Amos laughed.
The sound was weak, but it traveled through every man and woman standing on that hill.
“That miserable tree,” he said.
We placed the folding chair in the yard. Amos sat facing the house for twenty minutes. He did not tell stories. He did not pray aloud. He simply watched light move across the ruined boards while the old field watch ticked against his wrist.
At last, I asked whether he wanted more time.
He shook his head.
“Enough.”
“You sure?”
Amos looked at the pear tree, then at Jesse and David.
“That’s all I needed.”
Before leaving, he removed one pear and placed it in his canvas bag.
The tree had finally grown one worth carrying home.
Part 6
Amos lived for two more months.
He returned to Springfield in the medical van, but not to the rented room above the laundromat. Grady arranged a small apartment near his own house, and club members built a schedule without telling Amos it was a schedule.
Someone brought breakfast.
Someone drove him to appointments.
Someone sat with him during the nights when medication could not control the pain.
He complained constantly.
We considered that progress.
David visited twice from Lexington. Jesse came every weekend and recorded twenty-three hours of conversation. Amos described Thomas’s voice, posture, temper, jokes, letters and the way he tapped his watch before fear could take control of the men around him.
Some stories were ordinary.
Those mattered most.
Thomas once spent an entire afternoon repairing a radio he had forgotten to switch on. He carried extra socks because he hated wet feet. He cheated at cards by smiling every time he had a good hand, which made cheating pointless.
David listened to those stories until his father stopped being a uniform in a photograph.
One evening, Jesse brought the pear from Bellweather. It had ripened in a paper bag on his kitchen counter. He cut it into four uneven pieces for Amos, David, Ray and himself.
It was hard and sour.
Amos chewed slowly, then smiled.
“Best pear that tree ever made.”
Nobody argued.
The watch remained on his wrist until the final week. By then, his arm had become so thin that the repaired canvas band slid over his hand. He asked me to place it in the top drawer beside a sealed envelope.
“Not the pawnshop,” I said.
“Not this time.”
On a cold Sunday morning, I sat beside his bed while distant engines gathered outside. Riders had begun arriving quietly, parking their motorcycles along the curb without revving them.
Amos heard them anyway.
“How many?” he asked.
“Thirty-eight so far.”
“Couldn’t get forty?”
“Mack’s coming from Joplin. His shift ends at six.”
Amos nodded. “Then I’ll wait.”
He did.
Mack arrived at 6:43. His motorcycle rolled to a stop outside. The engine coughed twice and went silent.
Amos exhaled.
He did not take another breath.
For once, forty bikers made no sound.
The funeral was held four days later. Amos had requested no military display beyond a folded flag, no expensive casket and no long sermon. He wanted the money saved for fuel so the Iron Lanterns could carry his ashes to Bellweather.
