Chuck Logan - Vapor Trail

Down below he saw people come up the street and gather in a semicircle around the stairway. Several had bottles in their hands; probably they’d just left bar stools. In the distance, bracketed by the first thunderclap of this July, he heard the wolf pack sirens.

Goddamn, he was tired of sirens.

Something soft and cool grazed his face, and at first he thought it was Janey. But then he realized he was feeling the first temperate breeze in weeks. And the sky was darkening, thickening up with real thunderheads.

Broker slouched against the rail and looked for the ambulance. As he waited, he watched one of the oldest scenes in the world: a woman rocking a terrified child in her arms and saying over and over, “It’s all right. It’s all right. Mommy’s here.”

Mommy.

He was looking at Janey and Laurie. He was seeing Nina and Kit. He turned and faced north and west, the direction bad weather came down from North Dakota-where Nina had ditched their kid.

Then he heard the darkness grumble, and down the river valley he saw white veins bulge in a bundle of black clouds. Ten seconds later, he heard the crash of the thunder overhead. When the ambulance screeched to a halt on the street, the big, fat, cool raindrops had already started to scatter down and sizzle on the baked concrete.

Okay. North Dakota. Gotta get organized.

Blood dripping from his wounded hand, Broker started down the stairs. A paramedic ran up, yelling, “Where’s the sucking chest?”

“Inside, keep going,” Broker said. He took two more steps and ran into a Stillwater cop whom he recognized but whose name he couldn’t place just now.

“Whoa, hey Broker, you better sit down, man,” the copper said.

“Outa the way, gotta go. Airport,” Broker insisted. He shook his head to clear his vision because the raindrops splashing on his face were making his thoughts all runny. .

“Sit him down; he’s in shock.”

Many hands were on him now, gentle but firm, pushing him down to a sitting position on the stairs. Someone mashed a compress into his palm. Raindrops and blood mingled in the white gauze.

“Airport, goddammit. Gotta get. .”

“No problem,” said a female paramedic in a soothing voice as she worked on his hand.

Broker gathered himself and surged up against the cops and medics.

They were too many. Too strong.

They didn’t understand.

I gotta get to my kid.