Behind Elijah, Loretta stood very still in the doorway. In Elijah's head, his father's voice came up clear, like he was standing right there. "When a man's broke down in the rain, son, you don't ask his price." Outside, lightning split the sky over Pine Hollow. The rain became a wall.
Elijah looked at Hank's shaking hands, then he rolled up his sleeves. "Put your money away, sir. Mama Lo, put on a pot of coffee. It's going to be a long night." The old biker covered his face with both hands and let out a sound Elijah would never forget.
A grown man crying with relief in a shop 60 days from being taken away forever.
The next 11 hours, Elijah would later tell his grandmother, were the closest he'd ever felt to his father since the funeral. Like the man was standing right behind him, hand on his shoulder, whispering instructions into his ear. 5:02 p.m. Elijah cracked the engine open, head bolts off, valve cover off, carb off. He laid the parts on the bench in the exact order his daddy taught him to lay them 6 years before.
Every screw, every washer, every gasket. Loretta brought towels, then coffee, then more towels. Hank sat on the stool in the corner, his hat in his lap, watching with eyes that did not blink. 5:47 p.m.
Diagnosis confirmed. Blown head gasket. Cracked cylinder sleeve. Dead ignition coil. Carburetor caked solid.
None of these parts existed within 80 miles of Pine Hollow. The hardware store had closed an hour ago. The roads were shutting down county by county. The chain shop down the highway was a dead end.
Elijah stood up, wiped his hands, then he turned to his daddy's workbench, reached underneath, pulled out a steel toolbox, and under that, a cardboard box he hadn't opened in three years. Inside, scrap. Old parts his father had refused to throw away. Pieces nobody else in this county would have called useful.
Including one chunk of a 1985 Buick 350 engine block. Elijah lifted it like it weighed nothing. "What you can't buy, you build. Anything one man made, another man can make again." His daddy's exact words from a memory 10 years old.
He set the Buick block on the lathe. 6:30 p.m. The power flickered once. 7:15 p.m. The power cut out completely.
Hank started to stand. Elijah waved him down. "It's fine. Stay there, sir." He lit the kerosene lantern off the wall hook, pulled his father's battery work light from the corner, the same dented, scratched one James had used every night for 20 years, and clamped it to the engine stand.
The bay glowed yellow. Then, he went to work. He turned the Buick block on the lathe by hand. Slow, steady, inch by inch by inch. Matched the cylinder bore to the Panhead specs.
Adjusted.
Turned again. Sweat ran down his back and dripped off his chin onto the steel. The rain hammered the tin roof so loud he could barely hear his own breathing. 8:48 p.m.
Sleeve fitted clean. He had torn apart an old riding mower out back the summer before. Pulled the ignition coil. Set it on a shelf for a rainy day. He grabbed it now.
Bench tested it with a multimeter. The needle jumped clean. It would work. 9:30 p.m. Loretta brought Hank a fresh cup of coffee.
The old biker took it with both hands like it was sacred.