"Who are these people?" I whispered. Then, "Look, nobody's home. They're probably at Wednesday night prayer meeting. Let's get out of here before they come back and set the dogs on us."
"Nobody's living here," he said and took my hand. "Come on." He had a key.
Inside was worse than outside. The carpet was the color of day old vomit and rotting away at the doorways. The kitchen was tiny. Three separate patterns of orange wallpaper covered the walls above orange counter tops. The two little bathrooms were completely done in tile and fixtures the color of fresh vomit, as opposed to day old. The three bedrooms were barely long enough for beds, and to finish up, there was a gigantic wood burning stove sitting on the carpet in the middle of the living room floor with black pipes disappearing up the chimney.
"This place is hideous," I said.
"It'll be fine once we fix it up."
"Say what?"
He grabbed my hand. "I will build you a house in the future, my love, but until I do, this place isn't much worse than our apartment, now is it?"
"You have lost your mind."
"Come on." He dragged me through pastures knee deep in uncut weeds. I nearly impaled myself on four-inch thorns that covered the bark of the black locust trees that infested the pastures like alien predators.
At the back a large pond filled a declivity. "That's where they breed the water moccasins, right?" I asked.
The only other structures were a couple of decrepit lean-to's that still bore the unmistakable odor of hog.
By this point the legs of my jeans were wet and festooned with cockleburs. "I am being bit to pieces by chiggers," I said grumpily. "Can we please go back to the car now?"
Once in the car, he waved a hand at the disaster in front of us. "It's perfect, isn't it?"
"For what? A prison? A hospital for the criminally insane?"
"Our clinic."
"Morgan, do you need to go to the emergency room? Have you had a stroke?"
"It's not even on the market yet. The people who lived there have moved into town so their children can go to city schools. It's cheap as dirt-"
"Of course it is. It is dirt."
"And it's in the path of growth. In another twenty years we'll practically be in suburbia. Right on the cusp." He turned to me and laid both hands on my shoulders so that I had to face him.
"Maggie, pay attention. We live in the house while we get the land in order-I'll need a tractor. God, I've always wanted a tractor. We can paint and do a few things to it to make it livable in the meantime."
"In the meantime to what?"
"We bring in a double-wide trailer to serve as your clinic until we acquire enough capital to build a building. I can get a great construction loan. We can put up your house over there behind the present house at the same time we build the clinic building and covered by the same loan. There are a few minor considerations-fencing, of course, and some kennels behind the double-wide."
"Morgan, you have lost your mind."
He took my face in his hands. "If we don't do it now, love, we will put it off and put it off. You'll be a hundred and five and still working on kittens and puppies for Dr. Parmenter."
"Who will be as old as Methuselah. There's nothing wrong with Dr. Parmenter."
"The thing is, this is chancy, but doable. Now."
"It didn't occur to you to consult me first?"
"There wasn't time."
Most women of my generation and economic background have been taught to embrace their husband's dreams. You work as a secretary or a nurse so hubby can become a bigtime lawyer or a doctor or an engineer. Then you sit back and play bridge. If I'd wanted that kind of life, I'd have tried to seduce The Prince of Darkness.
I had already departed from the norm by becoming a veterinarian, but since falling in love with Morgan, I had begun to retrench. We weren't rich, but we were making enough to enjoy ourselves. We were comfortable. Sooner or later Dr. Parmenter would retire. By then, I could probably afford to buy his practice.
Morgan was going to rise at the bank. I would gladly play corporate wife and entertain (with my mother's help) to push him along his way.
Eventually, we could sell Dr. Parmenter's practice and move to the country. But not yet.
I was happy, in love, and safe. Even if something happened to my job with Dr. Parmenter, we wouldn't starve. We might have to scrimp, but our lifestyle wouldn't change appreciably.
Now, suddenly I had to fish or cut bait.
I could deliver a calf, sew up a gaping wound in a Brahma bull, and go nose-to-nose with any redneck farmer who questioned my skills or my diagnosis, so long as somebody else billed clients, ordered supplies, kept track of inventory, and paid the bills on time. I hated dealing with money, and I was lousy at keeping records. Morgan would help me with the logistics, but the final responsibility would be mine alone. "I'm terrified," I admitted.
"What? You don't think you're good enough?" Morgan knew that was the hottest button he could push.
"Of course I am good enough," I snapped. "I am a fantastic vet. But working for somebody else is different from opening my own practice. What if nobody hires me? It won't matter how good I am."
"They'll hire you."
"Oh, right. Can I think about it?"
"Sure." He sounded deflated and I felt like the biggest party-pooper on earth. He sighed and put the car in gear. "I shouldn't have sprung it on you like this. Hey, if we renege on the contract, all I'll lose is a thousand bucks earnest money."
"You've put down a bid on this place?" I swung around to gape at him. "Without asking me?"
"Didn't want it to slip through our fingers." He sounded chastened.
Dammit, he should sound chastened. "Morgan, of all the highhanded..."
"Just drop it."
We barely spoke the rest of the way home. As we pulled into the parking lot, I said, "What's the worst that can happen? We go bankrupt. Big deal. I can always get another job."
He grabbed me. "That's my Maggie!"
Next day, I talked to Dr. Parmenter. I was fighting second thoughts. "The house is horrible."
"How many acres?"
"Morgan says fifty. He says if I can't make a go of it, he'll turn it into housing plots and become a construction tycoon."
"I have taught you all-no, most-of what I know, and you have Morgan to handle the business side of things. Much better than my business manager, I assure you. Hadn't you planned to leave?"
"Not yet. What if nobody hires me?"
"Fight for business."
When I came home that afternoon I found an envelope from Eli in Cookeville among the bills and circulars. I hadn't heard from Eli for a month or so. I'd meant to call, but I'd been so busy. I felt terribly guilty as I tore the letter open.
After I read it, I tossed it to Morgan. "And I thought I had worries."
Poor Eli. Josh's parents disliked her. She didn't like them much either. Although she was a Methodist, they kept demanding she go to their hard-shell church and disapproved of her clothes, her makeup, and her attempts to help around the house. She had finally stopped trying to be accommodating.
She had just moved out into a single room in a rooming house with rats that didn't come in cages. She was still working only part time, and her boss ordered her around like a flunky instead of a colleague. She hadn't treated a cow or a horse or even a goat for three months. She'd been stuck looking after small animals exclusively-not Eli's cup of tea.
Morgan read the letter carefully, the way he did everything (except put earnest money down on Tobacco Road), then picked up the phone and dialed the number Eli had given us in her letter. Apparently the telephone was in the hall of the rooming house. Morgan had to fight through a landlady and wait a good five minutes before Eli answered.
I only heard his half of the conversation. I assumed he'd pass the phone to me after he'd exchanged pleasantries with her.
Instead, he said, "How much money can you get your hands on?"
I sat strai
ght up. "Morgan, my word! What a question!"
He flapped a hand at me to shut me up. "That much? Quickly?" He listened. "Fine. Give me directions to Rat Central. Maggie and I will be there to help you pack before dark tomorrow. If we need to rent a U-Haul trailer, where's the closest place? Nashville?" More listening and nodding. I gaped at him. "You can stay with us. I have just bought fifty acres of pastureland in Fayette County just this side of Rossville. Are you interested in affording half a practice?" He nodded and smiled at me, then winked. "It's going to be tough for the next few years. You may end up living and working in a trailer... No, a nice trailer. I promise you can come into our house if there's a tornado. Eli, you are part of this family. I try not to let members of my family suffer." He handed me the telephone. "Tell her."
"Eli," I asked, "you don't really want to stay in Cookeville, do you?"
"Hell, no. Are you serious about this?"
"You bet." I looked at Morgan, stared at the telephone, and suddenly my soul was light and full of joy. "I've been telling Morgan he was a lunatic. You always say I have about as much ESP as a watermelon, Eli, but I swear this is right. I can feel it."
So the McLain-Scheibler Clinic was born. Without Morgan, the dreamer in the stuffed shirt, the believer in miracles, to push me, none of it would have happened.
Chapter 7
In which Maggie and Eli start a practice
The process by which any new veterinary practice starts up is fairly standard. In our case it was complicated because we were women and one of us was the size of a twelve-year-old child.
We advertised in the local suburban newspapers. We spoke to every club meeting from the Dressage Association to the 4-H club to Rotary. We handed out hundreds of business cards to everybody we met who might not actually be practicing vivisection secretly in his basement.
We talked to the farriers who shod all the local horses and called on all the boarding barns and breeding facilities.
We haunted the cattle sale barns in Collierville and Somerville. We schmoozed at every church supper we heard about. Most of the time Morgan was right there beside us, telling the good of boys what geniuses we were.
We hung around horse shows and handed out cards to the participants. We sponsored classes at horse shows for the walking horse people and the hunters. We did the same for cat shows and dog shows just so our name would be announced. Maybe the next time Rover had a cough they'd think of us.
We offered to handle weekend and night emergencies for all the other vets who didn't necessarily want to be called out to the home of the local serial killer at two in the morning.
We bought a used house trailer for Eli and moved it onto the far side of the property. We bought another and moved it into the center between Eli and the Hideous House. That became the first McLainScheibler Clinic building.
Morgan worked a full day at the bank, then came home in the evenings to cut fifty acres of pasture with his newly acquired John Deere tractor and bushhog, both of which had been built sometime around 1940. We also painted The Hideous House inside, pulled up the carpets and down the orange wallpaper.
Miles of new fence had to be built around the property, and a new kennel and boarding facility to be built behind the clinic trailer. I drove metal fence posts in clay so hard it would have made bricks even without baking. Eli and I learned to screed concrete for the kennel flooring.
Even my mother and father grabbed paintbrushes. My mother, with Bear along for the ride, scoured yard sales looking for office and reception area furniture, then made slipcovers to cover the spots and tears. She found appropriate animal pictures for the walls and ancient cabinets to be repainted for medical and file storage.
Daddy set up the accounting system and helped Morgan work out payment schedules and a business plan. Established veterinary practices are billed monthly or even quarterly for the drugs they order from pharmaceutical houses. New practices must pay up front until they've established credit. That was tough. We certainly had no cash flow.
We needed equipment such as mobile x-rays and fluoroscopes. We had to stock both our elderly pickup trucks with cabinets and supplies.
Morgan surprised us by having the first McLain-Scheibler logos designed and painted on the doors of our used trucks. Both Eli and I broke into tears when we saw them.
After the first month, Morgan refused to allow me to see the bank statements. "Frankly," he said, "I prefer your monthly PMS to your monthly fiscal hysterics."
Either we ate take-out or my mother brought dinner out for us.
We were so tired we were bleary-eyed most of the time. Looking back, I don't think any of us has ever been happier. We-the five of us-became a family.
Eli lost that pinched look she'd had that awful day when we drove up to bring her home from Cookeville. Morgan lost twenty pounds and the beginnings of his paunch. I developed biceps like a super hero.
Little by little we made advances. We acquired some small-animal clients, mostly people who didn't want to drive Fido or Kitty all the way into town for treatment.
Still, it was a hard row to hoe and one that looked like we would be hoeing for a long time.
Then we got lucky. Well, sort of.
In the village of Williston, Mike Rasmussen ran a small logging operation using Percheron draft horses. Many people don't realize that logging with draft horses has never gone out of style. At the time I first met Mike, his was one of three groups in the area using Percherons and Belgians for logging. At present there are six groups operating. Every one of them has a waiting list.
Big logging companies preferred to dear-cut and buy an entire stand of timber. If a man had forty or fifty acres of old growth woods and needed a little money for next year's seed, he might only want to sell a few trees to the local sawmill. He did not want to lose his woods, nor create erosion.
The solution was a pair of intelligent draft horses and a wood skid. Once the tree was dropped and cut into manageable lengths, a team of draft horses could maneuver it through the woods, around trees, over stumps, and through underbrush, all without disturbing the environment except for the occasional pile of manure. And that's fertilizer.
I've watched teams work at the logging contests at fairs and field days. Most of the time the team only needs to be shown how to find the logging truck up on the highway at the start of the day. Thereafter, the logger loads the logs and tells old Sam or Patch or Bob to 'git on up there to the truck' Then he goes back to cutting up the next tree while the horses make their way to the highway completely on their own. Once they are unloaded, they take the skid back down to the logger, also without supervision.
So Mike Rasmussen and his ilk have always taken extremely good care of their horses.
When he called our service one hot August night, he sounded desperate. "Hey, doc, my young stud Jake's down and I can't get nobody else to come. He's real bad. Can you come on out here?"
I later learned I was the fourth vet he'd called. The others were either not on call or didn't want to roll out at one in the morning for a thirty minute drive into the back of beyond. At that point, I would have driven to Arkansas for a job, and I had heard enough about Rasmussen to know he generally paid his bills without a quibble.
Morgan woke up when he heard me dressing. When I told him where I was going, he offered to ride along, but I knew he didn't really want to. This was my country now. If I couldn't drive alone around here in the middle of the night, I might as well move back to an apartment in midtown and work for Dr. Parmenter. Eli and I had no car phones yet, so we both carried two-way radios. Most of the time, however, they didn't work where we did.
The temperature that night still hovered around the eighty-five degree mark, and the humidity wasn't much better.
Mike's directions only got me lost once before I found the gravel road that led off into the woods towards his farm.
He had opened the gate for me, so I drove straight through into a grassy paddock in front of an old bam. Light seeped out betwee
n the slats that comprised the barns sides-a dead giveaway that it had originally been used to hang tobacco.
Rasmussen opened the door of my truck before I could. "'Preciate this a bunch, Doc," he said. "Can I tote something for you?"
"That's okay, Mr. Rasmussen. I've got an emergency bag with me, and whatever else we need in the back of the track."
Under the lights in the barn aisle, I had my first good look at Mike Rasmussen. He was two or three inches taller than Morgan, and downright cadaverous. He was wearing a plain white undershirt and dusty jeans and looked as though somebody had stitched him up from a worn out pair of leather boots. From the bridge of his nose down, his face was as red and lined as the side of an eroded ditch beside a Delta creek. From there up, his forehead was dead white where the brim of his hat must have shaded his face while he worked. I couldn't tell whether he was thirty or eighty.
As he led me down the wide center aisle of the bam, I asked, "What do you think it is? Colic? Founder?" Those were the two most frequent causes of distress in horses. Draft horses with their slow metabolisms were prone to overeat and get belly aches that sometimes killed them.
"Don't seem like that."
Rasmussen had turned the old tobacco barn into a first lass horse barn with a broad wash area and stands along the walls holding immaculately polished leather harness for half a dozen horses.
"See, Ma am, Jake, he's my stud horse. Ain't but five year old. Don't want to lose him."
I followed him down to the last stall on the left-a big double stall fit for a king.
And that's what Jake was. He stood well over eighteen hands high at the withers, the beginning of the back. A'hand' is four inches. You do the math.
At that point, however, he wasn't standing at all. He was stretched out flat in his stall on his right side with all four hooves pointed straight out. The whites of his eyes showed and his tongue lolled.
If this was colic or founder, both of which are life-threatening gut problems, this was far advanced. My heart sank. My first big horse case, and I was probably going to lose the patient.
All God's Creatures Page 6
