When he saw the sign on the building Stone realized this was the methadone clinic, where the truck parade came every morning. As he watched he noted the armed security guard patrolling in front of the building. When the man saw Stone standing there, Stone smiled and waved. The man neither smiled nor waved back. Instead he put a hand on his holstered gun. Stone turned and walked back to the hospital. He assumed the presence of the guard meant that the clinic was a target for either drug dealers or druggies. Stone knew that liquid methadone on its own couldn’t deliver a high, that’s why it was used to wean addicts off drugs. But when combined with other drugs, like anti-anxiety pills, it could produce an often deadly cocktail.

About an hour later Bob came back out and explained that Willie was out of danger and was being admitted.

“So what did they find out?” Stone asked.

“They said he overdosed on something.”

“That I knew. You have any idea what?”

“The emergency room doctor asked that too. I saw a crack pipe in Willie’s hand when I came in the trailer. He tried to hide it from me, but I still saw it.”

Stone shook his head. “Crack’s a stimulant. His eyes would’ve been dilated, not pinpoints. He overdosed, but on a depressant, not a stimulant.”

“Well, I guess I could be wrong about what he took,” Bob said hesitantly.

Stone looked at him curiously but the old man didn’t seem inclined to add anything to what he’d already said. Stone drove Bob back to Willie’s trailer where he’d left his truck. He tried to pay Stone for his help but Stone refused.

Bob dropped an exhausted Stone off at the rooming house. As Stone slowly walked up the stairs he figured that despite the massive manhunt after him he would have to get out of Divine pretty soon, just to get some rest.

Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

BY THE NEXT MORNING nearly everyone in Divine had heard of Stone’s heroics. Apparently Bob Coombs had told everyone he encountered of the stunning rescue, and the story had quickly spread.

“Cool a hand as I ever seen,” he repeated over and over, referring to Stone.

“Heard he was in Nam,” another man said. “Good under pressure.”

“A true American hero,” said one lady. She added in a lower tone while talking with a girlfriend of hers, “Too bad it was wasted on Willie Coombs.”

Sheriff Tyree came to Stone’s room that morning to congratulate and thank him. “Willie’s a good young man except for the pills.”

“He’s a coal miner, right?” said Stone.

“How’d you know?”

“Scars and banged-up hands. And he had coal dust embedded in his skin. Does his mother know?”

“Shirley? Doubt she’d care.”

Stone chose not to ask about that. “Bob Coombs said his son, Willie’s father, was dead.”