“Tell Stan we’ll take care of him till he gets here.”
Maggie went about the business of caring for Mr. Gunderson, getting water and a little soup into him while the camper, Cal, chatted with Sully and Frank, apparently well-known to them. When this situation was resolved she meant to find out more about him, like how long he’d been here.
She took off Roy’s shoes and socks and looked at his feet—no injuries or frostbite but some serious swelling and bruised toenails. She wondered where he had been and how he’d gotten the backpack. He certainly hadn’t brought it from home or packed it himself. That would be too complicated for a man in his condition. It was a miracle he could carry it!
Two hours later, the sun lowering in the sky, an ambulance had arrived for Roy Gunderson. He didn’t appear to be seriously injured or ill but he was definitely unstable and Stan wasn’t inclined to transport him alone. He could bolt, try to get out of a moving car or interfere with the driver, although Stan had a divider cage in his police car.
What Maggie and Sully had learned, no thanks to Roy himself, was that he’d been cared for at home by his wife, wandered off without his GPS bracelet, walked around a while before coming upon a rather old Chevy sedan with the keys in the ignition, so he must have helped himself. The car was reported stolen from near his house, but had no tracking device installed. And since Mr. Gunderson hadn’t driven in years, no one put him with the borrowed motor vehicle for a couple of days. The car was found abandoned near Salt Lake City with Roy’s jacket in it. From there the old man had probably hitched a ride. His condition was too good to have walked for days. Roy was likely left near a rest stop or campgrounds where he helped himself to a backpack. Where he’d been, what he’d done, how he’d survived was unknown.
The EMTs were just about to load Mr. Gunderson into the back of the ambulance when Sully sat down on the porch steps with a loud huff.
“Dad?” Maggie asked.
Sully was grabbing the front of his chest. Over his heart. He was pale as snow, sweaty, his eyes glassy, his breathing shallow and ragged.
“Dad!” Maggie shouted.
If you tell the truth you don’t have
to remember anything.
—Mark Twain
It’s different when it’s your father, when your father is Sully, the most beloved general-store owner in a hundred square miles. Maggie felt a rising panic that she hoped didn’t show. First, she gave him an aspirin. Then she rattled off medication orders to the EMT, though she wasn’t the physician in charge and it would have to be approved via radio. Poor Mr. Gunderson ended up in the back of Stan’s squad car and Sully was put on the gurney. The emergency tech immediately started an EKG, slapping electrodes onto his chest, getting an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.
Maggie was in the ambulance immediately, reading the EKG as it was feeding out. Beau was barking and jumping outside the ambulance door, trying to get inside.
“Beau!” Maggie yelled. “No, Beau! Stay!”
She heard a whistle, then a disappointed whine, then the door to the ambulance closed and they pulled away.
“Maggie,” Sully said, pulling the mask away. “See he didn’t follow. I don’t leave him very much.”
Maggie peeked out the back window. “It’s okay, Dad. He’s in front of the porch with that guy. That camper. Enid will see he’s taken care of.”
The driver was on the radio saying they were en route with a possible coronary.
“The lost guy with dementia?” the dispatcher asked.
“Negative, we got Sully from the store. Chest pains, diaphoretic, BP 190 over 120, pulse rapid and thready. His daughter is with us. Dr. Maggie Sullivan. She wants us to draw an epi and administer nitro. She stuck an aspirin in his mouth.”
“Is he conscious?”
“I’m conscious,” Sully whispered. “Maggie. I ain’t quite ready.”
“Easy, Dad, easy. I’m right here for you,” Maggie said. “Let’s start some Ringer’s, TKO.”
“Not you,” Sully said. “You’re shaking!”
“You want me to do it, Sully?” the young EMT asked.
“Better you than her. Look at her.” Then he moaned.
“We need morphine,” Maggie said. “Get an order for the morphine and ask for airlift to Denver. We have to transport to Denver stat. Gimme that IV setup.”
She got the IV started immediately, so fast the EMT said, “Wow!”
A few years ago Walter, her stepfather, had suffered a small stroke. Stroke. That was her territory and she handled him with calm and ease. He was treated immediately, the recovery was swift, his disability minor and addressed in physical therapy in a matter of weeks. A textbook case.
This felt entirely different.
“Gimme your cell phone,” she said to the EMT. She didn’t have hers, of course, because it was back at Sully’s in her purse. The young man handed it over without question and she called Municipal Hospital. “This is Dr. Maggie Sullivan. I’m in an ambulance with my father, en route to you. I don’t have my cell. Can you connect me with Dr. Rob Hollis? It’s an emergency. Thank you.”
It took only a moment. “What have you got, Maggie?” her friend Rob asked.
“My dad—seventy-year-old male,” she said, running through his symptoms. “The EMT is running an EKG and we can send it.” She looked at the EMT. “We can send it, right?”
“Right.”
“If we get medical airlift from Timberlake, we’ll be there in no time. Will you meet me?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Try to stay calm.”
“I’m good,” she said.
“She’s a wreck,” Sully muttered. “Airlift. Gonna cost a goddamn fortune.”
“I gave him nitro, oxygen and morphine. He seems to be comfortable. EKG coming to the ER for you.”
It was not like this with Walter. With Walter, whom she’d become close to once she’d passed through adolescence, she was able to be a physician—objective, cool, confident. With Sully, she was a daughter clinging to her medical training with an internal fear that if anything terrible happened to him she would be forever lost.
Sully was not experiencing terrible pain once the morphine kicked in; his breathing was slightly labored and his blood pressure remained high. Maggie watched over him through the transfer into a medical transport helicopter and stayed with him while he was taken into the emergency room where Dr. Hollis waited.
“Jesus, Maggie,” Rob said, his stethoscope going immediately to Sully’s chest. “Nothing like making an entrance.”
“Who are you?” Sully asked.
“Rob Hollis, cardiac surgeon. And you must be Sully.” He picked up a section of the EKG tape, glancing at it almost casually. “We’re going to run a few tests, draw some blood, bring down that blood pressure if possible and then, very probably, depending on the test results, go to the OR and perform a bypass surgery. Do you know what that is?”
“Sure I do,” Sully said, his voice tired and soft. “I’m the last one on my block to get one.”
“Maggie, this is going to take a while even though we’ll push it through with stat orders. Maybe you should go to the doctor’s lounge and rest.”
“She should go grab a beer and find a poker game but