CHAPTER EIGHT

Thomas pulled his white, ’32 Shovelhead onto the on-ramp of I5 and headed north toward Eugene in a dull roar that drowned out the other cars. He preferred the side roads, or better yet the small mountain highways that everyone avoided. Sedans and SUVs scurried along the multi-lane highway sure that they had somewhere important to go. Everyone had to be in a hurry in this era. Money flew on the wind and they chased it. TVs blared out that they needed something new and they danced their way to superstores and online bargains to dump whatever they earned. Then they whined and groaned about having to go back to work to fill up their pockets for the next thing to buy. He’d been torn away from this long ago and learned that life could be about creating, not acquiring. So much had changed in the last century.

The people of Eugene never looked up at the mountains that surrounded them. Nature, in all its glory, cradled the south end of the Willamette Valley, forming a paradise that they just needed to slow down and appreciate. In their hurry, they’d destroyed the river, and the air stunk. In their rush, they never looked up.

Haddie raced with them. All through her childhood, he’d taken her to some of the most beautiful sights on the west coast of America, and she’d loved them all. Now, she pounded away at her school and job, sure that the purpose in her life lay there. An attorney. He never would have imagined it. She’d been born intelligent and proved to be passionate, proactive, and uninhibited. A perfect match for today’s world. She’d left him behind. usually, he was the one who left everyone else behind. Why did he stay around? It was a risk he hadn’t approached in a very long time.

Driving a red coupe, a kid texting on his cell veered toward Thomas’s lane, and Thomas punched forward to get past, his braid whipping the small of his back. The boy never noticed. Everyone was in a hurry to get somewhere and then spend their time with their nose glued to their phone. Each generation had their faults, and each seemed more annoying than the last.

Bikes, poker, and nature. While Thomas could escape to those, he survived.

Haddie would be pissed that he just showed up. She couldn’t keep ignoring him, putting it off. They had more to talk about. More that he’d be willing to say. Why her? Somehow, it felt right. He’d reached his beginnings. The time when it all had started. Is that why I stay? Still, she would be annoyed when he showed up.

He took the big curve heading into Eugene, catching a glimpse of the mountains to the north, those on the east side of the Willamette Valley. This year there might be time for another ride into Montana before the weather turned bad. Haddie’s questions had killed their planned trip last summer; his daughter’s curiosity would just keep getting more insistent. It had happened twice before with wives he’d dearly loved and would have happily stayed with, no matter how old they’d gotten. It had never worked out. How could he explain what he didn’t understand himself?

Thomas blew out a breath as he neared the exit for downtown. The highways piled together, old and new, closing in on the Willamette River where he once swam and fished before they turned into liquid toxins.

If he remembered Haddie’s schedule correctly, he’d catch her at the apartment. Or, he just wasted his time driving into the city. He could wait though. Patience, after all these centuries, came easy.