Chapter 19
In which we meet a spaced-out Terrier
Within ten years after we moved to the country, suburbia began invading us. The road that had been gravel was paved, and traffic increased. We installed a wrought-iron gate with a code and an electric gate opener at the road so that we could close ourselves in at night. We put up new PVC fences along the road frontage. We were still in the country, but we weren't nearly as country as we'd been when we started.
Nathan and Sarah were growing up. We couldn't keep them chained in their rooms, although there were times it sounded like a great idea.
Sarah had begun taking riding lessons with Patsy when she was six, and began bugging us for a horse of her own shortly thereafter. By the time she was eleven, Morgan and I agreed she was ready for her own horse, but we didn't see how we could afford to give her one. It's true that a hundred-dollar horse costs the same to keep as a milliondollar horse, but a million dollar horse is generally more talented. Sarah wanted a competitive show jumper. Not cheap.
We did notice that heryoung friends with horses seemed immune to a lot of teenaged problems. We figured we could save up for a year or so, then try to find her a horse that fit her needs when she turned twelve.
One fall morning, Morgan was reading the paper at the kitchen table at six-thirty in the morning, while I was splitting the can of Cat Chow among three cat bowls. I was hoping for an easy day in the clinic after I got Nathan and Sarah off to school with Morgan. It had begun to drizzle during the night. With luck I wouldn't have to leave the clinic all day.
When the telephone on the wall of the kitchen rang, I said, "Oh, foot."
"Dr. McLain? It's the answering service?"
"Yes?"
"Ma'am, we just had a call from the police?"
"I beg your pardon?" Eli and I had discovered that this particular young answer-service lady invariably spoke as though every remark were a question. Disconcerting.
"A detective MacDonald?" she said.
'What did he want?"
"I gave him your number? I hope that's all right?"
The phone clicked. "Must be him now. Thanks." I switched lines.
"Ma'am? This is Detective James MacDonald with the Collierville Police Department. I've got kind of an emergency here, and I know you take care of our drug dogs like Amos..."
"That's right. Good grief, it's not big Amos, is it? He hasn't been shot or anything?"
From the timbre of his voice, he was speaking on a cell phone. In the background I could hear the blat of a siren.
No, the siren was down at the highway just outside the front gates. "Are you here?" I asked.
"Yes, ma'am, right outside, but the front gate's locked."
"I'll buzz you in and meet you at the clinic." I hung up, kissed Morgan, yelled at Nathan and Sarah to hurry up and not to forget their books, and lit out for the clinic.
I arrived puffing, but the squad car still beat me. I bent over and put my hands on my knees. "Whew! I'm in worse shape than I thought."
"You look in great shape to me," said the driver. He was dressed in T.A.C.T. team black with high top combat boots, was shorter than I am, and looked as though he did a thousand pushups before breakfast.
"Is Amos all right?"
"He's fine, ma'am. It's not one of our dogs." He opened the back door of the car, which, I saw, was separated from the front by a grill. It probably had no inside door handles to prevent escapes. Was this man bringing me a prisoner?
The man who climbed out didn't look dangerous. He was near my own age, a couple of inches shorter and built like the proverbial fireplug with a beer belly that hung over his jeans. His mass of gray hair looked uncombed. Bristles of white beard stuck through the tanned skin of his jaw. He was fiercely clutching a white towel wrapped around something that squirmed and growled and squealed and thrashed.
And probably bit, given the opportunity.
"Come on, MacDonald," he said. "I can't hold Willie Nelson much longer."
I ran up the steps in the rain, opened the front door, ushered both men in and led them quickly to the first examining room. I dashed the rain out of my eyes and off my eyelashes.
"What have we got here?" I reached to take the bundle from the man's arms.
"I gotta hang onto him. He's done gone plumb crazy!"
Rabies? There hadn't been a case of rabies in this part ofTennessee in ten years. "I do have to examine him, Mr. uh?"
"Cletus Monroe, Ma'am." He ducked his head.
"Detective MacDonald, if I need help, can you weigh in?" I asked.
"Before you go doin' that, you better hear the story," MacDonald said.
"Let's get Willie into a cage first," I said. I ran next door to the storeroom and returned with a pet carrier. Cletus shoved the bundle, towel and all, into the carrier. I slammed the door. The bundle inside immediately unwrapped itself and began gnawing frantically at the towel.
"It's a Jack Russell terrier! " I said. "No wonder. They're a twelve pound rhinoceros on speed."
"Yeah, well," Jim MacDonald said. "The problem is that this one really is on speed."
"I beg your pardon."
The dog hit the front of the cage snarling. I jumped.
"My God, my God," Cletus crooned. "Poor baby, poor baby."
He burst into tears.
"Come on, Mr. Monroe," MacDonald said, "The doctor can't hear us with all that yapping going on." He took the man's arm and led him protesting into the hall.
Monroe kept shaking his head and looking back over his shoulder until I shut the door.
"Tell me fast before he goes into convulsions."
"Okay," said MacDonald. "Here's the deal. We busted a couple of gang bangers yesterday evening out in a shack on Highway FiftySeven. We knew they were cooking and distributing crystal meth, but we didn't know where. They had enough stuff in their van to hop up most of West Tennessee."
Mr. Monroe wrung his hands.
"Anyway, we worked on them most of the night about where the lab was."
"Please, talk fast," Mr. Monroe begged.
"I'm getting there."
Not fast enough to suit Mr. Monroe or me, but it seemed as though nothing could keep MacDonald from regaling us with all the details.
"Long about four a.m. they decided the best way to lighten their load was to snitch on somebody else. They told us they'd been buying from a couple of guys who had set up a meth lab in a motel six blocks from where we picked them up. As far as they knew, the guys were still there."
"A motel? As in a room surrounded by other rooms?"
"Yeah. Happens all the time. Never know who's doing what in the room next door. Blow you up right along with them and half the motel."
"I'll never stay in a motel again," I whispered.
'We get there about six in the morning, give one quick 'police' and hit the door with the ram. That's where Mr. Monroe comes in."
"You hit the wrong room?"
"Right room, but the bad guys had skipped. Mr. Monroe here is an over-the-road truck driver. Checked in about ten last night. Innocent civilian."
"Scared to death," Mr. Monroe said resentfully.
"He travels with..."
"Willie Nelson. Goes with me everywhere."
"See, this Willie is bouncing off the walls. I had to go put Amos in the van. I swear Willie would have taken him on."
"He's been like that most of the night," Mr. Monroe said. "I just thought he wasn't getting enough exercise. It got really bad when somebody knocked on my door at three this morning saying he'd left something in the room and needed to get it. Hell, I know better than to open my door. I told him I was armed and he could come get his property after I checked out."
"At that point we started searching for the lab stuff they must have left behind," MacDonald said. "We found the stash behind some ceiling tiles in the bathroom. I thought we'd found everything there was..."
"Then just as they were getting ready to leave Willie Nelson had a seizure," Mr. M
onroe said. "It was awful! He was over by the bed flopping around with his eyes rolled back in his head."
"So I yanked the bed away from the wall." He grinned. "Cookers, hot plate, everything you need to cook crystal meth. And some powder spilled on the rug."
"Willie Nelson must have slid under the bed after his ball and gotten it on his paws," Mr. Monroe said.
"Oh, God," I whispered, and started back to the examining room. "I'll give him as much barbiturate as I dare, get him on a drip."
"Then what?" MacDonald asked.
"We pray."
"Jesus loves me," Monroe whispered.
"Did he bite anybody?"
"Me while I was trying to get that towel around him," Monroe said and shook his head. "Not bad. I put a Bandaid on it. He's up-to-date on his shots. Didn't know what he was doing. He was plumb hopped up like some kind of motorcycle freak."
"Will he live?" MacDonald asked as I prepared my syringe. The dog was still snarling and barking and squealing.
If I can manage to get this into him, maybe," He'd already bitten the man he loved. He was unlikely to be enamoured of a fat syringe and needle headed his way in the hands of a woman he'd never seen before. I'd need help to get a muzzle on him, and I wasn't certain I could count on Cletus.
Without warning the door to the examining room slammed open. "What in the Lord's name is going on now?"
"Eli, it's not even seven o'clock."
"Sirens, squad cars, and you don't expect me to come running? Who died?"
"Nobody-yet." I filled Eli in much quicker than MacDonald had done. Mr. Monroe stood by the cage crooning to Willie. Didn't seem to be doing much good.
"I'll grab the dog and get a muzzle on him. You shoot him. Make it fast," Eli said.
I was fast, but nobody could touch Eli's reflexes in an emergency. Willie was muzzled, shot, and back into his carrier before he had time to do more than snap once.
We watched him for five minutes as he settled down on the motel towel.
"Can I touch him?" Mr. Monroe whispered.
"Give it another ten minutes, then we'll get the muzzle off and let him sleep it off."
"Can I stay here, watch him?"
"Absolutely. I'll bet you haven't had a bite of breakfast, have you?"
"Nobody has," MacDonald said.
"I'll get the coffee pot in the storeroom going. Eli, call Duane and ask him to pick up a dozen Krispy Kremes and a quart of o.j. on his way in. Can you wait another twenty minutes before you go back to work?" I asked MacDonald.
"Unless I get called." He turned to Monroe. "Mr. Monroe, is there anybody you need me to notify you'll be starting late? Your trucking company?"
"I'll call them."
"You let me know when you and Willie can leave and I'll send a car to get you back to your motel."
"Thanks, MacDonald." He looked a question at me. I smiled and nodded. He opened the carrier door carefully. Willie slept on his chest with his pointed little brown nose neatly aligned between his white paws. Monroe scratched the little dog's ears and gently removed the muzzle. Willie sighed softly and whimpered in his sleep.
Monroe jumped. "Is that normal?"
"I believe so. Listen, did you all dean his feet off?"
"As best we could," MacDonald said.
"Okay, I'll really dean and sterilize his feet between the pads. I didn't know you could absorb crystal meth through your skin. That's scary"
"Yeah." MacDonald touched my arm. "Listen, Dr. McLain, I'm not kidding about this. Don't you ever go barefoot in a hotel or motel room. Last thing you want is to step on a used crack needle or absorb leftover crystal meth through the soles of your feet."
"You're scaring me."
"I mean to."
By ten o'clock I felt comfortable letting Mr. Monroe take Willie with him. He paid his bill without a murmur.
The little dog was still sleeping off his overdose, but his pulse and respiration were normal, and he hadn't developed any temperature. "He shouldn't have any long-term effects from his seizure, Mr. Monroe," I told the man. "If he seems to be having any recurrence, you get him to your own vet fast. Tell him to call me for his chart."
"Yes, ma'am," Monroe said. Willie slept in his arms, his body snuggled in the white towel so that he looked like a little brown and white baby with a funny nose and ears. "I'll put him in his bed behind me in the cab. He can sleep it off there. I sure am grateful." He bent and rubbed his nose against the little dog's face. "Don't know what I'd do without Willie Nelson."
After I saw him into the squad car that would return him and Willie to his truck, I shut the door to my office and called Morgan. "I'm going to talk to Patsy about finding Sarah a horse right now," I said.
"What's all this about, hon?" he asked.
"I've just had a lesson in drugs. We can't vaccinate the kids against them, but maybe if we keep Nathan in soccer and Sarah on a horse, we'll have a chance."
Chapter 20
In which Sarah looks a gift horse in the mouth
There is something surreal between horses and little girls. The horses know it. They take advantage of it, as a matter of fact. Sarah collected horse statuettes and models, devoted a comer of her bedroom to her pretend stable with all of her pretend tack, and began angling for her own horse in the first grade.
When she began showing Patsy Dalrymple's horses over fences at the local horse shows, even that put a strain on our budget. By the time she was twelve, she was as tall as I am, slim and coltish, and showed signs of becoming a beauty. She was a superb rider with absolutely no fear. I'd watch her at horse shows as she cantered down to a humongous four-foot fence with that zoned out look in her eye. I knew at that moment she wouldn't feel it if somebody cut off her foot.
Better than motorcycles, I told myself. The horse wants to survive. The motorcycle doesn't care. There is an optimum moment to give a girl her own horse. Morgan and I knew that moment had come.
Once we decided to bite the bullet and buy her a horse, Morgan and I scouted for suitable horses all summer and fall with no success. The ones we could afford, Sarah didn't want. The horses that were competitive were so far outside our price range as to be in another galaxy far, far away.
Patsy came up with the solution. She had a five-year-old warmblood gelding-barely out of his own teens as warmbloods growwith all the jumping talent in the world. He was a little squirrelly, but nothing Sarah couldn't handle. Patsy offered us a lease for a year to be renewed as long as we liked. We would basically pay the expenses for the horse and treat him like our own, but we wouldn't have to pay Patsy's asking price, which was well over fifty thousand dollars even at his age. His value would increase dramatically as he gained experience. It was a good deal for both Patsy and Sarah.
Sarah really loved the horse, and he seemed fond of her.
All fall we kept the secret that we planned to lease him for her. That was to be her great Christmas present, and her twelfth birthday present as well.
Morgan and I were splitting child-transporting duties as much as possible. Nathan was playing soccer and lacrosse after school every afternoon, so Morgan could pick him up on his way home.
Patsy picked up a gaggle of teenaged girls most afternoons to take to her barn to ride. Sarah was among them. Then I'd pick Sarah up at five-thirty or so, unless I was out on an emergency.
On those rides home alone together, Sarah and I came closer to understanding one another than we had before or have since. She never mentioned my practice, but prattled on happily about horses and girlfriends. I listened and kept my mouth shut. That was Morgan's suggestion, and as always, it was a good one.
We signed the lease for Patsy's Pride, known as Pride, on the 20th of December. Morgan took special delight in finding just the right box to house the lease papers, and then had it wrapped beautifully. He was so proud when he put the box under the tree for Sarah.
Eli, Morgan and I waited for Sarah to reach that box. Nathan was already giving ineffectual swipes with his new lacros
se stick and threatening to break every lamp in the living room when Sarah finally opened that box.
The way her face lit up when she saw the paper and read "Patsy's Pride" on top of it made my heart jump. She began to read while Eli, Morgan and I sat there with dumb grins on our faces.
Then she looked up. "This says lease."
"That's right, honey," Morgan said. "We've leased him for you."
"I don't want a dumb lease," she said and threw the paper down. "He's still Patsy's horse. He's not mine. He'll never be mine." She ran up the back steps and a couple of seconds later we heard the door to her bedroom slam.
I took one look at Morgan's face and felt as though someone had stuck a knife in my stomach and twisted. How dare she toss his gift in his face?
"Mom, Sarah's being a butthead again."
"Don't call your sister a butthead," I said.
"I'll talk to her." Morgan stood up wearily. So did I.
"Let me go," I said grimly and started for the stairs. I was strongly considering tossing her out her bedroom window. Maybe she'd land on her head. It might knock some sense into her.
"Maggie, let me. If you go you'll wind up screaming at each other."
"I sincerely hope so."
He shook his head. "It's all right. It's Christmas, remember?"
Morgan could always reach her. I slumped on the couch and watched the tree until Eli reached over and took my hand. "Don't, Maggie."
"No matter what we do, it's never right," I whispered. "How could she hurt her father that way? Doesn't she know we can barely afford the lease? Not to mention show fees, riding britches, tack, transport and all the rest of it. Ungrateful little...""
Eli smacked me on the hand she'd just been holding. "Margaret Evans McLain, you knock that off. It's not your problem if Sarah goes through life seeing only the portion of the cup that's empty."
I hapwant her to be happy. Most of all I want Morgan to be happy."
"Happiness takes an effort of will, one that Miss Sarah chooses not to make. We will not allow this-brat-to spoil Christmas. Get over it."
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