Mason nodded, she touched his sleeve. “If you’re going down County 7, watch the bridge at Mill Creek. Boards loose, and the county won’t fix a thing until someone drowns.”
“Thanks,” I said.
She eyed the scar on my knuckle and Diesel’s police-serious posture. “You boys be careful,” she added, and that was the kind of blessing a church can’t improve.
Back on the road, Mason sat straighter. “I thought I’d never walk into a place like that again.”
“You did fine,” I said.
“No,” he said. “They did. They made room.”
We hit Mill Creek an hour later. The bridge was exactly what she’d promised: wood gray as bones, guardrail that wouldn’t guard a kitten. Halfway across, a pickup barreled from the other side, grill like a sneer. Diesel stood in the sidecar, front paws on the rim, body rigid.
“Easy,” I said to nobody. The pickup drifted center. The driver looked straight at us and made no correction at all.
“Rook,” Mason said, voice flat.
I feathered the brake without a flash of light and eased to the right until the boards complained. At the last second the pickup shuddered left, passed with six inches to spare, and clipped a side mirror clean off. It spun into the creek like a coin.
I stopped on the far bank and watched the pickup shrink. No brake lights. No apology. Diesel kept staring after it long after it was gone.
“Accident?” Mason asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “And maybe someone left 12th and Grant early.”
We didn’t talk for a while after that.
Dalton wasn’t a town so much as a pause in the road. A water tower, a feed store, three streets with names older than statehood. County 7 ran straight as an oath past fences that remember horses. We counted mailboxes.
“Slow,” Mason said, and I did.
There it was. E. HARRIS painted by a hand that cared. The house beyond was a two-story farmhouse with a porch that had taught a hundred summer nights how to be long. Or it had been. Now the porch leaned like a man after four beers, windows boarded, roof dented by storms that don’t sign their work.
We rolled to a stop and let dust decide where to land. No cars. No movement. Only a wind chime made of spoons knocking a tune I didn’t know.
Mason climbed off the bike like a diver, slow and sure. He stood at the gate without opening it. Diesel sat close, ears half-cocked, eyes never still.
“She died here?” Mason asked the air.
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe she just left.”
We went up the walk. It felt like trespassing on grief. The front door’s boards were new. There were pry marks around the lock, old and patient. Someone else had wanted in. Someone else had been turned away.
Around back, the kitchen door had a pane of glass missing and newspaper stuffed into the hole. Mason pushed. It gave.
Inside smelled like dust and cinnamon, like someone had tried to keep the good scents alive as long as they could. A calendar on the wall was stuck on June 2001. A magnet held up a grocery list that ended with “sunflower seeds.”
Diesel ranged, respectful, snout low. He stopped at a cabinet and whined—a tiny sound he uses when he finds what doesn’t belong.
“What is it, boy?” I asked.
He pawed once. I opened the cabinet. Nothing. Just shelves and a rusted tin of baking powder.
Mason crouched, put his palm flat on the linoleum. “Here,” he said, and knocked. Hollow.
We dragged the cabinet two inches. Beneath was a square of wood with a thumb hole so worn it had its own memory. I lifted.
A hidey-hole. Inside, a cigar box, military-issue hardback journal, and a photo wrapped in wax paper. My breath stalled.
Mason didn’t touch anything. He looked at me like a man asking to be read his last rites. “Please,” he said.
I opened the box first. Inside was a medal I couldn’t name in the moment because my throat closed around words. Next to it, a ring on a chain. A small church bulletin—GRACE BAPTIST MEMORIAL, ELEANOR HARRIS, JULY 14, 2001—with a name handwritten at the bottom: Lydia Carter—caregiver and a phone number.
Mason’s hand shook. “Her daughter?” he whispered. “Harris’s sister?”
“Could be,” I said. “Carter might be married name.”
The journal’s first page was neat as a dress uniform. Harris—songs for home. Lyrics, chords, pieces of letters never sent. And on the last page: If you find this, forgive the mess. I was saving a place at the table.
The photo in the wax paper hit hardest. Two boys in jungle grime with arms around each other and a Shepherd at their knees. Mason didn’t cry. He just touched the edge of the paper and whispered, “I’m sorry, brother.”
Diesel eased closer and laid his chin on Mason’s thigh. The three of them were in the same room again, separated by time and breath, bound by something that didn’t care.
A floorboard creaked in the living room.
Not ours.
Diesel’s head snapped up. He didn’t growl. He went still, which is worse.
I moved to the doorway, checked the angle with a piece of glass from the broken pane. A shadow, just outside the front door, where the boards were new. The faintest tilt of a head. A camera lens or a scope? The hair on my arms stood up and waited for an argument.
“Company,” I whispered.
Mason put the medal back like it could break. He took the ring on the chain and slid it into his pocket without looking at me for permission. He’d earned it before he met me.
We closed the hidey-hole and slid the cabinet back exactly. Diesel crept to the kitchen door, eyes burning, tail low. I flattened against the wall and lifted two fingers. One. Two.
On three, I pushed the door open and stepped through low. The front room was empty. The shadow was gone. The porch chimes tinkled an innocent song. A fresh cigarette butt smoldered on the floorboards—same brand the coat had smoked. He’d been here minutes ago. Maybe seconds. Watching the house watch us.
Pinned to the inside of the front door with a pocketknife was a strip of torn paper. The handwriting jerked across it in angry strokes.
TOO LATE, LT.
Mason stared at it like the words themselves were the enemy. “He was here,” he said, the old command voice surfacing. “He’s been ahead of us.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “We’ve got something he doesn’t.”
“What?”
I held up the bulletin with Lydia Carter underlined and the phone number circled twice in a hand that shook as it wrote. “A way forward.”
A truck door slammed outside. Boots on gravel. Not one pair. Two. Maybe three. Diesel finally let the growl out, low and long, like thunder rolling in over flat land.
I looked at the back door, then at the narrow stairs that led up. Neither was good.
“Rook,” Mason said, quiet, choosing me. “What now?”
I slid the journal inside my jacket with the letter. Two hearts beating. “Now,” I said, “we find out if they want a conversation or a funeral.”
The front doorknob turned.
Diesel stepped in front of us, shoulders squared, ears forward, the old training rising like a flag on a windless day.
I lowered my voice to a place even fear couldn’t reach. “Stay with me,” I told them both.
The door swung open. A silhouette filled it. Broad. Familiar.
“Afternoon, Lieutenant,” said the man in the coat. “You should’ve come to 12th and Grant.”
He smiled past me at the kitchen, at the place where a ghost had left us a map. “But I suppose the scenic route suits you.”
Diesel showed his teeth to the light.
And I reached for the part of myself that’s only good at two things: riding into storms—and making sure we don’t ride alone.