Snow In Winter Chapter 2

Snow In Winter 2


Almost perfect, Annie amended to herself. The primary feathers on the same side as the ugly laceration drooped slightly. Gently she smoothed the wing back to a more natural position , but the wing drooped again when she moved her hand away. Nerve damage ,she made a mental note , realizing at the same time she had forgotten to start a chart, or possibly a muscle tear. Using her little finger she gingerly lifted the horse’s lip and checked the color of the gums. Nice and pink. She turned to rummage in the cabinet behind her. Locating a neonatal stethoscope, one of the most useful “freebies” she’d ever received from a pharmaceutical company in return for a large purchase, she placed the diaphragm against the silken hide and held her breath. The creature’s pulse was strong and regular, the rate about 120 beats per minute - what she’d expect from a dog the same size. Was that normal? Who knew?

She glanced up at the client, who was waiting patiently. “Not shocky,” she said. “In fact, quite stable. I gather there wasn’t much blood loss? And what the heck did this?” She took a breath, making a determined effort to control the several hundred run-on questions she felt welling up in her brain, waiting for release.

“No, I managed to stop the bleeding fairly quickly, “ the man said, but offered no further information.

Annie squinted thoughtfully at him for a moment. “Right. OK, now let’s look at that wound.” She raised the horse’s wing again without objection from its owner and surveyed the laceration. It was quite clean, not at all deep, and looked fresh. “I can probably suture this right away with a local anesthetic,” she said, “since the wound is fresh.”

“He doesn’t need any anesthetic , “ the man said. “Just get it sewed up.”

Annie straightened up and looked the man in the eye, more than a little annoyed that he was presuming to tell her how to do her job. “Ever been sewed up?” she asked. “It HURTS. In MY clinic, we use proper methods of pain control.” She glared, waiting for him to protest but instead was surprised to see an expression of approval cross his features.

“Go ahead, then,” he said , “and tell me what you want me to do.”

He appeared capable enough, Annie decided, watching as his stained, calloused hands expertly lifted the creature out of the box and steadied it on the metal exam table. Its hooves slipped slightly on the polished surface, and Annie cast around for something in the clinic on which they could find better purchase, finally settling on a ribbed, plastic floor mat. The animal immediately appeared more comfortable and stood quietly. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said and slipped out into the back hallway, made her way to the surgical suite and began yanking supplies off shelves and piling them on a wheeled Mayo stand. She fought back the pervading sense of unreality by concentrating on the task at hand. Grabbing a sterile surgery pack , she plopped it unceremoniously on the stand, along with suture material, a jar of gauze sponges soaking in thick blue surgical scrub, a pair of sterile latex gloves, a vial of lidocaine and a small syringe with a tiny needle, then rattled back down the hall with it to the exam room.

“We’ll numb the area with a little lidocaine,” she explained as she filled the syringe, “and then clean the whole thing up and suture it closed. Sometimes the lidocaine stings a bit, “ she added “but if I get it right, only the first injection will sting – then we’re home free.”

At that point the task became rote , automatic. There was a wound at hand that needed to be repaired – one of her favorite challenges. She forgot the lateness of the hour, the strangeness of the owner, the complete unbelievability of the patient and the situation. She knew her job, at any rate.

She washed her hands quickly and turned back to the tiny horse. Placing one hand on the warm, silky hide so that her left thumb and forefinger stabilized the edges of the wound, she chose a spot at one end of the laceration to begin. She glanced up at the man. “OK, we’re about ready here. But if you’re going to be my helper I need to know your name.” She laughed. “I haven’t even made a chart for you.”

The man nodded his head and touched a finger to the brim of the hat he was still wearing in a kind of antiquated salute. “Name’s O’Ryan.”

“Ok, Mr. O’Ryan, “ Annie smiled, picking up the syringe of lidocaine. “Steady now. One little stick-“ she pushed the needle into the flesh and injected a drop of the drug, which made a small but visible bleb under the skin. A minute drop of blood blossomed scarlet at the injection site. The horse shifted and twitched his hide slightly but otherwise remained still. “Good. That was the worst one.” She continued to infiltrate the area with the lidocaine, each successive injection entering a spot that was already numb, and advancing the chemical on down one side of the laceration, then back up the other side. After a few minutes she looked up. “That should do it. Great holding job.” The man O’Ryan nodded once. “What next?”

“Next, we disinfect the area a bit. Now this is a very clean cut, “ Annie said, glancing up at O’Ryan, who remained silent, revealing nothing, “but I’m still going to do a quick surgical prep. No shaving, though.” It would have been a shame to shave a swath through the fine silvery hair, which was thin enough in any case. She smoothed the bubbly blue solution over the gash and gently rinsed it off with a few squirts of saline out of a plastic squeeze-bottle. “That will do. And now…we sew.”

Annie laid out the sterile latex gloves and opened the surgical pack and a foil-wrapped coil of suture. Slipping the gloves on, she then picked a needle holder and the tweezer-like thumb forceps out of the pack and shook out the suture, to which a small curved needle was already attached. The long strand fell away from the wrapper and she caught it up with her little finger, allowing the excess to come to rest on the open pack. She rested her elbows on the table and took a deep breath, conscious of the tension running along her spine like an electric current. A wound was a wound. She loved the rhythm of it: a flick of the wrist to push the needle through the skin, then grab it with the needle holders, pull it on through, now twirl the wrist to wrap the suture around itself in a square knot, and a small, quick tug to tighten. Flick, pull, twirl, tug. She sewed, placing a tidy line of purple x’s down the length of the cut. Within minutes it was done.

She surveyed her work with satisfaction. What had been a ragged gash was now a neat seam. The patient curled up quietly on the blue wool in the carrier where the man had carefully settled him.

“Those sutures should stay in about 10 days to two weeks. Please be sure he doesn’t bother them. If there are any problems—“ she shrugged, “well, you know where to find me.”

“What do I owe you?” he asked, and she laughed a little, stretching. “I really have no idea. “

He closed the top of the carrier and straightening, came to stand close to her. She could smell the outdoorsy scent of him , woodsmoke and damp leaves and something she associated with a particularly fragrant brand of pipe tobacco. His hazel eyes caught hers, then dropped to her neck. He reached out and delicately flicked the necklace she wore. “How did you come by this?” His fingertips left traces of coolness on her skin, like a touch of frost, and she shivered.

She reached up, feeling the small silver pendant in order to remind herself which necklace she had put on that morning. It was a tiny, primitive female figure, its rudimentary arms stretched overhead to encircle an amethyst. “Oh, this one,” she recalled, “I got it in Sulfer Springs.” Sulfer Springs was a small, avant-garde college town some miles north. “It reminded me of a predynastic Egyptian goddess figure, “ she explained, even then wondering why she did. “I found it in the Silver Store.”

“The Healer,” he said, meeting her eyes again. “You don’t find her. She choses you.”

Annie blinked. In a few seconds he was gone and his burden with him. Strangely, though she could recall virtually every minute of her treatment, she could not remember his leaving.

On the exam table , its iridescence reflected dimly on the metal surface, lay a large, perfect pearl.