Grace Rider

By Murray Pura

Michal Troyer and Milwaukee Bachman were still in Rumspringa. Which meant they had not been baptized into the Amish faith. And after biking across America to rescue Michal's sister, they weren't sure if they did want to become Amish. They had seen so much of the big world outside of Lancaster County. And they weren't sure about each other anymore either. Were they still in love? Did they still want to marry? Everything is up in the air. It will take another road trip across America and America's deserts, through all seasons, and all kinds of hard weather, and over thousands of miles of blacktop, before they rediscover what they believe, who they have become and whether or not their love for each other has endured. It won't be easy, it won't come together overnight, and the price may be more than they can pay. They will need all the help they can get.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MillerWords, LLC
• Release date: Jul 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393764519

Murray Pura

I'm born Canadian, live in the blue Canadian Rockies, sound Canadian when I talk (sort of) ... but I'm really an international guy who has traveled the world by train and boat and plane and thumb ... and I've lived in Scotland, the Middle East, Italy, Ireland, California and, most recently, New Mexico. I write in every fiction genre imaginable because I'm brimming over with stories and I want to get them out there to share with others ... romance, Amish, western, fantasy, action-adventure, historical, suspense ... I write non-fiction too, normally history, biography and spirituality. I've won awards for my novels ZO and THE WHITE BIRDS OF MORNING and have celebrated penning bestselling releases like THE WINGS OF MORNING, THE ROSE OF LANCASTER COUNTY, A ROAD CALLED LOVE and ASHTON PARK. My latest publications include BEAUTIFUL SKIN (spring 2017), ALL MY BEAUTIFUL TOMORROWS (summer 2017), GETTYSBURG (Christmas 2018), RIDE THE SKY (spring 2019), A SUN DRENCHED ELSEWHERE (fall 2019), GRACE RIDER (fall 2019) and ABIGAIL’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE (Christmas 2019). My novels ZO, RIDE THE SKY and ABIGAIL’s CHRISTMAS MIRACLE are available as audiobooks as well. Please browse my extensive list of titles, pick out a few, write a review and drop me a line. Thanks and cheers!

Book preview

Dedication

To those special ones among us who know the road and embrace the ride

with angels on their shoulders

ONE

I’m Huck. Biker name’s Torque. And I have this crazy story to tell. Maybe not so crazy, I guess, except that some people will think it’s out of this world, which in a way it is, and because anything that’s out of this world can’t be real, they’ll say it’s not true and it’s not important. But it is true and it is important and I think that for certain people, the right people, the ones who know this isn’t the only world, it will break into their hearts, and into their souls, and crack them wide open, and give those people the room to breathe again and believe again.

It used to be a man or woman could get on a horse in this country and ride that mare or gelding clear across America. It used to be we had that kind of freedom. Not just in the land, but right inside too, right inside all of us. I did three tours in Vietnam and when I came back to the States I wanted that kind of freedom. I wanted to eat it, and drink it and pull freedom into my body and soul like oxygen. It was hard to find. In the jungle, in the rain, in the heat, I dreamed about coming back to America and taking freedom in my hand as easy as I’d pull an orange from a tree in Tampa.

But I had to start looking hard. And walking hard. I had to go long distances. And I still couldn’t put my hands on it. My legs got tired. More tired than they had when I’d been humping it through the hills of Nam. So, I got off my feet. A World War Two vet sold me his 1942 Indian Motorcycles bike.

I knew nothing about Harleys or Indians or any kind of bikes at all. But he wanted a vet to have it, he was dying of cancer, and he didn’t want it to end up at a wrecker’s – it needed some TLC, he hadn’t been able to keep it up. Well, hey, I needed some TLC too, so I figured the bike and I could help each other out. I gave the Saipan vet more than he was asking and he said he was heading off to the Florida Keys to meet his Maker, and I guess that’s what he did. Me, I was stuck in Las Cruces, New Mexico, working hard-headed cattle on a hard-headed horse called Smasher, who lived up to his name.

I ate dust, and mucked out stables and herded longhorns and black Angus for more than a year. But it was worth the sweat and grind. The money I earned got me back on the road. The Harley boys over the border in Texas helped me get the Indian running like a rocket, we did a few mods, including a new paint scheme, and I had this gleaming yellow fireball I called Socorro that could do over one hundred and five. I didn’t name it after the New Mexico town. In Spanish, socorro means help or succor. There was a chapel I used to slip into on starry New Mexican nights to sit and think. Maybe I prayed too. It was called Maria del Socorro, Mary of Perpetual Succor or Help. I needed perpetual help. So, it was the right name for my Indian 442.

It’s different now, but back then people spat on you if you were a Vietnam vet. No, not everyone, but we were treated like crap for a long time. When our plane brought us back from Nam it had to taxi around to the back of the airfield and the hangars because there was a big crowd of protestors waiting to welcome us with curses and fists. Somehow, some of us had got it into our heads we might be treated like heroes. A lot of our buddies who died in Asia, and never had enough left of them for the Army to send home, were heroes as far as we were concerned. But no one saw it that way in the 70s and 80s. It took a while for America to come around and see us as boys who had only tried to do right by all of them and our country. Meanwhile, I took to the highways to find that freedom I wanted. If I couldn’t grab it with my heart then at least I could grab it with my Indian 442 and ten hundred thousand miles of blacktop.

I wasn’t always out there in the deserts, or pine forests or hitting along the coastlines. I settled in Southern Cal for twelve years, in Tucson for fifteen, in Sarasota, Florida for eight, and Whitefish, Montana for five or more. It was in Whitefish that the story I wanted to tell you about really began. I’d rented a log cabin, A frame, on the ski hill for the summer. I actually hiked more than I rode in July and August. It was at a restaurant slash coffee house that I met them – two crazy Amish kids. Really, they were crazy. Crazy good. But you wouldn’t have known they were Amish.

They hadn’t been baptized, hadn’t taken their vows. So, you could say, even though they’d been raised Amish, that they really weren’t Amish. Not yet. Maybe not ever. They were kind of Conflicted Amish, if there is such a thing. Neither of them had made up their minds about whether they were going to stick with their faith or not. They had no idea if they would ever return home to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. All this I found out later.

They came in the door looking like bikers. That’s all. No straw hats or suspenders or white prayer Kapps. Just black leather and black leather and black leather. They didn’t look rough. No Hell’s Angels aura about those two. Just clean and rugged and strong and true, if that conjures up any sort of solid image in your head. It was out and out obvious they were riders. So, I waved them over to my table.

I was on my fifth coffee and second plate of bacon and eggs and hash browns. There might have been a twelve-ounce sirloin in there too. It was eight in the morning, I’d been out in the hills hiking since four, and I’d have eaten the bark off a tree if Zella’s hadn’t opened till nine. I told the two kids to fuel up, it was my gift, one road warrior to another. They protested a bit, but I wouldn’t take a no for an answer. I have to say, I know rough, and they looked rough. They needed good hot road food and plenty of it, not just another fast grab of burgers and fries.

How it went from there? Well, we spent the whole day at Zella’s if that’s any indication. Yep. Right through lunch and supper and up to closing time at eleven, never left the table except to use the can. We ate all three meals too. Enjoyed the live music, a lady with an acoustic guitar named Yew. Finally went back to my cabin and talked some more. No, but not just talk. There was a whole lot of listening going on too, especially on my part.

And watching. They were beautiful. Beautiful together. Holding hands. Always making eye contact. Smiling at one another with all of themselves, not just their lips. Bringing warmth to the room. Light. All kinds of love all dressed up in roadworn black leather.

I understood right off that money was no more a problem for them than it was for me. I had my stash and they had theirs. They mentioned money from the Amish that had been given to them. And money Milwaukee had made working on bikes in Louisiana that past winter while Michal brought in good coin waiting on tables and collecting generous tips. Okay. Good on money. One less thing to worry about.

I don’t think we crashed till three. The gal faded first. But she was also the first up. Rustled us out on a mountain hike around ten after a quick eat of scrambled eggs, yogurt and French press. The high-altitude sun was therapy for all three of us. She said it and took the words right out of my mouth and the thought right out of my head.

So, here’s their story. In a nutshell, because the story I have to tell you isn’t their old story, but their new story, the story that happened while we were together. But the nutshell story of how they wound up at Zella’s in Whitefish and at my table? It’s important too. So, listen up.

First of all, the dude, he’s Gideon Bachman and his biker handle is Chrome. Nickname, as if he needed more names, is Milwaukee. He’s just over six feet, brown eyes, super black hair and he’s let the Southwestern sun cook him dark. They both have. That’s where they’d wintered. His ride is a 2007 Fat Boy in black and chrome, deadly. He calls it The Big Easy because he got it in New Orleans.

She’s tall, slender, witchy blue eyes, storm black hair like Milwaukee, tough as galvanized Number Nine wire, the kind ranchers use when they don’t want anything getting in or out. Michal Deborah Troyer, aka Roadburn. Has a new Indian Motorcycles Dark Horse, a Springfield Dark Horse, in what they call the White Smoke paint scheme. So, she calls it Holy Smoke. I got that it was a big deal to get a new Indian because their bike biddy in Orleans said Harley or nothing. But she argued that Harley was owned by Kawasaki now and Indian Motorcycles, owned by Polaris, are made in Iowa and Kansas, so he had to cave. Dark against light – she looks good on the white bike. So, she’d look good on any bike. She calls it Oz because it was made in Olathe, Kansas. As in Wizard of. Some days she calls it Tinman or Scarecrow too. But never Dorothy or Toto. My bike she calls The Yellow Brick Road though I don’t call it that. A beautiful woman can get away with saying a lot of things a guy wouldn’t tolerate from anyone else.

They’re from Pennsylvania. An Amish community. But. They haven’t taken their vows, right? Haven’t been baptized. They’re still in a do-what-you-want limbo the Amish tolerate called Rumspringa. Which is why the Amish could ask them to take bikes and find Michal’s younger sister Tabitha. She’d taken off with her boyfriend on a Harley. Then he got in with gangs running drugs and her life was in danger. Milwaukee and Michal crossed the country looking for her and got into some bad juju with biker gangs. But they got some help from biker gangs too. Including Hell’s Angels, if you can believe it.

Short ending? HEA. Happy Ever After. They find the sister, manage to get Tabitha free of her boyfriend and the gang – not easy – and her father comes out west to bring her back to Pennsylvania by train. All’s well that ends well. Except that after this crazy scary road trip, while the kid sister is only too happy to go home to her Amish roots and stay there, her big sister Michal isn’t so sure if that’s what she wants, and neither is the big sister’s boyfriend Milwaukee.

We saw so much, Huck, Michal tells me, practically pleading to have someone understand why she isn’t back in Pennsylvania getting baptized into the Amish faith like all the other Troyers have done. It’s not that I am against the Amish. No. But we saw things we had never seen before. Met the sort of people we had never met before, good people, Huck, good good people. And we found God everywhere. Everywhere. Not just in the Amish church, but in all kinds of churches. And not just in churches. He was with people who weren’t in churches too.

I get that, I told her.

So . . . we . . . I . . . am not ready to take my vows and say yes only to the Amish Way and no to all the other ways. Not now. Maybe not ever. I need more time to think and pray.

We were seated at the kitchen table in the ski cabin. Milwaukee nodded at Michal’s words. I feel the same way.

We spent last winter in Louisiana, Michal went on. "We have friends there. It was a good place to be. Ja, and a God place to be. Now we are back on the road again. Without a goal. Without a destination. Our hearts are restless, Huck."

But not for Pennsylvania, I added.

No. No. I am not. We are not. She paused and looked down at the oak table top with its swirls of wood grain. A small smile flickered over her lips. "My sister Tabitha wanted to get away. Wanted her Rumspringa. Wanted to experience as much as she could. Ja, wanted to see the world. But in the end? She just wanted to go home to momma and her dog and the farm. The road took the Rumspringa right out of her. But for Milwaukee and me the exact opposite happened. We were edging closer to baptism before we took to the highways and byways. Now, here we are, and we don’t wish to give up our bikes or the road. The Amish Way is far from our hearts and minds. Though, the truth be told, we don’t know what we want. Not really. Just what we don’t want."

Milwaukee looked at me. What would you advise?

Me? Advise? Since when did anyone ask biker me for advice?

You’ve been around the block a few times. You’ve seen stuff. You know stuff.

I laughed. Kids. You are looking for headspace. You are looking for heart space. You are looking for God. You want the road to take you there. Like in a paperback or a movie. Okay, blacktop can make you think. It can open your eyes. It can move you huge distances. Not just on a map. Not just over physical geography. But inside. In your gut. I don’t want to say soul.

Why don’t you want to say soul? asked Milwaukee.

Trust me, I don’t want to say soul. But a ride can move your head and heart around, definitely. You can’t find all the answers on the road. God isn’t going to pop up out of a desert sunrise. But the Boss might leave you some hints.

Milwaukee smiled. Hints are good. Where should we start looking for hints?

I thought a second. Have you done Glacier yet? Have you done Going to the Sun Road?

No, sir.

That is where we’ll start. God’s been known to hang out in Glacier. Big time.

Yeah? How’s that?

It’s God’s Country.

Milwaukee laughed.

I didn’t laugh back. You want to do this spirit quest thing? You and your girl? Yeah? Last trip you were looking for Tabitha Troyer. This time you’re looking for God Almighty and your own blood-pumping heart. You have no idea, son. I’ve been there and you have no idea. You’d better white knuckle your handlebars. And you’d better have gas for the whole run. Because once you bite the blacktop on this ride you’re never coming back the way you started. Never. You want me to use the word soul? You’re gonna lose it. You’re gonna lose it, son, and I hope to God you find yourself another as good or better than what you lost.

What do you mean? demanded Milwaukee.

I shrugged. You don’t always win on the road any more than you always win climbing the big mountains. You should know that by now. You can lose, Milwaukee. You can lose you. It’s a different kind of baptism. It’s fire.

TWO

We each had our own room and we each slept like a rock. Milwaukee looked kinda green after my little sermon, but I wasn’t about to apologize. He was taking the road too lightly, so far as I was concerned. After one year of biking he acted like he was too cool to be worried about blacktop. It was just going to be some find myself, find God Easy Rider stuff. Never mind that his first road trip had almost wound up with him on a slab. Hey. You never know what’s going to happen on the road. Good and evil both show up. So yeah, love the road, embrace the road, laugh and love and learn. But don’t ever take your eye off it. Because it moves.

Michal hustled us out of bed for her coffee and omelets and about nine our bikes roared up a storm. Glacier wasn’t far from Kalispell and the summer day sparkled. We took Going to the Sun from West Glacier and looped the gorge. The colors inside it were as bright as I’d seen them, maybe brighter, and crazy strong with different shades and hues – ocher, dark green, indigo, violet. The gorge always reminded me of diving because the water turned different colors as you went deeper into the sea and with the gorge it was the air and light that changed as you looked farther in.

I wanted to take Chief Mountain and do a circle through Canada and up into Montana and Whitefish again, but the kids didn’t have passports so we turned our bikes around and went back the way we’d come. Not so bad. We saw the gorge again and two mountain goats. Back to the cabin and the next day we planned to do a hike in the high alpine of Glacier. I picked up some bear spray from a shop near Zella’s where we had our supper.

The food was good. The company wasn’t. Milwaukee withdrew into his shell and barely said a word. Back at the cabin, he went straight to his room without saying goodnight. I looked at Michal and raised my eyebrows – I thought he’d love Going to the Sun.

She shook her head. He loved Going to the Sun. It’s me.

What do you mean, it’s you?

He’s been talking about getting married. Not back in Pennsylvania where our parents want it to happen. Here. Now. Next week. He’s been texting me after we’ve gone to our rooms and gone to bed.

I sat down. And you, Michal? What do you think?

I think it’s not the right time. While we were looking for my sister we had a mission, we had a purpose. Now we are drifters. Looking for our souls, our faith, our God. It is a mess. We love one another, we love to ride, the mountains and valleys of America are astonishing. But it is still a mess even if it is a beautiful mess.

And when did you tell him you felt this way?

Just before we ate. While you went shopping for bear spray.

How long was I gone?

Half an hour.

Whoa. Long time to buy bear spray.

"Ja. But just right for us. I told him we were in no head space and no heart space to think about marriage. My goodness, Huck, Milwaukee and I can’t even decide if we want to be Amish, or Mennonite, or Pentecostal, or tell our children about Santa Claus. And who will marry us? A Baptist? A Roman Catholic? A Seventh Day Adventist? A Mormon bishop? Our minds are in a whirl. I told him we must wait until we know what we want."

I nodded. And he told you he knew he wanted you.

She blushed crimson. "Ja. He did."

And you told him the same thing.

"Huck. This man gave his life to save mine and my sister’s. I adore him. But even if we know we want each other, we don’t know what else we want. We can’t live on the backs of our bikes forever. Does