The moment the door shuts behind them, Itch turns to Hunter. “What the fuck, dude! Looking at him was like looking at you. Like a fucking episode of The Twilight Zone!”

“How you think I felt?”

“Guess your dad has some explaining to do, only he’ll never get the chance,” Nugget says.

“No shit,” Hunter says. “No shit.”

Early morning, it didn’t matter how much cold water Hunter splashed on his face, it wouldn’t wake him up. And it wouldn’t wash away the hangover that pounded and fogged his brain, or the unknown—the mystery of Blake. The sun of a breaking day warms the blacktop on Highway 64. Even with sunglasses, it dazzles the eyes.

The three bikes roar down the old highway. Taking the exit in Sulphur, they hit the interstate, making good time. Breezing through road construction on Interstate 64, crossing from Indiana into Illinois, taking exit 110 for US 45 to Norris City, East Delaware to County Highway 1, Enterprise Road onto a highway, passing through small towns. Hunter has questions about his father. Trying to recall their visits with Sid when Hunter was younger. It eats at him, knowing that Hank had had an affair with Sid’s wife. Fathering a son, an unknown brother to Hunter. But had Sid believed the son was his own until he realized how much the boy looked like Hunter? It doesn’t seem possible. But Sid knew about it, knew whose son it was. He is still arguing with his dead wife about it. The craziest part is Sid’s never mentioning Blake to Hunter during all their years of keeping in contact.

Both Nugget and Itch had done a double take when they saw Blake. They joked around after he left, raising those same questions that Hunter was chewing on—questions that might never be answered. And then it came to Hunter: his grandfather. When they were staying with him and dealing with his dementia, Annie had come around quite often. And there were plenty of times when she was alone with Hank.

Throttling their bikes down, they approach a boxy black four-wheeled carriage, wooden-spoked wheels turning behind the hooves of a big trotting warmblood. Holding the reins is a man wearing a white shirt, black suspenders, and a broad-brimmed straw hat. He has a beard but no mustache. The woman beside him wears a black dress and white bonnet. The motorcycles slow to pass, giving the horse a wide berth. Itch says, “Holy shit, man, it’s Quakers.”

Shaking his head, Hunter says, “Amish, actually. They migrated to this area around the mid-eighteen hundreds, I think.”

“Well, look at you, Mr. Historian!”

“You know me. It’s all about the intel, the history.”

“Knowledge is power, brother. Knowledge is power.”