Don't Turn Your Back in the Barn (Adventures of a Country Vet)

by Perrin, Dr. Dave

  It felt so good to be warm and to be caught up with work. Nobody was waiting impatiently for me to get there. I focused on my breath and the slow rise and fall of my abdomen.

  My tummy rumbled. I absently pictured the spread of Chinese food that I had missed out on this evening. I saw the steaming bowl of fried rice, the almond chicken, and the sweet and sour spareribs. I wondered if Doris had gone alone tonight, if she had continued down the street to Mae's.

  If she had, it might still be there! I wandered into the lab and sure enough, there it was. My mouth watered as I bit into it. Heavenly delight. There was nothing like a cheese sandwich before going to bed.

  My first new car! I strolled out of the Volkswagen dealership clutching the keys and stopped to admire my purchase. I had ordered it in—a station wagon with a turquoise paint job. It had been one of the few vehicles I'd tried out that actually had enough room for me to sit upright without ducking my head. It wasn't fancy, but it had lots of room to carry my equipment, and something about it just felt right. Although it had rained for most of the night, towards morning it had cooled off and started to snow. Huge wet flakes fell; the top and the hood of the car were already covered with a thin layer of snow.

  I walked to the vehicle and opened the door. Ducking my head, I maneuvered my frame through the opening and settled onto the seat. Inhaling deeply, I relished the scent. There was something about the smell of a new vehicle that gave me a feeling of affluence.

  Starting the car, I turned onto the highway towards town. I was going to have to be quick about loading my equipment. My appointment on the Hood farm was for one o'clock, and it was already afternoon.

  I pulled into the lot at the back of the clinic and parked next to my old vehicle. I felt like a traitor abandoning it now! After six years of reliable service, I knew all of its little idiosyncrasies. I always seemed capable of getting it to perform, and hardly ever had it left me in the lurch.

  It was with a great deal of nostalgia that I unloaded the drugs and tools from my old car. I looked at the little blue Teddy bear that sat on the armrest in the back seat and thought of that depressing Christmas I had spent in the hospital at Saskatoon—about how my classmate had brought me Teddy to keep me company. Somehow, I just couldn't take him with me—not now, anyway.

  The cattle were bawling and milling aimlessly about the corral when I pulled up. Dempsey Hood already had the alleyway leading to the chute crammed with cows and, as I entered the yard, he signaled his assistants. They advanced with arms waving to crowd a dozen cows into the holding pen. A grey-haired man with hawkish features swung the gate closed and leaned against it until he was able to slide a bolt in place to secure it. The other man, a younger version of the first, climbed the corral fence and swung his leg over the top rail.

  I quickly grabbed my palpation sleeve and worked my arm into the latex rubber cocoon. I was stretching the glove tight to my fingers when Dempsey approached. A stocky man, he was powerfully built. His forehead was deeply etched with frown lines, and he imparted an unmistakeable intensity. "Well, we're about as ready as we're gonna get. Wouldn't you know that the weather would turn dirty like this. It was so beautiful yesterday—I was hopin' it'd be nice today, too."

  His short-cropped blond hair was wet and plastered close to his forehead. Water trickled down his face, and he ran his coat sleeve over it to stem the flow. His red- and black-checked flannel jacket was soggy, and the shoulders were covered with a thin layer of slush.

  I looked up at the low-hanging clouds and the huge snowflakes and shook my head. "Doesn't look like it plans on letting up any time soon."

  "Afraid you're right." He looked at the sky himself, then turned to the cattle. "Sure be glad when this is over. I'm going to miss the cows, but Mel here's offered me a price I can't refuse. He only wants cows that'll calve by April, so if it's all right with you, we'll use that as a cutoff."

  "Sounds good to me. Guess we better get started." I plastered my hand with KY jelly and opened the gate to the squeeze. Slipping in behind a big Hereford cow, I lifted the sliding metal gate behind her and grabbed a tail that was sopping wet and covered with manure. As I inserted my fingertips into her rectum, she threw her head and flailed from side to side, making the ancient metal chute rattle and groan in protest. I forced my hand forward into the colon past the brim of her pelvis and expelled several jets of watery manure.

  "The cows'll be plenty loose," Dempsey noted. "They're straight off pasture."

  "So I see." I glowered in disgust as a gush of green slime ran down the side of my coveralls and onto the toe of my boot. The first cow—you'd think I could stay clean longer than this! Returning my attention to the big Hereford cow that still danced on the end of my arm, I directed my hand forward in search of a calf.

  "She's pregnant," I affirmed, feeling a well-formed fetus bobbing beneath my hand. I grabbed the blue marking crayon from my pocket and ran a line over the soggy hair of her right hip. Dempsey stuck a pole behind her and opened the gate to release her. She charged forward and disappeared around the corner.

  I ducked out of the alleyway as a small black, white-faced cow steamed forward. Determined to follow the Hereford, she charged over the pole at the back of the squeeze and struggled towards the open gate. Dempsey quickly reset the head gate, and it clanged shut, stopping her advance. She bellowed and strained to drive through. Thrashing past the tread at the back of the chute, she sprayed manure and muck into the air behind her.

  A gob splattered the side of my face, and I reached my free hand to scrape it off. "Boy, you're really off to a good start!" Dempsey hooted. I stood back waiting for the cow to settle down, then walked in behind her.

  Mel wandered forward to stand beside Dempsey. He looked at the cow with disdain. "Not much of a critter, is she?"

  "Not to look at," Dempsey retorted. "But she weaned over six hundred pounds of calf, and I bet she's pregnant." He chuckled as I scribed a blue line across her rump and released her without further comment. Mel opened his mouth as if to speak, then thought better of it and returned to his post at the end of the chute.

  We had put through twenty-five head, and everyone had found a reason to be. Mel and his son, Dan, kept the chute full, with cows coming at an even pace. Dempsey ran the head gate and cut out the few cows that weren't in calf, and I waded around in their back ends for proof of pregnancy.

  Mel was having difficulty convincing an old Hereford that she wanted to come down the chute. Wary of advancing further, she planted all four feet and pushed back against the cow behind her.

  "Damned old crock anyway!" he hollered. Climbing up the rails of the chute, he whacked her with his stick. The old cow stood stoically with her eyes closed and refused to move. Mel reached over with his foot and goaded her along the spine—still no response. It wasn't until Dempsey gave her a jolt with an electric prod that she relented and waddled to the front.

  I'd just gotten my hand into her, when Mel stomped up. "Doesn't matter whether she's pregnant or not! I don't want this one. She's old as the hills. Cut her out!"

  Dempsey flushed. His blue eyes smouldered, but he said nothing. He watched as I finished palpating and scribed a blue mark across her rump. There was a tense moment as he stood staring at Mel, then he opened the gate and chased her in with the cull cows.

  "Dan! Let's have some more cows. The vet's waiting on ya!" Mel turned his back on Dempsey and returned to his post. Dan had watched the confrontation with great interest and returned to his job with a smirk.

  Huge wet flakes of snow continued to fall. The corral rails were white and slippery. The ground in the chute had become a sea of muck, and my coveralls were soaked and plastered with manure and mud. As I stepped into the runway behind the cows, my boots all but disappeared from sight, and even shifting my feet was an effort.

  Mel rejected two other pregnant cows—one that had the beginning of a cancerous eye and another that just didn't look good. Dempsey had acquiesced to Mel's demands, but each time his face
looked a little more fiery.

  "I'm going to run to the phone and see if the liners are goin' to be here on time," Mel hollered, after helping his son close the gate on the final dozen cows. We had been making steady progress and, several times over the last twenty minutes, I had looked at the remaining cattle thinking that the end was finally in sight. All but a half-dozen cows had been run through, when Dan hollered at Dempsey. "We won't be taking this brockle-faced cow either!"

  Dempsey stomped over to the corral and crawled through the rails. I finished checking a Hereford heifer and struggled towards dry land. He and Dan were in the midst of a discussion. From the colour of Dempsey's complexion, I could tell he wasn't happy.

  "It's just an old pink eye scar, I tell you!" Dempsey hollered.

  Shaking his head, Dan straddled the top rail of the corral. He pushed his cowboy hat to his crown and affirmed, "No, Dad won't want that one."

  Neither Dan nor I expected what happened next. One moment he was sitting on the rail, a cocky look on his face; the next, he was sailing through the air. He landed with a splat at the feet of the cow he had so adamantly rejected.

  "You son of a..." he spluttered. Sprawled out flat in the muck, he stared up at the dynamo who stood over him—at his red face, his injected veins, his clenched fists—and fell silent. His eyes were as big as saucers. They revealed first anger, then frustration, then fear. He lay in the mud without moving a muscle.

  "Do you want to run in those last few cows, Dempsey?" I interjected. "May just as well get them finished off."

  "Yeah, sure," he muttered. He stepped over the young man and opened the gate. Dan struggled to free himself from the mire. Tears of frustration flowed down his cheeks as he grabbed onto a corral rail and pulled himself upright.

  "Yeah! Come on!" Dempsey hollered at the cows that had been huddled at the opposite end of the holding pen. They churned for the gate, jostling Dan as he struggled to retrieve his partially submerged cowboy hat.

  Dempsey and I finished checking the remainder of the cattle with neither help nor hindrance from Dan or his father. All the cows were pregnant, and Dempsey ran each of them in with the cows that were to be purchased.

  I trudged to the house, my boots heavy and caked with mud. Finding a garden hose, I sprayed off as much of the accumulated muck as possible. I stripped my coveralls, slipped on a dry pair, and threw the wet ones in the back of the vehicle. This poor car wasn't going to smell new for long!

  I left Dempsey's and headed to West Creston. The bypass had just been opened; the West Creston ferry was no longer in service. Willie Evans had been in this morning, and I had made arrangements to remove the stitches from the cow we had performed a caesarian on a couple of weeks earlier. Willie was overjoyed with her progress.

  The car was far peppier than I was used to; I kept reminding myself to take it easy. Once off the main highway, the going was painfully slow. The four inches of snow on the road was slushy and pulled the car first one way, then the other. I turned onto the side road that wound its way up onto the West Creston bench. What a perfect day to try out this car! I needed a car that could get around in any type of weather.

  Without the slightest hesitation, I whipped up the incline. The traction was fantastic with all of the weight over the rear wheels; it would take a heck of a snowfall to keep me grounded with this car!

  I pulled into Willie's drive with a big smile on my face. What a treat it was to drive a vehicle that performed so well.

  Willie stepped out onto his covered deck, still pulling on his coat. He lifted his foot up onto the railing and tied the laces of his boots. "New car, eh? Must be nice! Probably won't be able to afford to get you out here now. You'll be charging so much for all that shiny new paint."

  "Feels good to know that I'm likely to get where I'm going without worrying about something falling apart." I clenched my jaw as soon as I finished speaking. A big smile spread over Willie's face, as he realized he had scored a direct hit. Why did I feel so defensive about buying a new car? Surely people didn't expect me to drive a ten-year-old vehicle for the rest of my days in practice!

  "Must be nice." I could see that Willie was not ready to let go of the issue yet. "Wish you had waited a couple of months to do it, though. Still haven't gotten my bill for the night you spent out here."

  My face was flushed, and I just knew my ears were the colour of ripe plums. I plucked my suture scissors from the cold sterilization tray and followed Willie to the barn. "So, she's been doing fairly well, has she?"

  "Yeah, she was pretty slow the next day, but I was surprised how quickly she picked up." Willie seemed ready to drop the subject of the new car, and I was more than happy to have him do so. He opened the barn door, and the big black and white heifer turned her head in the stanchion to look at us. Her mouth was full of hay; she continued munching as I walked up beside her.

  A smile crept over my face as the bright brown eyes engaged mine. This job would be a lot easier if a guy had a good crystal ball. Who'd have predicted she would look this good a couple of weeks ago. Never say die!

  The cow stood quietly as I snipped away at the sutures. The wound had healed beautifully. She was away to the races.

  "Do you think I'll ever be able to get her back in calf?"

  "It's hard to know at this stage, Willie. Most caesarians come back and get pregnant, but I've never had a cow as torn up as her before. I guess time'll tell."

  I was floating on air as I left Willie's driveway. Who would have dared to predict such a rosy outcome? I wish that I'd known that night—it would have made everything so much easier to endure!

  The sun poked out from behind the clouds; the valley lay before me under a shiny, white blanket. The river glistened a deep blue in contrast, and the mountains in the background formed a mosaic of white and grey and blue. Life simply didn't get much better than this!

  I was crawling down the hill in second gear. The wet snow was terribly slick, and I was less than impressed with the car's steering on the downhill run. I was going to need some sandbags under the hood to get more weight over the front wheels.

  I was almost to the bottom of the hill and eased the car into third gear. Only one more corner to go before I was again on level ground. I was not going more than twenty miles an hour when I started into the curve. I braked slightly and congratulated myself on keeping my speed down. The moment I touched the brake, the car took off like a toboggan! I came off the brake immediately and steered harder into the curve.

  The next few seconds passed like slow-motion footage from a movie. The car was completely unresponsive. I watched myself slipping closer and closer to the edge of the road. I was traveling so slowly, I swear I could have stuck out my foot and pushed the front end straight. The wheels slipped gently over the bank. God no, not my new car!

  It hung on the edge for what seemed an eternity, then slowly eased over onto its side and rolled down the embankment. My black kit box hit me on the side of the head and smacked into the windshield. The car rolled over gracefully twice, then came to rest on the driver's side next to a massive fir tree. I struggled to dig myself out from under the debris.

  My new car! Not my new car! I sat there for a few moments trying to collect myself. Tears flowed as I was slowly forced to accept the reality of the situation. My head was throbbing and my shoulder was sore. I grabbed the cradle of the calving jack that was digging into my side and flung it into the back seat. I removed my seat belt and struggled upright. Standing on the driver's door, I opened the passenger door and climbed out of the vehicle.

  I hollered at the top of my lungs. "Why my new car!"

  Doris arrived at the office within a few moments of my calling her. Gordon and Ruth arrived five minutes later. I had been in anguish as I watched the tow truck pull my car back onto its wheels. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see the slow-motion replay of its demise. To this day, I swear I could have stuck my foot out to straighten it. Examining the tracks afterward, I determined the car had follo
wed the edge for ten or fifteen feet, and it had been close to staying on the road. Why couldn't it have simply straightened out? Why hadn't this happened with my old car? Why me?

  "Are you sure we shouldn't run you up to the hospital?" It was the second time Doris had asked me the same question. She was very worried.

  "You've got a nasty bruise on the side of your head," Ruth interjected. "We better get you checked out."

  "I'm just fine! If my car was in as good shape as I am, I'd be feeling a lot better about things. Wouldn't you know it? My first new car and I wreck it the first day out!"

  Gordon and Ruth stood at the entrance to the living room looking down on me. I lay stretched out on the carpet with an overstuffed pillow crammed behind my back, looking dejectedly up at the light fixture on the ceiling, at its six bulbs and its smoked glass shades. My head was aching.

  "Where do you keep your glasses?" Gordon pulled a brown paper bag from inside his coat pocket.

  "In that cupboard over the sink, if they're not all dirty."

  A few minutes later he handed me a glass full of an amber liquid. One whiff confirmed that it was Gordon's favourite, Glenfiddich scotch. With dutiful reverence, he handed glasses to Doris and Ruth.

  "Here's to you!" He raised his glass and we all joined him.

  I don't remember offhand how many times Gord refilled my glass. I do recall forgetting my aches and pains and feeling marginally less upset about my vehicle. I remember that Doris and Ruth were diligently trying to convince Gordon that it was time to go and let me get to bed. I remember standing up and my head hitting the light fixture.

  The rest is a blur, but Doris says it was a miracle I wasn't cut to ribbons by the shower of glass that followed me to the floor.

  "It's a crying shame to have to destroy a dog like him, and I just can't do it."

  "I know how you feel," I replied. "I absolutely hate putting an animal down unless it's suffering. Even then I ask myself why I should have the right to play God."