All God's Creatures

by Carolyn McSparren

  I could almost hear the howls of affronted she-wolf reverberating through one of the fanciest neighborhoods in Memphis. "The neighbors must have loved that."

  "Well, at first I don't think they realized she wasn't just some big German Shepherd, but you know how servants talk. There was some grumbling and a few nasty phone calls, but Marion swore she'd keep Loba as quiet as she could."

  "Get on with it, okay, Patsy. What favor?"

  "Hush. Just let me tell it. You have to know the background. Loba went into season a couple of weeks ago, and by the time Lanier gave her a shot to bring her out of it, she'd about worn Marion out. They couldn't leave her outside because every male dog in the neighborhood-and you know those people let their darlings run loose half the time-came sniffing around. Loba was not happy about that."

  "I don't imagine the owners of the dogs were overly thrilled either."

  "For the first time I think Marion was a little frightened of her. So the minute the shot Lanier gave her brought her out of her'interesting condition,' Marion started putting her out in her kennel during the day and leaving her in her indoor crate at night and only letting her out to play when she could devote all her time to her and when Humphrey or somebody was home in case she got fractious." She took a deep breath. "Sooner or later there was bound to be a disaster."

  "She bit Marion?"

  "Two days ago, Loba managed to drag the fence loose from the bottom of her outdoor run and got out. I was there when we discovered the hole and started hunting for her. Marion took her spray gun and Loba's leash, thank God. It was awful!"

  A full-grown she-wolf loose in a neighborhood full of elderly people and young children with their nannies? Talk about disaster. "Don't tell me she savaged a child."

  "Please lord, not that! She tried real hard to eat a standard poodle. She didn't growl or anything. No warning, no bared teeth. One minute she was standing there staring, the next she went straight for that poodle like it was an elk. If Marion hadn't had her spray... well, the poodle got away with twenty-some-odd stitches. Once Marion got Loba's leash on she was fine again."

  "Good grief, Patsy."

  "The neighbors wanted to call Animal Control right then, but Marion agreed to pay them a bunch to let her handle it. They'd have shot the poor thing, you know they would. It's not Loba's fault."

  "It's the fault of your friend Marion and all the other nitwits who think raising a bear or lion cub will be so much fun because they're so cute."

  "Don't lecture me, Maggie McLain. I didn't buy the damned wolf"

  "Sorry. But that sort of thing makes me furious."

  "Good. So you'll help."

  "Help? Help what?"

  "Take the wolf"

  "Are you crazy? What would I do with a wolf?"

  "Now, calm down. Marion's found a refuge in north Minnesota that will take Loba, but she couldn't make arrangements to ship her until Thursday. In the meantime, she has to get her out of the neighborhood, and since you're out in the country and have that huge place and those wonderful kennels, I told Marion I was sure you'd be happy to have Loba."

  "No way!"

  "Please, Maggie. It's only two days. Call Lanier if you want to see what a sweetheart she is. A rhinoceros couldn't escape from your dog runs, and I know she'll be well taken care of. She'll be picked up first thing Thursday morning. Marion is out of her mind with worry. She gulped half a bottle of Zanax. Wolves are endangered, Maggie, and she'll be a perfect reproductive specimen once she gets up to Minnesota. You don't want to lose her gene pool, do you?"

  Patsy had moved from emotional blackmail to a weird kind of logic, not an unusual step for Patsy. I could, however, see what she meant. After all, I hadn't neutered the feral cat, Vercingetorix. "Let me talk to Lanier, run this by Eli and call you back. You promise she'll be out of here in two days?"

  "Cross my heart and hope to die."

  I hung up the telephone and called Lanier Polman.

  "Garden District Animal Hospital," a voice said.

  I asked for Lanier, and told her about Loba.

  "There's a sucker born every minute, Maggie. I have to admit I'm the one who suggested calling you. You need a new challenge."

  "The last thing I need is a challenge. I can barely keep my head on straight as it is. And two days is hardly a significant challenge. You understand this means you're out of my will?"

  "Seriously, Loba really is a sweetheart. I've given her shots and wormed her and looked after her general care since Marion picked her up in Arkansas and brought her home."

  "Why on earth did you let her do it?"

  "Did she ask me ahead of time? I've been telling her for months she needed to find a sanctuary for Loba. She came up with one so fast she'd probably already gotten information on the one in Minnesota."

  "So, do you recommend I take her?"

  "All I can tell you is that I doubt Loba will be any trouble, and it is only two days. I'd have her here except it's only a couple of blocks from Belvedere. Even if I had an outdoor run tough enough to hold her, she'd howl so loud we'd have the animal control people down on us in a heartbeat. It would be cruel to keep her inside the building in a cage for that long."

  The minute I hung up the phone, I called Eli.

  I used all Patsy and Lanier 's arguments to convince Eli with semisuccess.

  "Maggie McLain, you are crazier than Cooter Brown! A wolf? Do what you like, but it's your problem. I'm leaving to do a pre-purchase exam on a hunter pony. We don't have anything scheduled this afternoon in the clinic, but if we do, you'll have to handle it alone, plus play Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. It's Duane's day off, so you'll have to clean her run."

  "I've scrubbed down my share of dog runs. One more won't hurt me. I'm going to do it. Eli, it's Patsy. She doesn't ask favors."

  I called Patsy back and agreed to help her friend for a hefty fee.

  "She'll pay anything. Oh, thank you. I'll call Marion right this minute. We can probably be there in an hour."

  An hour and a half later the two women drove up in a silver Suburban that looked as though it had every bell and whistle offered by the dealer. Including a grid separating the rear end from the passenger end.

  I was surprised when Marion climbed out of the driver's seat and Patsy introduced her. I'd been wondering what sort of Belvedere matron would buy a wolf puppy. I envisioned an earth mother type with beads and too much hair.

  Not an earth mother. She was nearly as tall as I am and weighed forty pounds less. Her nails, foot and hand, were a matching shade of pink. Nobody was born with hair that precise color of silver gold.

  Her fashionably rumpled slacks and shirt probably cost more than my winter coat, and her coral necklace might have decimated a whole reef.

  The diamond solitaire on her left hand could deflect a laser.

  Her makeup was perfect, but her eyes, once she took off her sunglasses, were red and swollen. She might project the cool, social image, but she was truly torn up. I felt a wave of pity even as I damned the woman for being a fool in the first place.

  Then I got my first glimpse of Loba.

  After the introductions, Marion handed me a canvas bag with 'Loba's Toys' embroidered across it in red.

  "I brought all her toys," Marion said. "I've got her little beddy and her blankie in the back of the car." She turned away. "My poor baby."

  "It's for the best, Marion, honey," Patsy said, and patted her arm. "Come on, honey, let's get Miss Loba out and introduce her to Dr. Maggie. "

  Marion clipped the heavy leather leash onto her collar while Loba sat obediently in the back of the Suburban. Then she hopped down, walked around Marion, and sat in the sit-stay position obedience trainers demanded. Her eyes never left Marion's face.

  "I have to admit she's gorgeous," I said to Marion.

  She beamed.

  Loba was dark Oxford gray, with a beautiful pelt that rippled in the slight breeze.

  she will definitely knock the socks off any male wolf she meets in Min
nesota," I said. I didn't add that Loba might be too used to human beings ever to be allowed back into the wild. She might not even recognize her own kind.

  "Come on, sweetie, come meet Dr. Maggie," Marion said.

  I extended my hand palm down for Loba to sniff. She touched my fingers gently with her muzzle and wagged her tail.

  I scratched behind her ears. She rolled her golden eyes in ecstasy. I scratched her chest between her front legs. She looked as though she'd flop over into an orgasm right there.

  Then I hunkered down in front of her, and she laid her great head in my arms. "Who's a good girl, then," I crooned to her. Her tail wagged some more.

  This was going to be a piece of cake. I could see why Marion was distraught. She was losing a creature that was probably as dear to her as her children and might be a great deal more affectionate.

  Thirty minutes later Loba was happily installed in the biggest dog run and kennel at the clinic-the one on the far end. At the moment Loba was the sole occupant. We were having the last cold spell of the year, but with Loba's fur, she probably wouldn't feel the cold. The indoor cages, however, were climate controlled, so Loba could get inside if she wanted. "I promise I'll come down and play with you, girl, when I clean up your run."

  When we shut the door on her cage and Marion walked away, Loba began to sniff, to groan, and finally to howl. It started low in the back of her throat and grew until she gave full tongue to a howl worthy of a werewolf.

  Twice Marion turned back to speak to her, until both Patsy and I each grabbed an arm and dragged her back to the Suburban.

  "I'm driving home too, Marion," Patsy said. "And the minute we get home I'm making you a peach daiquiri the size of Bermuda." She thrust Marion into the front seat, then she turned to me. "How are you doing?"

  "Hanging in, but sometimes that blasted big bed feels as big and empty as the Pacific Ocean."

  She hugged me. "Come riding with me. Call me and let's set up a date."

  "Sure." I probably wouldn't. Being distracted on a horse is a recipe for disaster, and these days I got distracted too easily and too often.

  I watched Patsy and Marion go. From the hunch of her shoulders I could tell Marion was crying.

  Loba watched too. She'd come out into her run and was standing up with her front claws hooked into the metal fence that surrounded the run. No chance of her getting out of that, I thought. We'd once boarded a full grown cougar for a week while we drained his abscessed tooth. If he couldn't get out, nothing could.

  "You'll do better if I let you settle down alone," I said. "Promise I'll come back this afternoon, pick up your poop and scrub your outside run. I'll scratch your belly and rub your ears then."

  Loba dropped to the concrete and trotted inside. Good, she was 'denning up'

  That afternoon, Tonesha pleaded a sick headache and asked to go home early. "Wanda Jean's already left," Tonesha said. "We don't have any surgeries scheduled. It's real quiet."

  "Okay, go. See you tomorrow. Hope you feel better."

  A minute later I heard Tonesha's Saturn start up and lay rubber out of the parking lot.

  I was alone.

  I never minded being alone in the clinic. There is a subtle difference, however, when you know you'll be just as alone when you leave.

  I'd force myself to read some articles in my office, try to concentrate on new advances in veterinary medicine, and ignore the thought of that lonely house waiting for me.

  Instead, as sometimes happened, the minute Tonesha left, half a dozen clients showed up.

  Misty Hardin's French lop-eared rabbit had to be treated for a nasty case of ear canker.

  Dick Palliser brought in his bloodhound, Sable, with pin worms.

  A pair of male cats had both developed cystitis and had to have their bladders drained.

  A Jack Russell terrier needed its anal glands emptied, a nasty, nasty job. I nearly got bit and the dog screamed throughout the procedure.

  Simple work, but time consuming.

  It was nearly four o'clock when I finally closed the door on the last client.

  Maggie's Militia, as Lanier Polman's fourteen-year-old daughter, Susan, had christened us after Morgan's death, was meeting at my house for dinner. At the moment, the rest of the group consisted of Lanier and Susan, Vickie Anderson, Eli and Heather Halliday, newlyqualified, newly married and now newly-pregnant.

  For a couple of years we had tried to get together at my house for dinner every month or six weeks. They brought the food. All I did was provide the location.

  Morgan had always been invited, but seldom joined us. He usually went to dinner with his golfing buddies on the nights we met. Since his death, the others had become much more conscientious about meeting every month.

  Before I picked up the house and set the table, I had to tidy up Loba's run. No doubt she'd deposited some piles that would smell to high heaven by morning. I figured I'd slip her a few treats and scratch her ears, give the outside run a quick scrub with disinfectant, and head for home.

  The door between the main clinic and kennel was soundproof so clients wouldn't have to hear animals making unhappy noises.

  The kennels were set up the same way zoos and breeding kennels set up their enclosures. Along the back wall were five indoor enclosures surrounded by steel fencing. Each had its own door opening onto the access corridor. Animals could be fed by slipping food through a small panel cut into the fence that surrounded each indoor cage, and each concrete floor had its own drain so that it could be sluiced down daily.

  Each indoor den had a door giving onto an individual outdoor kennel run surrounded by ten foot tall steel fence topped by an additional foot of barbed wire fencing canted to the inside.

  If a sick or injured animal must be kept indoors, we could shut the door to its outside run. Once it was well enough to exercise, that door could be left open so that the animal could spend time either outside in the sun or inside in air-conditioned comfort in its own individual 'den'

  At the moment Loba was alone.

  She didn't like it.

  I heard her howl the moment I opened the soundproof door and stepped into the access corridor that ran along in front of the dens. The howl died in her throat when she saw me and changed to a serious growl.

  Her nails clicked against the concrete as she trotted a long oval the length of both inside and outside enclosures. I had no idea how long she'd been at it, but she looked exhausted and miserable.

  When I came to within five feet of her indoor cage, she stopped, bared her fangs and snarled. I froze. Then she wheeled and trotted back outside and into her pattern again.

  The inside den area looked dean, but through the door to the outside I could see half a dozen piles of poop and runnels of urine. She'd obviously spent the afternoon marking the confines of her meager territory. By morning they'd be a mess and so would Loba.

  Normally, Duane takes his bucket and mop and simply walks through the inside den and its canine inhabitant to the outside run, picks up the piles, sluices the urine and his wash water down the center drain, walks back through the den area and out into the corridor.

  Loba wasn't a dog. I decided to sucker her into her den with some treats, sneak me and my mop and bucket past her while she was occupied, then shut the door between outside and den area behind me once I was outside. When I was ready to leave, I'd toss some treats to the far end of the outside run, and sneak past her and out while she was eating them. Simple.

  Loba had seemed to like me earlier, but once she fully comprehended that she'd been ripped away from loving family and palatial surroundings, she had become truly pissed. Now that I could under stand. I seemed to stay royally pissed. Preferable to self-pity, at any rate. I didn't doubt she'd take her anger out on anybody who got in her way. In this case, me.

  The first part of my plan worked perfectly. Before Loba scarfed up her first treat I was through her den and outside with the door between us firmly shut.

  Inside, Loba must have fini
shed her treats. She threw herself against the door that separated us again and again, snarling all the while.

  "I don't blame you, girl," I said as I worked. "Your whole world has crashed and you don't know why." She was as frightened as she was angry. "I don't know how to reassure you. Hell, I can't even reassure myself."

  She'd ripped several of her chew toys apart in the four hours she'd been in the run. I left the remains untouched. They were in bits, but they were hers and they smelled of familiar places and beloved people.

  I longed to comfort her, to hunker down as I had before and scratch her ears and her tummy, let her know that things would get better, that she'd eventually be with her own kind, maybe have pups. At this moment I didn't dare.

  In any pack only the alpha male and alpha female breed. I had no doubt Loba with her veterinary-prescibed vitamins and her perfectly balanced meals was bigger than the females she'd encounter in the wild. I had been worrying that she wouldn't have the instinct necessary to fight for her place in the hierarchy.

  No longer. This one wasn't just a princess. She was an empress in the making. Woe betide any courting male who tried to dominate her. God help the females who challenged her.

  I had finished swabbing all but the last comer of the run when I heard the Chunk from inside the office.

  Loba had crashed against the inside of the door to the run so often that I really no longer registered the sound.

  This sounded different. Almost a clang.

  Then it hit me.

  Somehow Loba had managed to dislodge the heavy bar that locked the kennel door from the inside. It had fallen into its hasp.

  Suddenly I was the prisoner. Loba was locked in, all right. In with air-conditioning and fresh water.

  I, on the other hand, was trapped in a concrete-floored dog run with no way to get that bar raised from my side.

  Tonesha, Duane and Wanda Jean were gone for the day.

  Eli would probably drive home from doing the pre-purchase exam and go straight to her cottage, assuming I had gone home from the clinic as well.