“No.”
And there’s no way this tiny brunette, who likely matches her dog in weight, would be able to carry him. “Okay.” My adrenaline kicks in. “Let’s examine his leg first to see how bad it is—”
“Is he gonna live?” Rachel asks, her voice borderline hysterical.
The other woman—her friend, I presume—blows through the door in a panic. They can’t be more than twenty, practically still kids. This is traumatizing for them.
I offer her what I hope is a reassuring smile. “I’ve seen my fair share of dogs caught in traps, and a lot of them live. Especially when it’s this type of trap.” Thank God it wasn’t a conibear. “I’ll have more information for you after I’ve examined him.”
“The surgical room is already sterilized and prepped,” Cory offers.
“Right.” For a surgery on another patient. “I need you to bump the rest of my appointments. Tell them there was an emergency, and I have to reschedule.” This is going to take hours to fix. Turning to Tyler, I point toward the rear door. “Can you carry him there for me?”
“I’ll show you the way.” Cory leads him back.
Well, this day has taken a turn, and I’m not sure if it’s for the better or worse yet. “I’ll be out with an update as soon as I can.”
The brunette’s head bobs, tears streaming freely again. “Okay. Thank you, Doctor. Marie.” She frowns, as if she’s not sure what to call me. I get that a lot. “Whatever you have to do to save him, please do it.”
My guess is this girl has no idea what “whatever you have to do” might cost. “Do you have pet insurance?”
She shakes her head. “No, but I’ll find the money.”
Not that it matters if she doesn’t, I accept with a resigned sigh. I’ll do whatever I have to, regardless.
Maybe Liz is right. Maybe I am going to run this clinic into the ground.
*
Rachel and her friend are huddled next to each other, both typing furiously on their phones, when I step out, Tyler trailing behind me.
Her head snaps up right away. “How is he?”
I settle in the empty chair next to her. “I’ve stopped the bleeding, and Beau is going to be fine, but I can’t save his leg.”
“What does that mean, you can’t save it?” She stumbles over her words. “You want to cut off his leg?”
“I don’t want to amputate. I need to. The trap crushed his bones, and his tissue and nerves are torn up beyond repair. He was fighting to get out of it, wasn’t he?”
Her head jerks up and down.
“That did even more damage. He’s in a lot of pain right now, and it’s not the kind of pain that will go away.”
Rachel’s bottom lip wobbles as she looks first to her friend, and then to Tyler, who hovers nearby, his ranger uniform stained with the dog’s blood. “Are you sure?” She’s asking him.
I guess I can’t blame her. Tyler gave me the brief rundown of what happened—they were hiking on a trail in Nancy Lake when Beau wandered off and stepped in a trap. After a few frantic moments of struggling to release it from the thrashing dog, which neither of them had learned to do, Rachel’s friend called the emergency line. Tyler, who’s working the park this week, responded. One look told him it was bad enough to get them here, so he took over.
He’s the knight in green armor.
He crouches in front of her. “I have twenty-one dogs, and I trust Marie with them. If she says it needs to be done, then it needs to be done.”
She nods slowly, but she’s reviewing my little lobby, and I already know what she’s thinking—that I’m some sort of hack animal doctor operating out of a shack in the woods. “Maybe I should take him back to Anchorage to his regular vet?”
“Are they going to clear their schedule to fit him in as soon as you get there?” Tyler’s voice remains steady.
“I don’t know?”
“Well, you have one of the best surgeons in the state in front of you, and she already has.”
Those are Wade’s words. Tyler must have been talking to him.
“My guess is he’ll be recovering before you even get through the other door. But he’s your dog. If you want to put him in your car and drive all the way back to Anchorage to try to get him in today, that’s your call. I just want to make sure he gets the help he needs as soon as possible. But I can promise you that Beau won’t get better care anywhere than he will with Marie. They call her the Crusader because she saves animals all over Alaska. That’s just what she does.” His eyes shift to me, and there’s an odd, unreadable look in them.