Vetted Again

by K'Anne Meinel

  “Where is Sean?” she asked as she slowly made her way towards the front door of the cabin. The phone rang, and Renee didn’t answer her, instead reaching to answer the phone. Allyssa went out on the porch to watch Lexy run about with abandon and joy. They couldn’t have asked for a happier dog, she thought as she watched her run around and around the fountain like a nut. Her legs couldn’t have moved any faster, although she tried. Allyssa made her way down the steps being careful not to step into the path of the exuberant dog for fear she would be accidentally knocked down. She laughed at Traci trying to keep up and Rex panting as he tried to grab the terrier on every second round and failed miserably. She’d never seen the bigger dog play much, but it was obvious he was enjoying himself.

  Making her way to the barn and beyond where Woody and Rhonda were working with a client, she laughed to see Eustis and Rocky playing together in the far corner. The Great Dane and the miniature donkey were very close in size. In another corral, a couple horses were drowsily content as they soaked up the warm sun. A cat was dozing on one of the horses as though it weighed nothing. It always amazed Allyssa to see the animals interacting. When she heard a noise in the barn, she headed back to the wide-open doors and made her way inside.

  “What are you doing?” she asked when she found Sean in the second operating theater they had been building. It was more than halfway done but with Allyssa’s pregnancy and with Buddy busy interning for Fey, they hadn’t completed it yet.

  “I’m just trying to get the walls lined with this,” he said guiltily, holding up a sheet of stainless steel. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be doing this work, but he wanted to help, and he knew his sister and her wife couldn’t do it right now. He glanced at her rather rounded stomach and flushed. He was slightly embarrassed and didn’t know why.

  “I appreciate that, but could you wait until I’m able to help you, so we can do it right?”

  “I know what I’m doing,” he contested hotly, sounding defensive.

  Realizing she could have worded it better, she rephrased her question. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but since this is Fey’s pet project, could you hold off doing anything more until we can do it together?”

  He sighed. He knew this was a two-person project to lift some of these large sheets and fasten them to the wood walls with stainless-steel bolts. They’d removed the partition between two of the large box stalls at the end of the barn. It was just before the room they’d turned into a tack room but well away from the rest of the barn. The edges of the sheets were sharp, and he’d cut himself twice. The cuts were worse than paper cuts since the metal was much thicker and sharper. He surreptitiously wiped his hand on his jeans.

  “Are you bleeding?” she asked astutely, managing to get close enough to grab the hand he was hiding. “You are!” she exclaimed. “Come on, you!” she said, pulling him along and forcing him to quickly lean the stainless-steel panel against the wall.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, slightly alarmed by her strength.

  “Patch you up, so you aren’t bleeding all over your clothes. That’s not allowed,” she added with a grin to show him she wasn’t angry. She softened her voice too. She wasn’t used to having a little brother and was really enjoying both of Fey’s siblings. She used antiseptic on his two cuts. He winced but didn’t say a word. She quickly wiped the welling blood and bandaged the cuts. His fingers looked like something from a mummy movie, but the bandages stopped the flow of blood. “Now, don’t get those dirty,” she warned him.

  “You’re good,” he said admiringly. “I thought you were going to stitch ‘em.”

  “I don’t think the cuts are deep enough for stitches. Help me clean this up,” she said, putting away the bandaging she had used and watching as he picked up the swabs and dumped them in the trash. She put away the antiseptic, so everything was back to the state she and Fey had left the surgical theater. They exited the barn together after she carefully closed the door.

  “Do you have to tell Fey what I did?” he asked, worriedly. Accustomed to his mother yelling at any tiny infraction, he always transferred that worry to others in his life, even if they never yelled at him.

  She shrugged, suddenly wondering where Fey was. She realized she hadn’t seen her for hours as she had been busy in the office. “Where is your sister?” she asked.

  “I saw her get in the RV with Buddy and Althea,” he said innocently.

  Allyssa looked to where the RV was normally parked and realized it was gone. She hadn’t thought to look earlier. “Dammit,” she muttered under her breath, wondering where they had gone. She knew Fey was bored sitting around the ranch waiting for their babies to be born, but Leslie had very clearly said they were not to do anything strenuous. Bookwork or answering phones didn’t count in Allyssa’s mind, but she felt going out in the RV was violating that edict.

  “Is Fey in trouble?” the boy asked, grinning. He’d rarely seen his sister and her wife fight.

  “Oh, yeah,” she agreed. Allyssa saw that Traci and Lexy had finally stopped running around, and the dog was greedily drinking from the horse fountain. She wrinkled her nose. She wouldn’t drink that water if you paid her; the ducks and geese frequently swam in it and they didn’t care where they pooped.

  “Allyssa?” Renee called from the cabin. Allyssa looked up, noting Rex was in his accustomed place on the porch. “Althea is on the phone for you.”

  “Coming,” she grumped as she began to ponderously make her way up to the cabin from the barn. Sean headed for the fountain to pet Lexy. “Hello?” she said into the cordless phone Renee handed her, grateful she didn’t have to climb the steps to the cabin.

  “Allyssa, Fey is in labor and asked me to call. We’re heading for the clinic,” she said rapidly, unsure if her cell phone would last or if they would lose the signal. “We’re outside–” she said before the phone switched off.

  “Althea? Althea!” she said as the intern’s words penetrated. She looked at Renee in consternation. “Get the Jeep! Fey’s in labor, and we’ve got to go!” She wondered if she could have gotten more information out of the intern if she had waddled up here faster. She turned to Traci and Sean and called, “Get Fey’s maternity bag out of the closet in our bedroom. It’s the blue one. We have to go to the clinic.” She watched for a moment as everyone ran in different directions, then waddled to the office to help Renee, but she only succeeded in getting in her way as she turned off the computer, made sure the answering machine was on, and grabbed the keys for the Jeep.

  “No, I said the blue bag was Fey’s maternity bag; that one is mine,” she said as Sam showed up with the pink bag.

  “We brought both,” the boy stated, indicating Traci, who was carrying the blue bag.

  She shrugged, and they all headed for the Jeep. The dogs looked disappointed that they hadn’t been invited to come. As they drove up the hill, they met a couple 4-Hers, who were heading to the ranch, and Renee pulled hard to the right to pass them on the drive. Waving madly, they headed down the long drive to the road.

  “Is Fey okay?” Traci asked in a small voice.

  “She’s in labor. That’s all I heard before we lost service,” Allyssa said, her heart jumping as she grabbed her cell to try the intern’s phone again. It made a rude beeping noise through the air waves and she took that to mean it wouldn’t connect. She figured either they were too far out, or the lines were down somewhere.

  “Where are they?” Sean asked, wondering if he should be there with all these women. Still, he was excited for his sister to be having her baby. It was kind of cute to see Allyssa and Fey rubbing each other’s stomachs affectionately. These expressions of the genuine love between them were far different from what he’d witnessed with his own parents and they were nice to see.

  “She didn’t have time to say where they were, but I assume they are in the RV and heading for the clinic,” she answered as she looked at her phone exasperatedly.

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t
have that baby in the RV,” Renee murmured low, so the children couldn’t hear her.

  “Oh, God,” Allyssa answered worriedly. She glanced in the back seat, realizing, not for the first time, they hadn’t even put in car seats for the babies. She wondered how they were going to travel anywhere with two babies, two children, and two adults. At least the dogs could stay home.

  * * * * *

  “Oh, God,” Fey unknowingly echoed Allyssa at that same moment. The pains were coming more frequently.

  “Don’t you dare have that baby here,” Althea warned her.

  “Have the baby here?” Buddy asked, sounding panicked and looking over his shoulder, alarmed.

  “Just drive!” Fey commanded, already annoyed with how many bumps he was hitting in the road. She really hated that she couldn’t drive her own RV. Still, trying to drive through the labor pains would have been impossible.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Althea asked, helpfully.

  “I will,” Fey promised as she breathed through the spasms ripping through her lower back and stomach. This didn’t bode well. She finally sat in one of the chairs but only after padding it with a blanket in case she leaked. “Oh, God! These hurt!” she admitted as she eased her hand along the skin of her tightening belly.

  That does not look good, Althea thought miserably as she contemplated giving birth. She listened as Fey began to pant through the pains and unconsciously began to time them. When they were five minutes apart, she began to panic. “Can’t you drive faster?” she shouted to Buddy.

  “I’m going seventy now,” he admitted as they came up behind a big rig on the highway. “Oh, come on,” he lamented. The RV was too big to pass on this two-lane highway and they’d have to wait.

  “What’s wrong?” Fey asked wearily from the captain’s chair she was sitting in, trying not to panic as the pains began to come faster.

  “Just traffic,” he told her truthfully.

  “Do not wreck my RV,” she warned him, not for the first time. She just hated when anyone other than she or Allyssa drove the expensive vehicle. No one else seemed to care for it the way they did.

  “I won’t,” he promised, hating that she didn’t trust him to drive it. It was a sturdy vehicle able to go places most could not, but since he didn’t own it, Fey felt he didn’t give it the respect it was due. As soon as the highway widened to two lanes, the big rig moved to the slow lane and Buddy passed it. Several cars were now behind him, and Buddy pulled in front of the big rig when it was safe to do so.

  “What are you doing?” Althea asked, watching him drive.

  “They have to be able to pass. It’s a winding road.”

  “Screw ‘em!” she said bluntly. “We have to get to the clinic! Fast!” She glanced back at Fey, who was making odd little noises as she tried to take her cleansing breaths through the pain. Althea couldn’t determine how far along she was, but she didn’t look good with the sweat streaming down her face and plastering her hair to her head.

  “Oh, God!” Fey shouted as another sharp pain seriously ripped through her.

  Althea quickly looked at her phone and was alarmed to see it was only three minutes since the last pain. “You’ve got to hurry,” she encouraged Buddy.

  “You worry about her,” his head nodded back towards Fey, “and I’ll worry about driving.” He sounded as pompous as when they started their internship, and for the first time, Althea recognized why they weren’t well-liked by everyone. That had always been something she couldn’t put her finger on. She wondered if she had sounded like that last summer? Ignoring him, she turned back to Fey.

  “Is there anything I can do to help you?” she asked, worriedly.

  “Are we almost there?” Fey breathed through the pain, sounding extremely stressed. She squinted through the window and couldn’t tell where they were.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll make it,” Althea lied. She really had no idea if they would make it.

  “If we don’t get there soon, you are going to have to deliver this baby,” Fey threatened her.

  At her words, Althea panicked. She looked at her phone, saw it had a faint signal, and tried calling the vet clinic again. When she got their answering machine, she hung up. If the answering machine was on, there was probably no one in the office. She glanced at the time. It was too early to close the office, so that meant Renee had probably driven Allyssa to the clinic. She didn’t have the number of the clinic in her phone contacts, but she had Allyssa’s number. She worried she might panic Allyssa and didn’t want that, but she also knew someone had to call the clinic, and the only way to know if they had done that was to call Renee or Allyssa. She didn’t know if it was illegal to use a cell phone as a passenger. She hesitated at first, then after thinking it through, she called Allyssa.

  “Hello? Althea?” Allyssa said, sounding frantic as she read the caller I.D.

  “Hey, Allyssa,” Althea said, trying to sound cheerful. “We’re doing well here,” she lied. “Did you call ahead to the clinic? We’re going to need your doctor to be ready and waiting.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” she asked, looking at her phone, seeing right through the intern’s forced cheerfulness.

  “Nothing is wrong. Fey’s labor is progressing as expected,” she answered, trying to sound professional.

  “How far along is she? Have you checked her dilation?”

  Horrified at the thought of doing a physical exam on someone she knew and respected, she shook her head as she answered, “The contractions are five minutes apart.” She wouldn’t admit they were really three minutes apart; there was no need to further panic her.

  “Has her water broken?”

  Nodding, she sighed. Allyssa was too astute for her own good. Though she was merely a tech in the making, Althea knew Allyssa studied constantly and was quite knowledgeable. “Yes, that’s what brought on the labor,” she admitted.

  “Okay, I’ll call ahead to the clinic. Where did you say you were?”

  She hadn’t said, but she sighed again and tried to look out a window. She caught sight of how awful Fey really looked, heaving and trying to keep from screaming. She was biting her lip and squinting, and she did not look good. “I can’t tell where we are,” she admitted. “Buddy is driving as fast as he dares.”

  “You tell him he better get my wife here in one piece, or I’ll hunt him down...and you know I will!” she threatened.

  Althea knew she would. She’d heard various versions from people of what these women had done to the rustlers and they were quite frightening, but she also knew the truth probably lay somewhere in the middle. Fey had told her about Allyssa unlimbering her sidearm to kill a fox that had been after their chickens, so she knew Allyssa wouldn’t hesitate. “I’ll tell him. Call the clinic,” she said, then pretended to lose the call as she hung up, relieved to end the phone call with the pregnant woman.

  Allyssa looked at her phone in consternation, sure the intern had hung up intentionally. Still, she had a call to make. She could feel how uncomfortable the ride was for her, so she could only imagine how bad it was for her wife in labor. She scrolled down her contact list to find the clinic number stored under Dr. Leslie’s name. She was annoyed when a computer-generated voice came on the line telling her she was the second in line and asking her to hold on. She waited impatiently and finally, someone came on the line.

  “Sweetwater Clinic. How may I direct your call?” the voice intoned, sounding almost exactly like Allyssa and Renee when they answered their clinic’s phone.

  “This is Allyssa Herriot. My wife is in labor. We are heading for the clinic to see Leslie Stoward, Doctor Leslie Stoward,” she said, feeling agitated.

  “What? Can you speak up? I’m having difficulty hearing you,” the voice said.

  “My wife is Doctor Fiona Herriot, and–” she began, trying to remain patient but was interrupted.

  “We don’t have a Doctor Herriot here,” the voice told her, sounding perfectly clear.

  “I know that!�
� she answered, exasperated. “My wife is Doctor Herriot. She’s in labor and we’re coming into the clinic to deliver our baby.”

  “Doctor Herriot doesn’t do deliveries, that’s Doctor Stoward,” the voice contradicted.

  Trying not to get angry, Allyssa took a deep breath. “Please tell Doctor Stoward that Fiona Herriot is in labor and on her way to the clinic.”

  “How far apart are her labor pains?”

  “Five minutes,” she answered, relieved that the woman could finally hear her.

  “Well, then you should get her into the clinic.”

  Allyssa was ready to pull her hair out but resisted. “Thank you. We will do that. See you soon,” she answered, and when the woman acknowledged her, she hung up. Allyssa rubbed her temples.

  “Are you okay, Allyssa?” Traci asked from the back seat where she was watching her sister-in-law carefully.

  “Just a minor headache starting,” she admitted and exchanged a look with Renee, who was trying not to laugh. She grinned too. It really was ridiculous the way things were going.

  When they pulled into the clinic, they saw no sign of the RV. Allyssa debated calling Althea back.

  “Well, should we go in?” Renee asked.

  “Yeah, I guess we can get them ready...” she began as she and the kids opened their doors and got out of the Jeep.

  Apparently, the clinic staff were watching for a pregnant woman because no sooner had Allyssa begun to shuffle out from behind the Jeep than someone ran from the automatic doors with a wheelchair. They all looked around to see who it was for. When the orderly headed straight to Allyssa, she became alarmed.