She raised her head and pinned her ears as another labor pain hit her.
At that moment her water broke.
"Show time," I whispered.
Morgan stood by looking fascinated. He didn't usually ride on calls with me, so he hadn't seen but a couple of foals born.
The white bubble, as the bulging placenta is called, protruded from the mare. In a normal birth, the two front feet protrude first with the baby's nose lying flat on top of them. The mantra for successful birth is thus "foot, foot, nose."
I stood dose behind Bella as she went down on her side and began to push. "Foot, nose... Damn! She's got a foot caught behind her pelvis. We've got to get her on her feet. Morgan! Help. Grab Her halter and haul."
The last thing the mare wanted to do was to stand up. She wanted that baby out of there, and nature had not notified her that there was a problem. We heaved, and finally she surged to her feet.
I used both hands to shove the foal, whose eyelashes I could see fluttering through the white bubble, back down into the birth canal. Then I reached in, found the bony length of leg, and popped it free of Bella's pelvic bone. "Let her go, Morgan."
He did and jumped away as she collapsed practically on his new sneakers. The mare wasn't young, and she'd been in labor a longtime. I bent down, grasped the foal's ankles, and began to pull gently as she pushed.
"Can I help?" Morgan whispered over my shoulder.
"Thanks, dear heart, but you're too strong."
"Maggie has to exert just the right force every time Bella pushes," Bernadette said. We were all whispering.
Finally with one great heave the mare delivered the foal. It slid out like toothpaste out of the tube, and before it hit the ground it was fighting to free itself. I leaned off the face, made certain that the nose and mouth were clear, that the foal was breathing normally, then stood up and stepped away. I was a bloody mess; so was the hay.
No matter. We moved out of the stall and watched the two of them as Bella turned her head and nickered softly to her new baby.
"This part always makes me cry," Bernadette said.
"Looks like a big strong baby, even if it is early," I said.
At that point we heard a crash and an oath from the aisle behind us. Victor Coleman, retired jockey and now a breeder of racehorses, hobbled toward us on crutches. He wore pajamas under a down jacket.
"Dammit, Bern," he swore, "You gonna let me miss this?" He turned to me. "Colt or filly?"
"Victor, I have no idea. I haven't had time to check. Get yourself back to bed before you catch pneumonia. Morgan, give him a hand."
"I'm staying," he said. Morgan could probably have picked him up and carried him into the house bodily, but one look at that tough face and we all gave up.
"At least sit down," Bernadette said and pulled up a bale of hay. "God, I married an idiot."
We turned back to the foal, which looked at us through wide, liquid, and slightly worried eyes. His front legs pawed at the straw as he struggled to get up.
"A December foal," Victor said with disgust. "Exactly what we need."
"Maggie warned us," Bernadette said. "But Bella's always gone over her due date. We were so sure we were safe."
The mare stood up with the remains of the placenta still dragging behind her.
Bernadette turned to look at the foal, already fighting to organize its legs. "You got time to dance the New Baby Waltz?"
"Wouldn't miss it," Morgan said happily. If he was tired from the party or the romance he didn't show it. "What do we do?"
"It'll never stand on its own with those legs. if 11 need help to find the spigot under Bella 's belly."
Bernadette switched off the flood lamp. The heat lamp bathed mare, foal, hay and human beings in soft red light. We leaned against the wall and watched Bella nibble all over her baby. Occasionally she would raise her forefoot and thump the baby gently on its side.
"She is a good mama. How old is she now?"
"Only twelve. She's got some stakes winners in her yet."
The baby flailed, kicked, and managed to get his front legs stretched out in front of him. He strained to raise his butt, then collapsed into the hay. Bella kept up her baritone encouragement.
After a few minutes, I stepped into the stall, reached my hands under the baby's bottom, and heaved him up. "It's a colt," I said. "Ow. You little troll. Caught me with a hind hoof. I'll have a braise the size of Pittsburgh."
"Hush," Morgan said and stepped into the stall. "Like this?" He wrapped his arms around the baby's middle. Halfway to a standing position the baby flopped and both Morgan and I landed in the straw with two hundred pounds of baby wrapped around us.
Bemdadette put her arms around the foal's shoulders. This time we managed to get him all the way up, but a moment later he subsided tail end first against me in a semi-sitting position. I heaved. He stood, rocked and shook, then steadied. A moment later he took a tentative step forward.
"How about that?" Morgan said. He still held the baby's waist.
The baby took faltering steps forward, its little pink tongue already searching for its mother's nipple. After a dozen attempts to suckle on her belly, her knee, and Bernadette's thumb, the baby finally found the milk. With Morgan still supporting its little body, it latched on and began to suck noisily.
"Is he up?" Victor asked, straggling to regain his own feet.
"He's up and suckling," Morgan said.
At that moment the mare released the placenta. I checked to be certain it was complete. Retained placenta would cause infection.
"Mission accomplished," I said. "Get some sleep. That's what Morgan and I plan to do. I'll be back tomorrow morning to do shots and test the baby for antibodies." I rubbed my calf. "I'm too old for this."
As we walked side by side down the quiet aisle of the foaling barn with Victor hobbling behind, we listened to the snuffling and occasional snores of the broodmares. "I love a horse barn at night," I said.
"Hey, doc," Victor called. "How about we call him Maggie's Christmas?"
As we drove away, Morgan laid his hand on my thigh. "We're not old, love, but ifwe keep putting off seeing the world too long, we will be. I don't fancy the Spanish steps on a walker."
"This year I promise we can see Europe," I said.
"Florence, Rome. The hill country. Lots of sunshine and good food."
"Right now sunshine sounds marvelous," I said sleepily.
"I'm glad I came."
"Me too," I said sleepily. "Joy to the world. I do love you."
Chapter 27
In which Maggie's world changes
My life changed forever last January the third when Morgan had a fatal heart attack. He'd never shown any symptoms of heart problems. His blood pressure was good. His bad cholesterol was low and his good cholesterol was high. He was a few pounds overweight, but he didn't drink much and had never smoked. He worked out at the gym at his bank religiously three times a week. I would have bet he was in much better shape than I was. His doctor gave him a clean bill of health a month before he died.
Morgan collapsed on the front steps of the bank. The EMTs said he was probably dead before he hit the concrete. One moment he was fine. The next he simply wasn't there any longer. His doctor called it a sudden death episode. He offered to do an autopsy, but what was the point?
I was stunned; I was scared. Mostly I was furious. I remember after my father died that my mother told me that for years she would watch elderly couples walking hand in hand and feel angry with my father for dying on her. I know that's irrational, but human beings aren't always rational.
One moment I was cleaning out a basset hound's ears and the next, a single telephone call had plunged me into the logistics of death without a chance to catch my breath.
Those logistics were necessary to keep me functioning and to keep the pain of loss at bay.
I have a good friend who piled her entire family, children and grandchildren, onto an airplane and flew them to Disney World for a
week the day after her husband's funeral. In retrospect, I probably should have done the same thing, except that nobody would have gone along with me. I was so busy assuaging Nathan and Sara's grief that I didn't have time to grieve myself. I felt as though I had walked into a brightly lit room and suddenly someone turned out the lights and plunged the world into darkness. I stuck out my hand and felt no answering touch. I knew that if I took a single step forward I'd fall into that darkness and keep falling forever.
At first I was simply stunned and unbelieving. I told myself the whole episode was a mistake. I kept turning around expecting Morgan to walk in the door.
When Sarah arrived from Los Angeles, she seemed incapable of coherent thought, much less action.
Nathan flew down from New York with Lisa, his new bride. He had been married to her less than a year. She didn't know us very well. Besides, she'd never experienced the death of a loved-one, much less a Southern loved one. Lisa, raised in wealth in Massachusetts and Connecticut, didn't have a clue what needed to be done. Nathan certainly didn't.
At a time of disaster, women bond together. Eli, Lanier, Vickie Anderson, and little Heather, a newly-qualified vet who had joined our group only a year or so earlier, banded together to look after everything. During that time, Lanier 's daughter Susan, just turned thirteen, named the group of us "Maggie's Militia." In my book they were as good as General Forrest's best cavalry.
Those dear women knew what needed to be done and went to work without guidance from me. They manned both our house and the funeral home so that callers would be welcomed, they kept logs of who brought food and what, they answered telephone calls from as far away as the Netherlands where Morgan's bank had a branch. They arranged to put off most of the clinic's scheduled clients. Those that couldn't be put off, they handled themselves.
And a week after the funeral, we sat around my dining room table eating take-out Chinese while we faithfully wrote thank-you notes to everyone who had helped or come by the funeral home.
Nathan, Lisa and Sarah stayed four days. After I saw them offhome, I went back directly to the clinic and worked a full day from "kin to cain't", as my grandmother used to say.
Then I walked across the lawn and into the back door of my house. Eli had offered to come with me, but I knew I had to face that emptiness sometime. "Might as well be now," I said to her with a bravado that I did not feel.
I slept in our big bed-but on my side. I turned the television on the moment I came into the house and left it on until I went away again. Most of the time I remembered to eat three meals a day. I demanded to handle all the night calls. Eli refused at first, but compromised by coming with me as often as I would let her.
After a month I considered I was adjusting pretty well. I was lying. One morning I was walking across to the clinic when it hit me. Certainly the death of a horse didn't equate to the death of a husband, but I realized that the total emptiness I felt, the cold void at the center of my being, must have been what Sarah experienced after Pride's death. I didn't want to talk about Morgan. Hell, I didn't want to think about Morgan. I was like a badly wounded animal that is careful not to bump the wound for fear the pain would be unendurable.
I wanted no sympathy. I focused on work, work, and more work.
Monday morning the second week in February I walked into the back door of the clinic as usual at eight-thirty, despite a sleepless night in that blasted king-sized bed. I poured myself a cup of coffee from the never-ending supply in our break-cum-supply room, and called good morning down the hall to our current receptionist, Tonesha. I thought I sounded pretty normal.
"Morning" she answered. Tonesha was taller than I, young, beautiful and smart, with skin the color of mocha latte. Unfortunately, she didn't suffer nitwits gladly. We'd been working on that, since a great many of our clients were nitwitted about their animals.
She walked down the hall and lounged against my door. "We've already got folks in the waiting room. You ready to start?" She had learned quickly not to peer at me as though I were about to collapse into hysterics.
I nodded, took a long pull on my coffee and slid the uneaten bagel into my desk drawer. "Who's first?" Same ol', same of I was not on the raw edge. No way.
In retrospect, I'm sure the staff, Eli, and our clients were watching me to make certain I didn't implode.
In the next hour, I treated Mrs. Crane's Llewelyn setter for ear mites, and gave annual shot updates to two coon dogs.
Tina Kessler 's demonic black cat, Moose, twenty pounds of muscle and determination, needed his toenails clipped. I called our assistant, Wanda Jean, to help on that one. Eli stuck her head in the door of my exam room when she heard the yowls, but withdrew quickly when she saw Moose.
As Tina walked out with the cat glaring at me over her shoulder, Tonesha whispered, "I bet that thing's daddy was a bobcat."
"Or a cougar," said Eli, who had come out after her last client.
I leaned on the edge of the steel examining table. Suddenly even standing erect was enough to wear me out. I wanted to go home, limb into bed, hug Morgan's pillow and sleep until the pain of loss went away. But it wouldn't, and I couldn't. I pulled myself up, took a deep breath, and walked down the hall to greet the next patient, whoever it might be. God, I needed a challenge to force me to focus on something outside myself.
Behind Tina the front door to the clinic opened, and a tall, grayhaired man rushed in. "Are you the vets?"
Tonesha pointed. "That's them."
"Look, I've got a problem, and I'm late for a meeting." He spun on his heel and ran out. Eli and I followed. "Never a dull moment," Eli whispered.
"I hit him on the way to work," the man said. "Couldn't just leave him there. I think he's dead, but if he's alive-well, I pass this place every day, so I grabbed him up in some newspapers and put him on the back seat and brought him to you." He opened the back door of a shiny new BMW sedan.
Stretched on newspapers on the gray leather upholstery lay a red fox.
"Tonesha!" Eli shouted over my shoulder. "Tell Wanda Jean to bring the biggest roll of vet wrap she can find. Fast!"
"Is he dead?" The man asked. Without waiting for an answer, he glanced at his watch. "Can you get him out of there? I really have to go. I'll pay you for whatever he costs. Here's my card."
I stuck the card in my pocket without looking at it. Wanda Jean ran down the steps and thrust a thick roll of tape into my hand. Well, I'd asked for a challenge. A wild fox certainly qualified.
"Maggie, be careful, for God's sake," Eli whispered.
I leaned into the car and gently wrapped the fox s muzzle five or six times with the tape, then took a turn around the back of his head. Then I wrapped his legs.
"God forbid he should come to," Eli said.
"That ought to hold until we can get him into the clinic."
"I hope so, for all our sakes."
"Wanda Jean, call Duane."
"He's not in yet."
"Well, then, dammit, get a blanket. Something to slide him onto."
"He's not dead, then?" The man asked. "I mean, one minute I was driving along, and the next, here's this-this thing-practically under my wheels. I don't think I actually ran over him. "
Eli turned to the man. "Most people would just have left him."
"I couldn't-my daughter 'd never forgive me. You think he'll be all right?"
"No idea."
"No chance he's rabid, is there?"
"We haven't had a rabid fox in this part of Tennessee in twenty years. He didn't bite you or scratch you, did he?"
"No, I'm fine. I put on my driving gloves to handle him. Now, I really have to go. Have somebody call me and let me know how he is."
Tonesha and Wanda Jean arrived with a horse blanket. I slid the still unconscious fox off the seat, then we carried him into the clinic.
I turned to the Good Samaritan. "What you did was kind, but I have to tell you, you took one hell of a chance. If he'd waked up while you were driving, you and that upholste
ry would have been in bitesized pieces in about a minute and a half"
The man blinked. "I never-I mean, I thought it was dead." He glanced at his pristine leather upholstery and shuddered. "I guess I was lucky."
I ran into the clinic to find Eli and Wanda Jean. The five people left in the waiting room clutched their dogs and cats, and in one instance a lop-eared rabbit, closer to their respective bosoms. The cats were hissing and clawing, Mayrene Carteret's Dachshund, Snooper the Fourth, was barking frantically, and the rabbit was trying to turn invisible.
"Is that a fox?" Mayrene Carteret whispered.
"A real fox. A live one, I hope." I headed for the first examining room. Please, God, I thought, no more death.
"B'rer Fox, here, has a concussion," Eli said, "But I don't think his skull is fractured. He just got his chimes rung pretty good."
I ran my hands along his body. "He is so beautiful."
"He's a dog fox. Probably out hunting to feed his family."
I stroked his gray ticked pelt all the way down to his bright red brush of a tail. "Stupid, guy, really stupid." I slid my hand down his foreleg. "Uh-oh."
"What? I hadn't gotten that far."
"He's dislocated his shoulder. I don't think there's a break, but we need an X-ray."
"I'll set it up. Wanda Jean, where is Duane?"
"I'm right here, doc," said a gruff voice. Duane, our man of all work, stuck his grizzled head around the comer of the room that housed the kennels.
"Help me roll in the X-ray."
"Might as well give him a rabies shot while we've got him," I said. "We'll need to fill out the paperwork and report this to the wildlife people anyway." I walked over to the drug cabinet in the comer of the examining room, took out my key, unlocked it, and filled a syringe, all the while thinking, he's going to be fine. He's going to go home safe.
"Here we go," Eli said. "Oh, hell!"
I heard the thud and spun around in time to see the fox bound down the hall toward the waiting room. Despite his strapped muzzle, in the few seconds that my back was turned, he'd waked up and gnawed through the bandages that held his legs. The tatters flew behind him like banners.
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