The woods near Dark Corners, North Carolina, were vast and dark, due to the low layer of clouds scudding across the foothills. In the damp, early morning hours, the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains echoed the distant roar of a high-powered motorcycle. The wail of the siren that followed bounced from the ridges and valleys. As the distant racket faded, the woods once again settled into dark silence and deep mists…

The quiet was soon broken by the far-off bays of a group of hounds. And, closer by, DanMan shifted where he sat, casting his red spotlight’s eerie beam on his friend and coon-hunter partner, Bucky.

“You hear that?” he whispered to Bucky. “Those hounds are on to something for sure!”

“You wish!” said Bucky. “They probably still hear those sirens! “ Bucky continued, “Well, we better git on up there and find out what they’re yelling at. No coons, no truck payment!”

So, DanMan glanced down at the radio signal spotter clipped to his belt, which helped locate his dogs (as long as Blue, the lead hound, hand’t shed the transmitting collar he wore). As they made their way toward the signal, the moon came out from behind the clouds momentarily, making it a little easier to negotiate the thick woods. The ground was uneven, with roots and rocks hidden beneath the trees.

The two coonhunters had been moving for a few minutes towards the still-howling hounds, when DanMan suddenly yelped and crashed face-down in leaves and dirt.

“Damn!” he cried out. “What in hell???” He regained his composure a bit, feeling his ankle for tenderness, and brushed through the leaves around him, looking for what he’d tripped on.

“What in hell?” he repeated. The nearest tree was 30 feet in any direction, and whatever he’d tripped on had snagged his foot and not let go. Rocks that weren’t big enough to see generally didn’t knock you on your ass! Eventually, a flash of reflected moonlight caught his attention. He began digging through the leaves furiously.

“What are you doing?” asked Bucky, hand outstretched to help him up.

“Cool it for a minute!” snapped DanMan, his attention now on the piece of shiny pipe he was beginning to uncover. He snapped up the red filter on his Wheat light, looking at the curving piece of 1” pipe looping out of the ground like a high-tech root.

“What ‘n hell you suppose this is?” he asked, pointing it out to Bucky. His lantern picked out another object. It was a knife handled – a big one – protruding a few inches out of the dirt. He grabbed the handle and pulled it. It didn’t budge.

“Bucky! Lemme hold your knife!” commanded DanMan, dogs now forgotten, though still baying in the distance.

“What’re you wantin’ it for?” asked Bucky. He was very protective of his gen-u-ine, compass in the handle, serrated, official type Rambo knife…

“Gimmie the damn thing!” snarled DanMan, snatching it from an unwilling Bucky. “I’ll buy you another one if I screw it up!” He took the knife and started digging around the bayonet handle in the ground. As he got deeper, he tried several times to dislodge it, with no success. The thought dawned on him that it might be stuck in a body! He shuddered, and continued to dig…

Two hours later, DanMan and Bucky, sweating profusely and covered with dirt, stood back and looked at what they’d uncovered. They had unearthed the upper half of a large motorcycle. The bayonet handle had been welded to the top of a sissy bar extending up from the buried bike. The curved pipe was indeed part of the only slightly rusted handlebars.

DanMan, breathless from hours of strenuous digging, sat back in the leaves, hes breath leaving puffs of steam in the chilly early morning air.

“What the hell?” he exclaimed for the umpteenth time. “How do you suppose that got there?” He turned and looked at Bucky curiously.

“Gawd-damn, boy!” exclimed Bucky, “it’s one o’ them riceburner suckers! Somebody decided to give the heathen thing a Christian burial, and couldn’t get it put in hallowed ground!” As if for emphasis, he hawked up a big clam and spat it into the semi-hole they’d dug.

“Nah…” laughed DanMan, “if it was a riceburner, they’d-a buried it deeper! Look at the top of that tank! That sucker’s a Harley for sure!” He tugged away pieces of rotting tarp, exposing the entire upper end of – sure enough – an early 50’s Panhead. DanMan wasn’t entirely ignorant about bikes, having a Sportster tucked away at home in his garage.

As they uncovered more of the bike, they noticed it was in pretty good condition. Most of the two-tone paint on the tanks and fender tops was intact, the chrome was far from decay, and the seat’s leather wasn’t even rotted, only mildly cracked. As DanMan and Bucky slowly cleared ore dirt away (still using only the knife), an idea crept into their minds…

“Gawd-damn!” exclaimed Bucky…again. “What we got here, I’ll bet’cha, is a hot-damn bona-fide insurance goodie! Somebody has offed this sucker to keep from making them payments!”

“Ya’ think so?” asked DanMan, gazing thoughtfully at the buried treasure they’d found…

“Hell, yes!” said Bucky. “Damn sure nobody’s stuck it here like buryin’ a jar of silver dollars! I say we dig the sucker out and liberate her!” Having said as much, Bucky once again got into scooping handfuls of dirt out of the ‘grave’.

DamMan sat back, lit a cigarette, and blew out a half-dozen smoke rings. After taking off his hat, he aimed its light towards Bucky, who was slinging dirt away from the rear-end of the mystery bike. “Only one problem with that insurance idea…” allowed DanMan.

“Oh yeah?” puffed Bucky. “What’s that?”

“There’s another bike tire stickin’ out of the ground behind you…” he replied. “It’s almost daybreak. We need to cover these suckers back up somewhat, and go pick up the dogs and get some breakfast. This is all gonna’ require some serious thought, cuz unless I’m lost’r than I think I am, we’re on Widow Byars’ land, and I wouldn’t want her catching me out here with this stuff!”

Bucky’s eyes grew bigger in the growing dawn, as he realized what DanMan was saying. “You mean we’re….”

“That’s right!” DanMan said, cutting Bucky off. “We’re on the late Sheriff’s property!”

Hastily thowing handfuls of dirt and leaves back into the hole, the pair quickly returned the area to as close to it’s natural look as possible and vanished into the woods…

Hours later, with the dogs rounded up and penned in, the two tired hunters sat in DanMan’s kitchen drinking coffee, trying to figure everything out. There was no doubt that they’d found two buried Harleys, but there were a few unanswered questions: why were they there? How long where they there? And the question that nagged at DanMan and Bucky most of all – what happened to the riders?

“I’ll say it again,” mouthed Bucky around a forkfull of eggs. “We need to liberate them suckers! Think of what they’re worth!”

“Yeah,” mused DanMan, ‘but think of why they’re there! We might wind up buried there with ‘em!”

“Aw, come on!” wheedled Bucky. “Where’s your spirit of adventure? Where’s that old Harley Hard-On?” And he didn’t let up until DanMan agreed that they should take a shot at resurrecting the buried treasure…

The following evening, at about the time when fireflies get hyper, DanMan and Bucky eased back into the woods. They found a point on the road where a dirt bank would assist them in loading the bikes up on DanMan’s truck. With shovels, ropes and pulleys, they set off. The coonhunters trooped along for some time without speaking, until DanMan stopped and hunkered down. Bucky did likewise.

“We’re not too far from the Widow Byar’s line now,” he said in a low voice. “Fire up that joint before we get there! We won’t have time once we get busy!”

“Okay…” said Bucky, cupping his hands around the joint as he flipped open his lighter. There was a pause, then a metallic click as he snapped the lighter shut. There was another metallic click, and DanMan knew Bucky hadn’t flipped open his lighter again. Lighters didn’t make the sound a .45 slide made!

For a moment, the only sound was the incredibly loud racket of tree frogs and crickets…

A voice wafted out of the darkness…”You boys lost? Or just seriously huntin’ trouble..?”

DanMan turned slowly in the direction of the vioce, knowing it somewhere in the back of his mind. “Holy Shit!” he thought. It was Slim – the late Sheriff’s brother-in-law!

“I know you boys ain’t out here huntin’ coon on my property without even askin’..,” said Slim, his leathery face now visible to the boys. The old man stuck his face up to DanMan’s…”So what exactly are you nightcrawlers up to?”

As DanMan caught a whiff of the old man’s breath, the memories came flooding back in a rush. Moonshine! It dawned on DanMan that the old man’s still must be nearby! The old man must have been runnin’ shine at night so the county boys wouldn’t see the telltale smoke during the day!

“I’d say right off, with what you boys are totin’ there, you’re headed to do somethin’ in particular, and I’m here to tell you to forget it!” Slim warned.

DanMan and Bucky glanced at each other as the old man continued…

“Now I don’t know how much of those Harleys you saw, but one of ‘em is a’46 Knucklehead, and the other’s a ’54 Panhead. The one you didn’t see, ‘cause it ain’t there, was a Black Shadow, if you got any idea what that is. Best I can recall, they been buried there since ’68.” He then reached down into a nearby creek and withdrew a quart Mason jar of moonshine, while the boys gawked at him.

“Well, boys…you ain’t the first to tryin’ to remove them bikes, and odds are you won’t be the last!” grinned Slim, settin’ his drink down to dig out and bite off a plug of tobacco. “Now, how those machines got there is a strange tale, but it’s also the tale that tells why they’ll stay there…”

“They say you youngsters have it all these days, but one thing you ain’t got is Drive-In movies, and we used to have one calle the ‘Starlight’. In the summer of ’68, there were an awful lot of them biker movies, and some of the local riders would cruise in and check ‘em out. It was a real hoot, ‘cause the bikers would always set ‘emselves next to the concession stand on spread-out sleepin’ bags, and it would sure rattle the locals! Heck, once I saw the manager come out and hand ‘em free passes to another movie if they’d just move some away from the building!”

“But, you can bet all the lil’ honeys at the drive-in figgered out a way to walk by ‘em on the way to the snack bar! It just so happened that two of these young lovlies were the Sheriff’s girls – Suzie and Tracy – who were about 15 and 16. They’d just been allowed to start dating, and you can bet your ass the good Sheriff had a deputy cruisin’ whatever area them girls wandered into. Well, it wasn’t long ‘til those young ladies managed to wind up sittin’ on the sleeping bag with some of them biker boys, while them Barney Fife boys were just a-takin’ notes and makin’ radio calls. Well, them girls were found out and punished, but do you think that stopped ‘em? Hell no! They started sneakin’ out the windows at all hours, meetin’ up with two of those boys – Ray and Lonzo.

“It musta’ went on for a month before their daddy got wind of it. He went lookin’ for ‘em late one night, and found ‘em nekked up at the Lookout Rock, and all hell broke loose! The boys managed to straddle their bikes and high-tail it outta’ there, while the Sheriff handcuffed the gals to a tree and then lit out after ‘em. He was chasin’ three of ‘em, since the other boy’s sweetie was about 15 as well, and they led him on a helluva chase..

“Now this part’s about half guesswork – nobody knows exactly what happened. He caught up with ‘em, and just ran smack over Ray and Lonzo and kilt ‘em both! I aint’ sure how he got all that mess back home and buried. Prob’ly with his horse trailer…

“Anyhow, that third boy got away, but he saw it all and started stalkin’ the murderin’ Sheriff to even up the score…and he musta’ done it too, ‘cause three weeks later to the hour, that pot-bellied excuse for a cop just disappeared!

“And so…ya’ think that third boy…” Slim’s voice trickled off.

“But how do you know it was exactly three weeks to the hour, guess work and all that..?” asked DanMan.

“I was out that night workin’ a still, and U heard that bastard Sheriff’s siren chasin’ the bike! Slim stood up awkwardly, and spit out the used-up chew. “So let me just set you boys straight! Them bikes you found are cursed! They been dug up twice before, and each time, they was right back in the ground come dawn…and somewhere out on the road there was a couple of boys splattered like hamburger! You figure it out..!”

“We heard the Sheriff!” exclaimed DanMan. “He was chasin’ someone before we found those bikes last night!”

“He was chasin’ that Black Shadow, and a good thing for you! You’d be in that hole with them bikes if he hadn’t-a been busy!” spat Slim.

“I thought you said that he disappeared!” grunted Bucky.

“The Sheriff? Oh, believe me, he did! And that boy never did come home, just his bike did, jus’ like an ol’ horse! It still takes itself out for a little joy ride ever’ so often, and it was still warm last night when I came home!” said Slim, looking Bucky right in the eye…

“Say what?!?” croaked DanMan.

“That third boy was my boy Terry – him and his uncle never did get along. Now you boys get on out from here! And forget you ever saw those bikes, if ya’ know what’s good for you!” With that, Slim turned his back on the boys, and walked into the night…

The boys looked incredulously at each other for a long moment.

“That shine…” began DanMan, “has seriously rotted out his gourd!”

Nonetheless, he and Bucky made their way quietly back out of the woods, and a few miles down from where they emerged, about where they’d figured to try and load the bike ‘corpses’, a darkened, rusted, and totally empty hulk of a police car pulled out of the moon-shadows and rolled quietly off into the mist…