Leaves in the Wind

The central figure of this short story is a biker named Montana LeFandra (not his real name). I was about to say "hero" of this story, but, on thinking about it, the shoe doesn't really fit the foot. Though the teller of the story might well see himself as a hero, there's some question about whether others would. Montana's swears to God the story is absolutely true. The only trouble I have with his statement is that I'm not at all sure who his God is . or how much of the story he lived himself, heard from someone else, or read about. A good story pulls me to it like fiddle music from a dance hall on Saturday night. I've heard a few good stories in my travels around the world, but very few long enough or believable enough to write a short story about. With Montana, however, it was different. We spent five months of the winter in the same RV park in Southern California and he seemed to enjoy telling his story is much as I enjoyed listening to it . regardless of how true it was. The rather amazing thing to me was this: after I've heard someone else's story for an hour or two, I may remember the more exciting parts-or the more vividly described events-but the memory's usually gone after a few days or weeks. Montana's story I remember every detail of, and have for five years In fact, I wrote this story three years after I heard it from him. That says a lot more for his story-telling ability than it does for my memory Montana claimed to be the Founding Father of the Iron Horsemen Motorcycle Club which started out as himself and a bunch of his biker buddies drinking, carousing with women, and spending weekends at various hideaways on the desert and in the mountains of southern California. They had so much fun that the Club gradually grew in size to over two thousand members . and also became a major management problem How Montana handled it is a story in itself, but what he did after an all-out life and death war with Hell's Angels is another story again . all of it written as faithfully as I can remember it between these two covers.