Chapter 3

Besides the fact that the lake I thought I'd climbed out of in the dark turned out to be a river, there was only one thing of note outside my tent, apart from the trees and nearby campers. A motorcycle: a Harley Davidson Road King, saddlebags and all, though I wasn't sure of the year. I took the wet pants and shirt I'd stripped out of the night before and hung them where the sun would dry them, then headed over to check out the bike.

I'd been a Harley fan in my younger years. My affection for the machines had grown out of my nickname, which was a corruption of my name Harold Lee. Grandma Williams had called me Harley almost from the day I was born, and over the years, the rest of the family and then my friends had taken to calling me Harley as well. I'd even been called Harley by the rest of my unit when I was in the military.

Even that damned voice had called me Harley, and where the hell was it when I needed it? All in my face when I was trapped in a hospital bed, but now that I'd somehow gone down the rabbit hole? Pulled the Cheshire cat act and disappeared.

The bike had an electronic ignition and locking saddlebags, as well as a helmet, painted to match the bike's colors, which was locked into a spot on the back of the seat. I had no keys. I made an immediate trip back into the tent and found the keys in a jacket hanging from a hook on the back tent pole. It had been there the whole time and I hadn't noticed. That bothered me; for some reason I didn't like missing details, despite having spent the past twenty years with fading vision, bad eyes and non-existent reflexes.

The left side saddlebag produced the bike's title and registration and, surprisingly, a sheaf of paperwork from Eastside Harley Davidson in Bellevue, Washington. I had a 2011 Road King with an optional rear luggage rack. The invoice said it was Merlot Sunglo and Vivid Black, but it looked more like a rich brown and deep black color combination to me. Cooper James bought it off the showroom floor five days ago, and now I figured that made it mine.

The right side saddlebag held 4 cans of Mountain Dew and half a package of Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies. Oh man, I used to love those things! It had probably been at least ten years since I'd had one. Harley wasn't allowed, but Cooper James was young and healthy. So Cooper had one of the decadent little bitches and washed it down with a Mountain Dew. I'd never been big on it before, but it tasted amazing, and it was almost cold, having retained the overnight chill within the shelter of the saddlebag.

The little snack and the drink had taken the edge of my hunger, but I was still thinking breakfast when I went back into the tent. The backpack contained the expected minimum of camping supplies – a first aid kit, a small pack of fire building materials, some thin nylon rope, a spool of heavy twine, a compass, a small hand-held GPS and some odds and ends that had me puzzled at first, but which I eventually decided must be the minor accessory bits from several MREs, the modern military's field rations. I also found a rather lethally competent survival knife sitting snugly in an inside pocket. I pulled it out and saw that it had a no-nonsense sheath made of some sort of woven and knotted fabric. I could tell by the hilt that it was designed to be fixable on the end of a rifle, bayonet-style. It looked military, but knew from experience that it could just as well be a replica. It looked fairly pristine for a service issued item.

The GPS was a very nice tablet sized unit, and it immediately showed me a map with a small red dot in the middle of it, which was good, because I had no idea how to work one – such things were way too new school for an old geezer like me. Correction: like I used to be.

I did manage to figure out how to zoom the map out without fucking anything up, which was a relief, but I was somewhat disappointed when I did. I was inside the Klamath National Forest, alongside the Klamath river in California.

California! What the hell? I was an east coast kid, and except for my time in the service, hadn't been past the Mississippi River more than a couple of times.

I'd put the jacket on after finding the keys in it, and the revelation about my location had me do a quick search of the rest of the pockets. I found a gas receipt from Riverwoods Country Store in Bend, Oregon, another receipt from a Safeway in Ashland, Oregon that showed where I'd gotten the Cookies and Soda, and a receipt from the US Forest Service for an overnight camping permit for the Tree of Heaven Campground.

I knew who I was, and had some idea of who I was supposed to be now. I now knew as well where I was, but still had no idea if this was where I was supposed to be, or if it was just a stop along the way.