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CHAPTER TWO

DR. BARBARA CAREW, DVM, large and small animals, finished stitching the torn ear of Hubert, a French lop rabbit that had played too rough with his housemate, Louis, the Belgian mastiff. According to Louis’s owner, the big dog was miserable and missing his buddy. Usually Hubert—pronounced you-bear—ran Louis ragged. This was an unfortunate accident, but Hubert was going to have to be guarded from that sort of rough-and-tumble play for a couple of weeks, at least until the stitches were removed. Then the pair would have to be supervised, because unfortunately Hubert thought he was more than mastiff-size and a whole lot tougher.

“All right, my little French friend,” Barbara said as she scooped up the giant bunny. “Off you go to your cage and nighty-night.” She settled the rabbit down, checked to be certain that everything was in order in the clinic’s office and reception area, walked out the back door and across the parking lot. Outside, Mabel the lame goose was securely caged with her current crop of goslings.

“No foxes tonight,” Barbara said and tossed the big goose a handful of grain. Not that Mabel wasn’t a match for most creatures that wanted to devour her. But she couldn’t protect her goslings if she was busy protecting herself.

Mabel snapped up the grain but didn’t even chuckle a response. The goslings snuggled deeper under her. Actually, no fox in his right mind would challenge Mabel, although it might make an attempt to snatch a gosling.

Barbara walked across the grass to the barn and through it to her apartment, built at the far end. She was so tired, she was not certain she could bend down to take off her boots without falling over. She prayed the clinic answering service could handle any calls until morning.

She needed sleep more than she needed food, but she tossed a frozen diet meat-loaf dinner into her microwave and started the timer. She’d still be hungry afterward, but she’d try to endure without ice cream or cookies. She tossed her scrubs into the laundry hamper and slipped into her largest, oldest, softest T-shirt and a pair of Bermuda shorts, then poured herself a diet soda.

“I would kill for a glass of wine,” she said aloud. “But sure as I do, I’ll get called out to some cow that can’t calve.”

She stayed on her feet until the microwave dinged. “If I sit down, I will wake up in my chair tomorrow morning. And why am I talking to myself?”

Because there’s no one else to talk to.

The dinner was anything but delicious. The meat loaf tasted like cardboard and the mashed potatoes were one congealed lump. Still, it was food. Not enough, but food.

She jumped a foot when the gate alarm at the road sounded as the gate opened, and the motion-sensor lights flashed on in the clinic parking lot as someone drove around the building and stopped at the back door. “What the heck?” She yanked on her boots back over her bare feet, grabbed her big flashlight and went to see who in Sam Hill was coming in this late without calling ahead.

* * *

“IS DR. CAREW AVAILABLE?” A male voice, deep baritone. He was standing at the back door of the clinic, silhouetted against the lights. All she could tell about him was that he was tall and sounded as though he had some education.

“I’m available,” Barbara said. “And the only Dr. Carew there is.”

“I’ve got an emergency. Emma Logan told me your clinic was down this way but didn’t give me your phone number. I couldn’t think of anything to do but search you out.” Behind him the very bright lights of some kind of fancy sports car shone directly into Barbara’s eyes. “It may be too late to help him, but he was moving, and this is all I could think of.”

“You hit something on the road.” Probably a deer.

“It hit me,” he said. “Flew smack into the front of my car.”

“So you squashed an owl?”

“Not quite. Take a look.”

He stood aside. Barbara turned on her powerful flashlight and walked up to the front of the car. “You mind turning your lights off? I can’t see squat.”

A moment later the headlights went out. Barbara allowed her eyes to adjust to the lower light of the motion sensors under the eaves before she looked at the damage to whatever it was. She fully expected it to be dead.

It shrieked. A hair-raising, enraged and I’m-alive-here-people shriek.

“That’s no owl,” Barbara whispered.

She dropped to her haunches two feet from the grille of the car and shone the light on... “Lord save us,” she whispered. “You hit a bald eagle.”

“Indeed I did not. It hit me. I wasn’t driving fast, not on these roads, when I’ve barely moved in to The Hovel after driving up here this morning, then back to Memphis to pick up my stuff and right back here. I thought some kind of pterodactyl was about to yank me out of the car. One minute nothing, the next this thing appears in front of me and whomp!”

“Take off the grille,” Barbara said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“These cars carry fancy toolkits, don’t they? Let’s see if we can keep him alive long enough to get him out of there.” She stood and walked back toward the barn.

“Where are you going?”

“To get some towels and heavy gloves. If we do get him loose, we’ll have to wrap him up tight. He’s going to come out of there fighting like a dragon, no matter how badly he’s hurt. You have any heavy driving gloves?”

“In the glove compartment.”

“Get ’em.” She pointed at the car. “Unscrew that grille, please. Carefully. Stay out of talon or beak range. He’ll take your head off as soon as he looks at you. He’s certain this is your fault. Eagles aren’t noted for forgiveness. They prefer punishment, preferably death by devouring.”

Wearing leather gauntlets, Barbara returned with an armload of heavy towels. “Whoa!” she snapped as the eagle screamed again. “Calm down, you. We’re trying to help.”

The eagle stared at her with insane black eyes, but stopped thrashing momentarily, almost as though it understood. Barbara knew it did not. More likely, it was gathering itself to try to break free and savage the people who were attempting to save it.

“I think the left wing is broken—see how twisted it is hanging between the struts on the grille?” she asked.

“There is no way I can unscrew this grille. The grille has not been off since it came from the showroom years ago. This car is a genuine antique. It’s as rusted as I am.”

“Can you actually cut those struts? Ease it off him?” She expected horror. In the lights, she could tell the car was a classic, beautifully maintained.

That grille would cost a fortune and probably take weeks to replace.

Instead, the man said, “Do you have some heavy-duty bolt cutters?”

“Be right back.”

Not one howl of complaint from him. Hmm. Even if he did drive a silly car and hit birds with it. She handed him her largest bolt cutters.

“Show me where to cut,” he said.

“I’m not altogether certain. Need to get him loose but keep hold of him so he doesn’t flap himself to death.” For a long minute vet and eagle stared one another in the eye, then Barbara nodded. “Yeah. I’m going to try something that should work for the short haul.” She took a small towel and tossed it over the eagle’s head, covering its eyes. Instantly it stopped fighting. “Now, cut here and here. Fast. It’ll take him less than a minute to realize he isn’t actually hooded. Can you manage alone?”

The man actually growled at her, as if she’d impugned his masculinity. “Hang in there, big guy,” he whispered. “We’re trying to help you.” He grunted with the effort of snapping the grille. “We’re not about to let you die on us.”

The grille snapped and snapped again. Possibly all to the good that it was old.

Man’s got muscles, I’ll say that for him. And it almost sounded as though he was commanding the bird to survive. “Hold the feet, avoid the talons,” Barbara said. “I don’t want to have to sew you up, too. With luck I’ll get him out fast and swaddle him tight.”

Getting him actually loose didn’t prove to be as difficult as Barbara had thought. “I wish I had a real raptors’ hood,” she said as she held the bird, snugly, under one arm, while she kept the towel taut over the eagle’s head. “If I can keep his head covered until we get him on the table, I can give him a little gas. Then we’ll see what’s going on. Come on. We need to move fast.”