He reached into the tool roll himself and handed her a flathead screwdriver. His hand, she noticed, didn't quite open all the way. The last two fingers stayed curled in toward the palm, as though he were holding something small and invisible. She didn't say anything about it. She took the screwdriver.
The screws came out, and the cover came off, and there they were: the breaker points, a little spring-loaded arm riding on a cam, opening and closing a hundred times a second when the engine ran, each time they opened telling the coil to fire. Next to them sat the condenser, a fat little metal can the size of her pinkie. A thin wire ran from the points out through a rubber grommet in the side of the timing case and up toward the coil.
Josie stuck her head down close. She could see the points weren't burned. The little fiber rubbing block that rode the cam wasn't worn down to nothing. The gap looked about right. She had to see it for real, though, and for that she needed the thing in her milk crate.
She went and got it. It was a tiny taillight bulb in a socket, the kind off an old trailer, with two lengths of red wire soldered to it and an alligator clip on the end of each. The insulation was patched with electrical tape in three places. Aitona had made it in about 1985, and the solder joints were neater than anything she could ever do.
"What in the world is that," said Boone.
"Test light."
"I can see it's a test light. Where'd you get it?"
"My grandpa made it." She clipped one alligator clip to the little terminal where the wire met the points, and the other to the bare metal of the engine case. "Key on, please. Don't crank it."
He turned the key. The bulb stayed dark.
"Can you bump it? Just barely? So the cam turns a little?"
He could, and did, a quick jab of the starter button. The engine rolled over a fraction of a turn and the bulb flickered and went dark again.
"Hm," Josie said.
"Hm what."