Ridley Pearson - Killer View

He pulled off his glove and tested the metal bowl; it was warm to the touch. That explained the snow having not collected on it but not the floats being wired up.

Some kind of problem with the waterers would explain the livestock having been moved. A frozen line, or intermittent power.

Chicken or the egg: had the livestock been moved and then the water turned off or had the water been turned off and then the livestock moved?

The unexpected visit at his office from the CDC woman- what was her name? -replayed vividly. Danny Cutter’s employees, sick as dogs. Flown out in a private jet-literally, under the radar. Danny’s most recent enterprise was Trilogy Springs: spring water from a source “two miles deep.”

Maybe it wasn’t mad cow after all. Something to do with the water?

To his left, Walt noticed an area that had been blocked from view by the shed.

Walt plodded along, ten yards, twenty, thirty. A hundred. He climbed a fence, where a snow-covered trail led through a gate. He was soaked through with sweat now, his breathing heavy. But there was more to it: his nerves all ajangle.

Maybe it resulted from the frank talk with Brandon. Maybe those wounds weren’t meant to be reopened.

His thought was interrupted by the sound of animals-a sound so unique and, prior to that moment, missing.

As he crested the hill and looked down, he saw five hundred sheep-a half a band-spread out along the edge of a fog-shrouded creek. The fence crossed the creek in two places and rose to include another twenty acres on the far side. The sheep had been fed hay from the far side of the enclosed pasture. Some of the hay remained scattered. Mist rose from five holes in the creek ice, each hole roughly chopped open with an ax. The rancher had traded more difficult feeding conditions for easier access to water, explaining the empty pasture behind him.

But it drew his attention back to the condition of the water. The sheep were now being offered surface water in conditions that likely required grunt labor to keep the iced-over water holes open and accessible. If a line had frozen in the waterers behind him, then it made some sense to move the sheep.

He retraced his own tracks through the deep snow to the waterers. Slipped off his gloves. Began untwisting the wire used to keep the floats up.

If the waterers were broken, then moving the sheep made practical sense.

But if the waterers worked, then why had the rancher chosen labor-intensive surface water over automatic waterers? That might require an explanation.

The last twist freed the wire.

Walt released it and watched.

ROY COATS’S APRON AND BOOTS WERE COVERED IN BLOOD, as he returned to the cabin, sweat running down his face. Aker was asleep, his head slumped forward, the rest of him still tied to the ladder-back chair. His breathing sounded sharp and fast and shallow. As Coats shut the door, Aker lifted his head. His skin was sallow, his eyes bloodshot.

Coats hoisted the freezer-sized Ziploc bag. Inside it, Bess’s unborn calf’s pancreas slid around like a dead fish. “Now what?” he said.

Aker’s eyes rolled in his head.

Coats crossed the room, stiff-legged and fast, and took Mark Aker by the chin. “Do not pass out on me! I’ve done my part. Now, you tell me what’s next. You hear me?” He raised his voice. “Doc! You hear me!?”

Aker vomited into his own lap.

Coats stepped back, grumbling. “Jesus!”

“Not doing real well,” Aker managed to croak out.

“Shit!”

“Fluids,” he mumbled.

Coats cut him loose and poured him a glass of water. Aker gagged it down. But he shook his head, as he handed the empty glass back to Coats. “From here, I dehydrate. The vomiting won’t allow me to keep the water down. I’m going to lapse into a coma at some point. Be ready for that. You’ll have to do this on your own, Coats. Have some sugar water or juice ready, because you probably won’t get the dosage right.” His eyes bobbed. “You got all that?”

“You gotta stay with me, Doc.”

“I’m trying.”

“Grind it?” Coats asked, indicating the baggie on the table.

“Mortar and pestle. Coffee mug’ll work. Handle end of a screwdriver, but you’ll need to boil it first. Ten minutes. Do you have any saline?”

“Contact lens solution.”

“That’ll work. You may need that. Not much. Enough to liquefy. Then get the extract into the syringe.”

“I mush it up. Add the saline. How much do I give you?”

Coats was already over at the stove. He dropped a screwdriver in the kettle of boiling water kept there to throw moisture into the air. He located an oversized coffee mug, rinsed it with some of the boiling water, and put the contents of the baggie in the cup. It looked like a piece of liver but was, in fact, pancreas.

Aker muttered. Coats returned to him and put his ear by Aker’s trembling lips. “If I start sweating and shaking… this is after the injection… then you gave me too much. I need the-” Aker vomited, pitched forward, and passed out. Coats shook him, but it was no use: he was unconscious.

“You need what ?” Coats screamed at him.

Coats didn’t have ten minutes to sterilize the screwdriver. He used a pair of barbecue tongs to fish the screwdriver from the boiling water; he dried it on a clean dish towel and used the butt end to smash the tissue in the mug. In a matter of minutes, he had the tissue reduced to a mushy gruel. He added a small amount of the contact lens solution, and then he tipped the mug and drew the extract into the same syringe originally intended to get Aker to cooperate.

The fluid was a horrible color and consistency. He couldn’t see how this could do anything but kill someone, but Aker was on his way out as it was. He pulled down Aker’s loose pants and stabbed the syringe into the man’s flank and gave him 20 ccs.

Aker’s reaction was surprisingly quick. Less than two minutes after the injection, he snapped awake, lifting his head. Color had returned to his face. He glanced around the cabin. “Interesting,” he said.

Coats noticed beads of sweat forming on the man’s brow.

“You’re sweating.”

“Juice,” Aker said. He grabbed the arms of the chair as his limbs began to shake. “Get the juice, you moron!” he shouted. The entire chair was shaking now, dancing on the floor.

Coats had neglected to have this ready. The only juice he had was frozen orange juice. He placed the can into the sink and ran water on it. But Aker’s chair was going like a paint shaker. It tipped over and crashed to the floor. Coats fumbled with a water glass, spooned sugar in it, and filled it with water. He stirred it up, and slopped it out of the glass as he hurried to Aker. Sat Aker up and got him drinking, the water spilling down his front.

Aker returned to the living, and, unable to measure his blood sugar, took inventory of how he felt. Five minutes after he’d been going like an earthquake, he sat calmly in the chair.

“We can expect some secondary problems, Coats,” Aker said.

“Such as?”

“The extract will be weak. I’ll need injections every few hours. But we’ll have enough for that. Dosage is obviously going to be the problem. There will be warning signs: I’ll know when I need more. But the bigger issue will be the allergic reaction to the extract. Possible infection at the site of the injection. That’s basically a given. The reactions can be anything from some discomfort, in the form of a skin rash, to something much more severe. We won’t know until we see them. And we will see them. You’ll want to watch me fairly closely, and I’ll do my best to monitor how I’m feeling. Tell your guy I need Lantus. One dose lasts for twenty-four hours. Until we get the Lantus, we’re not out of the woods. Not yet.”