Chapter 4
Chapter
The fawn survived the first night. I slept in my armchair beside the observation pen, waking when my neck got too stiff or my head fell forward.
Each time I stirred, I peered at her in the dim light of the lamp and saw her sides rising and falling steadily.
But neonates were fragile, and the first few days of this fawn’s life had been nothing but stress.
When I woke for the final time at dawn, she’d lifted her head and was looking around with her nostrils flaring. I breathed a relieved sigh and sank down on the floor beside her, stroking one gentle hand over her head.
“There’s a girl. You’re a tough one, aren’t you?”
I got up to make her a bottle, seeing that the case of whitetail replacer Sarah sent with me would be gone by tomorrow.
I didn’t have any in the house, so I’d have to take a drive into town and hope Georgie still had some.
The fawn struggled up to her feet as I brought the milk over, stiff and tentative on her injured shoulder, but I was happy she was willing to stand on it at all.
She snatched at the bottle with a greedy vigor beyond her size, and I tried not to think of the rows of pale teeth splitting her gums, the teeth she shouldn’t have.
When the fawn had eaten, I moved on to the squirrels and the young raccoon, the rest of my usual chores.
The other animals were doing well, the raccoon certainly ready to begin his transition back to the wild, the squirrels gaining weight and mobility, and yet I found myself unsettled as I cleaned their cages.
Winter loomed, no matter how the vibrant cluster of dahlias blooming just outside the window may have belied it, and the question of how best to care for the fawn already nagged at the back of my mind.
Without Mac to help her through, there was no way I’d be able to release her before next spring, and keeping a young whitetail for five or six months was no small task.
One day at a time, I told myself, the same thing my mother used to say when I became impatient with the routines of weeding and planting and harvesting. One thing at a time.
Patience, at least, I had learned.
With the most pressing chores done, I went out to the truck and headed back into the valley.
This was twice as much as I normally left the sanctuary in a given week, and as I pulled into the parking lot of the feed store, wincing as the truck thunked into a pothole hard enough to rattle my teeth, I thought it was three times as much as I would like.
As usual, the only other vehicle in the lot was Georgie’s little beat-up Ford sedan, although I saw an Army recruiter had set up shop in one of the empty storefronts.
I hurried into the feed store, unable to shake the urgency that pressed down like a hand on my neck.
The old automatic doors shrieked as if I’d deeply inconvenienced them.
The scent of sawdust and chicken feed and fertilizer wasn’t as comforting as usual, but Georgie was in her usual place behind the desk, a yellowed magazine open in front of her. She winced at the sound of the doors.
“Hey, Tess. Gotta do something about those, don’t I?”
“They’d drive me nuts if I were you and had to sit here and listen to them all day.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t open all that often.” Georgie’s chuckle was tinged with bitterness. “So, what can I do for you?”
“Well, first—” I reached into my satchel and pulled out a magazine thick as a book, its protective plastic crinkling. Georgie’s eyes lit up.
“September 1971?”
“Yep, all three hundred pages of it.”
She took off the plastic and flipped it open almost reverently. I’d never understood Georgie’s love of vintage fashion magazines, which didn’t seem to influence her actual fashion sense, and she’d never bothered to explain it—it seemed personal, so I simply accepted it.
“It looks brand new,” she said softly, “like no one’s ever touched it.”
“Maybe no one has. The guy said it was mint.”
“What guy?”
“Ah-ah.” I wagged my finger at her. “If I tell you, where will I get my surprises from?”
“Well, thank you, I appreciate it.”
“No problem. So, do you happen to have any whitetail replacer in stock?”
She raised a brow. “You’re the second person this week to come in looking for that. What are you doing with a fawn this time of year?”
“Same fawn, I think. Girl with blue hair came in looking for it?”
“That’s the one.”
“Yeah. Weird case. Thinking it might be a farmed deer or something. My resident doe didn’t take to her, so it’s all on me.”
“Ah. Well, I know I have a couple boxes of whitetail replacer on the shelf. I’ll check the back for you and order some more if I’m low.”
“Thanks, you’re the best.”
I went to the usual aisle and took the two boxes of milk replacer I found there, which would probably only be enough to get the fawn through another week.
I went up and down a few other aisles while I was there, trying to remember what I needed—a 21-millimeter wrench to replace the one I broke changing the U-bolts on the truck, another tube of caulk for the joints in the house, a couple packages of tulips to do up the front planters. In my infinite time, I thought wryly.
When I went back to the counter, Georgie had another three boxes of milk replacer she found in the back.
“This enough, or should I put an order in?”
“Might as well—I know I’ll use it eventually.”
She cashed me out, and I pretended I didn’t notice how empty the cash drawer was.
“You hear about the Pentecostal church?” she asked.
“They got a new pastor. He came in here just twenty minutes ago looking for squirrel traps, says the parsonage attic is full of them. I told him not to bother with any of that and just give you a call.”
“Oh, yeah, I saw the sign. How long do you think that’ll last?”
She sucked her teeth. “You know, I wish ’em the best. Not sure if it’s a cause or effect, but I know this town was doing a lot better when we had five church services going every Sunday.
Plus, I think we should be grateful for every drop of new blood we can get. He’s got a wife and a son, a teenager.”
“Wow, kind of a rough move for the kid.”
“I know it—I heard the graduating class this year was only twenty. But Ev’s determined to help make it stick, so we’re all going to do the welcome wagon thing this Saturday. You want to come?”
“Sure, I can make something and bring it by. What time?”
“I’ll tell Ev to text you; I think she said noon but that wasn’t definite.
You know, I can’t even remember the last time we had a new pastor in town.
Must’ve been—maybe ’82? I remember because that was the year the 4-H building burned down, and they asked the new Wesleyan pastor to say a prayer even though he didn’t know a single person here. It was embarrassing. Do you remember—”
She paused. Confusion clouded her eyes, and I knew she was trying to work out how she remembered me being part of the bucket brigade in ’82 when I didn’t look old enough to have even been alive at the time.
I plucked at the strings of my magic as gently as a harp, channeling just enough influence to make her lose her train of thought.
Georgie cleared her throat uncertainly. She glanced at the cash register, at her own hands poised over the counter. “Did I give you your change?”
“You’re keeping it,” I said. “I’ll text Evelyn and see what’s up for Saturday. Thanks!”
I turned and hurried back out to the truck before she could say anything else. I hoped she would go back to her magazine and not think any more about the fire in ’82, or who might or might not have been there.