eight
Doctor Ernest Iglesias was a small, fit and muscular man of about thirty-five, dressed in a green overall and boots as if he’d just come up from the country.
A mop of shiny dark hair that was constantly falling down into his eyes caused him to toss his head back often, the way a horse might fight against too tight a rein.
His quick nervous energy instantly transformed the mood in any room he entered.
And the mood in the box when Maria showed him in was grim.
David and Ramon were both there, accompanying Estel, but an awkward silence hung between them. Neither knew what to say to the other, yet neither was willing to leave. Estel was breathing feverishly, his head resting in Ramon’s lap.
“What have we here then?” the vet asked, dropping his bag beside him in the sawdust.
“He got a cut on his frog from a dirty piece of tin, a ring pull,” Ramon offered. “We treated it. I thought we’d thoroughly cleaned the wound, but it looks like infection’s taken hold.”
“I cleaned it properly,” said David in his halting Catalan, sounding slightly defensive.
Before approaching the horse, the vet pulled on a pair of thin latex gloves, then took a few seconds to stroke Estel’s neck, letting him get used to his scent before moving on to his examination of the leg.
The bandage David had applied the day before looked like it was holding well.
But again, Estel reacted aggressively at his attempt to touch it.
“OK, can you… sorry, what’re your names?”
“Sorry, Ramon. And this is David.”
“Right, I’m Ernest. Ramon, you keep holding his head and keep him calm.
He knows you best, right? And David, I’m going to need you to help me undress the hoof.
Do you have a hobble or pull-up strap? Both, preferably.
Handling his hoof is going to be painful and we need to stop him kicking.
First though, I’m going to give him a mild sedative just to calm him down, so he doesn’t start panicking with everything we’re doing. ”
“Back in a minute.”
David slipped from the box, glad to be free of the tense atmosphere, what with the sick horse and Ramon just there, but not saying anything.
Thank God the vet had arrived to shatter the silence—he’d been about to go crazy in there.
He grabbed a leather hobble and a pull-up strap from the tack room and went back to the box.
First they buckled the hobble around Estel’s hind legs to stop him trying to get up, and then slipped the pull-up strap carefully around his front leg.
Swollen and sensitive as it was, David tried to keep his touch as light as he could, but it was a precaution to stop Estel from lashing out in pain.
By that time the sedative Ernest had injected into him was taking effect, and he let himself be handled almost without complaint.
Then while David controlled the pull-up strap, Ernest set about gently removing the bandages they had applied the other day. As he worked he talked:
“What I can tell you, almost certainly, even without seeing the wound is that it’s cellulitis—no, not the complaint that we humans get: same name, different disease.
It’s an infection of Staphylococcus or Streptococcus bacteria getting in through a minor wound.
We’re lucky we’ve caught it fast. Otherwise your horse could become permanently lame.
We’re going to clean the wound again, dress it, and inject him with some nuclear-strength antibiotics.
Then as soon as the swelling starts to go down, we need to get him walking again.
Just moderate, leading him around the yard gently.
That’ll reduce the edema and help bring his circulation back.
I’ll come back tomorrow to check up on him.
And hopefully, if miracles exist, we may have caught it in time. ”
David and Ramon hung on his every word, following his advice exactly. As the vet stripped the bandages away, David held his breath.
“Who bandaged him?”
“I did,” admitted David, expecting a sermon.
But the vet’s only comment was:
“Nice work.”
“Not so nice when he’s lying here sick.”
“I get you,” Ernest said. “But if it’s any consolation, the infection probably got in before you got to it. The wound looks clean, and it was well dressed. So don’t beat yourself up on that score.”
They watched as the vet cleaned the wound afresh, and redressed it. This time he wound a compression bandage all the way up Estel’s leg to above her knee.
“It’ll help bring the swelling down. Now, the nuclear option,” he said, taking a large syringe from his bag. “Just penicillin, since we’ve caught it early. We’ll save the trimethoprim-sulfonamide for another day, a back-up.”
The vet continued to talk on, and Ramon nodded along, but David found himself zoning out, unable to follow the complex technical conversation in a language he’d been struggling to learn for less than a year, and only really speaking in his few months living here.
How had he been so stupid? Kissing a bloody copper, I ask you!
Did he need his head examined? And now that his horse was sick, Ramon was clearly not going anywhere fast. David was going to have to play along, keep him off the scent, just hold him at arm’s length until his horse was well and he could ride off into whatever Catalan Mountie sunset he fancied.
Trouble was the guy was a little too cute, dangerously so.
It had happened so fast. David had just meant to move past him, get up the track, and back into the light.
But whenever he spent time down at the pond in the quarry, he’d get into one of those moods, listening to the nightingales and the cicadas, wishing he wasn’t so damn alone out here, that he had someone for him.
His stumble had been real, but it almost felt predestined, the way he’d just sort of slipped into Ramon’s arms, like a swooning teenager or something—talk about useless!
But it had felt immediately right. Ramon’s arms holding him strongly, firmly.
His will had just sort of dissolved, and kissing the guy’d been bliss.
Hot full lips—damn the bloke knew how to kiss!
Until then he wasn’t even sure that Ramon was—yeah, right, of course he knew, had known the instant they locked eyes in the tack room. Who was he kidding!
It was ironic really. Back home he couldn’t have done a thing.
Here, he was free, no one knew him. He could be anyone, act how he wanted…
love who he wanted. And it had happened, but because of everything back home, he couldn’t act on it.
Not with a cop, anyway. One thing was sure, he needed to keep well clear of Ramon. Starting now.
The vet had given Estel another smaller injection, an anti-inflammatory, and had slipped off the hobble and pull-up strap. So David was doing nothing useful here.
“Need to get some air,” he said, and taking the gear, left the box.
Returning it to the tack room, he then wandered along the boxes, checking on the horses.
It was after nine and Maria had gone home now.
He came to Boira, the filly he’d caught in the parking lot a few months ago, whose escapade had led to his finding a berth here.
“Hello, girl,” he whispered, giving her a horse treat from his pocket.
He always carried a packet of apple or carrot pieces with him nowadays, better for her teeth than the barley sugars he’d tempted her with back then.
Over the last few months he’d been allowed to keep working with Boira, one of his favorites in the whole stables.
She’d be ready for saddle pads in a few weeks, and after that a proper saddle. But slowly does it.
He became aware of a presence behind him. The cop just wouldn’t be put off.
“Are you going to break her for riding?”
“Have to see. Carme hasn’t said. Her decision.”
As he spoke, David’s voice gave a weird wobble, so he clamped his jaw shut, just kept stroking Boira, and scratching her forehead.
“She’s a beautiful filly.”
David nodded, but didn’t turn around, keeping his attention on the horse in the box. There was a short silence.
“The vet’s gone. Said he’ll be back to check on him in the morning.”
“OK.”
“I’m going to sit with him tonight, make sure he’s OK.”
David nodded again, then said:
“I’m… ah… bed.”
“Right, but that’s where I am if… if you need… ah… want… anything?”
“Sure, sleep well,” David got out.
“Hah, doubt I’ll be sleeping much,” Ramon quipped as he walked away.
David sighed heavily and buried his face in Boira’s mane.