CHAPTER 25
“You don’t know how to ride a bike?”
“Nope.” Joe wasn’t embarrassed. “My mom saw a guy flip over and hit his head when she was pregnant with me. She thinks it was a sign that I shouldn’t ever learn.”
“My mom and dad have always made me wear a helmet,” I told him. “It was green and the other kids used to call me Martian. Then Sheriff Levi started giving out coupons for an ice cream cone from the Dairy Queen to any kid he caught wearing a helmet. After that, it was cool.”
“Well, I guess I better wear a helmet, then. I like ice cream cones. Ready for my first lesson?”
The dirt road that ran along the railroad track was a perfect place for teaching someone how to ride a bike. The only people who could possibly see us were the cars speeding up as they left Antler.
Joe straddled the bike, and I steadied it by gripping the seat.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?” he asked.
“I mean go!”
I still had hold of the bike seat while he put his feet on the pedals. When he pressed down, I let go. Joe started out wobbly—going slow, too slow.
He fell.
“That’s okay. Nice first try.” I tried to sound encouraging.
He bounced up, brushed himself off, and got back on.
Come on, I thought, faster, faster. Joe didn’t remind me of someone who would be cautious at anything. But that was the way he pedaled. Then he fell.
I rushed over to him. “Are you okay?”
He nodded and jumped back on, returning to his slow pedaling. He fell again, and again. And again. Guaranteed bruises.
“If you pick up the speed early on, you won’t wobble and fall,” I told him.
I’d never taught anyone to ride a bike. Mayzee still used training wheels. This was hard.
On the next attempt, Joe increased his speed from the start, and he was off.
“Yes!” I yelled.
Smooth sailing. It was as if those falls had never happened.
Ka-nuck, ka-nuck, ka-nuck. The train was up the track from us but soon parallel. Joe waved his arm high, and the engineer sounded the long, vibrating whistle. Wooo-wooo. Ka-nuck, ka-nuck, ka-nuck.
Then Joe stretched both arms toward the sky and pedaled hands free. Now he was racing the train. I sprinted, trying to catch up, but Joe kept pedaling faster. He gripped the handlebars, leaned back, and did a wheelie. If it weren’t for the earlier falls, I’d have sworn he was bluffing me.
Breathless, I focused on the tip of his braid, which was blowing in the wind like a clock pendulum.
Joe was a quick learner. A few minutes before, he had no balance. Now he was coasting down the path with me trailing way behind and the last train cars whizzing by.
“How do you stop?” he yelled, without turning around.
I quit running so I could speak. “Squeeze the brakes under your handles!”
He looked down, moving.
“They don’t work!” he hollered.
Joe slowed to a tricycle pace, let go of the bike, raised his arms and dove sideways, landing mere feet away from the track. He sprawled out flat, kissing the ground as the train sped by.
I rushed up to him. “I’m sorry. I should have told you how to stop before you started.”
He rolled over onto his back. No bruises, but his cheeks and nose were smudged with dirt. “It doesn’t matter. The brakes are shot.”
“Good thing your mom’s not here.”
Joe started to laugh and held up his arms. “Help me up.”
I gave him a good yank until he was sitting on the ground, where I joined him. I pointed to my cheeks.
He raised his eyebrows like he didn’t understand.
“Um … you have a little dirt,” I explained.
“Oh,” he said. Then he wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “Gone?”
I nodded.
“Should I get my money back from that shyster?” he asked.
“Sheriff Levi’s not a shyster. He probably didn’t know. I doubt he’s ever ridden a bike. But how did you—”
“I’m kidding. He’s a little loony, though, in a good way. Surely somebody can fix bicycle brakes around here.”
“I know someone who can fix bikes, but I don’t think you like him.”
“Vernon?”
Then I laughed. “No, Uncle Cal. He’s a cyclist and pretty good at stuff like that. He thinks it’s fun. Dad told me when Uncle Cal was a kid, he took apart his bicycle so he could put it back together again.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like him. I just don’t want him hitting on my mom.”
“Okay, then,” I told him. “Let’s stop by his place on the way back. He’s probably home by now. Are you going to say anything to him about the flowers?”
“Nah.” He smiled. “He might mess up my brakes.”
At the next turnoff, we crossed the railroad tracks and then the highway. We passed the Dairy Queen and reached the square. This felt like old times with Twig. Every day had seemed like an adventure.
“How did you know how to do all those brave stunts—riding without your hands and then that wheelie?”
Joe shrugged. “Beginner’s luck.”
I wondered if there was more to it than that.
After Joe’s first riding lesson, we walked over to Uncle Cal’s home and met him as he pulled in the driveway. He told Joe he’d fix his brakes after work the next week.
“Rylee says you cycle?” Joe said it like he wasn’t that interested.
“Every day,” Uncle Cal said. “If you ever want to join me, I ride around the town in the morning, right before dawn.”
“I’m not a morning person,” Joe told him, throwing in a fake yawn.
Uncle Cal got on Joe’s bike and tried out the brakes. “I’ll give you a holler when I’m finished.”
I started to leave, but Joe nudged me with his elbow. “Why don’t you ask him about Zachary?”
I halfway shrugged.
Uncle Cal straightened his posture. “What’s that?”
“Dad doesn’t really want to find out what happened to him. He says he wants to remember him like he was. That it had been a bad summer and Zachary Beaver was the best part.”
Uncle Cal grimaced. Then he took off his cap and wiped the sweat from his brow before replacing it. “Yeah, that was the summer of seventy-one, the summer my brother, Wayne, died over in Vietnam.”
“I’m sorry,” I barely whispered the words. “I knew about Wayne, but I didn’t know when he—”
Joe looked away, shading his eyes as if he were on the lookout for something.
“It was a long time ago, Rylee,” Uncle Cal said. “Still miss him, though. Even now, whenever I ride out to the canyon overlook and there’s not a soul out there, I scream, ‘Wayne McKnight, I miss you!’ It feels like my words fly straight up to heaven.”
Joe faced us again, and I could tell he was taking it all in.
“I wish I’d known him,” I said.
“No one like him.” Uncle Cal turned away from us, but not before I heard the choke in his voice.