“I’m going to name this one Chicken Little,” Sophie said, cradling the smallest chick in her hands. Although Cole had warned her that the smallest chick in the group might not be the healthiest, she’d insisted they get it anyway.
“Hi, hi,” Tess called from the front of the clinic. She’d come back to help with the late afternoon schedule.
“We’re back here,” Sophie called to her. “Come see.”
Cole left the two of them to marvel over the chickens while he prepared for his first client. His appointments went smoothly, and within a half hour, Tess told him that Gus Tilley had arrived. He finished up with the dog he had on the exam table and went to the equine treatment area, noticing that Sophie was still in the kennel room with the chicks as he went through. He experienced a feeling of déjà vu as he rolled back the double door and revealed Gus and Lucy waiting on the other side, like they had been this morning.
But this time Lucy didn’t look so good. Her left eye was swollen shut, the hair and skin under it wet with tears.
“Bring her on in, Gus.”
They secured Lucy inside the stocks, and Cole snugged her lead rope down tight to the front, so she couldn’t move her head freely. He examined the external part of the eyelid, noticing an abrasion above the top of it.
“There’s an abrasion here,” he told Gus, showing him the spot.
“I saw that too.”
“She probably bumped her head against a post or something. I’ll get some things and take a peek under the eyelid.” Cole went into the clinic to retrieve an ophthalmoscope, a bottle of fluorescein dye, suture, and a surgical pack. As he went by the pass-through, he called to Tess. “I might need your help.”
She was finishing up with his last client. “I’ll be right there.”
“Daddy, come look at my chicks,” Sophie said as he traveled through the kennel room with his hands full.
“Can’t now, Sophie-bug. Later.”
She hopped up, hurrying to open the door for him. She followed him into the equine treatment area, moving slowly and quietly as she’d been taught. Cole was impressed, knowing what kind of energy the child needed to harness.
“You know Mr. Tilley, Sophie,” Cole said, more as a reintroduction for Gus than Sophie. He felt certain that Sophie hadn’t forgotten the man’s name since meeting him last night. He placed his supplies on the stainless-steel exam table beside the stocks.
Gus tugged his cap and gave Sophie a shy glance.
“Come see my new baby chicks, Mr. Tilley,” she said.
Immediate distress filled the man’s face, and Cole could tell that he’d been thrown a hardball by the invitation. “Gus is busy right now, Sophie. We’ve got to examine Lucy’s eye. You can stand over there and watch if you’re quiet,” he said, gesturing toward the front of the room in an area where she would be out of the way.
“I’ll go outside and play with my ball,” Sophie said, choosing that over standing still and being quiet. “If you want to, I can show you the chicks when you’re done, Mr. Tilley.”
“She’s a nice kid,” Gus murmured after Sophie went outside.
“Thanks. I kinda like her. Do you have kids, Gus?”
“Me? Oh, no. Never been married.” Gus shuffled, kicking one boot against the other.
“Well,” Cole said, turning back to business and picking up the ophthalmoscope, “let’s see what we’ve got going on here.”
Gently, he pried the swollen lid open and shone the light into the eye, peering through the ophthalmoscope. Lucy tried to toss her head, telling him the eye was sensitive to light, but the pupil constricted normally. The eye’s sclera was reddened, looking like it had suffered a blow of some kind, but he couldn’t detect any foreign bodies. The conjunctiva was also red and irritated. While he was looking at the eye, Tess came quietly into the room.
“I’m going to use a fluorescein dye, so I can see if there’s any damage to the eyeball itself,” Cole explained to Gus as Tess handed him the bottle. With her help, he pried the eyelid open again and delivered the drops. After Tess handed him the ophthalmoscope, he examined the eye. This time, the fluorescent-green stain allowed him to see if there might be an injury to the cornea, as well as any small amount of debris that might be irritating the eye.
While Cole was looking through the ophthalmoscope again and concentrating on what he was seeing there, Gus said, “What do you see, Doc?”
“There’s a small abrasion here on the cornea. It’s not too bad, but it’s going to need treatment several times a day if we’re going to get it to heal.”
“What do you think caused that?”
“It’s hard to say, but with the abrasion over her eye, I think she might have knocked her head against a fence or the side of her box stall.”
“She’s been in the corral today, like you said. It has a loafing shed at the end that she can go into.” Gus took a few steps back and placed his hand on Lucy’s neck, rubbing it fondly with a circular motion. “She’s used to that corral. I don’t think she’d bump into anything accidentally. Do you think someone could’ve gone in there and hurt her?”
What’s with these assumptions that someone is hurting his animals?
“Do you think that’s possible, Gus?” Now Cole studied the owner instead of the horse.
Gus hung his head, continuing to rub Lucy’s neck. “Maybe.”
“Do you have any idea who might have hurt her?”
He shifted his feet, looked distressed. “No. But somebody.”
Cole had a niggling thought. Could that somebody be Gus himself? Was he projecting his own actions onto others? “Did you accidentally hit her when you were working with her, Gus?”
The man’s head snapped up and he looked Cole in the eye. “Lord, no. I was inside the house, cleaning. When I came out to feed her, she was like this.”
Gus looked sincere enough, and Cole didn’t think he was lying. “Then maybe something spooked her. She swung her head and cracked it against a fence or a post. These things happen.” Cole turned back to the horse’s eye. “This should heal up without me having to sew it shut. You’ve caught it before it ulcerated. I’ll clean it and put some ointment in. You’ll have to put the medicine in twice a day.”
“I can take care of it, Doc. Just show me what to do.”
With Tess assisting, Cole used eyewash to flush the eye. Lucy squinted tightly, and Cole knew it was painful for her. He showed Gus how to apply the ointment. “She’s not going to like this, Gus, so you’ll probably need to tie her real snug in order to treat her. This eye is painful, and she’ll be sensitive to light. Can she stay inside the barn in a box stall?”
“Yes, sir. She has a nice clean stall inside the barn.”
“I’ll put a patch over it. We need to keep it clean, apply the ointment twice a day, and give her an anti-inflammatory. That will also help her with the discomfort.”
Tess left to get the other supplies Cole needed to finish the treatment.
“You’ve had a rough patch with your animals here the last couple days,” Cole said.
“Yeah, but Dodger’s doing fine now. Still scratches his ear once in a while though. Could there be something inserted under the skin of the flappy part?”
“You mean like a sticker or a grass seed? I didn’t see anything like that when I examined him.”
“I mean like . . . well, like an implant.”
Frowning, Cole searched Gus’s face. “An implant? What kind of an implant?”
Gus shook his head and avoided Cole’s gaze. “I don’t know. I . . . I don’t know. Growth hormone? A tracker?”
Did Gus insert something into Dodger’s ear? “Did you bring him with you?”