LITMIR.BIZ

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cup and left.

      “Now that the Grinch has departed,” a small blond woman said, “I’m Liz Carlyle. I just graduated from Mississippi State last year. I’m on small animals, but I kind of swing where I’m needed. I really want to go into ophthalmology eventually, but I can’t go back to school until I make some serious money, or until and unless my husband gets one heck of a promotion.” She shrugged and turned pink with embarrassment.

      Sarah thought she was very young indeed.

      “That’s the current veterinary staff,” Rick said. “We’re piecing out for the first few months with a roster of part-timers from midnight to eight. So far, there hasn’t been much call that late. You’ve met Alva Jean, who handles the desk during the day, does the billing and such. Mabel Halliburton comes in at four, so you’ll mostly be working with her. She kind of mothers us all, and she’s a wonder with the paperwork. Does our ordering, backs up Alva Jean. We’re still hiring kennel and cleanup staff. People keep quitting on us after a week or so. Nobody seems to want to work so hard for minimum wage.”

      “Go figure,” Liz whispered.

      Rick glared at her. “We’re going to need at least three more vet techs once we’re fully up and running, but at the moment we’re making do with Jack for large and Nancy here for small, and part-timers from other clinics hired on an hourly basis.”

      Sarah took the sure, brown hand of the woman who offered it. “Nancy Mayfield. I do anything and everything. At the moment I’ve got to go get Dr. Mac ready for his hip dysplasia.”

      “You’re assisting?”

      “Yep. I’m better at surgery than Jack. He’s better at post-op. We complement each other.”

      The telephone on the wall beside the door rang. Liz jumped. Rick answered it and listened for a moment. “Yeah, yeah, Mac. She’s on her way.”

      Nancy Mayfield grinned at Sarah and stood up slowly. Sarah saw her catch her breath. The woman stood for a moment with her eyes closed.

      She’s in pain, Sarah thought.

      Nancy caught her eye. “Jack and I are a lot alike. He raced, I rode hunters and jumpers in the show ring. We’re both too stiff to do it any longer.” She glanced at her own strong hands. “Nothing wrong with these. It’s my neck that gives me fits. Ah, well, I’d better head on out before Dr. Mac explodes.”

      “We’d better all head on out,” Rick said. “Sorry you couldn’t meet everybody at one time, Sarah.”

      “That’s okay. If I see anybody in greens with an animal under his arm, I’ll assume he’s a staff member.”

      “Nice to have met you,” Bill Chumney said. “Now I’m off to exercise Marvin’s wings for him. This time I think he’s really going to fly.”

      The telephone rang again, and Nancy answered it. “I’m coming!” She listened a moment, then turned to the room. “Scratch the dysplasia. We’ve got a couple of bull terriers who’ve just been hit by a car.”

      “Damn!” Rick said.

      Chairs scraped. Bill Chumney reached the door first. The moment it opened, Sarah heard the howls from the waiting room.

      “Oh, God,” Liz whispered. And ran to help.

      Sarah ran, as well. She noticed on her way by that Mark Scott stood in the door of his office. “Come on,” she said. “We may need another pair of hands.”

      A broad, gray-haired woman, in a pair of disreputable shorts and a shirt that said Kiss the Gardener, sat on her knees on the floor just inside the door cradling the body of a dog wrapped in a blanket. She sobbed, the dog whined pitiably. The blanket in which it was wrapped was bloodstained.

      “George is still in the car, I couldn’t carry him. Please, please, they’re badly hurt.” She grabbed Sarah’s hand. “Don’t let them die!”

      Sarah dropped to her knees and pulled the dog’s lips back. The dog made no attempt to bite at her, which in itself showed how close to shock she was. The gums were too pale. “Nancy! Ringer’s stat—push. And get out a couple of surgery packs and some Ketamine, in case we have to immobilize fast. Call Jack. Tell him to bring a couple of gurneys.”

      The dog whined again. Mark said over her shoulder, “I can carry him to OR.”

      Sarah shook her head. “Could do more harm than good. Go help get the other one in.” She began to touch the dog gently, expecting the terrier to turn on her. “What happened?”

      “They’re never out of the yard! Never!” the woman sobbed. “This morning we had a new meter reader. He must have left the gate ajar.” She caressed the white fur beneath her hand. “I was planting azaleas, and then I heard these brakes screech and…” She broke down completely.

      “Here you go, Doc,” Jack Renfro said.

      Half an hour later, both dogs lay on surgical tables on either side of the small-animal operating theater. Mac Thorn worked on the large male dog, while Sarah worked on the female.

      “She got a crack on the head,” Sarah said to Jack. “But the X rays say she doesn’t have any broken bones or skull fracture. Both her eyes look normal—pupils are the same size and responding. Not sure about internal bleeding, but if there was any, it seems to have stopped. We need to clean her up, stitch her up and watch her.” She worked steadily, confidently, and in silence except for an occasional instruction to Jack.

      Mac Thorn, on the other hand, kept up a running stream of curses, demands and snarls, which didn’t seem to bother Nancy Mayfield a bit, but which occasionally made Sarah lift her head in astonishment. Sarah finished with her dog, left it to Jack to bed down in the ICU, and moved over to Mac while she pulled off her gloves. “Need a hand?”

      “No, dammit! Blasted idiots! Let dogs run loose! Broken pelvis—have to pin it, blast it. People!”

      Sarah was certain Nancy was grinning, but that was impossible to tell with her mask on. Sarah grinned back and got out of the way. She went to find the dogs’ owner.

      Not in the waiting room. Odd. She walked back down the hall, and heard voices from Mark’s office. She pushed open the door. The owner of the dogs pushed herself out of the chair across from Mark’s desk.

      “Are they going to be all right?” She clutched a cup of what appeared to be coffee.

      “Mrs. Jepson needed someplace quiet to sit,” Mark said. “And something hot to drink.”

      Sarah looked at him with new eyes. So he wasn’t a total dolt.

      “Mrs. Jepson,” she said, “I’m Sarah Marsdon. What are the dogs’ names?”

      “George and Marian.” Mrs. Jepson began to cry again.

      “They’re beautiful bull terriers. And they’re tough little critters, you know.”

      “Otherwise, General George Patton would never have kept one with him,” Mark said.

      “Oh, you know that? That’s why my husband insisted we get one. George and Marian are our fourth and fifth.” She sniffed. “They’re the last pups my husband and I bought before he died.”

      “Marian may have some internal trauma that hasn’t shown up yet, Mrs. Jepson, so we’ll be watching her very carefully. But I cleaned her cuts and stitched her up. I doubt she’ll even have scars, once the hair grows back.”

      “And George? She’s never been without him. They were litter mates.”

      “Dr. Thorn is the best surgeon there is,” Sarah said, although she had no way of knowing whether that was true. “He’ll talk to you himself…”

      She stopped. That would not be a good idea. Dr. Mac Thorn’s bedside manner would probably involve blasting Mrs. Jepson for something that was only marginally her fault. “Tell you what,

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