He did his best to close the gap, but the other guy was driving a late model sedan, while Logan was trying to get all he could out of Tooney’s old Bronco. Still, he was able to trim the sedan’s lead to less than a mile by the time the other car disappeared over the lip of the valley.
After that, they entered a stretch of the road that wound through the hills toward the ocean, making it almost impossible for Logan to keep track of the other car. Every once in a while he would catch a glimpse of lights ahead, but that was it.
As the miles passed, night began to finally lose its grip on the land. On most days he would welcome the dawn, but not today. The taillights that had been easy to spot in the darkness were becoming harder and harder to pick out. Then, as the hills on the right fell away to reveal the bay, there were no lights ahead at all. Logan knew the guy still had to be up there somewhere, so he kept going, driving through Morro Bay, then inland to San Luis Obispo.
But not once did he see the Lexus again.
A block from the entrance to the freeway, he reluctantly pulled to the side of the road. There were just too many directions the man could have gone from there.
Logan had lost him.
For several minutes, he sat motionless, feeling the weight of his failure in his chest. He’d done it again. No matter what his intentions had been, he’d failed.
Finally, he put the Bronco back in gear, turned around, and headed for home.
Just as he passed the San Luis Obispo city limits, his cell rang, the display screen simply reading: DAD.
“Where are you?” his father asked.
“SLO, but I’m heading back now.” SLO was local slang for San Luis Obispo.
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“We’re coming there.”
It wasn’t until that moment that Logan noticed the distinct hum of tires coming from the other end of the line.
“Why?”
“Barney talked Tooney into letting us take him to the hospital.” Cambria was too small for its own hospital. The closest was in SLO. “He’s worried Tooney might have some internal bleeding, and he doesn’t want to take a chance. Me, he says, I only need a few stitches.”
That last part was such a matter-of-fact add-on that Logan almost missed it, but the second it sunk in he hit the brakes and pulled to the side of the road. “What do you mean stitches?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Over the line, he could hear Barney yell out. “He knocked his head against a storage rack when he tried to help Tooney stand up.”
“Dad! What the hell?”
“What the hell what?”
“What the hell were you doing trying to help him up? You’re eighty years old!”
“I’m not eighty for three more months!”
“Dad!”
“What was I supposed to do? He couldn’t get up on his own.”
Logan rubbed a hand across his eyes. “How many stitches?”
“None yet.”
“I mean, how many does Barney think you’ll need?”
“I have no idea.”
Logan knew there was no use arguing with him. “Which hospital?”
3
Logan watched from the window of the Hamilton Memorial Emergency Room as the others arrived. But it wasn’t just Barney, Tooney and his dad like he expected. The rest of his father’s buddies—Will Jensen, Jerry Kendrew, and Alan Hutto—walked in right behind them. They referred to themselves as the Wise Ass Old Men, or WAMO. Which, of course, didn’t make sense to Logan at all since the M and the O should have been reversed.
When the nurse at the reception desk saw Tooney enter with Harp under one arm and Barney under the other, she called out to one of her colleagues, who rushed over and took charge. Soon Tooney was sitting in a wheelchair, being rolled toward the back with Logan and the WAMO troupe following right behind.
One of the orderlies asked, “Can someone tell me what happened?”
Logan was about to speak when his father, sporting a large square of gauze taped to the side of his head, blurted out, “He was mugged,” then shot his son a look that was clearly telling him to keep his mouth shut.
“Mugged? Where?” San Luis Obispo County was a far cry from being the crime capital of California.
“Cambria,” Barney said.
“He was on his way to work,” Harp quickly added.
“Cambria?” the orderly said, even more surprised.
“Probably one of those tourists,” Will said.
“Did anyone see it happen?”
Again Logan’s father glanced at him, then shook his head and told the attendant, “I was going in for an early coffee and found him in front of his café. Barney here’s a retired doctor. He was close, so I called him.”
“I thought it best if we brought him in right away,” Barney explained.
The automatic door to the examination area slid open as the group neared, but the orderly held up his hands, stopping everyone except his two colleagues and Tooney. “I might have some more questions later, but you’re all going to have to wait out here.”
“Hold on,” Logan said. “What about my father?”
“Your father?”
Logan grabbed Harp by the shoulders, and turned him so that the gauze on the side of his head was clearly visible. The orderly stepped over and pulled the bandage back.
“What happened to you?”
“He fell trying to help our friend get up,” Barney told him.
The orderly frowned, then waved for Logan’s dad to follow him. “Let’s clean that out and stitch you up.”
The rest of them stood there until the orderly and Harp disappeared inside, and the door closed again.
Turning to Barney, Logan said, “You want to tell me what that was all about?”
“Harp should tell you,” Barney said.
“But he’s not here.”
“I’m sure he won’t be long.”
Before Logan could ask anything else, Barney and the others headed to the front corner of the waiting room and sat down. Instead of joining them, Logan took a seat right next to the examining area door, and waited.
Growing up, he had always been close with his dad. Working at Dunn Right, camping on the beach, watching football all day on Sundays, these they did together right up until Logan left home. It was Logan who actually caused them to drift apart. As he became more and more involved in his new life, he lost touch with his old one. His relationship with his parents became a monthly call at best, and then, after his mother died, that call became holidays only.
When he moved back home, he expected Harp to be less than excited to see him. But that wasn’t the case at all. His father treated him like he’d never been gone. It was exactly what Logan needed, and it had made him feel all the more ashamed. All those wasted years when he had forgotten what a good man his father was. Better than himself, for sure. He knew he could never—would never—let something like that happen again.
That’s why his father’s actions that morning were so confusing. What were his dad and his WAMO buddies up to? It just didn’t make sense.
It was about twenty minutes before the doors opened again, and Harp reappeared. A nice square portion of his head had been shaved, and in place of the missing hair was a new bandage. He took a couple of steps out, stopped to adjust his shirt, then started up again, walking right past Logan without noticing him.
“Dad?”
Harp turned, surprised. “Did everyone else leave?”
Logan shook his head, and pointed to where the others were sitting, then said, “You want to tell me what that was all about?”
“The stitches?”
“Don’t play dumb, Dad. You know what I’m talking about.”
Harp sighed, then nodded toward his friends. “Let’s sit over there.”