“Me too,” said Tom. “Say, the day I come outa McAlester I was smokin’. I run me down a girl, a hoor girl, like she was a rabbit. I won’t tell ya what happened. I wouldn’t tell nobody what happened.”
Casy laughed. “I know what happened. I went a-fastin’ into the wilderness one time, an’ when I come out the same damn thing happened to me.”
“Hell it did!” said Tom. “Well, I saved my money anyway, an’ I give that girl a run. Thought I was nuts. I should a paid her, but I on’y got five bucks to my name. She said she didn’t want no money. Here, roll in under here an’ grab a-holt. I’ll tap her loose. Then you turn out that bolt an’ I turn out my end, an’ we let her down easy. Careful that gasket. See, she comes off in one piece. They’s on’y four cylinders to these here ol’ Dodges. I took one down one time. Got main bearings big as a cantaloupe. Now—let her down—hold it. Reach up an’ pull down that gasket where it’s stuck—easy now. There!” The greasy pan lay on the ground between them, and a little oil still lay in the wells. Tom reached into one of the front wells and picked out some broken pieces of babbitt. “There she is,” he said. He turned the babbitt in his fingers. “Shaft’s up. Look in back an’ get the crank. Turn her over till I tell you.”
Casy got to his feet and found the crank and fitted it. “Ready?”
“Reach—now easy—little more—little more—right there.” Casy kneeled down and looked under again. Tom rattled the connecting-rod bearing against the shaft. “There she is.”
“What ya s’pose done it?” Casy asked. “Oh, hell, I don’ know! This buggy been on the road thirteen years. Says sixty-thousand miles on the speedometer. That means a hunderd an’ sixty, an’ God knows how many times they turned the numbers back. Gets hot—maybe somebody let the oil get low—jus’ went out.” He pulled the cotter-pins and put his wrench on a bearing bolt. He strained and the wrench slipped. A long gash appeared on the back of his hand. Tom looked at it—the blood flowed evenly from the wound and met the oil and dripped into the pan.
“That’s too bad,” Casy said. “Want I should do that an’ you wrap up your han’?”
“Hell, no! I never fixed no car in my life ’thout cuttin’ myself. Now it’s done I don’t have to worry no more.” He fitted the wrench again. “Wisht I had a crescent wrench,” he said, and he hammered the wrench with the butt of his hand until the bolts loosened. He took them out and laid them with the pan bolts in the pan, and the cotter-pins with them. He loosened the bearing bolts and pulled out the piston. He put piston and connecting-rod in the pan. “There, by God!” He squirmed free from under the car and pulled the pan out with him. He wiped his hand on a piece of gunny sacking and inspected the cut. “Bleedin’ like a son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “Well, I can stop that.” He urinated on the ground, picked up a handful of the resulting mud, and plastered it over the wound. Only for a moment did the blood ooze out, and then it stopped. “Best damn thing in the worl’ to stop bleedin’,” he said.
“Han’ful a spider web’ll do it too,” said Casy.
“I know, but there ain’t no spider web, an’ you can always get piss.” Tom sat on the running board and inspected the broken bearing. “Now if we can on’y find a ’25 Dodge an’ get a used con-rod an’ some shims, maybe we’ll make her all right. Al must a gone a hell of a long ways.”