José and Rafael had immediately bonded by going mano a mano in a heated but friendly argument over which team would triumph in this year’s Biker Bowl conference championships, and had quoted a bewildering mass of sports statistics as evidence to support their case. Then they’d begun talking bikes. Four-stroke this and compression that—I knew enough about engines to coax my Americar back onto the road again when it stalled or blew its rad, but was bored silly by engine specs and performance capabilities. All I cared about was whether the bike I was riding on was going to make it into Aztlan. And that had more to do with the desert terrain and the vigilance of the military forces that lay between us and the border than it did the machine. And with Rafael’s skill as a motorcycle rider.