Ivy Takes Care

by Rosemary Wells

  Heart pumping, Ivy ran back up the drive. This meant she would surely miss her ride. The mailman only pulled up if he saw her standing on the road. She would have to call her father to come get her, which he didn’t like doing. But she had no choice. There was no question that someone was in the stable with Andromeda.

  Ivy reached the stable. Winded, she threw open the stable door, and peered in. Someone called her name, and there stood Billy Joe Butterworth, looking for all heaven like he’d just seen a ghost.

  “Billy Joe, what are you doing here on a Friday?” asked Ivy, her breath coming hard in steamy clouds on the dark winter air. “You made me miss my ride home!”

  “Ivy,” Billy Joe gasped. “I’ve got big trouble. Get a flashlight!”

  Ivy grabbed a flashlight and followed Billy Joe into the night. He raced ahead of her, up and up a twisting path onto Spooner Summit.

  The path was nearly invisible in the moonless dark. It wound around and over rock outcroppings, chinquapin bushes, and spiky scrub cedars that could rip the shirt off your back. About half a mile up the trail, Billy Joe stopped at a clearing. He looked right and left, getting his bearings in the dark and looking for something. Ivy flashed her light from tree to tree. Then she saw Billy Joe’s horse, Texas, leaning against a live oak, breath coming hard. Billy Joe unwound his reins from a low limb where he’d tied him. Ivy went up to Texas and shone the light up and down his head. A gasping noise came out of the horse’s mouth. His face looked weirdly heavy.

  “What happened?” asked Ivy.

  “Snakebite! Rattler!” said Billy Joe. “He put his nose down and the snake just bit him. I killed it.”

  “Rattler?” said Ivy. “Billy Joe, there’s no rattlers out in December. They don’t come out until spring, when it warms up.”

  “This one did!” said Billy Joe.

  Beneath a twisted manzanita stump by the trailside writhed the beheaded body of a six-foot diamondback rattlesnake. It was half alive, whipping back and forth in the night. A big drop of sweat ran down Ivy’s backbone. Snakes were the only critters she didn’t like, and she really didn’t like them at all.

  Texas’s face had swelled up to twice its usual size. “Cut the bridle off him. He’s gonna suffocate,” said Ivy. Billy Joe got out his knife and sliced through Texas’ noseband.

  “Now hold this flashlight,” Ivy said. She put her hands on either side of Texas’s head and listened carefully to his breathing. “He’s having trouble getting air. Let’s get him down to the Montgomerys’ stable. He’s gonna need a shot of antivenom, fast. We’ll have to call Dr. Rinaldi.”

  They led Texas slowly down the trail, Billy Joe carrying Texas’s saddle so there was less weight on the exhausted horse. Holding her flashlight, Ivy guided Billy Joe and Texas away from the snake, down the curling path. The horse seemed not to know what was happening or where he was. Texas snorted, pulling air through his mouth. He went slower and slower, stumbling on the loose, stony path, unable to see or breathe.

  “Soon as we see the light of the stable, I’ll run ahead to the house and the phone,” said Ivy. “Do you think you can get him into the spare stall?”

  “I’ll try,” said Billy Joe.

  As soon as the stable light came into view at the end of the trail, Ivy gave the flashlight to Billy Joe and sprinted like a deer toward the dark house. Freezing hands shaking, she fumbled for the key to the main house, then let herself in. She prayed the Montgomerys were not on a six-family party line, but the phone was not busy.

  Dr. Rinaldi had just left his office. Irma, his secretary, said she’d see if she could flag him down in the parking lot. Time ticked by on the Inca watch, second by second. Finally, Dr. Rinaldi came on the line.

  “Ivy, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m out at the Montgomery place,” she said. “Billy Joe’s horse, Texas, has been bit on the nose by a rattler.”

  “In winter?” said Dr. Rinaldi. “Are you sure?”

  “Believe me, I saw ’im. A six-footer, right on the trail,” said Ivy.

  “Okay, but it’ll take me twenty minutes to get there,” said Dr. Rinaldi with a sigh. “In the meantime, the horse’s airway could become blocked completely by the swelling. I need you to go into the tack room, Ivy. Get the stable hose out. Take a shears. You’ll find one somewhere in that big drawer. Cut two nine-inch lengths of hose. Jam ’em into the horse’s nostrils to open his airway until I can get there. Don’t worry that the hose is too big — a horse has big nasal tubes to the lungs. You’ve got to really push the hose up. D’ya hear?”

  “I hear.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “That’s my girl!”

  After he hung up and the empty telephone line buzzed in her ear, Ivy felt keenly alone.

  In the stable, Billy Joe had led Texas into an empty stall next to Andromeda’s. Texas’s front legs buckled. Slowly, the horse slid down the side of the stall and lay on the floor. Next door, Andromeda stamped and whinnied.

  “Spit that gum out, Billy Joe,” shouted Ivy. “Your chewing and snapping make Andromeda nervous. You know that.” Ivy’s fingers fumbled on the freezing hose. It took long minutes to find the shears. Then she found she didn’t have the strength to cut through the reinforced rubber.

  “Billy Joe, can you cut me two nine-inch lengths of this hose?” said Ivy. “Your hands are stronger.”

  Billy Joe had to put the heel of his boot on the shears to get the blades to cut through the stiff, frozen rubber. He swore. Ivy ignored him. She had a terrible certainty that he had somehow invited this snake trouble, but this was no time to ask.

  The swelling on Texas’s face increased by the minute. His head was a deformed thing in Ivy’s hands, like a nightmare horse from some Greek myth she’d seen in a book.

  “Easy, boy,” Ivy said. “Easy.”

  The horse tried to lift his head.

  “Hold his neck, now,” said Ivy. Billy Joe stretched his body over the horse’s neck and face so she’d have a clear shot at the nose. Ivy’s hands barely managed to hold the end of the dirty green hose. With one push, she inserted it deep into his right nostril. Then she pushed the other one into the left side. Texas lifted his head. His eyes were glassy and, as quickly as he had looked up, his head dropped back onto the cold floor. But he could breathe again. He snorted air into his lungs in deep drafts that burbled as the air went up the artificial openings.

  Billy Joe took off his wool jacket and tucked it under Texas’s head. If the horse was a little more comfortable, he didn’t show it. His big body twitched and shook from cold and shock.

  “About ten more minutes now,” said Ivy, checking her watch.

  Billy Joe’s face was as white as a candle. His eyes, fierce, scanned the bit of road visible through the stable window. If there was a beam that he and Ivy could have sent to Dr. Rinaldi to get him there one minute faster, they would have used it.

  Texas was quiet now, yet Andromeda still fidgeted. It was well known that horses didn’t like the smell of snakes, but the snake was far behind them, back up on the trail.

  Ivy rubbed Texas’s neck and whispered a chatter of little sounds into his ears to reassure him, and maybe reassure Andromeda, too. A cat stretched on the cobwebby windowsill, then turned and leaped down to visit them. Ivy breathed the cold and dusty stable air in and out, in and out, and listened that Texas was breathing, too. Her knees froze on the stone floor next to him. She didn’t care. Andromeda still stamped and huffed.

  Billy Joe had pitched Texas’s saddle and blanket into the corner of the stable. Ivy noticed with mild interest that the leather saddlebag lay awkwardly beneath the blanket but that the ever-present ax and shovel were missing. Ivy’s focus then shifted back to the road outside, and she willed Dr. Rinaldi’s truck to turn the corner and fill their anxious darkness with the light of his kindly hands and voice.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the leather saddlebag move. I must be tired, she thought. An
d then it moved again.

  “Billy Joe, what is in that infernal saddlebag over there?” asked Ivy.

  “Nothing’s in it,” Billy Joe’s voice squeaked. “Leave it.” He stood and went over to the corner where the blanket and bag lay.

  Ivy spoke between her clenched teeth at Billy Joe. “There is something moving in that bag, Billy Joe, and you better tell me what it is, because Andromeda smells it and she’s going to kick down her stall. I don’t like this one bit, Billy Joe.”

  “You’re imagining things is all,” said Billy Joe. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll go put the saddlebag outside.”

  But even Billy Joe was not prepared to have the leather bag buck and flip in his hands. Out of the saddlebag and onto the stable floor spilled a five-foot rattlesnake, its head not quite severed. The jaws spanned open and then snapped shut, again and again, while the body writhed.

  Ivy screamed. Andromeda’s hooves beat against her water bucket and feed crib.

  “I thought it was dead!” Ivy shouted. “I saw it up there on the trail!”

  “This is a different one!” said Billy Joe.

  “Get the fire ax off the wall behind the tack room, Billy Joe!” she yelled. “Cut that snake’s head off before it bites Texas again, or me or you or Andromeda!”

  The rattler’s body was as big around as a weight lifter’s arm. It switched and levitated off the stable floor. Billy Joe backed away from it toward the tack room.

  “Hurry up!” said Ivy. “Andromeda’s going to break down her stall door any minute!”

  Billy Joe hesitated. “I’m saving the skin!” he shouted. “You can get five bucks a dried skin from boot makers in Reno. If the head’s attached, you get a buck more.”

  “Your head’s not gonna be attached if that snake isn’t dead in two seconds!” shouted Ivy. Still Billy Joe didn’t move.

  Andromeda butted the top hinge off her stall door.

  Ivy sprang to her feet, closed Texas’s stall door on the way, and grabbed the Montgomerys’ rusty fire ax from the wall. She flew back, to within five feet of the snake, and brought the blade down flat on its snapping head. Then she slammed the sharp edge of the ax blade through its writhing vertebrae until it stopped moving.

  “You wrecked the skin!” yelled Billy Joe.

  “How can you talk about a stupid old snakeskin, Billy Joe, when your daddy’s horse is about dying? That what I’d like to know,” said Ivy, tossing the ax in a corner. “Just wait and see how wrecked you are with your pop and mom if Texas doesn’t make it.”

  Billy Joe stood with his hands in his pockets, looking completely stupid.

  Ivy gave him a disgusted snort and went over to Andromeda’s stall where she tried talking the horse down. She brought her hand, full of sweet feed, under Andromeda’s muzzle to distract her. Andromeda shook herself but stopped stamping and backing around her stall.

  “What’s going on?” Dr. Rinaldi stood in the doorway, sounding a little alarmed and taking in the scene — the big snake’s body, still twitching slightly in the corner and the snake’s head about a foot away.

  Ivy lit up the instant she saw the vet, then looked at Billy Joe. Billy Joe looked so pathetic, Ivy could not bring herself to rat on him.

  “Somehow,” Ivy said to Dr. Rinaldi, “another snake got into the barn. Must have been asleep since summertime. We took care of it.”

  Dr. Rinaldi knelt at Texas’s side. “Son, get down here and hold your horse’s head steady while I inject the antivenom,” he instructed Billy Joe.

  Dr. Rinaldi prepared two large syringes. At the sight of the needles, Billy Joe passed out, so it was Ivy who held Texas’s head. Dr. Rinaldi eased the first shot into the horse’s withers. Texas began to breathe better, his sides expanding and contracting like a moving mountain.

  “Lucky I had enough antivenom this time of year,” said Dr. Rinaldi. “Get the smelling salts out of the tack-room cupboard, Ivy, and hold ’em under that infernal boy’s nose.”

  It wasn’t long before Andromeda quieted in her stall and Texas began to try to stand up. “Needs another shot,” said Dr. Rinaldi. “Got to keep him quiet for a few hours.” This time he allowed Ivy to fill the syringe and plunge it into Texas’s rump. Billy Joe watched, for once completely speechless.

  Ivy helped Billy Joe make up an itchy, dirty horse blanket bed for him to sleep in while he waited out a night vigil in the stable, watching Texas.

  “In my truck’s a thermos of hot soup for you, boy,” said Dr. Rinaldi. “I guess this was the night for it.” The doctor checked Texas over one more time. “He’ll be okay, but he won’t get up until morning. We’ll send your dad out with the horse van at sunup,” he added.

  Ivy looked at Billy Joe. His face was not a picture of happiness.

  “Don’t tell my dad I was snake hunting, Ivy,” whispered Billy Joe. “Swear to God?”

  Ivy didn’t answer. She didn’t know what she would do. She just wanted to get home. It was past nine o’clock. Her mother would be waiting, watching at the window.

  “Hop in the cab, Ivy. I’ll give you a ride,” said Dr. Rinaldi.

  The warmed-up cab of Dr. Rinaldi’s truck felt like a day in June to Ivy.

  “Danged if I ever did see anything like that in my life,” Dr. Rinaldi said. He lit his pipe and puffed on it. “That Billy Joe musta run into a rattler ball.”

  “Rattler ball?”

  “Yup. Spooner Summit’s got lots of rattlers. See, in summertime a west-facing mountain has a hundred flat-rock southern-sun exposures. Snakes love it. Then, in the winter they hibernate. Some go it alone, some wrap themselves up in balls of ten or twenty snakes. Makes your blood run cold! Somehow Billy Joe must have disturbed a rattler ball. How he could have done that is beyond me!”

  Ivy decided not mention Billy Joe’s ax, bag, and shovel to Dr. Rinaldi. She knew that birdbrained boy would already catch enough fire and brimstone in the morning.

  “What time does Ruben get back from the old folks’ home?” asked Dr. Rinaldi.

  “He says he leaves when they serve up breakfast,” answered Ivy. “He gets the first bus in the morning back to Spooner Lake.”

  “Good. That’ll be just about the time Jim Butterworth drives up with the horse van to get Texas and his boy. Texas’ll be back on his feet by that time; he’s as tough as a bag of nails. When Ruben comes home,” Dr. Rinaldi said dryly, “you can be sure he’ll go over that filly of his for three hours, looking for nicks and scratches.”

  “I hope he doesn’t find any!” said Ivy.

  “I checked her before we left,” said Dr. Rinaldi. “She’s fine.” He pulled again on his pipe. “Billy Joe is just trouble on two feet.”

  Ivy had no words for Billy Joe this time.

  “You should be proud of yourself, Ivy,” Dr. Rinaldi continued. “Not everybody can run a garden hose up a horse’s snout. You’ve got nerves of steel. Think of this: Someday you’ll run into a mare with a breech foal. You’ll have to stick your whole arm in and pull her foal out of the womb or both’ll die. Think you could do that, too?”

  Ivy tried to picture it. “Well, if the mare was in pain, I guess I’d just have to do it,” she said.

  “Yup,” agreed the doctor. “You do what you have to, even when it’s the last thing you want to do. But on the other hand, when there’s a little wet foal on the hay under his mother, and he stands up, it’s like the world was made brand-new, right then and there.”

  It was at this moment in Dr. Rinaldi’s pickup truck, with all its rattles and squeals, that quite out of nowhere, the emblem of the lamp in the hand came back to Ivy. Maybe it was the long, dark, cold night she’d just spent. Maybe it was the mention of a world made brand-new. Maybe it was both. Whatever triggered it, she remembered now where she had seen that emblem before. It was chiseled into the entrance gate of a Reno estate that she had passed many times in her father’s pickup truck. The Mountain School. The Mountain School was a private prep school. The papers scattered in the back of Annie�
�s car had been an application form for the following year.

  “Oh . . . of course,” Ivy found herself saying aloud.

  “Come again?” asked Dr. Rinaldi.

  “It’s nothing, Dr. Rinaldi,” said Ivy.

  On Christmas morning, Ivy unwrapped her presents, all of them expected. There were the hand-knit sweaters, one from each of her grannies; a box of orange chocolates; and a new blouse and skirt made by her mother. Ivy had bought her mother a pair of cloud socks and her father a new set of leather work gloves from Strunk’s General Store. Hanging on the tree, however, was a package Ivy had not expected. It was from Annie.

  “Someone put it in our mailbox,” Ivy’s mother said.

  Inside the gold and red paper was a silver Tru-Friendship ring set with Ivy’s birthstone, an amethyst. She turned it in her fingers. Annie must have received the tourmaline ring at camp after all. Ivy slipped the ring onto her finger and held out her hand so that the colored lights on the tree shone through the amethyst.

  “Your dad and I miss seeing Annie around,” said Ivy’s mother. “Hope that ring means we’ll be seeing her again.”

  “It’s a good-bye present, Mom,” Ivy said. “Annie’s going to go to that private school her mom went to. The Mountain School.”

  “She tell you that?” asked her mother.

  “No, but I know anyway,” said Ivy.

  “I guess public school’s not good enough for those people,” her mother said with a sniff. And this was true.

  Ivy stood and roped her scarf around her neck. “I better rouse that Billy Joe and get on over the mountain to Andromeda,” Ivy said.

  “Hop in the truck, honey,” said her dad.

  “You driving me to the Montgomery place?” asked Ivy.

  “Naw. You’ll have to go tend your racehorse after noontime,” said her dad. “Right now we gotta go to the airport. Somebody’s coming in.”

  “But Billy Joe’s dad always makes the airport run,” said Ivy.

  Her dad chuckled. “Jim Butterworth’s out on their south hundred, honey, making sure Billy Joe don’t slack off. Billy Joe’s got two hundred fence posts to straighten and miles of bob wire to untangle.”