Eli and I made wreaths out of pine boughs cut on our property, and spent an evening stringing popcorn and cutting out paper stars. My parents even donated a few extra ornaments from their big tree.
God, we were happy.
That year started a tradition we've followed ever since. I am no domestic goddess, but I am what my grandmother called a 'pretty good plain cook, and I can read a recipe. We splurged on rib roast-the simplest cut of beef to cook. I made roasted veggies and Yorkshire pudding, also extremely simple and practically foolproof. I did make a trifle for desert. Again, simple. Whipping cream is tough to screw up.
Just Eli, Morgan and me, my mother and father and Morgan's father. After a couple of glasses of wine even he loosened up.
Morgan and I finished cleaning up the kitchen and climbed into bed around midnight, too tired to make love. Fifteen minutes later the phone rang.
"Not tonight," I wailed as I picked it up, dreading to hear of a horse that was impacted or a cow that couldn't calve.
"Maggie McLain, you get yourself out of that bed and over here right this minute!"
"Eli?" I rubbed my hand across my eyes. "What is it? A burglar? Are you all right?"
"I will expect you in twice no-time." She hung up.
I knew Eli well enough by that time not to ask questions. I dressed and flew across the intervening area, across the parking lot of the clinic, and into Eli's back door. She was standing in the kitchen in an old nightshirt with her hands on her hips.
"You better have a broken leg or something equally dire," I said.
"It's dire, all right." She stepped aside. "Look at your damned cat."
Unlike most American Domestic Shorthaired cats (what most people call alley cats), That Cat talked all the time. I think from the look on her face that the world bewildered her. She was constantly trying to explain it not only to us but to herself.
I disapprove of pet cats being allowed outside-there are too many dangers lurking, but That Cat never ventured inside The Hideous House. From time to time she would pay me for food and tummy rubs by leaving a fat dead mole on the back steps. I managed to get her into a cage long enough to spay her and give her all her shots. She wasn't precisely a pet, but she was the closest thing either Eli or I had. We felt we were too busy at the moment to give a dog or cat the attention it deserved.
That Cat had different ideas. The little tabby huddled beside the hot air register in Eli's trailer. She had something in her paws, and I could hear her purr across the room.
"Why'd she come to you? Is she hurt?" I asked, going to her. "What on earth is that? A dead bird?"
"That," Eli said, "is a newborn puppy. Very much alive. She has obviously stolen it from its mother."
"Oh, good grief " I dropped to my knees. Cat looked up at me, and for the first time, I thought she had figured out the universe in a way that suited her. She looked radiant and incredibly proud of herself. "What are we going to do?"
"Do? You are going to take your cat and its puppy home with you and try to locate the owner."
I sat down. The little critterwas obviously hungry. It was scrabbling against Cat's stomach, but of course, Cat had no milk.
"She brought it to you, Eli. She obviously doesn't trust me."
"For good reason. You spayed her."
"She doesn't know that." I tried to pick up the pup. That Cat bared her teeth and hissed at me.
"It's her baby," Eli said. "She's not going to give it up without a fight. "
"If we don't feed it, it'll be dead by morning. Oh, hell, I'll go get some puppy formula from the clinic. " I stood up. "But I am not taking this baby to raise. You are."
As I trotted across the lawn to the clinic, I heard Eli behind me. "I can't raise a dog. Did you see the size of those paws?"
So Christmas morning Eli, Morgan and I tacked up posters about a lost puppy on every utility pole within a five-mile radius. We put ads not only in the Memphis Commercial Appeal but into the Fayette County papers as well. We also knocked on the doors of our few neighbors. None would admit to having a new litter, and no one called.
Surely That Cat wouldn't have gone far astray to find her pup. She had to carry it to Eli's, after all, and it was darned near as big as she was. We decided Cat must have discovered a feral dog's late litter and snatched a pup while the mother was away hunting. We were afraid she'd go back for another, but she never did, nor did we ever see signs of a feral dog on our property.
Eli was stuck with the little creature whether she liked it or not.
It was a little male. It grew to be about the size and shagginess of an unclipped Irish Terrier. That Cat never realized it was not a kitten, and I doubt the pup ever caught on either. Of course, he was known as "Son of Cat" shortened to "Son of."
Eli had grown up with her Daddy's hunting dogs, but she'd never actually owned a dog herself. Eli swore Son Of was the best Christmas present she ever got.
Maybe That Cat wasn't so dumb after all.
Chapter 12
In which we discover that even we have limits
One afternoon in early spring we had a call from a Mrs. Benson, who told us that her Arabian stallion had cut his belly and needed stitches. After I agreed to come out, Eli shook her head. "Bad move."
"Why?„
"I've heard about this Benson woman. She's weird."
"Some people might consider us weird."
"I mean it. Why are there so many nut cases breeding Arabians?"
"They don't have a lock on weird, Eli. Plenty of sensible people breed sensible Arabians. If you want to come along to help, go get in the truck."
On the way to Mrs. Benson's stable, Eli said, "Beats me how supposedly intelligent people can take a hot-blooded Arabian stallion, spoil him rotten and never bother to teach him any manners, just so they can turn him loose in a show arena and have him act crazier than the other crazy stallions. Then they find a sociopathic mare who hates not only human beings but other horses as well..."
"And because nobody dares ride either the stallion or the mare, what do they do?" I joined in.
"They breed them to each other, of course."
"Then they're stunned when the resulting foal makes Charles Manson look like Mother Theresa." I said. "Real Arab horses aren't crazy. A Bedouin would no more put up with the shenanigans some of these horses get up to than I would if a child of mine started misbehaving."
I said that before I had children. When my own two became teenagers, I realized that a rank Arab stallion was the soul of sweet reasonableness beside your average fifteen-year-old.
"Here we are. Ziggarat Farm."
"Fantastic. That barn looks as though it came straight out of the Arabian nights."
The barn must have cost a fortune. It was some kind of sandcolored fake stone on the outside. Each stall had its own door to its own small paddock. The doors were onion-shaped and surrounded by wood painted in bright Arab designs-or at least I assumed that's what they were. I glanced up and punched Eli. On the roof, instead of the usual running horse weathervane, was a tiny minaret.
"Oh, my God," Eli said. "What does this woman do for a living?"
"Something that makes a bunch of money."
Sylvia Benson ran out of the barn to meet us. She seemed frantic, literally jumping from one foot to the other. Eli and I glanced at one another. Was the poor horse stretched out in his stall with his guts hanging out?
"Please, hurry! Oh, my baby! I can't bear to see him in pain." She actually wrung her hands. We followed her into the shady interior of the barn. Inside, the stalls looked like regular wooden stalls with metal bars on top of them. Apparently either Mrs. Benson had gotten an attack of practicality when she got to the inside, or more likely she'd run out of the gew-gobs of money the outside had taken.
We heard the stallion at the end of the aisle on the right. He was yelling his head off.
Then we saw him.
"He's gorgeous," Eli whispered.
He was pure white with a mane that wo
uld hang all the way down to his knees when he stood still. He was, however, not standing still.
He was alternately rearing and striking out with his front legs and kicking with his hind. I didn't see how the heavy 2 x 6's that made up the lower portion of his stall could survive under an onslaught like that for long.
"Sounds like front row at a Stones concert," I whispered.
Mrs. Benson grabbed my arm and dragged me over to his stall. "There! Look! He's wounded! He can't have a scar, he absolutely can't."
He had a doozy of a cut, all right. Halfway back along the underside of his belly a six-inch gash oozed blood much more freely than it would have if he'd simply stood still and given the blood a chance to coagulate.
"He'll definitely need stitches," I said. "How'd he do it?"
"My stupid neighbor two pastures down has a Walking Horse mare in season. Can you believe he had the effrontery to turn her out while Ajax was in his paddock? The nerve of the man."
"I see." I glanced at Eli. The poor man probably wasn't even aware that two pastures away lived a crazy woman with a sex maniac stallion. He had a perfect right to turn his mare out, but I wasn't about to say that to Mrs. Benson.
"Poor Ajax just went mad trying to get to her. He kicked through the fence and got his belly caught on a broken board." She dropped her face into her hands and sobbed.
"Don't worry" I said. "We'll stitch him up clean. When the hair grows back, you'll never see he was ever cut."
"Thank God. A scar would count against him in the show ring."
"Would you halter him, please, then bring him out here into the light where we can see what we've got?" I had no intention of entering that stall nor allowing Eli to. Ajax knew his owner. He was less likely to kick her brains out.
"What?" Mrs. Benson looked stunned. "You want me to halter him and bring him out?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Can't you do it?"
"He's pretty upset. He needs somebody he trusts. Oh, and you better use your stallion shank just to be on the safe side. Put the chain across his nose."
She stared at me in horror. "Oh, I couldn't do that! It might leave a mark."
I had assumed Mrs. Benson handled her own stallion. Obviously, I was wrong. A surprising number of owners never touch the horses they own. Some, like Mrs. Benson, are afraid of them. They are simply trophies like Georgian silver teapots or old masters. Unlike old masters, however, they are not inanimate. They have feelings and personalities.
"Mrs. Benson," I asked, "who walks Ajax from his stall to his pasture and back again every day?" Surely she had a groom that could handle this little thug even if she couldn't.
"He's only two years old. Manuel just opens the stall door to his paddock and lets him run out on his own."
"He's not halter broke?"
"Of course he is." She sounded affronted. "He wears a halter. just not often."
"Where's Manuel?"
"Gone for the day."
Eli and I stood silent. After a moment, Mrs. Benson gave up. "Oh, very well. If you refuse to halter him, I will."
She flounced over to an elaborately cast brass hook beside the stallion's door and removed a fancy leather halter set with silver lozenges. She clipped on a long leather lead shank that shone with fresh oil. She gave us a look that would roast meat, squared her shoulders, and opened the stall door. "Come on, Ajax, sweetie, Mommy's here. Holy shit!"
If she'd been a pace slower, he'd have scalped her with those flashing teeth. She jumped back, slid his door closed with a crack, leaned against the wall and panted. "Uh, he's a little upset."
"Oh, hell," I said, "Give me the damn halter." I hadn't been born on a horse, but I'd learned a great deal about them since I started vet school. "Get back, you little gangster. Reach for me with those teeth and you'll be wearing dentures the rest of your life."
The stallion whipped his butt around. I smacked him hard with the lead line. "Don't you dare turn your back on me."
He was too stunned by the discipline even to kick, although I was poised to avoid his hind feet if he tried. He wheeled to face me. A moment later, I had the lead line around his neck and the halter over his ears. I ran the long chain shank through the halter ring, across his nose, and yanked down hard.
"Don't!" Mrs. Benson screamed.
The stallion was obviously intelligent. He recognized force majeur, and like a badly behaved toddler who longs for discipline, he quieted instantly.
I dragged him forward. He strained back. I held the line taut. He took a step. I released the line. After four steps he understood that the line only pulled when he didn't come at my request. He moved with me more or less willingly into the center aisle.
"Here," I said and handed the shank to Eli. At that point neither of us trusted Mrs. Benson. "Keep this taut while I shoot some tranquilizer into him to settle him down."
"Tranquilizer?" Mrs. Benson might have used the same tone had I suggested cyanide.
At the moment, I would have liked to use cyanide. On Mrs. Benson, not the stallion.
"You mustn't tranquilize him. We never allow harmful drugs of any kind to enter our horses' systems."
"You're kidding, right?" Eli asked. "He needs antibiotics as well as tranquilizer." Ajax swung his head and nearly knocked her off her feet. She yanked. "No, you don't."
"For pity's sake, stitch him up right now. Can't you see, he's still bleeding."
I ran my hand gently down his flank. He was shivering with fear and pain. He had never learned to trust or rely on anyone, except possibly Manuel. He definitely didn't trust Mrs. Benson, but then, who would?
As my forehead came about even with his groin, he reared and pawed. I sat down hard, and scrambled quickly to my feet.
His front hooves narrowly missed Eli's head. She hung on gamely and hauled him back down to earth.
Mrs. Benson had fled to the far end of the bam. I talked to Ajax and stroked him until he calmed down a bit, as Mrs. Benson sidled back. She was poised to run at the first sign of trouble.
"It's obvious what your problem is," Mrs. Benson said indignantly. "Ajax doesn't like you."
Eli and I gaped at her. Then we looked at one another and nodded.
I took the lead shank from Eli and handed it to Mrs. Benson. "Come on." Eli and I walked toward the front of the barn.
"Wait! Aren't you going to stitch his cut?"
Ajax was now dragging Mrs. Benson after him, following us. He probably thought we were the only sane people he'd ever met in his young life.
"Stop, please!"
"Ma'am." I turned to face her and held my hand up so that Ajax could see it. He stopped. "You have several choices. The only way either of us is going near that cut is if Ajax there is so stoned on tranquilizers that we can lay him flat out in the aisle and tie his legs up so he can't kick even if he tries."
"But... "
"Second option. Call your regular vet."
She refused to meet my eyes. "Rodney was busy. He gave me your number."
Oh, really. I didn't blame Rodney for fobbing Mrs. Benson off on us-well, I didn't blame him much. "Mrs. Benson, only a lunatic would try to dig a suture needle into that son of a bitch's belly without tranquilizers and topical anesthetic."
Mrs. Benson opened her mouth to protest. Ajax swung his hind end and tossed her against the wall. She yelped and skittered away.
"Third option," I continued. "Do nothing. The way he's thrashing around, by morning he will literally be wearing his guts for garters. Now, which will it be?"
"Well!" she huffed. "I wouldn't call your attitude professional."
"Neither of us is a professional suicide. Take your pick."
"Oh, very well." Ajax yanked her arm nearly out of its socket. "Shit. Take this thing," she said, and handed the line to Eli.
"Fine." He pulled. Eli pulled back. He relaxed enough for me to get a needle full of tranquilizer into him. We walked him back to his stall and waited until he sank onto his side. We supported his body with bales of ha
y. Then I cleaned and sutured the cut. It was a lovely job.
Mrs. Benson watched from the other side of the stall door in safety. "I must admit, doctor, you do beautiful work," she said. Once she had accepted the inevitable, she calmed down nearly as much as the horse. If I had been her people doctor, I would have prescribed Valium in a heartbeat.
We stayed with Ajax until he threw off the tranquilizer and struggled groggily to his feet. He leaned his beautiful white head on my shoulder for twenty minutes, until I felt safe in leading him up and down the barn aisle to get his feet back under him.
"Are you sure he won't have a scar?" Sylvia Benson asked. She kept a safe distance from her horse, although he was too zonked out to pose much risk.
"I do not leave scars." We put him back into his stall, left him to sleep off his tranquilizer, picked up our things and walked out to the truck.
While Eli stowed the gear, I leaned out the driver's door and said to Mrs. Benson, "Let me give you some free professional advice. At the moment that horse is a menace to you, himself, your grooms, other horses, and the entire western world. It's not his fault. It's yours. You're terrified of him, but you won't teach him manners. He's spoiled and rank, but he's intelligent and still young enough to understand and accept discipline. Send him to a conscientious professional trainer. If you don't, the first time you try to breed him, he'll hurt his handlers and savage his mare. Worst case scenario, he'll wind up killing somebody and you'll have to put him down. And if you decide not to breed him, for his sake and yours, geld him." I left her sputtering.
"Well," I told Eli. "Cross Mrs. Benson off the client list."
"She'll never call us back after that diatribe," Eli said.
"God, I hope not. That poor horse. Maybe I scared some sense into the woman. I wouldn't go near her again to pay off the mortgage on the clinic."
Hah. After the stallion recovered, the woman called us every time one of her babies had so much as a sniffle. Of course we went. Over the years we even convinced her that the word "drug" didn't pertain exclusively to raw opium straight from the pusher.
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