Chapter 6

While you are riding a frail bicycle, you tend to keep your eyes on the road. At least I did, what with the threat of squirrels and rabbits throwing my ass in a ditch filled with water on the side of the road. With that threat removed, I was able to take a better look at the plants growing along the cracked blacktop. There were beautiful old trees with Spanish Moss hanging everywhere. If those trees had been white, they would have looked like a young woman in a bridal gown. That moss was just flat gorgeous.

I also noticed the sun, more than just the heat waves rising from the asphalt. The sun was so bright that everything looked clean. It was as if the sun had burned off all the red dirt covering everything. The truth is the dirt was just baked hard like a clay pot, but that's not how it looked at that moment.

The two Workman bikes were tied carefully to the tilting flatbed truck. It was the kind of flat bed commonly used to tow cars. The three of us lifted the bikes onto the flatbed, so he had very little work to do. I didn't expect that he would be giving Marty any discount though.

I forced the driver to stop on the way out to the main road. We were about to pass a thousand year old country store. It was the kind you see in movies like 'Deliverance'. I wanted to at least buy a Coke in a place like that once more in my life. My dad had been a bird hunter in the south when I was growing up. I was a bit of a tomboy, you reckon, so I had been out with him plenty of times. I didn't realize how much I had missed the rural south until that moment. I don't even know what caused it, but my youth just came crashing down on me. It was like the old crack in the dam trick. It's a trickle, then a flood of memories.

I could see my dad, at my age, standing on the sagging porch of that half rotten frame building wearing mustard colored hunting clothes. The big twill pants held up with suspenders and the giant coat with big pockets for the quail he shot. It made me want to cry. And all those sights came pouring in because of an old rundown country store.

The woman in the store wasn't nearly old enough to be a good fit with the store; she was just too damn young. Hell, she was younger than me. "This is a neat old place you have here," I said.

"Thank you, I have a lot of trouble keeping it this way. My husband wants to fill the place with the latest stuff to try to improve the profits, but I tell him this is my hobby, not my profession."

"Good for you," I said. "We need places like this to show the kids how it really was back in the day." I didn't just say it, I meant it. "Me and the old man over there are on a bicycle trip cross country. We had a bit of trouble back there and had to call the wrecker here to get us out."

"Could I go look at your bicycles. My son is 11. He is in the house playing video games. I sure would love to show him the bikes to."

"I don't see any reason why not," I said, looking across the store at a very restless Marty. He was antsy about something, but I didn't know what. "You run get your son and we will pull the bikes down for him to get a good look at."

After she left the store, I walked over to Marty. Come on we are going to give the locals a demonstration of the bikes."

"Why?" he asked.

"You told me this whole thing wasn't just about your ego; it was about promoting these things as alternate transportation for the poor."

"Well, it is," he said. He knew he had been snookered.

"Well, I doubt you are going to find anyone any poorer than these folks."

"What about him," Marty said, nodding to the driver.

"Marty, have you ever seen anyone ride one of these and want to quit?" Marty just smiled.

Once we got the bikes down, the driver rode one and Marty rode the other. I talked to the store owner and her son. The exhibition was supposed to be a couple of minutes, but it ran almost thirty because people kept showing up from nowhere. Several of them rode the bikes and got the information on building one themselves.

When we were back on the road for town, Marty said, "We need to set up a dealership and have you ride around doing demos."

"Hell, Marty, I'll drive her around and help." The tow truck driver was a big, big fan suddenly.

Unfortunately, he had to drop us at the Sheriff's office. The bikes bothered me and so did the pistol. "Miss Maxine, if you trust me, you can leave that piece with me. My shop is right down the street. When you finish here, just stop by. Don't worry, I know you can kick my ass, I ain't planning to steal it."

"Thanks, Eddie, I'll owe you one."

"Max, I would rather you owe me one, than ten other women give me one," he said, with a giggle like a schoolgirl.

The man who came from the small brick Sheriff's substation was a sergeant. "Which one of you is Marty Southland?" he asked.

"I am," Marty said quietly.

"Got somethin' for you," he said handing Marty a box. Once Marty opened the box, he removed a Deputy's hat.

He put the hat on then turned to me. "So how do I look, Max?"

"You look great, so are you a deputy now?"

"He is, Ma'am, anything ya'll need just let us know."

There wasn't a lot of hoopla to the ceremony and there wasn't supposed to be. Marty had somehow managed to bribe the local Sheriff without ever meeting him, which was just fine with me. It just amazed me the things one could do with a smart phone, and of course, a boatload of money.

"So how long do you want to stay here?" I asked. Once we were checked into the motel.

"Oh, I'm ready to go anytime."

"Come on, you already paid to stay, we might as well get your money's worth."

"Max, you are not going to be a snob with me you bitch. I worked from sunup till sundown in the blazing sun growing tobacco on my daddy's farm till I went to college. In college, when other kids were building bonfires, I was learning to improve the strain of tobacco. Now I am no longer growing that shit, I throw my money around. God knows Teddy don't need my money. I made sure he had his own long ago. So yeah I make my life a little easier,"

"Little my ass," I interjected.

"Okay, a lot easier, I don't see you giving the money back."

"Get this straight, big guy. You hire me to do a job, you don't buy me, and you can't pay me enough to do it anything less than my best. You meet my price and you get the best I can do period."

"But if I gave you a fifty thousand dollar bonus, would you give it back?"

That took the wind out of my sails. I swallowed hard and said, "Don't do that unless you want to have your last illusion shattered." I flashed him a knowing smile that could have meant anything and dropped it.

We were back on the road in dirty jeans the next day, just as if nothing had happened. As a matter of fact, we were back on the road four more days just exactly the same. The landscape turned from lush to dry and still we moved west. The bike I rode began to act hinky. I told Marty something was wrong with his toy, but he didn't want to believe it.