All the Port Costa regulars were bummed. Still stunned by the inconceivable, the death of one of their own. Those few old enough to have gray hair were in denial the most.

Johnny Spain's girlfriend, Autumn, stood in the circa 1890s hotel doorway across the street from the Warehouse restaurant and bar. From the top step she watched her Sunday cohort mill amongst each other in a strange quietness. Normally, they'd all be drinking, joking with each other and trading fibs. Not this Sunday. Most hands were stuffed into pockets as if to get them out of the way. Only a few were holding drinks or cigarettes. Solemn disbelief ran amuck among the bikers. No exuberant senses of humor. A different kind of Sunday.

Brady, a knowledgeable, soft spoken dude easily identified by his ever present, faded HD leather head cover and drinking glove, jogged from across the street to the restaurant's double doors under the awning leading into bar. He turned and yelled to all the usual suspects across the street and asked if anyone wanted a drink. No one seemed to hear him. No one seemed to pay attention to anyone, although that wasn't really the case.

Autumn watched Brady enter the bar through the open doors. The bright sun contrasted with the hollow shadowed vestibule. Dust, driven from passing motorcycles, swirled and hung over the street grit in sunrays, glistening between the hotel and the bar.

Autumn squinted to see who was standing under the awning at the entrance to the bar after Brady disappeared inside. She raised her hand to her forehead like a salute to shield her eyes from the sun's glare. "Oh geeze," she said, and fell back against the hotel door. She shivered in the warm sunshine and began to rub her arms. "Oh geeze," she said and jumped down the few steps to the sidewalk and yelled for Johnny. "Johnny, take me home." She bolted towards him as Johnny looked up. He edged towards her with a quizzical, surprised expression on his face. Autumn reached Johnny and buried her face and arms against his chest.

"What's up, baby? Holy cow, you've got goose bumps," he said.

"Take me home, now. Please."

"Sure, sure, honey. What's the matter?" Johnny took her arm and led her to his Road King. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

The bike bellowed to life.

"Let's go," she insisted, still struggling with her skullcap helmet.

"I'm goin', I'm goin'. You on?"

"Go. Let's get the hell out of this place."

Dust blown from the bike's downward tail pipes churned into a long horizontal cloud behind the exiting machine just as Brady come out of the bar and meandered through the dry grime. With a microbrew in one hand and mixed drink in the usual Mason jar in the other, he faked a few comic coughs walking through the dust but no one noticed. "Hey. Where'd Johnny Spain go? I got his drink here."

Clark stood up from a bench under the tree by the hotel and said, "The two of them just bugged out."

"Why? I've got his bourbon'n soda here."

"Donno," Clark said. "Autumn sure looked spooked, though."

"Maybe she's gettin' sick or somethin'," Brady said. "You want his drink?"

Clark looked at the Mason jar and hesitated. "Don't seem to be much drinkin' goin' on here today. Everybody's mopin' around, kinda in shock over Knucklehead's accident. Yeah, well, what the hell, I'll take it. Guess I'm a bourbon kinda guy today."

Brady handed the jar to Clark and both lifted their drinks. Brady sipped and Clark took a mouthful. Clark choked, coughed and spit the potion out. "Geeze. This ain't bourbon. What the hell is it?"

"Well, hell, I ordered bourbon for Johnny. Let me taste it. I used to bartend."

Brady sipped the drink. "Christmas. This is an Iced Tea."

Dom, Eddie and Frank overheard Brady and Clark and tramped over to them, hands stuffed in their jeans behind their belts and chaps dragging along in the gravel.

"Who the hell ordered this concoction," Brady said, holding the jar at arms length as though contaminated.

Frank said, "Damn. If Knucklehead were here he'd toss that right down. That was his favorite booze."

Eddie added, "Yeah. And he was about the only one of us who drank that stuff."

Brady put the jar down on the parking lot dirt and lit a cigarette. "Hate that drink."

Dom looked around. "It's a good thing it's daytime. Warm and bright. Not at all the usual conditions for unexplained phenomena that I think may be happening here."

"What phenomena, man?" Brady said.

"Don't you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"Well, check it out. Look around. Is this your basic, normal Sunday afternoon here?"

"Hell no, man. Folks are just hangin' out, feelin' bad about Knucklehead."

"And did you hear what happened to me last night at the place where Knucklehead got killed?"

"What the hell are you talkin' about, Dom?"

"Last night, after dusk, I was on my Sportster headin' out of here to Route Four for home. I took the twisties real slow so when I got to the curve where Knucklehead bought it, I tried to imagine what he was doin'."

"So. Go on."

I swear I saw a red brake light come on right where some of our people put up a cross with flowers to mark the point of impact. It was an old fashioned Harley tail light. Just like Knucklehead's. I got the chill of my life. I began to target fixate and headed right into that frickin' berm like Knucklehead did. But the brake light caught my eye, I leaned way over, hard, made my turn and sped away. I was a little shook-up."

"You think that was, er, a phenomena, Dom?"

"Not at that moment. Not until I checked my rear view mirror."

"Yeah?" Brady said, taking a deep drag on his cigarette.

"I saw Knucklehead in the mirror, with his typical Bluto-like smirk, grinnin' back at me. I swear ta God."

"You're shittin' me, Dom."

"Hey, man. I don't want to sound like a kook. I'm just sayin' what happened. And I'll bet all the tea that ain't in that Iced Tea, that Knucklehead ordered the drink that's sittin' over there in the dirt."

Brady flipped his cigarette into a nearby pothole. "This is nuts."

Eddie broke in and said, "Nuts, maybe, but Autumn blew out of here just a while ago because she claimed she saw Knucklehead in the shadows of the bar's doorway. She freaked, man. She was pale as a ghost herself."

Brady lit another cigarette. "Balls. This is crazy. But I know I ordered a damn bourbon for Johnny Spain and watched the broad behind the bar pour it."

The men wandered over to the patio outside the bar leaving the jar of Ice Tea on the ground in the parking lot.

All of a sudden, as if on queue, all the regulars stopped what they were doing, cocked their heads to the air and listened. Everyone recognized the familiar signature Harley throbbing from a unique, old custom Knucklehead echoing through the rolling hills beyond the Port. Each change of gear confirmed what they all knew they heard. The leathered comrades seemed frozen in the moment.

The jar of Iced Tea tipped over, spilling into the dust as a sudden cool breeze kicked up a dust devil between the bar and hotel. The regulars were still silent as the telltale exhaust tones of a biker's biker, faded like a spirit into the ethers.

Brady glanced back to the parking lot and said, "I'm glad Knucklehead never lost his sense of humor."