Chapter 18
Chapter
The rest of the day and the one following, my options ran circles through my head. There were few.
The first was to drag another rehabilitator into this mess and send the fawn away; from there I could lie and tell Broder I had the fawn put down for testing, or simply hope that getting her out of Burrsville would be enough to satisfy him.
But I couldn’t send her to another rehabilitator without telling them about her strange appetite, and if someone still agreed to take her, they’d be risking their license too. I knew a few who would still do it, purely to spite the government if nothing else, but I didn’t trust those few.
The second was to hope that David would hold up his end of our implicit bargain. He was better, gentler than his father and grandfather; I’d seen his restraint, his desire not to hurt the fawn even as she was hurting him. Part of me believed he would keep this secret.
Another part of me knew that faith in him was idiocy, and so I had a third option, which was to claim that he was trespassing on my property. I had a gate for a reason, and wild animals could not be expected to behave like pets when someone broke in and went sticking their hands into cages.
Afternoon of the second day dimmed into evening. When my phone finally rang, fear shot down my spine like an electric shock, but it was just a harried-sounding mom from down in the village, asking for help with the skunk her dog cornered in the garage. In the background, I heard children wailing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “They’re really worried about the skunk. I’m pretty sure Moose got a piece of him.”
“I’m on my way,” I told her.
The family’s garage was full of junk and reeked of spray, and it took me a while to locate the injured skunk.
The obstacle course of kayaks, long-unused car seats, and boxes of Christmas ornaments gave the skunk plenty of ways to avoid me.
Eventually, I shifted some of it into a funnel with my catch crate at the end, and as I moved a stack of boxes, a single, battered gay porn DVD stared up at me from the garage floor.
I put the boxes back.
“She was limping a little, but no visible blood,” I told the mother when I’d finally captured the skunk.
Behind her, three small faces and six small hands were pressed against the window, streaking the glass.
“She might still have been bitten, but probably nothing some rest and antibiotics can’t handle.
Did your dog get bit or sprayed or anything? ”
The mother turned and gave a broad smile and a thumbs-up to the kids in the window, who all started to clap and cheer. “Sorry, what?” she asked. “I wanted them to know she’s okay.”
“I was just asking about your dog, if he got bit or anything?”
“Oh, no, he’s fine. I think he got crop dusted, but I’ve got some tomato juice in the cupboard. That can be my husband’s job when he gets home; maybe he’ll learn his lesson about leaving the garage door open.”
I thought of the porn DVD and hesitated, wondering if I should tell her. Instead, I said, “If that doesn’t work, I know the feed store has some special shampoo.”
I drove home, repeatedly glancing at my phone, trying not to jinx myself by being thrilled at my luck.
I kept it on me as I examined the skunk; she did indeed have a bite wound in the meat of her hindquarters, but there was remarkably little tearing, the teeth having gone cleanly in and out.
I gave her a spray of antiseptic, made a mental note to call the vet for antibiotics, and made a space for her by splitting a stall in half with a makeshift barrier.
Her neighbor was a quiet woodchuck who hadn’t shown any inclination to pick fights, so I was hoping they could coexist peacefully with just a strip of chicken wire between them.
Night had settled over the sanctuary while I tended the skunk, and I did one last check of the stalls before heading to the house.
The silence that greeted me inside riddled me with guilt, in no small part because the peace and quiet was a blessed relief.
The fawn got up from her little flannel bed and came to greet me.
“You might’ve just gotten away with it,” I told her, my hand rounding the curve of her small head.
When my phone rang at six the next morning and I saw Evelyn’s name on the caller ID, I didn’t know what to think. I’d been bracing myself for Broder or the DEC, and my heart gave a hopeful skip at the sight of one of my friend’s names. Perhaps this was the olive branch I’d been waiting for.
“Hi, Evelyn.”
“Just exactly what the hell do you think you’re doing up there, Tess Wynne?”
The hope in my heart crumbled like ash. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t play dumb. I’m not falling for it. I tried to warn you and you didn’t listen, and now I know why.”
“You better start explaining the purpose of this call, because I do not have the patience for this shit.”
“David Abdee is the purpose of this call. Does that ring a bell?”
When I didn’t answer, she gave a long sigh.
“You know, I wanted to give you a chance to defend yourself, but I don’t think there’s anything you could say.
A boy, a teenager, tried to hide a bite wound from his parents so that you wouldn’t get in trouble.
How could you allow this to happen? This is sick. ”
“What exactly are you accusing me of, Evelyn?”
“That’s the problem—I don’t even know. The Tess I know would’ve never let someone get bitten by a wild animal, and she certainly wouldn’t have ever told them to hide it. Now I have to wonder what else you’re capable of.”
“So this kid trespasses on my property, refuses to leave when he’s told, gets bit, and I’m the problem here? You don’t want to tell your new best friends, the Abdees, to keep an eye on their son?”
“Well, you can bet they are now, whether I tell them to or not.”
“That’s great, hopefully they can keep him away from the matches and batteries.”
“You think this is a joke?” she hissed; I could almost feel the spittle. “This is funny to you?”
“I think it’s a fucking joke that you’re calling me about this. Who are you to reprimand me? Because you’re sure as hell not my friend. A friend wouldn’t have sat by silently while some Bible-thumping snake oil salesman broadcast his grand idea to bulldoze my sanctuary.”
This time it was her turn to fall silent.
I felt a wet trickle from my nose, dabbed at it: blood.
“What’s wrong, Evelyn? Did you hope I would just curl up and die without saying anything about it?
Did you think I’d pack up and move to some shitty little apartment at the Commons so your new best friend can have my land for his vanity project? ”
“No one is forcing you to do anything, Tess,” she said stiffly. “It’s a free country, and you can choose to sell or not. I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do with your property.”
“Oh, now you wouldn’t presume? You presumed a whole hell of a lot going into this phone call.”
“I can see you’re not planning to be rational about this, so—”
“Rational? I think I’m being perfectly fucking rational—”
“It’s good to know where you stand on helping your community—”
For a moment we were both shouting over each other. I pulled the phone away from my ear, came a hairsbreadth from smashing it against my countertop. Hot liquid ran over my upper lip, and I dabbed furiously at my nose.
“Listen to me,” I breathed. “You and your pastor and the whole town can go to hell. Do not ever call me again.”
I ended the call and set the phone down with exaggerated gentleness. A scarlet drop hit the screen a second later, and I grabbed a kitchen towel and stuffed the corner up my nose. A moment later, the fawn wandered into the kitchen, her nostrils flaring.
“Oh, fuck off,” I told her.