Tinker's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The coils held in the shed. But Elroy's words stuck with Tinker all week. A short wall was not a track. He had no stretch of open dirt to open the throttle and prove the coils would hold at record speed. Without that run, he could not trust the buggy. And he would not drive it for the record until he did. He went looking for flat ground. Behind the settlement he found it. A long, dry run of packed red dirt, straight and open, edged with scrub. It was no oval, but it was long enough. He paced it off. Plenty of room to open up and hold full throttle. Tinker towed the buggy out at first light. Bam Bam came with him. The caveman had bent every coil on the block by hand, and he showed up without being asked, the way he always did. He wheeled the water tank off the trailer and set it by the buggy. In his other hand he carried a pair of barbell plates from the dorm's old workout bench. He set them on the buggy's tail. "Why those?" Tinker asked. "Weight on the back," Bam Bam said. "Dirt grabs the tires. Loose dirt here." He pressed the plates down. "Keeps the rear planted. You go faster safe." Tinker stared at him, then grinned. It was simple and right. He strapped the plates down tight. He climbed in and pumped the cooling tank to pressure. Bam Bam stepped clear. Tinker rolled to the far end, turned the buggy to face the long run, and set his hands on the wheel. He thought about turn three at Buckhorn Flats, the day he was nine, the driver who lost it. He thought about 142, and how the rear had stepped out, and how he had laughed. He opened the throttle. The buggy launched. The low gears bit and threw dirt. Tinker felt the weighted rear dig in and track straight. He climbed through the gears fast. The engine screamed, but water moved through the coils. Sixty. Ninety. The scrub blurred past. He watched the needle and kept his foot down. One-twenty. The coils drummed against the block, rattling at speed the way Elroy had warned. Tinker felt them shake. He held the throttle flat anyway. One-forty. One-fifty. The buggy stayed glued to the dirt. The coils rattled hard but did not fly loose. The water came out warm, not boiling. The block ran hot but did not seize. One-sixty. The far scrub rushed up. Tinker lifted and braked, sliding the buggy sideways in a wide spray of red dust. It stopped. He sat in the settling cloud. His heart slammed. He laid his hand on the coils. They were hot but tight, every loop still wrapped to the block. They had held at full speed on real dirt. The last wall was gone. Bam Bam ran up through the dust. "It held?" "It held," Tinker said. His voice shook. "All of it." They ran it again that afternoon to be sure, and again the next morning. The coils never shook loose. Word spread through the settlement. A crowd came out the day Tinker went for the record. Elroy was there, helmet under his arm. Bam Bam stood at the tank, his hands ready on the pump. Someone had set up to time the run with a flag at each end. Tinker pumped the tank, faced the long red stretch, and opened the throttle wide. The buggy launched clean. He climbed through the gears with his foot buried to the floor. The dirt roared under the weighted tires. The coils drummed and held. The needle swept past 142, past the number that had chased him for a year, and kept climbing. One-seventy. One-seventy-five. He crossed the far flag flat out and let it ride a long moment before he lifted. When the dust cleared, the crowd was already running toward him. The timers held up the number. He had beaten the planetary dirt-track record. In a buggy he had built with his own hands. Tinker climbed out and put his hand on the hot block one last time. Bam Bam gripped his shoulder. Elroy clapped him on the back. That night they went to the lounge with the pool tables and the stage, and a band played, and Tinker bowled a few frames and listened to the music and let himself be done. He had wanted a machine he built himself to be fastest on dirt in the world. It was. The boy who watched a driver lose control at turn three had built the fastest buggy on the planet, and he had held it flat all the way to the end.