Tennessee Vet

by Carolyn McSparren

  “Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays.”

  “This morning over my coffee, I decided to offer to volunteer at Barbara’s clinic for a few hours a week if she does not shortly hire someone full-time. And if she’ll have me. Emma says they are always looking for volunteers. That way I may be able to help Barbara while I keep an eye on Orville. I enjoy watching his progress, but I have to be careful not to hover like an overprotective father.”

  At the clinic he had the chance to spend more time around Barbara. He’d have to avoid getting underfoot, but it was obvious she needed more help. He was competent with computers and used to working with people. Granted, they didn’t usually come attached to pets, but they weren’t that different. With some instruction, he might be able to take some of the simpler decisions off her shoulders.

  “I don’t know why Barbara’s having such a hard time finding someone to help in the clinic full-time, Seth. There can’t be many jobs in this area over minimum wage.”

  “Her clinic is in downtown Nowheresville and can be a real madhouse when Barbara is there to see one client after another. Then you have to put off people who come into the clinic while Barbara is out on an emergency call. The nearest large-animal vet is in Somerville. There is a small-animal vet south of Williamston, but Dr. Kirksey prefers to work strictly with dogs and cats. Barbara takes on all comers as well as the rescues, so she’s got more work than she can handle. Newly fledged vets who are anxious to work for a total practice are on top of the latest practices, eager and ready to work long hours, and are usually less expensive than older vets. Too many vets these days are going into small animal practices in urban areas. She wants a well-rounded country vet.”

  Stephen walked out into the yard with Seth. “Emma tells me that the pasture over there behind the barbed-wire fence belongs to this property.”

  Seth stopped with his hand on the door of his SUV. “Like I said before, don’t go messing around there without me. Ask Emma to tell you what happened to her when she went exploring on her own. She wound up with a twisted ankle and a whole lot of scratches and bruises.”

  “The pasture looks as though all it needs is a good going-over with a Bush Hog. What am I missing?”

  Seth raised his eyebrows and climbed into his front seat. “Between the water moccasins and the snapping turtles in the pond? There’s a barn with a roof that’s fallen in and has been reclaimed by all the wild critters who need a place to get out of the weather. Then there are the lethal wild rose thorns and thorny locust trees that will rip your clothes right off your body.”

  “But it’s land, Seth. And it’s yours. How big?”

  “Just over ten acres.”

  “Why leave it fallow? Can’t you rent it out to one of your neighbors?”

  “Emma and I do want to reclaim it. We have plans to rent it, but at the moment it’s not high on the priority list. I’m trying to find the time to run over it with the Bush Hog one more time before frost, so it will be ready to overseed with Bermuda grass in the spring. Emma wants to clean out the old cattle barn, reroof it and let the rehabilitators use it as a base of operations for their rescues.”

  “With a flight cage?”

  “So that is your plan? Sneaky, Stephen, sneaky. Listen, Orville will be long gone before spring. He’ll either fly away or, if he can’t, be moved to the zoo in Memphis to become part of their education program. Standard practice for wounded creatures that can’t be repatriated to the wild.”

  “Trust me. He will fly. He has to.” Or Stephen wouldn’t be able to find fulfillment in his lame life. It was that old decision-making thing kids did. If I do this and it works, then everything will all work out. If I do it and it doesn’t, then nothing will. “Thanks for rescuing me on the road today, Seth.”

  “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Anytime. The pot is always on.”

  “You need to meet my partner, Earl. Next time, I’ll bring him with me. He is a caffeine fanatic.”

  Stephen watched Seth’s SUV until it disappeared beyond the curve, then strode over to the barbed-wire fence at the side of the yard. He assessed what he could see from this distance.

  Judging from the height of the grass and weeds, it was indeed overdue for that second pass with the Bush Hog. Seth had managed to knock over the spindliest of the locust trees, with their two-inch-long thorns, and pushed them together to create a tall brush pile in the open area. It reminded Stephen of the preparations for bonfires in England on Guy Fawkes night. He’d attended several parties for The Guy when he’d happened to be in England on November 5th doing research. Once, Nina had been with him when they’d visited friends for the weekend in their small Cotswold village. She’d loved the minor mayhem in the village square, bagpipes and all.

  Why not a Williamston Guy Fawkes bonfire? Complete with The Guy, the effigy of the peasant leader who’d tried unsuccessfully to blow up the houses of Parliament in 1605? It was still a bigger holiday in the British Isles than Halloween, although Halloween was getting more popular every year. Nobody here even knew who Guy Fawkes was.

  History was Stephen’s job as well as his passion. It would be appropriate for him to stage a Guy Fawkes night bonfire. He’d be willing to bet Barbara would love it.

  Only it was impossible.

  He couldn’t start a fire this close to a barn on someone else’s property—not even a dilapidated barn built of concrete blocks—in the dry fall in Tennessee. Emma and Seth would never agree. It was their brush pile, after all.

  But a bonfire would clear away the pasture debris and the rotten wood from the barn. The pasture would be clear to plant in the spring. The barn would be cleaned out and ready to reroof now. And clear, most importantly, to build a flight cage for Barbara. For Orville.

  Maybe Seth didn’t have time to run the Bush Hog over ten acres, but Stephen had nothing but time. He could write his blasted book—a book he was starting to hate when he’d barely begun it—in the winter, when the weather was too miserable to walk outdoors. West Tennessee didn’t normally have but one or two good snowfalls a year, and the snow on the ground disappeared within days.

  What it did have was cold rain, colder wind and ice storms that coated everything in sight with black glare ice that broke hundred-year-old trees like matchsticks. No driving in that, much less walking. He’d be grateful for his lone fireplace in an ice storm when the power went out.

  No walking down to Barbara’s for his exercise. He’d be forced to go get his treadmill from home and bring it back up here with him.

  He had a beautiful, big new truck to carry it. Anne would be so jealous.

  Even if this whole idea of the November 5th bonfire remained a pipe dream, he could do some preliminary research about how to get a permit to burn brush in this county. Seth must know. There had to be a procedure, a way to do it safely. He was good with bureaucracy. First, he would investigate. Then, he’d consult Emma and Seth.

  He would wait for Seth’s permission to walk out into that forbidden pasture. In the meantime, he’d walk over to check out Seth’s tractor with its attached Bush Hog. It perched like a giant yellow prehistoric mantis behind their house, capable of knocking down all the brush in the pasture.

  He ambled across the street, grateful that Seth had not yet found a new dog to replace the one that Emma said had died before they were married. A dog might take exception to a stranger in the yard.

  He had not seen any construction workers in a couple of days. The addition to the house did look complete from the outside. This late in the fall they might be happy with such a simple project as a flight cage. He’d happily pay for it if Seth and Emma agreed. His rescued eagle, his cash. Seemed only fair.

  The carport was open, although no one was likely to steal such a behemoth from a fish-and-game warden. In these parts stealing a man’s car was a felony and stealing his truck was a travesty, but stealing his tractor was darned n
ear a hanging offense.

  This tractor was a beauty. Stephen itched to get his hands on the controls. He climbed up to stare in the window of the enclosed cab. Then he tried the door.

  Unlocked. He felt a wave of the same motor lust that had kept him driving an antique Triumph. He loved his new truck, but this monster was something else entirely.

  “I am capable of driving a tractor, even with a Bush Hog attached,” Stephen said aloud with more than a hint of hauteur. How hard could it be? Less experienced people than he did it all the time. He had been driving cars since he got his license at sixteen. Actually, he’d gotten behind the wheel of his grandfather’s station wagon on his twelfth birthday, not unusual in the country. By the time he would have been allowed to drive his grandfather’s big tractor, however, his grandparents were dead and their little farm and its equipment had been sold.

  Explain to him how all the gears and pedals worked, then give him a bit of hands-on practice, he’d be good to go. Or would he? Most of the controls on his grandfather’s old tractor had been levers worked by hands, not feet. His wounded leg could now drive his new truck easily. Admittedly, Seth’s tractor was a whole different animal from his grandfather’s antique, or from one of those small lawn tractors the landscape service used to cut his lawn in town.

  He’d always justified using their service because he was too busy, not because he hadn’t a clue how to run a lawn tractor. Though he didn’t.

  He was acting like a fourteen-year-old boy out to impress a girl at school by jumping off the roof of his garage or skateboarding down the porch stairs. Pretty silly, since Barbara would undoubtedly be able to drive a tractor. She was a country woman. Surely, country feats would be more impressive to her than his ability to read galley proofs on his textbooks. He was actually trying something outside his comfort zone. That ought to impress her. Sure impressed him. He didn’t consider himself Mr. Macho, but women seemed impressed by heavy machinery and power tools.

  When he and Nina were first dating, he’d taken her to the skating rink. She’d been beautiful, a swan, a princess, gliding around like some magical being. He, on the other hand, had spent more time on his rump than on his feet.

  But Nina had not laughed.

  Where had he lost that sense of adventure? After they were married, Nina had been the one pushing him to take her dancing or snorkeling. With only the memory of her laughter, life was bleak.

  He didn’t even feel passionate about teaching anymore. But without teaching, what would he do? Travel? He loathed traveling without someone to share the experience with. Play bridge? Chess at the faculty club? Drink? His idea of drinking was a glass of wine once a year or so at a party.

  One of his friends had walked the Appalachian Trail from the beginning all the way to Mount Katahdin in Maine at age eighty-two. Stephen was not much over half that age, but he doubted he’d finish the first day’s hiking with his leg.

  How did people move on? After her husband died, Barbara Carew had flung herself back into her career, if not precisely into a new life. She didn’t realize that she’d inadvertently flung herself into his and knocked him as flat as that darned Mabel the goose that Barbara had introduced him to could.

  The wild geese that invaded the campus every spring and autumn on their commute to and from Canada ran or flew away when he came near them. Mabel, with her lame foot, attacked first and asked questions later. She believed in close-quarters combat.

  The two nonhuman creatures that had insinuated themselves into his life—Mabel and Orville—were lame like him, but they certainly weren’t letting their infirmities stop them. They were brave. They figuratively stuck out their noses—all right...beaks—and attacked life. Stephen was beginning to rediscover living a little at a time. Barbara seemed to be afraid to try flying free. But he wanted her to find her way, as well.

  The birds had one advantage. When walking wouldn’t do, they could fly.

  Eventually, Orville would fly again. Mabel would fly enough to teach her goslings to fly, as well. Stephen couldn’t fly away and would always be lame, but he would learn to make do with what he had left.

  He would drive Seth’s tractor.

  All he had to do was clear that pasture with the Bush Hog, build up the makings of a bonfire, get all the permits and regulations and have a Guy Fawkes party for all his friends.

  He caught himself. “Yeah, and just what friends would those be?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  BARBARA WONDERED WHETHER Stephen had reached his house safely. The road that ran in front of the clinic wasn’t busy, except in the summer when people drove to and from their cottages on the lake, but vehicles tended to speed down the center of the road, ignoring the lane markers. She would recommend that Stephen drive into Williamston to the municipal park and walk the two-mile-long trail through the woods there. Not as convenient, but certainly safer. She took out her cell phone to call him, realized she didn’t have his cell number and was forced to worry instead. Emma would have his number, but Barbara hesitated to ask Emma to call. After that impromptu kiss, he might be embarrassed. She sure was.

  Heck, he ought to be glad somebody cared enough to check that he wasn’t roadkill.

  She tightened the last stitch on the belly of the cat she had just spayed—a yellow tabby due to come into her first heat any day.

  Barbara considered her special low-cost neutering-and-spaying clinics her payback to the community. Any new vet she hired would have to continue the practice.

  The percentage of kittens and puppies that were adopted into forever homes was even lower in the country than in the city. The farmers frequently allowed their barn cats to breed at will. The feral kittens generally lived their entire lives as wild as tigers. There were not enough mice in the world to keep them fed, and catching wild cats took humane cages and cat-whispering genius. Many farmers didn’t bother.

  She ran ad campaigns in the Marquette weekly newspaper every couple of months offering low-cost spaying and neutering, as well as rabies vaccinations. She also cajoled and browbeat her clients into taking advantage of her offers.

  Stray dogs weren’t so great a problem, although the number of human beings who simply tossed away dogs when they moved from the area infuriated her. She thought they deserved jail or worse. She did not consider them actual human beings at all but some sort of horrible mutant subspecies.

  Every spring game wardens like Seth baited the animal trails with rabies vaccination powder. Since there had been no rabid animals in Marquette County for years, they seemed to have been successful. So far.

  Now, however, with global warming forcing more animals out of their usual habitat, that could change in a minute. One rabid animal infecting others was worse than a zombie apocalypse and much more likely to happen.

  And then there was the armadillo incursion. Whenever she told one of her clients that armadillos carried leprosy, she got the same horrified stare. No matter how carefully she explained that leprosy was very difficult to catch, was presently known as Hansen’s disease and could be controlled medically, her clients still goggled at her.

  “Leave them alone,” she always told them. “You’ll be fine.”

  She desperately needed help. Every day she seemed to get more and more worn out. She knew if she didn’t get some rest—mental and physical—her body would ambush her and force her to take care of it. She’d thought she’d reached her limit, but that was before Stephen had walked into her life with that blasted bird.

  Now, when she wasn’t concentrating on stitching or operating or taking blood or worming or any one of the other jobs she did on a regular basis, one part of her mind was struggling with thoughts of Stephen.

  His kiss had lit her up like fireworks. He was a complication that threatened the careful wall she had built to separate her professional life from her personal life.

  Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Em
ma said he wanted to volunteer some time at the clinic. Just what she needed. More Stephen. He got to her, blast it.

  She laid the groggy tabby back into her cage to recover from her surgery. She’d be much happier without babies and without being chased all over her owner’s farm by every tomcat in the neighborhood.

  The intercom beside the door beeped. “Doctor, the lady you’re interviewing for the job is here,” Emma said.

  Barbara took a deep breath, peeled off her gloves and dropped them into the waste container. “Please, heaven, let her be perfect and actually take the job.”

  The woman wasn’t all that young, although she did look fairly fit, despite her suspiciously yellow hair. Maybe mid-forties or early fifties. Not a teenager looking for an after-school job, then. Good, the clinic already had one of those.

  “Hey, I’m Barbara Carew,” Barbara said and offered her hand.

  “You’re the doctor?” the woman asked. She sounded surprised.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The woman brushed Barbara’s hand for no more than a millisecond. “I’m Dorothy Miller.” She dropped her eyes. “Everybody calls me Dotie. Not Dotty—Dotie.”

  “Nice to meet you, Dotie. This is Emma Logan. You can see why we need somebody right away.”

  “Lord yes, honey. When are you due?”

  “Just after Thanksgiving.”

  “You didn’t ought to be working around all these animal germs,” Dotie whispered, as if the germs would attack if they heard her. She gave a glance at the four clients with their four dogs avidly watching and listening. “You could be hurtin’ your baby. I hope you ain’t changing no kitty pans. My doctor tol’ me when I was pregnant with my first not to touch none of that.”

  Uh-oh, Barbara thought and rolled her eyes at Emma.

  “No, ma’am. Your doctor was correct. Someone else comes in to do that.”

  You, if we hire you, Barbara thought. Not that it looks promising.