James Smith: Hybrid

A lookout darted inside. “Mounties! Mounties!”

Pandemonium erupted. Everyone scattered, some dashing for the wall to snatch their coats. The young farmhand raced for the door before braking.

A dozen Alberta troopers—Royal Canadian Mounted Police—surrounded the barn’s exit. A Comanche helicopter hovered above and beamed a searchlight onto the field. The troopers below aimed their revolvers straight ahead and yelled for the fleeing men to stop.

The farmhand ran back to the fighting pit as the Asian clutched the Tosa to his chest. Mounties spanned the area with their weapons. The Asian released the chain and shouted to his dog. “ Ike! ”

The Tosa vaulted the fence and bolted through the crowd. One trooper spun around, but too late to avoid the leap of the mammoth animal. A glancing blow knocked him to the floor and the dog’s claws slashed the trooper’s cheek as he screamed.

The Tosa darted through the center of gunfire for the open door.

The Japanese Warrior was free. The Tosa sprinted like a leopard along a path lighted by a metallic moon, throwing his rear legs out before his muzzle and stretching his front paws far beyond natural stride. After a while he stopped to thrash about in a patch of snow to soothe stinging from the open wound inflicted by Peter the Great.

The howl of a wolf arose from a distant valley. Another followed. Both melded with those from a pack, a feral chorus carried on an arctic breeze, the lament of his brothers and sisters. He resumed his lope among spruce and fir dusted with snow.

Deep within Alberta’s wilderness, the Japanese Warrior would soon find his new home.

Shelay on the ground in the soft light of a lantern and sheltered from the wind by the tall evergreens beyond the farmhouse at the top of the hill. Occasionally she reared her head, snorting and seeking relief from her pain.

“Easy, girl. Easy, Penny,” Dr. Dieter Harmon whispered. He softly stroked the hind leg of the cinnamon brown horse and stifled a yawn. In the early dawn, the sun hid just behind the mountains and ribbons of high clouds reflected a golden hue.

He glanced at his watch. It had been two hours since the call from the Loudermilk ranch.

Dieter tried to work his gangly legs into a more comfortable position as he squatted beside the mare. After he raised Penny’s tail, wet because her water had broken, he shined his flashlight on her hindquarters to examine the distended vulva. He rubbed his hand over the horse’s belly. No sign of movement; he thought the worst.

The three Loudermilk women crouched on the field grass while they anxiously monitored his every move. They wore dresses of pastel that appeared homemade but too long for working a ranch. The oldest had introduced herself as Katherine Belle. The quiet one, Marilee, kept her head down most of the time. Charlene, the youngest, was frail but alert, curious. Like her sisters, she sported a tall wave of hair set back from her forehead.

Katherine Belle had told Dieter that at the first sign of trouble, she called Doc Hartwell but he wasn’t around. She said that her answering service gave her the name of a veterinarian in Gardiner, of all places, but she knew better than to try convincing someone to drive all the way down to Colter in the middle of the night. Then she found Dieter’s card on the fridge door although she had no idea how it got there. She’d heard that “Dr. Harmon was a nice young man.” He was someone who knew how to treat ranch animals even though he was from back East. She said she thought at the time he should be able to get there quickly and probably needed the business since he was so new.

Little did they know. He would’ve come just to get word of mouth going. But he needed the pay, too.

He reached into his satchel for a bar of surgical soap and tube of lubricant, then rolled up his sleeve and washed his arm with steaming water from a bucket that Charlene had fetched. He slipped his greased arm into the birth canal. A tiny hoof protruded through the amniotic sac. He grabbed it, but the foal didn’t yank back. He continued probing. In normal delivery, the head, neck and front legs stretched forward within the womb, as if the foal were jumping through a hoop. But now only one leg extended forward. The other hung back under the body and the muzzle faced the rear.

He withdrew his arm, reached for a towel, and took a deep breath. As he wiped at his arm he could only think that in his eleven years of practice, he’d never confronted a lateral deviation this grave. How was he going to deliver that news to the three women?

Katherine Belle hugged Penny’s neck. “She’s sweating like crazy, Doctor.” The woman had the stern look of a mother, piercing eyes watching over her daughters and prized animals, caring for those she holds dear.

The horse wasn’t the only one sweating. Dieter brushed back his hair and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. After searching his satchel for a roll of gauze, he asked, “Can someone tie up her tail for me?”

Katherine Belle nodded toward Charlene. She caught the roll he tossed and held her smile at him for a moment, then carefully wrapped the mare’s well-groomed tail.

Dieter withdrew two cc of xylazine into a syringe and held Penny’s neck tightly while he injected her in the jugular and waited for the mare to relax. He lubricated his right arm again and rammed it into the birth canal up to his shoulder to get a firm grip on the foal. Gently, he shoved it farther down into the uterus and glided his hand back to grasp its neck. The mare’s intestines were like bags of sand that pushed against the womb and limited the working room.

While he manipulated his arms and fingers, he sensed the rhythm of his own pulse through the throbbing in his head. He slid his hand down along the foal’s neck, then slowly back again, repeating the motion several times until he gradually realigned it. Feeling Charlene’s stare, he shifted his eyes toward her. As she turned her head away, the flickering lantern revealed the hint of a blush.

The drug was wearing off and Penny’s contractions returned. “Push, girl, push.”

A miniature snout emerged.

Caught in the excitement, Charlene squealed and clapped her hands. “Push! Push! Push!”

The exhausted mare heaved twice more and the foal plopped onto the grass. Limbs sprawled out in four directions as the lump of flesh lay crumpled like a wet gunnysack. Dieter held his stethoscope to its chest. “A normal heartbeat,” he announced. “Looks like we have a healthy colt!”

The women threw their arms around each other and whooped through their tears. Katherine Belle and Marilee jumped up and hurried down the path to the farmhouse to rouse the family while Charlene stayed behind. Dieter prepared to wash the mare, which had reared her head up to sniff and lick the colt.

Charlene lay by the side of the frail creature and hummed a lullaby, as if caring for a newborn baby. “I didn’t know we had such a good vet right in our own backyard, Dr. Harmon.”

He smiled and passed the wet cloth along the spine of the mare.

“How long you been here?” she asked.

“Almost three months now.”

“You from Billings?”

“Not quite. Pennsylvania.” He put the cloth on the ground. She wanted to talk.

“That’s awfully far from Montana, I think.”

“I used to visit my uncle out here during the summers when I was growing up,” he replied. “Always loved the West. But my wife loved Pennsylvania where she grew up.”

Charlene shifted her legs to a new position and her long dress slipped an inch above one knee. He quickly averted his glance.