Houses started to pop up, most of them dark. Concrete and stucco, bare yards. The road began to run parallel to a canal, the Harley’s headlamp reflected in the water.
Past the houses and into tall sugarcane now. In the Harley’s headlamp, Kirwan caught glimpses of dirt roads that ran off the highway. The Harley slowed, as if the rider was watching for an upcoming turn. Kirwan slowed with it. He’s almost there, wherever he’s going. You’ll lose him. And maybe that’s a good thing.
An intersection ahead, with a blinking yellow light in all four directions. The Harley blew through it without slowing. Kirwan did the same. The road began to curve gradually to the right. Ahead, lit by a single pole light, a concrete bridge spanned the canal.
Pull over. Let him go. Put your headlights on, turn around. You’re in the middle of nowhere, and you’re losing time. Don’t be stupid.
The Harley slowed, rider and machine leaning to the right as they followed the curve of the road. Kirwan floored the gas pedal.
The Volvo leaped forward, faster than he’d expected, closed on the Harley in an instant. The bike had almost reached the bridge when the rider shifted in his seat, looked back, saw him for the first time. Kirwan hit the headlights, gave him the brights, barely thirty feet between them.
The biker was still turned in his seat when the Harley reached the bridge. Kirwan saw it as if in slow motion—the biker looking forward at the last moment, the bike coming in too sharp, the angle wrong. Then the front tire hit the abutment and the rider was catapulted into the darkness, the bike somersaulting after him, end over end, off the bridge and onto the ground below.
Kirwan’s foot moved from gas pedal to brake, stomped down hard. The Volvo shimmied as it had before, slewed to the right, the samples thumping into the seat back. The tires squealed, dug in, and the Volvo came to a shuddering stop just short of the bridge.
He reversed onto the shoulder, shifted into park, and listened. All he could hear over his engine noise were crickets. He switched on the hazards. Didn’t want another car to come speeding along, rear-end him in the darkness.
He got out, left the door ajar. There were bits of metal and broken glass on the bridge, a single skid mark. He walked up the shoulder, hazards clicking behind him, the headlights throwing his shadow long on the pavement.
At the bridge, he looked down. The ground sloped steeply to the edge of the canal. The bike was about fifteen feet away, had ripped a hole through the foliage. The rear tire was spinning slowly. From somewhere in the darkness came a moan.
He went back to the car, opened the glove box, took out the plastic flashlight, looked at the phone on the console.
Back at the bridge, he switched on the flashlight. The bright narrow beam leaped out, starkly lit the grass below. Torn-up earth down there. The bike had tumbled at least once before coming to rest in the trees.
He aimed the light toward it. It lay on its right side, the forks bent back and twisted, the front tire gone. The left saddlebag had been thrown open and its contents—clothes mostly—littered the grass. The air smelled of gasoline.
The moaning again. He picked his way carefully down the slope, shoes sinking in the damp earth. Playing the light along the edge of the canal, he followed the noise.
The biker lay on a wide flat stone below the bridge. He was on his left side, and there was blood on his face. Kirwan walked toward him, watching where he put his feet, not wanting to slip and fall.
The biker’s right boot was scraping uselessly against the stone. His left boot was missing, and the leg there was bent at a right angle away from his body. He’d dragged himself onto the rock, left a smear of dark blood and mud on the stone to mark his passage.
Kirwan shone the light in his face. The biker raised his right hand, let it fall. His left arm was trapped beneath him.
The gun. Watch for the gun.
He came closer. The biker was hyperventilating like a wounded animal, chest rising and falling. His left eye was swollen shut. He raised his arm again, weakly.
He doesn’t recognize me. Doesn’t know what happened.
Kirwan came closer, shone the light up and down the biker’s body, then around it. No gun.
“Help...help me.” The voice was a hoarse whisper. In the darkness, something splashed in the canal, swam away.
Kirwan squatted. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
The biker tried to shift onto his back, gasped.
“Remember me?” Kirwan said.
He turned the flashlight toward himself, holding it low so the biker could see his face. The good eye narrowed into a squint. He shook his head.