Vetted Again

by K'Anne Meinel

  “Sean and Traci should get out here with the push lawn mower and the weed eater,” Fey corrected. “You are still healing, remember?”

  Allyssa chuckled. Like she could forget...Her body seemed very slow to get back to normal after all these weeks. She enjoyed spending the time with Fey though. They were in the same boat—both tired and constantly feeding babies. Fey’s milk had increased when she began helping to feed the twins. Between Fey and Allyssa, they were keeping all the babies well fed. They had a new baby doctor, on Leslie’s recommendation, and he had been pleased with the three babies after their four-week checkups. Doctor Bueller was a tall man of indeterminate years, and he never batted an eyelid when he was introduced to Doctor Herriot and her wife. He either had been warned by Leslie or had heard talk of them at the small clinic. The three babies passed with flying colors, and there was no concern about Tom’s previously smaller body, which was rapidly gaining on the other two babies.

  “He’s a fine, healthy boy,” Dr. Bueller exclaimed, lifting the little boy expertly as he examined him. “Nothing wrong with his lungs,” he said over the lusty cries as Tom didn’t like the strange man and let it be known. The other two babies joined in, and Dr. Bueller examined Erin through his cries too as Fey quieted Tom with a bottle. Allyssa tried to stop Molly’s little hiccupping cries, which were very pitiful and designed to get instant attention.

  “They are gaining weight normally. You were unable to breastfeed?” he asked Fey.

  “Yes, it hurt too much, but the breast pump is working fine,” she answered, feeling a little defensive.

  “Amazing apparatus, and you are right, they don’t seem to mind,” he said as he watched her feed the other little boy with the bottle. “You are both feeding them breast milk?”

  They nodded as he wrote something on his tablet. “Amazing. I’m really pleased to meet you both. I’ve never had a case where two mothers were sharing as much as you two are. It’s fascinating, and I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable with my questions,” he said as he handed Tom to Allyssa and took Molly up to weigh her and measure her. “A fine little girl you have here,” he complimented them.

  “He’s a little exuberant, don’t you think?” Fey asked as they carried the three babies out. She had Erin in her right hand in his basket, Allyssa was carrying Tom in her left, and between them they were both carrying Molly because it helped to share the load.

  “Yes, he’s a little odd, but I trust Leslie. She wouldn’t refer us to a wacko, would she?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  They were both happy with their little family and content in their feeling that nothing could go wrong. The women’s days were filled with babies. The older kids were enjoying their new school, and they had four adults in the house who could help them with their homework. Keith made his way downstairs for meals and television each day, and Juanita forced him outside when the weather was nice. It really was a pleasant time for them all as early fall arrived and the weather turned colder.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The roundup was scheduled and some of the older 4-Hers would participate. Fey and the children’s parents had agreed the minimum age to participate was sixteen. If they were between thirteen to sixteen, they could only participate if accompanied by a parent or adult who could watch them. Fey went back to work and her new interns arrived to begin their four-month internship. The prospect of working with range animals in an old-fashioned roundup was exciting for the two young men.

  Many of the surrounding ranchers would also be participating. They wanted to get the free-roaming cattle and horses off the range that might abut their ranches too. They would collect any of their branded cattle that were found in the gather, and they could bid on other animals after Fey and Allyssa got first right of refusal. They’d be paid for their participation in unbranded cattle, but most of the animals would go to the Herriots as it was their land.

  The Herriots drove the RV out onto the plains to accommodate themselves, their children and their nanny, and the two interns.

  Many temporary corrals were going up. The animals would be herded there as they made their gather. Horses from various ranches were brought in. Each rider was responsible for their own animals as several had brought a couple riding horses and all their gear. Some would sleep out on the bare ground like the cowboys of old, but many had campers or slept in a tent. A couple ranchers had nice RVs and brought those, but no one had one as deluxe as the EarthRoamer XV that Fey drove.

  Allyssa found she could only ride for a couple hours before she began hurting, but she found that was to her benefit. She could return and feed her babies, which gave her a break from the harsh conditions in the gather. It was a lot of hard, dusty work, and she was happy Juanita had come with them. Keith drove the Jeep out one day to sit and yarn with some of the ranchers he had known as a child, but he tired easily and had to nap in the RV. Eventually, he would return to the ranch house where he coped better, and he could watch eagerly for his children to return from school. He would give them news about the animals that were being gathered as they eagerly anticipated going out on the weekend.

  “That’s not a Texas longhorn,” Fey stated when they found the bull that had been terrorizing their cellphone tower guys.

  “Nope, that hain’t,” one of the ranchers agreed.

  Expecting to find some sort of longhorn like the Billy described in Molly’s journals, Allyssa asked, “Then what is it?”

  “That’s got to be a Brahma cross, wouldn’t you say?” Fey asked the other ranchers, who were sitting on their horses watching the boys haze in this group. The bull was huge, but it was different than a longhorn; the horns were so much thicker at the base. From what they could see the horns had never been cut, and they stood straight, not curved like a longhorn.

  Several immediately agreed. Even if they didn’t know the breed, the majority ruled.

  “That’s some bull,” one of the farmers said with a pipe in his mouth and a glitter in his eye. He knew he was making a pun. Several chuckled as they caught it. “Whatcher gonna do with it?” he asked Fey.

  “I have no idea. Perhaps it would be best to just remove the ornery beast from my range,” she concluded and several nodded.

  “I’ll buy ‘im from youse,” one volunteered. Another said something similar at the same time, and a friendly rivalry ensued. Fey laughed at them and when they were finished, she accepted the highest bid. It was a fair and equitable transaction between the ranchers.

  Fey found she couldn’t remain for the entire massive roundup. She had to take the Jeep out with boxes of medicine and supplies a few times. She and Allyssa had discussed expanding the business when it wasn’t convenient to use the RV, and the interns were enthusiastic about helping the vet. They had looked her up on the internet before arriving and thought it might be interesting to work for a gun-toting vet, who had had a shoot-out the previous year. Now, she had her babies, her wife, and a good, old-fashioned cattle roundup going on, and they were fascinated and willing participants.

  Allyssa found herself wearing a bandana just like the cowboys in the movies, but she realized it had a practical purpose. The cattle they were rounding up kicked up a lot of dirt, and the dust was terrible. It was a good thing the RV had a big water tank because they all needed showers each night, and when the kids rode out to join them on the weekend, they used it too.

  The cattle were wily, especially those that had been raised on the open range and those that had lived free for several years. They were also dangerous and were not willing to just give up their freedom.

  “Youse suspose them cattle is from your grandpa’s days?” one of the ranchers asked Fey, his chin taking in a couple of fighting cattle, who looked far too old to be on the range.

  “I have no idea, but I doubt it. I don’t remember anything but white-faced cattle back then,” she answered. There were quite a few mavericks in this bunch and enough with brands to justify hiring a range detective to make sure the brands got
sorted. She had letters from some ranchers, who had released the rights to their branded cattle back when they had done the smaller gather after rustlers had brought hundreds of stolen cattle onto her land. There were enough released cattle to share with the many ranchers and cowboys, who were helping. She wouldn’t share the ones where she had clear title with the other participants, but there seemed to be enough mavericks to satisfy the cowboys after they were all sold. Already, they had loaded a couple trucks and sent them to market. They needed to get the corrals cleared for the new cattle they were bringing in daily.

  “I’ve located a couple herds of wild horses, but I don’t think you’ll catch ‘em,” the tracker told Fey when he reported back. They had moved farther into the hills, onto land Fey and Allyssa owned but had never explored, out beyond the lake.

  “Why is that?” she asked, worried that her fellow ranchers would be angry with the mustangs she loved. She would have left them undisturbed, but many ranchers felt a bullet was the only way to stop them. They worried that the wild horses would steal food from their own animals and spread disease if left unchecked. A wild Mustang stallion could be dangerous, stealing their mares from their ranches for his harem and breaking down fences to do so.

  “There are a couple clever horses among them, and that range stallion is really something. He’s got a piebald lead mare in there, and she’s got a brain in ‘er.”

  “What’s a range stallion?” Allyssa asked, learning so much these past couple weeks.

  “It’s a stallion that looks out for his harem. Usually, they have up to a dozen mares, but I’ve seen some with up to two dozen. They will steal our mares too, if we aren’t careful, but they usually won’t take a mare unless they know they can breed with her, so I think our fixed mares are safe from him. But keep alert cause you never know. The range stallion is usually a loner, who is craftier than other stallions. He can be vicious when fighting another stallion or warding off wolves, coyotes, big cats, and anything else that would threaten his mares or their offspring. He’ll run off the yearlings if they are colts but will keep the fillies.”

  Fey was pleased her wife was participating in the roundup, but they were both worried about the other since neither could ride for long periods. They hadn’t had time to build up their stamina since giving birth. The three babies seemed to be thriving under the care of their two mothers and nanny in the fresh, fall air, and Juanita was thrilled she was able to be such a big help to the new mothers.

  “You ever seen a stallion herd a mare?” the tracker asked Allyssa, wishing to impart some of his own knowledge to the pretty girl. When she shook her head, he continued, “He’ll nip at her heels, sometimes her butt, and he’ll scare her good to get her to go off with him. He intimidates her into bein’ healthy afraid of ‘im. After a while, if she drifts too far from the herd, he teaches her to be dependent on ‘im, making sure she knows her place. You seen horses and their peckin’ order?” She nodded. She had seen that when they brought in the rescues and new horses. “Yeah, well, that’s how it works with any new mares he brings into the harem. They will remain low on the peckin’ order until new ones come in and they move up.”

  It was Allyssa who spotted the weird horse print when she was back in the hills helping with the gather. Rex had been helping her push any cows they found out of the brush. Allyssa had been watching the time, knowing she had to be back at the RV to feed the children. She planned on heading back soon because she knew better than to tire herself excessively. Her body was not yet up to the grueling gather she had arranged, so she’d limited herself to a few hours each day. When she saw the weird hoof print, she took a picture with her cell phone. Luckily it worked, since reception back here in the hills rendered many phones useless. The horse print was the biggest she had ever seen, and it confused her to see it among the many horses they had tracked in the past two weeks. Even in the picture it came through bigger than most of the other prints. When she showed it to Fey and the tracker at the campfire later that day, Fey swore.

  “What?” Allyssa asked, confused.

  “That has got to be a Clydesdale, a Belgian, or one of those big brutes they use to pull heavy loads. Like the Budweiser commercials,” she reminded her wife, so she would get a mental picture of the horse. “What one of those big behemoths is doing here in the hills, I have no idea. Anyone know of a draft horse missing?”

  None of the ranchers nodded and all shook their heads as they contemplated a horse of that size free on the range. They had never heard of anything like that, and if not for Allyssa’s picture, they would have doubted the city girl’s assertion about the large hoof print.

  Fey fed Molly that night and while washing the infant, was trying to get her to smile. While Allyssa prepared for bed after feeding the other babies, she watched her wife with a look of utter love, which caused Fey to catch her breath for a moment. “We really have a good thing here, don’t we?” Allyssa asked, gesturing to the corrals containing wild horses, which the cowboys were looking forward to breaking. The cattle had been herded into trucks that came for them that day, but Allyssa and Fey had refused to allow the horses to be shipped off, knowing they would become dog food.

  “We sure do have a good thing,” Fey assured her, feeling good these days. She had been able to stay in the saddle almost all day, only stopping twice to pump her breast milk. The children were being well-tended by Juanita. Allyssa had stopped more often, not only to feed the babies but also because she wasn’t yet up to the long hours in the saddle. Fey was anxious to get back to her veterinary practice full-time, but the interns were content to be sleeping in two bunks here in the RV. They were learning a lot from the cattle drive while tending to a few of the horses’ cuts and abrasions as needed.

  The next day, the red horse and its foal were captured, and Fey immediately claimed the mare. She was a wild thing but had obvious signs of a Thoroughbred in her. “Do you see the fine, sensitive ears, the confirmation of how she holds her head?” Fey marveled. The red of her coat was amazing, bright despite how dirty it was. “If we can tame her, she’ll be a helluva horse to have on the ranch.”

  “I want her too,” Allyssa agreed, eyeing her and wondering how they could tame such a wild creature. She had to have been owned by someone at some point in time, but she had no brand on her.

  At the end of the second week and going into their third week, Fey made the determination they had collected most of the cattle on her range. There’d been a couple of days where no one had seen anything, and the hills and breaks were getting more difficult to get into as they delved farther afield. It was also getting much colder as fall advanced. It smelled like snow, and Fey didn’t want to keep anyone out there if the weather was going to turn.

  They divided up the cattle people had claimed as payment for their time. Others, whose brands had either been claimed or forfeited, were freighted off. The horses they could rope were readied to take home. Two cowboys offered to rope the red horse and take her to Fey and Allyssa’s barn for them, and the mare was so wild it took both cowboys to handle her. Fey had to inject her with a light sedative for the hours it would take to lead her home because she didn’t want her to break anything or hurt the cowboys herding her. Others used Fey’s services as well. The mustangs were wild, and she sedated them as they were pushed, pulled, and shoved into the various horse trailers. She wished them well and hoped they wouldn’t come to harm. Already, there were three dead horses in one of the seven-foot-high surrounds they had put up. The horses had gotten caught up while trying to escape the tall walls. One had broken its neck and two others had broken legs and needed to be put out of their misery. The stallion, once so noble, had been caught this way when he tried to jump the fence. He had tumbled ass over end and it ended badly with a bullet in his brain. Among the ranchers, only Allyssa and Fey seemed sad about this.

  Fey paid the tracker. He took a horse as partial payment, some cash, and left with a wave, pulling his two-horse trailer behind an old truck that looked
just like the one Allyssa had sold the summer before. The ranchers had been dispersing and the temporary folds were collected. Soon, the weather would erase all signs of the various campsites the humans had made for the gather before they left the land.

  “I’m glad we kept the red horse and her foal,” Allyssa told Fey as they rode in the RV carefully towards the roads that would wind back to their ranch. They were lucky they had four-wheel drive on their RV. Not everyone did, and more than one rancher regretted driving so boldly onto the high plains when their vehicles had to be winched out.

  “I’m sad so many horses had to be put down,” Fey responded as she expertly drove their RV, loving the fact that she could drive again and didn’t have to depend on anyone else. She’d really felt a lot better the past week or so. She had been miserable when she first attempted to get the practice up and running again and her body didn’t want to cooperate. Leslie had told her to hold her horses and take it easy, laughing at her own pun. She told Fey it could take years before she felt up to her former self.

  “We need to have regular clinic hours,” Allyssa discussed with her wife when they began to get more and more requests for Fey’s small animal services at the clinic.

  “How about we designate one Friday every week or two for the clinic?”

  “No, we need you every week. And you know if you want Fridays ‘off’ from large animal work, the animal gods will make that impossible,” she teased.

  Fey laughed. The best laid plans of any vet were often thwarted by other animals needing her services. The ranchers and farmers in the area were welcoming her back, and she’d been pleased she hadn’t lost too many to the various vets that had filled in while she’d been on maternity leave. She kept a slew of their babies’ pictures in the RV to share with any who asked. Some people mistakenly assumed their vet had had triplets, not realizing her wife had given birth to twins two weeks after she gave birth to their first son!