Dawn Patrol

90

Dawn comes to Pacific Beach.

A pale yellow light that infiltrates the morning fog like a faint, unsteady glimpse of hope.

Alone surfer sits on his board on the burgeoning sea.

It isn't Boone Daniels.

Nor is it Dave the Love God, or Sunny Day, or High Tide, or Johnny Banzai.

Only Hang Twelve has come out this morning. Now he sits alone, waiting for people who are not going to show up.

The Dawn Patrol is missing.

The girls emerge from the tree line that edges the strawberry fields.

Walk like soldiers on patrol toward the bed of reeds.

Teddy Cole watches them come.

He's slept rough in the reeds, his body aches with cold, and he shivers as he tries to focus on the girls' forms, peers through the mist, trying to make out individual faces. He smells the acrid smoke of a cook fire behind him, tortillas heating on a flat pan set on the open flame.

Teddy watches as the girls become distinct forms and now he sees the subtle differences in their stature and gait. He knows each of these girls- their arms and legs, the texture of their skin, their shy smiles. His heart starts to pound with anxiety and hope as distinct faces come into focus.

But hers is not one of them.

He looks again, fighting against disappointment and an ineffable sense of loss, but she isn't there.

Luce is gone from The Dawn Patrol.