That night, Martha wrote Walter's name on a fresh piece of wood.
She placed it above the garage.
Not as a memorial.
As a reminder.
Two weeks after the tornado, Dean called a meeting.
Three hundred motorcycles were coming.
Martha thought he was exaggerating.
He wasn't.
The news had spread across motorcycle communities in several states.
An elderly widow had opened her basement.
Seventy-nine riders had survived.
The widow's house had been damaged.
The riders had returned.
Now others wanted to help.
Martha stared at Dean.
"Three hundred?"
"That's the count."
"You can't fit three hundred motorcycles here."
Dean smiled.
"We'll figure it out."
Martha sighed.
"You people are impossible."
"Probably."
She looked at him.
"Why so many?"
Dean's voice became quiet.
"Because you didn't ask who we were."
Martha frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"You saw people running from a storm."
He paused.
"Not patches."
Not reputations.
Not rumors.
"People."
Martha looked away.
"That's what people are supposed to do."
Dean nodded.
"Exactly."
The morning came with thunder.
Not from the sky.
From engines.
The road filled.
One motorcycle.
Then ten.
Fifty.
One hundred.
The sound grew until it seemed to shake the rebuilt windows.
Martha stepped onto the porch.
Three hundred Harleys stretched down the road.
Riders stood beside them.
Some had traveled hundreds of miles.
Others had crossed state lines.