Animals Don't Blush

by David R Gross

  “Those evergreens are junipers. This is where I harvest juniper berries and the black walnuts,” Kathy explained. “We’re now on government land. Those are the black walnuts,” she said pointing to a tree loaded with nuts still wrapped in their thick green covering.

  “Is that what’s in all those mayonnaise jars full of nutmeats in your kitchen?” Rosalie asked.

  “Yep, I keep a lot of them around for cooking; the price is right.”

  Twenty minutes later, I spotted a group of ranch buildings off to the north as John led us in that direction. We entered a pasture surrounded by a five-strand barbed-wire fence. Inside was the wild horse herd. The castrated horses mingled with mares and young foals. The dun whinnied, and several of the horses raised their heads responding in kind.

  “How many horses are here?” Rosalie asked.

  “Should be forty odd, but some of Ed’s saddle horses are mixed in,” explained John. “There are thirty-five wild ones.”

  The influence of rodeo purses was obvious. The house was red brick. The corral and barn were situated like those at the Joneses’ ranch, but they were in good repair and constructed of superior materials. There was no sign of an outhouse.

  “That little shed there off to the side is a well house with their Delco generator and batteries,” John explained.

  We rode into the corral. Ferdie dismounted and went into the barn, returning with two buckets of grain. The horses in the pasture moved toward the corral, watching. Seeing the grain buckets, they started moving in.

  Pig-Eye was the last to enter. Keeping a wary eye on me, he moved to one of the feed troughs and found some grain. Every few moments, he raised his head to keep track of me. There was no sign of swelling, and his chewed ear was again erect.

  I dismounted to turn on the windmill and top off the water tank, my back turned to the horses in the corral. Pig-Eye broke from the feed trough, charging at me with his teeth bared. Mister streaked into the corral leaping at the black’s head, teeth snapping. Pig-Eye slid to a stop. Mister circled, growling, snarling, making short fake charges at Pig-Eye, drawing the horse away from me.

  John, on the dun, loped in to herd Pig-Eye out of the corral. “Damn, Doc, I think Mister just saved you from a world of hurt.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s his job; he figures these things out,” I agreed.

  We finished the chores at Ed’s place and rode to Ted’s. From the top of the hill separating the two ranches, I observed that they were mirror images.

  After finishing the chores at Ted’s, we started back. When we arrived at the Joneses’ ranch, our shadows were reaching out to the east.

  Mister and Skipper, after trailing the whole trip, sought out the shade of the stock tank. Mister lay down leaning against the cool tank, eyes closed and allowed a sigh to escape. Skipper came over, flopped down, resting her head on Mister’s flank. Both dozed.

  “Well, gang, I’m ready for something cold to drink,” John announced.

  “I’ll take care of the horses, Dad,” Ferdie said.

  “Thanks, son.”

  Kathy convinced us to stay and eat leftovers for dinner. We talked until it was dark and then crowded around the kitchen table, eating supper by the light of a Coleman lantern hung from a hook in the ceiling.

  “No thanks. I’m going to pass on two desserts in one day,” I said, patting my stomach. “But I will take a cup of coffee. I’m going to need some help staying awake after all this good food.”

  ***

  The night was dark, the stars masked by high clouds. The headlights of the Ford searched out the dirt road in front of us. Rosalie sat close, her head against my shoulder, common behavior in those days before seat belts. No light defined the horizon. We drove through the black void in the glow of the dashboard, isolated from the rest of the world.

  “I really like them,” she announced, “but they live so poorly. No electricity or indoor plumbing. And the water they used for washing and cooking, shouldn’t they filter it or something?”

  “Not having indoor plumbing is inconvenient, but they seem happy. Jenny and Ferdie are super kids. They probably should filter the water.”

  We drove down off the plateau into the Yellowstone River valley. The glow from the lights of Sidney cast a dome of light into the black sky. Mister stood up in the back seat, stretched, and reached out with his tongue to lick Rosalie’s ear.

  Chapter 7: The L-Bar-J

  Sally and Joe Lufkin’s place, the L-Bar-J Quarter Horse Ranch, occupied forty acres of pasture and woods on a bluff overlooking the Yellowstone River.

  Sally’s short blond hair and blue eyes testified to her Danish background. Her short legs and round face and body made her look soft and cuddly, but she was no-nonsense tough and very fit. I never found her anything but warm and pleasant. When we met, both she and her husband were in their early thirties.

  Her husband, Joe, was a full inch taller than I am. He was rail thin, his graying hair cut into a crew cut. He had dark-brown eyes and large hands with very long fingers. After we got to know them, I found out he had played shooting guard on the basketball team at Northwestern and graduated from Northwestern University medical school.

  I first met the Lufkins when they brought their calico cat, Patches, in for a general exam. Patches was twenty-three years old but in remarkably good health. After completing a physical exam, I recommended cleaning the accumulation of tartar from her teeth. Other than the needed dental work, she seemed perfectly happy and content, purring constantly from the time Joe took her out of her carrying case—purring so loudly, in fact, that I was unable to auscultate her lungs and barely able to discern her heartbeat.

  “Do you mind if we stay with her while you work on her?” Sally asked. “She’s been with me since she was a kitten. I’m a nurse in charge of the emergency room at the hospital, and Joe is an orthopedic and trauma surgeon.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “You can monitor her breathing and depth of anesthesia while I work on her. I’m going to anesthetize her with Pentothal, which should give me ten to fifteen minutes to get the tartar scraped off.”

  Everything went smoothly. I was able to anesthetize Patches without having to restrain her. I held her right foreleg with my left hand, clipped the hair over her cephalic vein with a scissors, occluded the vein with my thumb, and injected the anesthetic. After putting in an endotracheal tube, I scraped the accumulated tartar from her teeth and then whitened them with cotton balls dipped in hydrogen peroxide. Patches started to wake up as I finished whitening her teeth.

  “Well, Doctor Gross, that was slick. I’m impressed,” Dr. Lufkin said.

  “Please, call me Dave. We haven’t been here long and are trying to make friends.”

  “In that case, Dave,” Sally responded, “I think we need to invite you and your wife over for dinner. How does a week from this Saturday night sound? Neither of us is on call.”

  “Sounds great to me. I’m not on call either, and I’m sure Rosalie will be very pleased to get to know you both.”

  ***

  Sally served an appetizer of smoked salmon on rounds of garlic toast while we sipped a chilled California Chardonnay.

  “A number of vineyards in California are putting in this variety of grape,” Joe explained. “It’s going to be hugely popular.”

  Rosalie and I murmured appropriate compliments.

  “So, don’t you want to see the horses?” Joe pleaded.

  “Why don’t we give them the guided tour of the house first?” said Sally. “I think Rosalie is more interested in the house than she is in the horses.”

  “Not more interested,” Rosalie replied, “but I would love to see the house.”

  Their home was log built with an open floor plan and a hunting lodge atmosphere. A log barn matched the house. The front porch overlooked the river and ran the length of the house. The door from the porch opened directly into the great room, the kitchen area to the left. A powder room was around the corner from a walk-in pan
try next to the kitchen space. An oversized laundry and mudroom was located next to the pantry and served as a passage to the garage. A side door from the garage opened onto a small porch feeding onto a covered raised board walkway to the barn. Opposite the kitchen, a stairway led upstairs to two bedrooms and a bath. Under the stairs was a door that opened into the master suite. In the great room, a massive stone fireplace dominated the back wall with a leather sofa and two leather easy chairs facing the fireplace.

  After touring the house, we took the boardwalk to the barn. Behind the barn were four paddocks that stretched out, long and narrow. The horses were better than I had expected.

  “We’ve got eight well-bred brood mares, but Hickory Joe is special. He’s a direct descendent of Old Sorrel. Do you know about Old Sorrel?” Joe asked.

  “Sure,” I answered. “He was the foundation sire for the King Ranch herd, the origin of quarter horses. He bred mares until he was about thirty years old. They enhanced his bloodline by breeding him to thoroughbred mares with early speed.”

  “So, you know quarter horses,” said Joe. “Did you know that both of the Simpson brothers rope off of geldings that we bred?”

  “That I did not know,” I replied.

  We each rested a booted foot on the bottom rail of the wood fence, observing four mares, one of them heavy with foal.

  “John Jones just spoke for that foal. It should be dropped within the next few weeks,” Joe explained.

  “Yeah, I heard last week that they found oil on his place. He and Kathy are very excited. We’re happy for them. I guess that oil money is burning a hole in their pockets.” I smiled. “I think Rosalie and I would have put indoor plumbing in their place first.”

  “That would be our choice too. He said the foal was a birthday gift for Ferdie.”

  I nodded my head. “Figures.”

  We watched the mares for some time and then went into the barn. I was anxious to see Hickory Joe, and the stallion was impressive. I watched him for some minutes from outside the stall. He was deep chestnut in color, a white star on his forehead, only fourteen and a half hands high at the withers, but thick across the chest. His back was straight but sloped from high hips down to the withers. His manner exuded royalty.

  “Well, he’s a little mutton withered for my taste,” I teased, “but he’s well muscled and passably well cared for.”

  I opened the stall door stepping into eight inches of wood shavings. As I approached the stallion, I talked to him quietly. The horse stood still enjoying the attention as I rubbed and slapped him.

  “Looks as though you are feeding him plenty well,” I said. “He’s a little mushy. Maybe a little less sweet feed and a little more exercise would be in order.”

  Joe Lufkin smiled. “Yeah, yeah, less food, more exercise. I do need to turn him out in the pasture more often. He’s a little much for Sally to ride, and I don’t seem to find the time.”

  Sally and Rosalie had trailed us but now returned to the house. Joe and I continued talking about the stallion.

  “I bought him as a yearling, a lark. Because of his breeding, I decided to turn him over to a trainer and race him. He did pretty well at Riudosa Downs as a three-year-old but cost us more in training, boarding, and veterinary fees than he won. He did win a couple of allowance races and then bowed his left tendon. The trainer brought him back too early, and he fractured the opposite leg lateral sesamoid. After he broke the sesamoid, I decided to get out of racing and into breeding.”

  I palpated the stallion’s left fetlock and the enlarged tendon sheath and then pinched both sesamoid bones on the right leg hard. “He doesn’t seem to have any pain or tenderness now.”

  “It’s been three years. He is sound enough, but I don’t push him. He breeds just fine,” Joe smiled.

  We returned to the house where Joe put on a blue denim apron to help Sally cook. Rosalie and I sat on stools on the other side of the island counter separating the kitchen from the great room.

  Roasted new potatoes smothered in onions were keeping warm in the oven. Sally combined lightly steamed, fresh green beans with shallots sautéed in butter and a squeeze of fresh lime. Joe took out four beautiful fresh trout from the refrigerator, breaded them very lightly, and sautéed them in butter, adding a handful of almonds into the skillet after removing the fish and then put in a splash of the Chardonnay and stirred until it was reduced. He poured the almond and wine sauce over the fish and put the platter on the table. Sally finished dressing a huge fresh green salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Joe opened another bottle of the Chardonnay, and we all sat at the dining room table to enjoy a great evening of good food and conversation.

  ***

  Nine o’clock in the evening, three weeks later, Rosalie and I were just finishing dinner when the phone rang. Dr. Schultz was on call so I was not expecting any interruptions. Rosalie answered the phone.

  “Hello?... Oh, hi, Joe.... Yes, he’s right here.” She held out the phone to me.

  “Hi, Joe. What’s up?” I listened for a moment. “How long has she been at it?... OK. No, that’s too long. Something’s wrong, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Try to get her up and walking around. I don’t want her down and straining if we can avoid it.... OK, I’ll ask her. Hang tough. We’ll be there soon.”

  I set the receiver back. “It’s the mare with Ferdie’s foal. Joe suggested you might want to ride along. He said Sally would be glad to see you.”

  Rosalie nodded. “Yeah, OK. I’ll put on some fresh jeans and a shirt.” She was already combing her hair into a ponytail with her fingers.

  When we arrived, all the lights were on in the barn. I parked and took my bucket, OB chains, disinfectant, and soap out of the truck. I also grabbed the case containing syringes and needles and a bottle of Procaine. Inside the barn, Holiday Joe was stomping back and forth in his stall, whinnying, creating a disturbance. Joe shook my hand.

  “Thanks for coming out, Dave. We appreciate it.”

  Sally and Rosalie hugged.

  “You probably ought to put Hickory Joe out. Him being excited and disturbed isn’t going to help,” I said.

  “Yeah, should have done that already. Sorry. The mare’s in that stall,” Joe indicated with his chin. “I’ll turn Joe out.”

  I looked over the half door and saw the mare lying on her side in the deep wood shavings, straining. I looked at Sally and raised my eyebrows.

  “I know. We were supposed to keep her up. She just now went down again. Every time we get her up, she stays on her feet walking for five or ten minutes; then she flops on her side and starts straining.”

  I nodded, opened the door, and went into the stall. The mare lifted her head and watched me, wondering if this was finally someone who could help. I knelt down to check the sclera, the whites of her eyes, and gave her a pat on the head.

  “She’s not toxic,” I said. I took off my shirt and hung it over the half door, exited the stall, and filled my bucket with warm water from the laundry room sink in the alleyway and then added some Nolvasan disinfectant to the water.

  “I’ll need you to sit on her neck and hold her head up,” I told Sally. “Held like that, she won’t be able to get up. Here, I’ll show you how.”

  Sally came into the stall with me, and I demonstrated how she should sit on the mare’s neck, with one leg on each side, pulling the head up to her chest. I got up, and she took my place. “This OK?” she asked.

  “Perfect,” I said. “Just hang with her if she tries to get up. As long as you control her head like that, she’ll stay down.”

  I soaped up my hands and arms and reached inside the mare’s uterus with my left hand. Only the foal’s neck, bent around with the head facing back into the uterus, was in the birth canal. I tried to push the foal back in, but the mare strained, catching my wrist between the bones of her pelvis and the foal’s neck. After extricating my arm, I rinsed off. Then I gave the mare an epidural and, while waiting for it to take full effect, wrapped her tail with gauze to
keep it clean and out of the way.

  Joe returned and took over sitting on the mare’s neck.

  “Here, Sally.” I handed her the wrapped, now limp, tail. “You can hold her tail out of the way.”

  Again, I soaped up and this time was able to push the foal back into the uterus. I reached in far enough to grab the foal by the nostrils and pull its head around into the proper position. Even with the epidural, the mare was straining but with less force. I bent the foal’s left leg at the knee and, cupping the small hoof in my left hand to protect the uterus, pushed the foal back with my right hand and brought the foal’s left hoof forward; then I repeated the procedure bringing the right hoof in place. I straightened out both forelimbs with the foal’s head positioned between them, placed an OB chain around each fetlock and another underneath the foal’s ears, around the sides of the head, and into its mouth. The next time the mare strained, I gently pulled on all three chains simultaneously. The legs and head all came forward until the foal hung up at the shoulders. I pulled one leg at a time gradually walking the shoulders out. The mare strained again, and the foal delivered in a rush. I quickly removed the OB chains. Sally provided some clean towels, and we rubbed the foal down, wiping out his mouth and nose. It was a sorrel colt with a white blaze starting on his forehead and running down to a point between his nostrils.

  I put gentle traction on the placenta, and it came away easily. Then I got up and bent over the bucket to wash off.

  “Just stay on her head a while longer, Joe. I need to go to the truck for some drugs for her and the foal. I’ll be back in a minute; then we can let her up.”

  I returned, double clamped and cut the umbilicus and then doused it liberally with iodine. I gave the foal a dose of penicillin and another to the mare.

  “OK, Joe, you can let her up.”

  The mare got immediately to her feet, went over to the foal, and started nuzzling it.