Talbot's Peak Choppers

“Hey buddy, you awake over there?”

Vin cracked an eyelid and thanked the fates to see the town of Talbot’s Peak coming up over the rise.  The sooner he escaped from this cab of trucking hell the safer the loud mouthed, pig of a trucker would be.   

“Yeah, sorry I dozed off on ya there, long night last night…we must be getting close.”

“Sure…check out that rich, snot-nosed, girly car driving fa…” Vin blocked out the rest of the ridiculous tirade spewing from the truckers mouth.

From women to homosexuals, sports car drivers to bikers there was no group safe from this guy’s political incorrectness.  Had it not been an emergency, he would have found some other way to spend the last five hundred plus miles.  Ninety-nine bottles of anything over and over again or every Barney song on the planet would have made for a more enjoyable ride.

Unfortunately, J.R. Delaney, custom motorcycle designer and creator extraordinaire, had the patience of a head of lettuce. The dude, genius though he may be at chopping bikes, was threatening to ship his custom chopper to him rather than allowing for pick-up.   Hell, he’d have paid more in shipping cost than the entire bike itself had cost considering the rocking good deal he was getting. 

He’d tried calling the guy from his room in Sturgis, SD to work out an alternative retrieval plan.  A little give on Delaney’s part would have allowed him to get a better deal for selling his Harley instead of the bargain basement price he’d gotten during rally week.   

But getting a hold of J.R. Delaney was about as easy as a biker playing chicken with a semi—those big mo-fo’s won every time.  Hell, the dude didn’t have a phone for Christ sake.  Everything was done via email.  He even lived in some tiny assed town called Talbot’s Peak.  Small and out of the way did not begin to describe this place.  It was downright rustic, but kinda nice too.  He’d be willing to bet there were miles upon miles of nice riding roads.

The truck rolled to a stop mere feet from the exit that took you into town before Vin started to listen to the trucker again.

“…is as far as I go when it comes to Talbot’s Peak, weird shit in that town man.  You’d be best to continue on over the mountain, ya know.”

“Weird, you say?”

“Yeah, lots of wild animal issues and animal control calls here.  Jungle cats roam the forests, big horned sheep on the backs of motorcycles, hell they even had some rabid wolf running through town with rulers in his mouth.  What kinda freaky is that?  Word around the truck stops is that you take your life and your balls in your own hands here.  If the town folk don’t kill ya, they’ll castrate ya.”

“Ah, that sounds like a load of bullshit to me.”

“Just you wait, boy…good luck and cover your sack.”

Vin jumped out of the truck and shook his head at the outlandish story he was being fed.  He waved as the trucker took off, but would rather have flipped him the bird.

He was hoofing it from here and he sure hoped he could find someone in town who could direct him to J.R. Delaney’s shop.  He couldn’t wait to see his new baby.

***

Josephine Roberta sat in the smooth, hand-tooled leather seat of her newest creation and polished the tank to a perfect shine.  She hated to see this bike go, but it was worth every moment she’d spent perfecting her. 

Sleek lines, long-assed trees in front done in chrome, of course, ape hanger handles bars as per the customer’s request and a motor that came damn close to making a far better boyfriend then most men today.   

The only thing missing, in her estimation, was the sissy bar on the back.  Not only was it nice for anyone who rode in the bitch’s seat to hold onto, but it also worked as a helmet rest—providing, of course, that Mr. Vincent Sinclair actually wore the life-saving device. 

Josie traced the design on the tank one last time, wondering what its significance was to the bikes new owner.  It was a triangle that had wavy lines at all three points and a circle in the center.  Inside the circle, which appeared to be a scope sighting, there was a peace sign.  Killers of peace, probably, but it seemed somehow too literal for a man who had saved her hippie brother from certain death.

“Knock Knock.”

Josie scrambled from the back of the bike, her heart doing double time.  Who the heck would be knocking at her door?  The residents of her home town flocked to the store in town where her dad sold every kind of mish-mash biker thing he could brand with her name and call his own, but no one ever came to her little workshop.

Jon Robert, or daddy drunkest as she secretly called him, had insisted on silence concerning this little bike making venture.  She chopped bikes because she loved to work with metal and to create a beautiful machine, but he loved only the money and fame that came from stealing her talent.

“Hello…anyone here?”

Josie grabbed a hefty wrench from the tool bench and made her way up front.  No one could know about this bike, especially her dad.  This bike was made special and was due to be secreted out of here in just a few hours to be shipped to its new owner.  She couldn’t risk anyone telling Jon about it, or he’d sell out from under her.

“Can I help you?”  The words barely escaped her suddenly parched lips.  Six plus feet of sin provoking muscles, packed on a body so tight she knew the tongue bath she was compelled to give this man, would bring to light very little in the way of softness.  And damned if her cat wasn’t intrigued.

“I’m Vincent Sinclair.” He stuck his hand out to shake while holding eye contact.  Rare these days, but an absolute turn on for her. “I’m looking for J.R. Delaney.  He has something of mine.”

Josie gasped at the touch of Vincent’s hand and watched her downfall play out before her mind’s eye.  The mantic sight, a gift from her dead mother, showed her the destruction of Delaney Motors.  Her name and talent, burned out by this man.

He’d saved her brother, garnered her respect, but his was the last Delaney cycle she’d ever build.