He was not thinking about the Hells Angels patch now. He was thinking about the difference between what a damaged part looked like and what it actually did. His father had taught him that a broken machine could offer ten dramatic clues and only two useful ones. The trick was to identify the clues that mattered before spending time on everything else.
'That's an Evolution motor,' Leo said, more to himself than to Sully. 'The cover took the hit. The housing underneath might be all right.'
'You know Harley engines?'
'My dad did. I watched him work.'
'Watching isn't doing.'
'No,' Leo answered. 'That's why I'm checking before I touch it.'
Sully folded his arms and winced. He had been trying to hide the movement, but Leo saw the pain travel across his face.
'You're bleeding a lot,' Leo said.
'I've done that before.'
'That doesn't mean you should keep doing it.'
The big biker gave him another curious look. 'Where'd you learn to talk to people like that?'
'Usually I don't.'
Leo went behind the station to search the scrap. In the fading light he examined a length of soft copper tubing from an old cooling unit and carried it back with several fittings he had found in a metal drawer. He refused to pretend that the first piece he found was suitable. He rejected two lengths because of cracks and another because the inside was packed with corrosion. By the time he returned with something he trusted enough to consider, Sully was sitting on the edge of the workbench, pressing a clean bandanna against his shoulder.
'You don't have a flashlight?' Sully asked.
'One. It eats batteries.'
'Here.' Sully handed him a small work light from a saddlebag. 'Make it count.'
The white beam gave Leo a better view of the damage. He talked through what he was seeing, partly for Sully's benefit and partly because speaking aloud helped him organize his own thoughts. The torn fuel hose could be isolated from the damaged section. The copper might serve as a temporary bypass if it could be fitted without touching anything dangerously hot or moving. The cracked cover was more uncertain. He would need to stop the leak long enough for Sully to reach a proper repair shop, not pretend an improvised patch could restore the part to factory condition.
'If this works,' Leo said, 'you still can't ride it across three states like nothing happened.'
'How far?'
'Far enough to reach help. I wouldn't trust it much farther.'
Sully looked out through the garage opening. The first stars had appeared. 'That's all I'm asking.'
Leo had heard adults say those words before, but usually they meant the opposite. They asked for a small favor and later treated the favor as a debt that could never be repaid. Sully, however, stayed where Leo told him to stay, passed over a tool when asked, and did not laugh when the boy made a second examination before committing to a repair.
The fuel problem took longer than Leo expected. One fitting would not seat cleanly, and the first arrangement put the copper too close to a hot surface. He stopped, backed up, and started again. Sully watched him discard twenty minutes of work without a complaint.
'You don't get mad when you have to redo something?' the biker asked.