by Janet Dailey
An earsplitting whistle pierced the morning air. Instantly Quint turned his horse away from the river, a frown gathering on his face. Empty Garner was the only one Quint had ever heard make a sound that shrill. And it wasn’t a signal the canny old rancher would issue without cause.
Quickly he rode clear of the obstructing trees and spotted Empty some distance away. The old man motioned for him to come, then dismounted to inspect something on the ground.
It wasn’t until Quint rode closer that he saw the dead cow. Empty knelt on one knee beside the bloated carcass. When Quint halted up next to Empty’s ground-hitched horse, the old man straightened up.
“What happened? Was it struck by lighting?” Quint asked, voicing his first thought.
“I wish,” Empty replied grimly and continued his visual study of the dead animal.
“What do you mean?” Quint frowned and walked his horse closer.
“Take a look at that crusty discharge around the nose and the scoury look to the rump,” he directed. “There’s a dark bloody look to both. If I’m right about what killed it, you won’t be shipping cattle anywhere for a while.”
Quint immediately grasped the significance of the two symptoms. “You think it could be anthrax?”
Every cattleman had knowledge of it, although in Quint’s case it wasn’t firsthand. While the disease wasn’t as common as it once had been, nearly every year isolated cases were reported somewhere in the country.
“It looks like anthrax to me.” There was a certain gravity to Empty’s expression. “Fifteen or twenty years back, the Barlow place lost nearly a dozen head of cattle to anthrax. He told me one day they were fine, and the next they were dead. And I know for sure that I never noticed any sick cows—except those fence-cut ones—when we checked this area the other day.”
“I’ve heard anthrax can take them quick.” Automatically Quint’s attention shifted to the handful of cows within his range of vision, his mind already considering the possibility that others in the herd might have contracted it. “We’d better get the vet out here.”
Dallas rode into view, pulling up a good distance from them. “What’s wrong?” she called.
“Dead cow,” Quint answered. “Ride back to the house and phone the vet, have him come out as soon as he can.”
“Do you want me to call the rendering truck, too?” She had the horse on the bit, ready to ride away.
“No.” Quint gave a firm shake of his head, recalling that care had to be taken in disposal of an infected carcass. “But tell the vet it looks like anthrax.”
“Anthrax.” Like Quint, an instant after she assimilated the word, Dallas shot a look at the trio of cows grazing near the tree line, alert for any sign of illness or distress, leaving little doubt she had been raised on a cattle ranch.
“You might as well stay at the house and bring the vet out when he comes,” Quint told her.
With an acknowledging lift of her hand, Dallas swung her horse toward the house and sent it forward at an easy, ground-eating lope. Quint watched her leave, then glanced at Empty.
“I’m going to check the rest of the pasture and make sure there aren’t any others that are sick or dead. Give a whistle if I’m not back when the vet gets here.”
“Good luck,” was all Empty said.
But luck wasn’t with him. Twenty minutes later Quint came upon the bloated remains of a second cow with the same bloody discharge around the body openings and a lack of significant rigor mortis. Quint marked the location in his mind and crossed the river to check the other side.
Roughly an hour later, Empty’s piercing whistle summoned Quint back to the site of the first cow. When Quint rode up, the vet’s mud-splattered pickup was parked at the scene. Dallas stood slim and straight near its hood, her attention on the big man crouched next to the carcass, making a thorough visual inspection of it. She turned at Quint’s approach.
“What did you find?” she asked, searching his face.
“There’s one more dead.” Quint swung to the ground and let the reins trail. “Looks just like this one.”
With a straightening turn, the vet came erect and squared around to face Quint. “Where’s that one?”
“Along the south fence line on this side of the river, fifty yards or so from the cross fence,” Quint replied and sized up the man before him out of habit.
Somewhere in his early thirties, the local veterinarian was a tall, huskily built man with the stout neck and shoulders of a bulldogger, an image that was reinforced by the cowboy hat, yoked-front shirt, and blue jeans he wore. The only part of his costume that didn’t ring true to a bulldogger was the absence of cowboy boots with underslung heels. Instead, he had on a set of heavy-duty rubber boots, coated with mud and excrement.
“I’ll need to examine it when I’m done with this one,” he told Quint.
“I figured that,” Quint replied and introduced himself. “The name’s Quint Echohawk. I’m running the Cee Bar for the Calders.”
“Dan Weber.” He didn’t offer to shake hands, but Quint hadn’t expected him to make the gesture when he noticed the rubber gloves the vet was wearing.
“Thanks for coming out so quickly.”
“If it is anthrax as you suspect—and I agree the cow presents all the classic signs of it—the quicker we can get a jump on it, the better off you’ll be. I was just getting ready to draw a blood sample so I can get it sent off to the lab. They’ll have to run their test to verify whether we’re dealing with anthrax or not.” He paused a beat. “Does this ranch have a history of anthrax occurring?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Quint replied. “But the Calders purchased this particular parcel of land only ten or twelve years ago. So it isn’t likely anyone would know whether there had been previous cases of anthrax.”
“It was a thought,” the vet said with an idle shrug. “Once the bacteria forms into spores, it can remain in the soil for years. Estimates range from thirty to as much as a hundred years, and it could be more. Usually heavy rains or floods bring it to the surface, but last night’s rain hardly qualifies as that. Although…” He paused, a reflective look to his expression. “On the way here, I remember driving over a strip of ground that looked like it had been plowed up recently. That might be your source. Anything that disturbs the ground can scatter any spores that were present.”
The ground had been plowed to create a firebreak, but the means used to stop one destructive force had potentially unearthed another one. And the irony of that was not lost on Quint. Yet given the same set of circumstances, it was a decision he would make again.
Using a syringe, the vet collected a blood sample from the animal’s jugular vein. “Have either of you touched the carcass?” he asked.
“I did,” Empty replied. “But I was wearing my gloves.”
“Play it safe and burn them when you take them off. Make sure you disinfect your clothes, too.” The vet stowed the blood sample in a sealed container and scratched the necessary information on it. “You should be all right, but if you notice any skin lesions or flulike symptoms, call your family doc right away. It wouldn’t hurt to contact him anyway and have him prescribe a course of antibiotics as a preventive measure.”
“We’ll see about getting that done,” Quint agreed. “What about the carcass?”
“It needs to be buried as soon as possible, but that’s something the state authorities have to supervise. I’ll get a hold of them as soon as I get back to the office and see if they can’t get someone out here today—before any scavengers have a chance to rip into the carcass,” he said and explained, “Right now the bacteria is in an active state. Any tearing of the flesh could unleash billions of spores.” He turned to Quint as he snapped off his rubber gloves. “I’m through here. Want to show me where the other one is?”
Quint rode along with him to the second carcass where the same procedure was repeated. During the ride back to the first, the vet tossed a sidelong glance at Quint.
“I’ve g
ot to be honest, I’ve only seen three cases of anthrax before, and two of those were when I was still in vet school,” he said. “But if this isn’t anthrax, I will be very surprised.”
“Can you give me a heads-up on what the procedure will be once it’s confirmed?”
“First, all the cattle will have to be removed from the contaminated pasture and kept isolated from the rest of your livestock. Any that look like they might be sick will need to be treated with antibiotics, and the rest will be vaccinated for anthrax. It’s hard to say how long your cattle will be quarantined. It could be a month or more. If I remember right, it takes roughly four weeks for the vaccinations to be effective.”
Most of what the veterinarian told him merely confirmed Quint’s recollections of things he’d heard in the past. But it gave him the advantage of anticipating what would be required and planning for it.
“There’s a preliminary test the lab can run that takes only a few minutes,” the vet told him in parting. “But it can provide a fairly solid indication whether or not it’s anthrax. It can’t be confirmed until they grow a culture, and that can take twelve to twenty-four hours. I’ll pass along any news as soon as I get it.”
“I appreciate that.” Quint climbed out of the cab and let Dallas take his place in the passenger seat. “We’ll be following you to the house.”
As the vet drove off toward the ranch house, Empty eyed him with a watchful interest. “What now?” he asked. “Are we gonna sit on our hands and wait to learn the test results?”
“No, I think we have to operate from the assumption it will be positive for anthrax.” Reins in hand, Quint gripped the saddle horn and swung into the seat. “If we have to isolate the cattle, we might as well decide now where we want to hold them. It will need to be somewhere with easy access to water.”
The availability of water dictated his final choice—the burned area adjacent to the ranch yard with its metal-legged windmill and water tank, undamaged in the fire. Loss of the pasture had already made it a given that hay would be needed to feed the cattle, so it mattered little there was no grass for grazing. And there was the bonus that the fire would have killed any anthrax spores in the soil.
Once the choice was made, they immediately went to work stringing electric fencing to pen off a fifteen-acre section that would allow them to keep the potentially infected items under close observation at all times.
Less than two hours after the vet left, he called Quint on his cell phone. The preliminary test result indicated anthrax. A representative from the state would be there no later than two-thirty to supervise the disposal of the carcasses. Before he hung up, he provided Quint with the name and telephone number of a backhoe operator.
The backhoe operator and the state worker arrived within minutes of each other, the latter accompanied by a team sent to gather soil samples. Quint left Empty and Dallas to finish installing the electric fencing and went with the new arrivals to the carcass locations.
A deep burial pit was dug, and the carcasses were dragged to it and covered with quicklime before the pit was filled with dirt. More quicklime was applied to the areas where the carcasses had lain to inactivate any bacterium still present. Twilight had set in before the entire process was complete.
Quint returned to the ranch yard in time to give Empty a hand with the evening chores. A purpling shadowed the buildings when they finally headed for the house and the welcoming gleam of light from its windows.
The sharp ring of the telephone greeted Quint when he walked in. Automatically he headed for the desk to answer it. Dallas turned from the refrigerator, clutching a gallon of milk and a bowl of fruit salad.
“You might want to let that ring, Quint,” she warned. “Somehow the media found out about the possibility of anthrax. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since I came in. There must be at least a half dozen messages on the answering machine—all from newspaper and television reporters.”
A certain grim acceptance thinned the line of his mouth as he turned away, letting the machine take the call. “They’ll probably show up here tomorrow.” Quint hung his hat and jacket on the rack by the door. “When they do, just refer all their questions to me.”
Neither Dallas nor Empty raised any objections to that.
By necessity, dinner was mainly thinly disguised leftovers from previous meals. Dallas helped herself to some home fries and set the bowl by her grandfather’s plate, then noticed he had yet to put any food on it.
She darted a questioning look at his morose and vaguely distracted expression. “Aren’t you hungry, Empty?”
He made a small grimace of disgust. “It’s this anthrax business. It’s put me off my feed.” Almost grudgingly, Empty picked up the bowl and spooned a helping of potatoes onto his plate. “Don’t you know Rutledge will be wearing a big smirk when he hears about it? You can bet if he’s sorry about anything, it’s that he didn’t think of it.”
“He’ll try to find some way to use it to his advantage, though.” Quint took the bowl from Empty. “It could be that we have Rutledge to thank for all the calls from the media. It would be like him to leak the news to them as soon as he heard about it. And with his connections, he could have heard about it two minutes after we called the vet. My guess is that he’ll do his best to ensure that it becomes a big story.”
“He can make it as big as he wants,” Empty declared with contemptuous unconcern. “I can’t see how that will cause us any trouble.”
Quint smiled wryly. “You’ve never had a horde of reporters flocking around you like vultures, pointing cameras and sticking microphones in your face, or you wouldn’t say that.”
Empty responded with a harrumph. “The first time a reporter sticks a microphone in my face, I’ll stick the muzzle of a shotgun in his and escort him off the premises.”
“That’s a fast and sure way of making an enemy of the press—and convincing them that you have something to hide,” Quint said, although he knew it was one his own grandfather would favor. “No, we’ll give them free rein, show them how cooperative we are. If there are any restrictions placed on them, they’ll come from state officials. Not us.”
Before her grandfather could take issue with that decision, Dallas sought to change the subject. “What did the state guys have to say when they were here?”
“Like I already told Empty while we were finishing chores, they’re recommending that we remove all the cattle from both the south and west pastures. Right now their thinking is that the strip we plowed for a firebreak may be the source of anthrax. Until they can determine otherwise, they want to keep all livestock away from it.”
“That makes sense.” Empty nodded in rare agreement. “A couple years back there was a big outbreak of anthrax over around Uvalde. There are a lot of old cattle trails in that area, going back to the days of the big drives north. Back then, if an animal got sick, they just left it along the trail to die. Some claim the ground there is thick with anthrax spores. A hard rain was blamed for causing the spores to migrate to the surface this last time.” He paused a moment. “Somewhere close to sixteen hundred animals died.” He shot a challenging glance at Quint. “A measly two dead cows can’t be such a big story when there’s been a lot worse cases in the past.”
“Unfortunately terrorism has made anthrax a hot news topic,” Quint replied. “And the media seldom make a distinction between the manufactured anthrax strains created for germ warfare and the bacteria that exists in practically every corner of the world. The only thing we can to do is catch tonight’s late newscast and see what kind of slant they’re taking on this.”
“Anthrax is back in the news,” the news anchor announced, and Quint sat forward on the couch, the whole of his attention focused on the television screen. “This time it’s in connection with the famed Calder Ranch in Montana. We have confirmed that state authorities suspect anthrax caused the deaths of two cows at the Cee Bar Ranch southwest of the city. The Cee Bar is the Texas branch of the Calder Cattle Company, owned
by the Calder family.”
Stock footage of a dead cow rolled across the screen, accompanied by an explanation of the deadly swiftness with which anthrax can strike a herd. Then the camera was once again on the news anchor.
“The authorities have not yet determined the extent of the current outbreak at the Cee Bar,” he continued. “But there is much speculation about the effect this will have on the renowned auction of breeding stock held by the Calders. Buyers are often reluctant to purchase cattle from ranches with a history of anthrax. And the Calder ranch now falls into that category.” After a slight pause, he added, “We will keep you informed of this developing story.”
Quint pulled in a long, deep breath and let it out in an irritated rush. “Now we know how Rutledge intends to exert some financial pressure.”
Empty punched the power button on the remote and the screen went dark. “Trouble is some buyers do fight shy of ranches that have lost cattle to anthrax.” There was a curl of disgust to his mouth. “It doesn’t matter to them that there’s no record of any healthy animal from a ranch that’s had anthrax, carrying it with him to another. But some buyers are just spooky that way.”
“What’s worse,” Dallas inserted in a tight, angry voice, “Rutledge wants to make anthrax synonymous with all Calder cattle, not just the ones here on the Cee Bar. It’s another one of his plots to force a sale—get rid of the Cee Bar and the Calders lose the taint of anthrax. It’s an obscenely brilliant strategy.”
Quint pushed off the sofa. “I’d better call Jessy and let her know what’s being said. She’ll be getting calls about it tomorrow if she hasn’t already.”
“Isn’t there something we can do?” Dallas demanded, rising from her chair in agitation.
Quint took one look at her battle-bright eyes and smiled. “Those sound like fighting words,” he said, recalling all the times when she had advocated otherwise.