7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
CALEB
Bear hasn’t eaten in three days.
The bowl sits by the door of the Airstream, where I put it this morning, kibble dry and untouched. Same as yesterday. Same as the day before. He’s lying on the mat with his head between his paws, watching me with those steady brown eyes, and his tail doesn’t lift when I crouch beside him.
“Come on, bud.” I hold a piece of jerky under his nose. He sniffs it once and turns away.
That’s when I know this isn’t the heat. This isn’t a mood. Something’s wrong.
I run my hands along his ribs, his belly, his hindquarters.
He lets me, and that alone tells me how bad it is, because Bear used to snap at hands near his stomach.
I found him six months ago by the side of the road, forty pounds underweight, with a chain mark around his neck and a flinch that went bone-deep.
Took three months before he’d let me touch him without flinching.
Now he rolls onto his side for me, and I can feel his abdomen is tender, tight, and warmer than it should be.
He’s also lost weight. Not obvious under the fur, but my hands know this dog. He’s thinner than last week.
I sit back on my heels. The workshop has a list of jobs that need doing. Hank Miller’s transmission. The south paddock gate that’s hanging crooked. A set of brake pads for Amy’s truck. All of it can wait.
I pull out my phone.
The clinic number is saved in my contacts because Ethan made everyone save it when the new vet arrived. I stare at it for a long time. Seven digits and the name DR. R. MARSH that I haven’t let myself think about since the stable yard.
There’s a vet in Haverfield, forty minutes east. I looked it up the other night, after the gig, sitting on this step with this phone and this problem already forming. Dr. Carson. Large-animal specialist. Doesn’t do house calls.
Bear hates being in the truck. I’ve tried.
The sound of the engine puts him flat on the ground with his ears back, shaking.
Last time I tried to lift him in, he bit me.
Not hard, not to hurt, just panic. Whatever happened to this dog before I found him involved a truck, and I’m not putting him through a forty-minute journey in one.
Which leaves one option.
I make the call.
She answers on the third ring. “Wild Briar Creek Veterinary, this is Regan.”
Her voice is professional and steady. There’s no trace of the woman whose face went white in a stable yard four days ago.
“It’s Caleb. Callahan.” Unnecessary. She knows who I am. But the words come out and I can’t take them back. “My dog’s sick. He hasn’t eaten in days and his belly’s tender. He doesn’t like trucks, which means I’d rather not bring him in.”
A pause. Two seconds. Three.
“Where are you?”
“The Airstream. Edge of the ranch property, past the treeline. Follow the track past the workshop.”
“I know where it is. Maeve told me.” Another pause, shorter. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”
“Fine.”
I hang up. Set the phone on the step. Look at Bear.
“She’s coming here,” I tell him. “You’re going to let her look at you because you need help and she’s the only one who can give it. And I’m going to stand here and not lose my shit. We clear?”
Bear’s tail moves. One slow sweep across the mat.
“Good talk.”
She pulls up in a white truck with the clinic’s name on the side. New decal, not quite straight. She gets out carrying a canvas bag over one shoulder and a smaller case in her other hand, and she’s dressed for work: jeans, boots, flannel with the sleeves rolled to the elbow.
The cicadas are screaming. Late August, and the heat in this clearing is heavy, damp, sticking to your skin and staying there.
She pushes hair off her face with the back of her wrist and looks at the Airstream.
At the workshop. At the clearing, the fire pit, the laundry line, the two pine trees, and the life I’ve built between them that wasn’t designed for visitors.
Her face doesn’t change. She takes it in and moves on.
“Where is he?” she asks.
“Inside. He won’t come out for strangers.”
She nods. No offense taken. She sets her bags down on the workbench outside the Airstream door and crouches low, making herself small. Then she waits.
I tell myself I’m watching her work. I’m cataloging her the way I catalog exits, without deciding to.
The sleeves rolled to the elbow. The dust on the knee of her jeans. The piece of hair that won’t stay in the knot. Three things I’ve got no business noticing.
She’s been in my clearing ninety seconds and I already want her gone, want her close.
I fold my arms and lean on the workshop wall and keep my mouth shut.
I’ve seen vets work. Doc Henley used to barrel in, with big hands and a loud voice. Good vet, but terrible for animals who were scared. He’d have had Bear backed into a corner in thirty seconds.
She doesn’t barrel in. She sits on the ground by the door, cross-legged, and pulls a treat from her pocket. Holds it on her open palm. Says nothing. Just sits.
Bear watches her from the mat. His ears are forward, not flat. That’s something.
A minute passes. Two. I lean against the workshop wall, fold my arms, and wait. She’s clearly doing something deliberate. I’m not going to interrupt it.
Bear stretches his neck toward her hand. Sniffs. Pulls back. Sniffs again. His nose touches her palm, and he takes the treat, careful, gentle. His tail gives one cautious wag.
Six months of work. Six months of sitting on the floor of this Airstream, hand out, waiting, earning every inch. And she’s done it in ninety seconds with a treat and a steady voice.
Something happens in my chest. I don’t let it.
“Hey there,” she says. Low, steady. The same voice she used on Birdie in the stable yard, the same voice she used to use on the barn cats behind the school when we were sixteen and she’d spend her lunch break earning their trust one handful of kibble at a time.
“You’re alright. I just want to have a look at you. ”
She moves slowly. One hand extended, palm up. Bear sniffs her wrist, her forearm. Licks her knuckle once. She scratches the spot behind his left ear, the one he likes, and his eyes half-close.
This dog trusts nobody. Me, yes. Mason, because Mason is small and has the patience of a kid who grew up around horses. That’s it. The list has been two people for half a year.
She’s been in this clearing for four minutes and the list is three.
“Can I come in?” she asks. She’s asking the dog, not me.
Bear’s tail sweeps the mat again. She takes it as a yes and moves through the doorway on her knees, slow, keeping her body lower than his.
The Airstream is small. Standing room for one person, barely.
She works in the space between the door and the mat, her bag open beside her, and I stay outside because there isn’t room for both of us and because watching her from here is already more than I can handle.
Her hands move over Bear’s abdomen. She palpates, slow and methodical. Bear tenses once, and she stops, waits, then continues. She checks his gums, his lymph nodes, the inside of his ears. She pulls a thermometer from her bag and takes his temperature, and he doesn’t flinch.
“How old is he?” she asks, not looking up.
“Don’t know. Vet in Lewistown guessed four or five when I got him. So five or six now.”
“When did the appetite loss start?”
“Three days ago. Maybe four. He was picking at his food before that.”
“Any vomiting? Diarrhea?”
“No vomiting. Stool’s been loose.”
She nods. Works her fingers along his abdomen again, pressing gently.
“He’s got some inflammation in his gut. Could be a few things.
I want to rule out the serious ones.” She sits back and wipes her hands on her jeans.
“I’d want to run blood work and a fecal panel.
I can take the samples here, run them at the clinic, and have results by tomorrow. ”
“What are the serious ones?”
“Pancreatitis. An obstruction, though I’m not feeling one.
Could be a parasite load from his time as a stray that’s flared up.
” She looks at me. Steady. “The blood work will tell us more. But he’s going to need a treatment plan.
Anti-inflammatories, a dietary change, possibly a course of medication.
I’d want to check on him every few days until we know what we’re dealing with. ”
Every few days. Her, here, in my clearing, with her hands on my dog and her voice in this space where nobody comes.
“How long?”
“Depends on what the bloods show. Two weeks minimum. Could be longer if it’s something chronic.”
Two weeks. Minimum.
I look at Bear. He’s resting his chin on her knee. His eyes are closed. He looks more comfortable than he has in days, and it’s because of her, and I don’t know what to do with that.
“Fine,” I say. “Do whatever you need to do.”
She nods. Opens her case. Draws blood with quick, clean movements, Bear barely flinching.
She collects the fecal sample, labels everything, packs it away.
Her hands are steady. Her movements are efficient.
She doesn’t waste a motion, doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t ask me to hold the dog because she doesn’t need me to.
Bear lies still for her. Bear lies still for this woman he only met today, and all I can do is stand outside my own Airstream and watch.
She backs out of the doorway and stands. Brushes dirt off her knees. “I’ll call you tomorrow with the results. For now, keep him on a bland diet. Boiled chicken, white rice. Small meals, three or four times a day.”
“Okay.”
She picks up her bags. Looks at the clearing one more time. At the workshop, the fire pit, the sky going pink behind the ridge.
“He’s a good dog,” she says.
“I know.”
She walks to her truck. Opens the door. Turns back. “Caleb.”
I wait.
“I’ll take care of him.”
She’s talking about Bear. She’s only talking about Bear. But the words hit me where they shouldn’t.
She gets in the truck and drives away. The dust settles behind her.
Bear is still lying on the mat, his nose toward the door, watching the space where she was.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
He doesn’t listen.
Neither, it turns out, do I.