CHAPTER 98
DAKOTA
Am I getting used to flying around the skies with my mate?
Absolutely not. Every time he dips and there’s an updraft, my heart goes into my throat.
Do I think he’s going to drop me? Of course not.
I know Murr would rather crash to the ground himself than lose his grip on me.
But it’s one thing to be on an airplane, and another to have your feet dangling as someone else carries you two hundred feet into the air.
Do I have a choice in the matter? Not really.
Dottie needs meds, and we need to cover a lot of ground quickly, so here we are, flying over green fields and old broken highways, looking for something promising.
After a while, one broken down building starts to look the same as another, and I begin to despair.
How do we find anything in this world without a map?
Without the internet? What exactly does a really big horse farm look like anyhow?
After a few hours of flying, I’m about to give up and tell Murr to head back so we can find the nearest hospital, when we pass over a small pond. On the other side of the pond is a herd of cattle.
A really, really big herd of cattle. Hundreds and hundreds of them, all skinny and showing ribs.
The ground around them is denuded of grass, and the herd is so large that it looks like an undulating sea.
They run as Murr flies overhead, scrambling in their panic.
I point at them. “Follow the herd! Let’s see where they go! ”
The cattle race across the fields, turning when they run into an old fence.
The herd splits apart, the animals racing back the way they came, and the churned field takes on a sadder reality to me.
They’re trapped in here, I think. Someone never bothered to let them out before this place was abandoned, and so they’re all just clustered in this one field, slowly starving and running in circles.
“Put me down on the other side,” I tell him, indicating the fence and far side where the grass is growing tall.
Murr gently lowers me to the ground, the cattle fleeing as far from us as possible.
The chorus of panicked sounds is terrible to hear, and I wince as I start walking along the fence line, looking for an opening.
“Maybe shift to your human form for now?”
Murr switches, moving to my side. He puts a hand on the thick metal stake, wrapped in barbed wire that has been bent but not broken. “Want pull up fence?”
“I do, but it’s easier if we find a gate, I think? There’s got to be one around here somewhere. You go that way, and I’ll go this way.” I point north and indicate he should head south.
“Yell if need Murr,” he says to me.
“I will!”
I jog along the length of the fence, and my jogging eventually slows to a walk.
Maybe I’m an idiot, but I had no idea that farms were so…
big. This fence seems to go on forever, the pasture endless, and I wonder if it was a bad idea to let Murr leave.
We should have flown over more, but antagonizing the poor cattle seemed like a cruel decision.
The fence eventually comes to a sharp ninety-degree angle, cutting west instead of north. Up ahead, there’s a hill and a bunch of rotted hay bales that have turned into a shapeless lump. Beyond that, I see the faded red metal walls of what looks like a huge barn.
Jack-fucking-pot.
Excited, I climb over the fence, get my jeans all torn up by the shitty-ass barbed wire, and flop on the other side.
I pick myself up off the dirt, brush off my pride, and race up the hill to the barn.
Part of the metal roof has peeled off and fallen in the surrounding yard, but I can see a wide-open barn door and head straight for it.
Inside is a mess of debris, dirt and dead leaves and trash that’s blown in over the years.
It crunches as I step over it, heading deeper inside.
There are several stalls with wooden doors, all of them hanging open, and there’s an area at the far end with feed buckets and what look like a few saddles.
A broken-down ATV is in the corner with four flat tires.
And there’s a door behind all of this.
Practically shaking with excitement, I try the doorknob. It’s dusty—a good sign—but doesn’t turn. Locked. I pull a flathead screwdriver from my pack and get to work, removing the doorknob from the door itself. I’m finally able to push the door open and…
Disappointment.
There’s a chair in here, an old desk, a file cabinet and the world’s oldest CRT computer monitor. A fine layer of dust covers everything. A few artful prints of cattle hang on the wall across from me, and I want to cry with defeat.
I wanted animal drugs, not some farm’s bookkeeping equipment.
But I’m a scavenger above all else. Even when I’m disappointed, I still check everything. So I sit down in the chair and start opening drawers. There’s got to be something useful in here somewhere. The top drawer doesn’t have paperclips or books, but plastic disposable gloves. That’s a good sign.
The second drawer at the desk is twice as deep, and when I open it up, I see white box after skinny white box of tubes. Ivermectin. Terramycin. Banamine. I shove them all into my bag. No idea what they do, but I can ask Samir.
At the very bottom of the drawer, I spot a square box with lettering on it.
Tylosin. Injectable antibiotic.
Hell yes. Even if this isn’t fit for people, maybe someone at the fort can use it? Either way, we’ve got something to trade.
When I get home, I’m going to kiss Aggie on both cheeks and never say a bad thing about her wigs ever again.