Dreams of arcadia, p.2
Dreams of Arcadia, page 2
“I believe so.” Nate turned his head, but he couldn’t see anything. “I’ve forgotten about him. He’s still alive?”
“Last I heard. Doesn’t get out much. Rumor has it he’s got a daughter living with him, but if it’s true, I’ve never seen her.”
Nate gave Everett a curious look as they crossed the bridge, the boards clattering loudly beneath their feet.
Not far from the bridge, they passed Viola’s entrance, consisting of only a rusty cattle guard. A mailbox leaned precariously nearby, Edwin Holub painted on it, faded and almost illegible. Nate’s grandfather died of a heart attack shortly after Nate was born. He went by the nickname Cap most of his life. A dirt lane leading from the cattle guard disappeared into a thick tangle of yaupons.
Nate felt a tugging inside as they passed the farm, equal parts yearning and dread. He told Everett about his frequent childhood visits with his father. After his dad died, his mother didn’t encourage any contact with his Holub kin. His first trip back wasn’t until he was in college. He made only a handful of visits after that, each more wistful than the last.
“We’ve been real happy since moving here,” Everett said. “Folks around here are good people. They’re tighter than bark on a tree, but they work hard and pay their bills…well, most of them anyway.”
A half-mile from the farm, the road forked. They took a right and made a descent into the Soledad River bottom. Before the construction of dams upstream, floods were a frequent occurrence along these lower stretches of the river. Heavy rains could still send the river raging, albeit rarely.
They pulled off the road and up to a gate. Nate got out and opened it, and after Everett had driven through, he closed it and got back in the truck.
Everett said, “Back when I was in high school, I spent a summer living with my grandparents in East Texas. I worked for this old vet, Dr. Percival Milner. What a character. Wore an old Panama hat and quoted Shakespeare. I rode with him and opened gates, fetched supplies, that kind of thing—my first experience with veterinary medicine. Every once in a while, when I got back in the truck after opening a gate, the cab just reeked of bourbon.”
Everett turned and looked at Nate over his glasses. “I guess some jobs called for a little something extra.”
An overgrown lane led to a cattle pen sitting under a towering bur oak tree. The sultry air buzzed with the sound of cicadas as they got out of the truck and approached the pen. Vernon Smolik wasn’t around, but they were clearly in the right place. A cow paced the pen with a dark red mass extending from her vulva, already attracting a cloud of flies. Something moved in the grass near her feet, and Nate made out a newborn calf, still wet and blinking at its strange new world.
Everett took his shirt off and pulled on a pair of coveralls. He explained how he preferred casting cows when a reliable squeeze chute wasn’t available. “Some vets will work with the cow just tied to a post, and I used to be one of them. But shit, I’ve been kicked one too many times.”
Wearing work gloves, he leaned over the side of the pen and tossed a rope around the base of the cow’s horns, wrapped the rope around the bottom of a post, and tied it off. Then he got into the pen and put another rope on the cow’s horns, letting the end hang over her back. Using a shepherd’s staff to retrieve the rope from between her legs, he made a couple of half hitches—one behind the forelimbs and another in front of the rear limbs—and then when he pulled hard on the end of the second rope, the cow lay down gently. Nate held the rope while Everett pulled both rear limbs straight back.
“If you get them in a frog-legged position, the uterus goes back in a lot easier.”
After putting on obstetrical sleeves, Everett gave the cow an epidural and then scrubbed the uterus with betadine and rinsed it off. Using both hands, he slowly pushed the large unwieldy organ back through the seemingly too small space of the vulva. He then used a long Buhner needle to close the vulvar opening with a single stitch, leaving a knot at the bottom. After giving tetanus antitoxin and oxytocin shots, he untied the cow and let her back up. The whole procedure, start to finish, had taken only twenty minutes. Nate was dripping with sweat and hadn’t done anything but hold the rope.
As Everett washed up, Nate tried to imagine himself doing horse and cattle work. Everett made it look easy, but he had years of experience.
They were soon on the road again, enjoying the cool blast of the truck’s air conditioner.
Audrey called in on the radio. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, honey, but your day isn’t over. A man has a sick puppy. Sounds like parvo. And Grace Lesky is bringing in a calf with a broken leg.”
“Okay, we’re on our way. Get a deposit on the puppy if it’s someone we don’t know.” He looked at Nate. “I could use an extra hand. You have time to stick around a little longer?”
“Sure, why not?”
Nate braced himself as they drove back down the bluff, but fortunately, the feeling he had earlier didn’t return. Back at the clinic, he helped Everett get an IV catheter inserted in the puppy’s leg and fluids flowing. A fecal snap test confirmed parvovirus infection.
As they were coming out of the kennel, a green truck pulled up, and a woman in dusty jeans and a white t-shirt got out. Nate followed Everett out the door.
“Grace, I’ve been seeing more of you than Audrey lately. She might start getting jealous.”
Grace took her cap off and wiped her forehead with a handkerchief. She had smoke blue eyes and tawny hair streaked with gray. “Third sick calf this year. I need to find a cheaper hobby.”
Everett introduced Nate. Then he retrieved the calf from the truck’s cab, carried her into the clinic, and placed her on the surgery table. A quick exam revealed a fractured left metacarpal bone.
“It’s not bad. A splint should do the trick.”
Everett rummaged around the room for materials. Then he had Nate extend the leg, maintaining gentle traction as he applied a layer of cast padding. He glanced at Grace.
“Nate here has ties to the area. He’s Viola Holub’s grandson.”
Grace looked at Nate. “Well, I’ll be damned. You’d be one of Ruthie’s?” She frowned. “No, that couldn’t be.”
“Not Ruthie…Dennis.” Nate said.
Grace stared at him, lips parted, then swallowed hard and looked back down at the calf. Everett was lining up a splint made of PVC pipe. Nate held the splint in place as Everett started applying strips of tape.
The room felt warm and stuffy.
Nate said, “Did you know him?”
Grace nodded, not taking her eyes off the calf. “Of course. Everybody knew Dennis.” Her voice trailed off. Nate thought she might continue, but she just leaned against the table and traced its beveled rim with a crooked finger, following the curve at its corner, and then back again.
Everett finished taping the splint and covered it all with a roll of red bandage wrap. Then he picked up the calf, carried her out to Grace’s truck, and put her on the seat as she held the door open. Everett tied the calf’s three good limbs together to keep her immobilized.
“We’ll need to keep this splint on for four to six weeks, Grace. Bring her back for a checkup in a week, or maybe I’ll stop by if I’m out your way.”
“Okay, Dr. Templeton. Thanks.”
As Nate started following Everett back toward the house, Grace grabbed his arm.
He turned and looked down at her.
Grace held his arm, seeming to pull herself up to get closer. Her eyes were narrow, her features taut. In a hushed tone, she said, “Your father was a good man. Don’t let anybody ever tell you different.” She squeezed his arm with a strength that surprised him, then turned and walked back to her truck.
Nate stood there watching as she drove down the lane, and he kept watching until the truck disappeared from view.
A few minutes later, they left for another farm call, a calf delivery far west of town. By the time they arrived, the cow had given birth unassisted. On the drive back, Everett persuaded Nate to stay for dinner.
He grilled shrimp kebabs with vegetables from their garden. They ate outdoors on the back patio in the shade of a big oak, enjoying a late afternoon breeze.
When they had finished eating, Everett said, “So what’s it gonna take to get you out of Houston?”
Nate was expecting the question, but he wasn’t prepared to answer it. He listened carefully as Everett described the job, and before leaving, he promised to give it some thought.
His head was spinning on the drive back. It had been a better day than expected. Leaving his life in the city had gone from a half-baked daydream to something closer to reality, but he still couldn’t come to grips with it. DeLeon County held so many memories and stirred up his emotions in unexpected ways. Moving there might open him up to heartbreak.
When he reached the edge of the Houston suburbs, Nate looked in the rearview mirror. The sun had almost completely dipped below the horizon, and a bank of low clouds glowed like a bed of hot embers. The sky was a canvas of the deepest blue swept with crimson and gold brush strokes. Fragments of rich luxuriant light hovered and danced on the surface of small velvety clouds, producing an ethereal effect.
It was breathtaking, and Nate turned to get a better look. He wanted to pull over and get out, lest the spell be broken upon entering the city, but traffic was heavy, a line of vehicles stretching far behind. He tightened his grip on the wheel and drove on, pulled along by the current, not looking back, not until all trace of the sun had faded into the city’s murky glow.
Two
Nate got up early the next morning after a long harrowing night. Sleep had been elusive since the divorce. He staggered into the kitchen, started a pot of coffee, and popped a bagel in the toaster. The kitchen table was littered with newspapers, junk mail, and unemptied bags of groceries. He cleared off a spot and collapsed into a chair.
Almost a year had passed since Caroline and the girls moved out. She worked in hospital administration, and Vicente Esteves, a cardiovascular surgeon with hypnotic eyes and gleaming white teeth, found her a willing target. She moved with the girls to his place in the Museum District. The girls were fourteen and reluctant to change schools, but Vicente’s posh townhouse helped make up for it. Nate chose not to fight for custody—teenage girls need their mother more than their wretched, burned-out father.
Nate was taking the girls to his mother’s house for lunch. She had been inviting him over a lot lately, believing he needed her counsel to get his life back together. She would ask where he had been all day Saturday, so he wasn’t eager to see her.
He picked up Marianne and Emma at eleven thirty. On the drive to The Heights, he tried to make conversation, but both girls seemed more interested in their phones. They pulled into his mother’s driveway a few minutes before noon. Her house was a one-story Victorian, painted yellow, with graceful gingerbread under the front eaves, gray shutters, and a broad wraparound porch, complete with porch swing. Her second husband Rudy had made a living buying, renovating, and selling old houses before his death from prostate cancer. This house was a wreck when he bought it, and Nate’s mother loved to show before and after pictures of his handiwork. She helped with the renovation herself, doing most of the interior painting.
She greeted them at the door over the barks of Gyro, her miniature schnauzer. “Make yourselves at home. I’ve almost got lunch ready.”
The girls collapsed on the living room sofa. Marianne picked up the remote and started flipping channels, while Emma played with Gyro. Nate followed his mother down the hallway to the kitchen.
She stopped, turned, and put her hand on his cheek, pulling his face toward the light. “Nate, you look terrible. Are you getting enough sleep?”
He pulled her hand away. “I’m fine, Mom.”
She squinted at him, shaking her head. Webs of fine wrinkles radiated from the corners of her eyes. She still wore her hair long, pulled into a grizzled ponytail. Nate sat down at the table and started thumbing through the Sunday Chronicle, and she returned to the salad she was preparing.
“So where were you yesterday?” she said. “I tried calling several times, both your home phone and cell.”
“Yesterday? Well…I had to work past noon, and then I had some errands to run. I must’ve had my phone off.” This explanation was entirely plausible. She knew he hadn’t fully embraced the mobile phone as a means of communication.
“Didn’t you work last weekend?”
“Yeah, but Joe and I swapped weekends. He’s off on a fishing trip.” He noisily flipped the page, pretending to read the sports section. “So what did you do yesterday?”
She studied him, then turned her attention back to the carrot she was cutting. “Oh, nothing much. Piddled around here. Worked in the yard some.” She put her hands on the counter and looked at him again, frowning. “You know you work too much. You’ll give yourself an ulcer.”
Nate leaned back in his chair and sighed. Then he walked over and put his arm around her shoulder, giving her the biggest smile he could muster. “Don’t worry about me, Mom, okay?”
She gave him a sideways glance, still frowning. “Have you seen any more of Phyllis?”
Phyllis Newberry was the niece of one of his mother’s friends. She was a part-time court reporter and full-time crazy cat lady. She had seven cats, all named after Tolkien characters. After weeks of his mother’s persistence, Nate had taken her out for dinner. He endured an hour of Phyllis detailing all of her cats’ medical issues, highlighted by Frodo’s gluten insensitivity and Arwen’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. When Nate suggested that Gandalf’s halitosis might benefit from a professional teeth cleaning, Phyllis was insulted. “His teeth are spotless. I brush them every day.”
Nate shuffled his feet. “No, Mom, I haven’t.”
“You should call her. She’s really sweet.”
Nate nodded as he slid open a drawer and pulled out place-mats. He set the table, and then, fearing more questions, he went to sit with the girls until it was time to eat.
During the meal, his mother asked the girls what they were doing for the summer. Marianne talked about her job as a swimming instructor, while Emma mumbled something about taking a summer school class. Nate tried to stay focused on the conversation, but his mind kept drifting back to his day in DeLeon County.
In describing the job to him, Everett said they would alternate weeks on after-hours duty, and both would work Saturday mornings, but Nate would have one afternoon off every week. The salary he offered was low, but the cost of living in DeLeon County was a lot less than in Houston. And as Everett put it, “The clean air alone should be worth what, $10,000 a year? Not to mention the lower crime. And you know we have only one traffic light here, right?”
He scored points with that last one, no doubt. When Nate expressed concern about his lack of large animal experience, Everett was ready. “You can ride with me for the first few weeks. I’ll teach you everything I know, which isn’t a lot, to be honest. Hell, this isn’t neurosurgery.” Nate had learned a lot in just one afternoon, so a few weeks seemed like a reasonable amount of time to get up to speed.
Nate returned to Houston thinking a new life might just be possible, but DeLeon County now seemed like a thousand miles and two time zones away. Mixed practice? Who was he kidding? The locals would see right through him in a heartbeat. He had city boy written all over him. He would inevitably do something stupid, like pumping mineral oil into a horse’s lungs, and then his misdeed would be broadcast in every feed store and watering hole in the county. Or if he somehow managed to master the technical aspects of the work, he would get permanently disabled by some crazy-ass cow.
His mother said, “You’re quieter than usual, Nate. Something on your mind?”
“I’m just in awe of this incredible salad dressing. Homemade?”
“No, it’s a mix.” She smiled, but he knew she wasn’t buying it. “Emma, you haven’t eaten any chicken.”
Emma stared gloomily at the platter of chicken parmesan.
“She’s a vegetarian now,” Marianne said, as she speared a second piece of chicken and plopped it on her plate with a flourish. “I thought you knew that Grandma.”
“Vegetarian? Since when?”
“Since we moved. She thinks eating meat is uncivilized.”
Emma glared at her. “I’ve never said that.”
“Yes you did. When Vicente told us about those pig farms in Argentina, you told him eating animals is cruel and barbaric. Don’t deny it.”
“I did not! Don’t put words in my mouth. I just said that keeping animals in crates is cruel. I didn’t say anything about eating them.”
“All right girls, let’s not argue,” his mother said. “We’ll have some brownies for dessert. I think that’s something we can all agree on.”
The girls were fraternal twins. Both had their mother’s blond hair and blue eyes, but Marianne was nearly a head taller, confident and carefree, while Emma was more reserved and moodier. Caroline had once called Emma “daddy’s girl”—not meant as a compliment, as it turned out.
Nate couldn’t believe how his little girls had changed. Sometimes when he looked at them, he wondered how these were the same human beings who had once piled onto his lap for bedtime stories. He could once help them with their problems—console Emma when she lost a spelling bee, doctor Marianne’s scraped knee when she fell off her bicycle—but now their lives were more complicated, and he wasn’t equipped to handle it. Living apart made it a lot worse. He worried about them, especially Emma, who was less adaptable and had a harder time making friends and negotiating the minefield of adolescence.
After eating, they played a couple of games of Scrabble. The game was his mother’s favorite, and she trounced them as usual. Nate could give her competition on a good day, but that afternoon he could barely put together three-letter words.
