I loped along, checking on the babies every few minutes. I tried to keep them wet, cool. They were no longer whimpering, but they were still alive. I also poured water over my saddlebags to soak the leather. I tried to shake the image of the mother dog from my head. She had no doubt been between her pups and the den opening and had tried to carry the fire out and away with her.
When I cantered up to the back door, Gus came rushing out before I was off the horse. He knew something was wrong because I never rode an animal hard up to the barn.
“What’s the trouble?” Gus asked.
“I found some coyote pups. They’re injured.” I opened the pouch with the babies and he looked in with me.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
I blew out a breath, collecting myself. I looked at Gus. I couldn’t trust Felony alone with the old man. The horse might walk over him. “You take the pups into the kitchen. I’ll take care of the horse.”
Gus took the bags inside. I loosened Felony’s girth and took off his bridle. I led him over to the hot walker and clipped him up, left to make slow circles while he cooled down. I grabbed my big first aid kit from the barn.
Back in the kitchen I could see that Gus had carefully unloaded the puppies onto the table. The little female with the burned leg actually managed to drag herself a couple inches. The male didn’t move. I put my hand on the little body and felt no life. I stepped away from the table, poured myself a glass of water and drank it all down. I believed I was shaking, but I couldn’t see it in the hand that held the glass.
Zoe was at the table, looking up with obvious concern.
Gus brought me back to where I needed to be. “Well, let’s take care of this one,” he said.
“Okay.” I went back to the table. “Gus, go get me those little scissors you use for your mustache.”
Gus left and was back quickly.
I clipped away the fur above the burned area. The left paw was pretty much gone. But there was no bleeding. I told myself that was a good thing. I couldn’t believe the little girl was alive. I shook my head and looked over at Gus. “She ought to be dead,” I said.
“She’s tough.” The way he said it I knew he was already forming an attachment to the animal.
Gus tried to call the small-animal vet in town without success. I’d hardly ever used him anyway. My horse vet, Oliver, was two hundred miles away doing some work for a pack outfit in the high country. I looked at the little coyote and imagined her as a tiny horse. I went to the refrigerator and got some antibiotics, divided what I would have given a horse by a thousand and injected it. Then I mixed up some sugar and warm water and asked Gus to try to get some of it into the pup. I thought it might help with the shock.
“You okay in here?” I asked.
Gus didn’t look up. He used a dropper to put the sugar solution on the pup’s lips. “I’m fine.”
I called Zoe twice, but she wouldn’t budge from Gus’s side, so I left her. I went back out to put Felony away. With all my concern over the coyotes I hadn’t given much thought to what Felony might unexpectedly do. The horse had been great, steady, and still felt so as I finished unsaddling him and led him to his stall.
I returned to the house and made a bed out of sheets in the corner of the study. Gus came in and put the pup down in the nest. Zoe came close and Gus stopped her. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Gus, let Zoe check her out.”
Zoe sniffed the pup, then lay down, curling herself around the little thing. She gently licked at the burned leg.
“Maybe that’s the best thing,” Gus said.
I thought he was probably right.
Gus asked me if I was hungry and I told him I wasn’t. He then made me a sandwich and I ate it. That night I slept in the den on the recliner. Zoe stayed put beside the coyote.
The next morning, the puppy was struggling to move a little more. She would take a step, become exhausted, and fall over. Zoe remained by her. Gus tried again with the sugar solution, then with some warm milk. The pup licked at her lips finally and I could see Gus’s shoulders relax. I went out and fixed what needed fixing, worked a couple horses, then came back to check on the patient. I didn’t want to go into town, but Gus pretty much pushed me out of the house.
No doubt because of the coyote, I was hating people more than usual as I drove into town. I drove past the Wal-Mart that I refused to enter, past the McDonald’s that I refused to enter and past the church that I refused to enter. I glanced over at the parking lot of the Rusty Spur Motel, wondering if David Thayer’s car was there. When I’d called to set up lunch with David, he sounded cool. But why not? I hadn’t seen him since he was a kid. To him I was just some old fogey mate of his father’s. That was true enough. I told him we’d meet at the Little Winds Café. I’d suggested it because it worked at some kind of cosmopolitan front and I thought David might appreciate the effort. But also the food was the best in Highland, though that statement in and of itself was not all that significant.
I arrived first. The hostess, an overly skinny cowgirl I remembered from the barrel-racing event at the summer rodeo, led me to a booth against the far wall.
“How’s this, Mr. Hunt?” she asked.
“Just fine,” I said. “You’ve got the drop on me though. I don’t know your name.”
“It’s Becky.”
“Thanks, Becky.”
Highland was a small enough town that most people had a vague knowledge of who everyone was, but it did facilitate matters to be different in some way. In my case, in was the color of my skin. It could easily have been a problem for some folks, but it hadn’t turned out to be. I, of course, realized that I was referred to as the “black rancher.” I suppose had I been extremely handsome, I would have been the “good-looking, black rancher.”
I studied the menu, remembering a time when I would not have needed the narrow specs perched on my nose that fit too tightly against my temples. From where I sat I could look across the room and out the window at the street and the storefronts on the other side. A monstrous SUV pulled up at Ken’s Sporting Goods and four men got out, stretching and looking at the sky. I knew they were buying fishing licenses and I was a little envious. They were no doubt headed up into the Winds, with a stop first at the tribal office for permission, then the drive up. I considered the long drive through the reservation to the Owl Creek hills. The low, red and yellow ochre range always relaxed me, in spite of the heat, in spite of the arid desolation, probably because of it. I actually had a jar of soil from there on a shelf in my barn.
Two young men entered the restaurant. One was of medium height, about six feet, the other a littler taller and in the taller man I could see Howard’s eyes and cheekbones. They wore jeans, new Western boots and short-sleeved shirts. They were not so differently dressed from others in town. They were healthy looking and strong enough, but their postures said they weren’t ranch men. They walked like nothing really hurt.
I stood and signaled to them with a wave.
“John?”
“That’s me.” I shook David’s hand. I could see his mother in his face.
David introduced me to his friend, Robert. Robert managed to seem aloof without looking away.
I nodded and shook the man’s hand. “Come on, let’s sit down,” I said. I straightened the napkin in my lap and looked at David. “I can’t believe you’re all grown up. Last time I saw you, you were fifteen, I think. Considerably shorter.”