Steel horseman

The trucker said that he didn't see Sam coming in the midday sun, as his semi-truck made the slow turn on the road to Yellowstone. All he heard was the savage screech of the tires of Sam's superbike, followed by a gurgle that sounded like the draining of a plugged pipe. Sam died, they said, as he had lived, with the pedal to the metal and the breeze in his nut-brown hair... brimming with youth and in fine fettle. Nobody who knew him at all was shocked to read in the paper how the bearded and eccentric former corporal met his maker. They always suspected that fate would take him before his time as he joked of wild women to date and sheer rock faces to climb. Early on, Sam took his classes in a remote, one-room schoolhouse. But he received his real education at his family's outfitting business. An expert hunter and horse rider, he was clearly the outdoor type. Yet, he often struggled to handle the straitjacket of winter ranch life. So, like his grandfather before him, he signed up with the U.S. Marines... until the routine there wore on him like an oil-soaked pair of jeans. By then, he'd sharpened his skills as an all-round carpenter, heavy-duty auto mechanic and senior martial-arts instructor. And the local cops found nothing wrong with his motorcycle, of course. Sam had died doing what he loved, riding his shiny V-twin steel horse. Raised in rugged big sky country, he was hooked on life's extremes, always faithful to true friends, always pursuing big dreams.