Okay, so I was in the process of checking this when your reply came in. Volts at the terminal 12.44. The bike reacts the same way when I bridge the battery to the starter--Lingering clicks until I turn off the fuel pump. HOWEVER when I use my battery jumper the engine turns right over and runs super smoothly...until the jumper turns off and then the bike dies immediately. I will pick up a new battery but it still doesn't make sense to me. I could start the bike a week ago on this battery and it would run fine. Could a battery show 12.4 volts and not even have enough juice to sustain a running bike on the alternator after the cranking is out of the equation?
Everything put back together with the new battery, fired right up, and is running smoothly at 14.15V 😀 Life is good. Thanks again everyone.