Its okay. Miguel knew that her question was more than rhetorical. All the animals got through the night, even Dingo. Dingo was a mixed-breed dog with liver problems, and it had been touch-and-go with him all day yesterday. Owned and much loved by a family with two little girls, Dingo had captured most of the clinic staffs hearts, as well.
Good. Well, let me get into my lab coat, and well make the rounds.
Sure, Dr. Campbell. Miguel grinned shyly, not quite meeting Antonias eyes.
Antonia was aware that she intimidated the young man. He was shy to begin with, but the fact that she was a towering six feet tall, with the cool, blond good looks of an East Coast society princess, had turned the poor kid nearly speechless when she first came to the clinic. Antonia often had that effect on people, so she was not surprised. She didnt try to be distant or icy; in fact, her basic nature was warm. But she was by nature and experience somewhat reserved, and the years of training in the proper demeanor expected of a young lady that she had received from her mothera lady does not cry in public, a lady doesnt show a vulgar display of excitement, a lady does not display unseemly curiosityhad given her a vaguely aloof air that she did not know how to shake. Even in the casual shirt and jeans that she typically wore on and off the job, she still looked like someone who should be on her way to a Junior League meeting. Today, for instance, she wore jeans and a plain blue shirt, with her hair pulled back and arranged in a practical French braid and only the barest hint of makeup on her face, yet she was somehow elegant.
Antonia usually dealt with her looks by ignoring them. Once she was ready to go in the morning, she rarely glanced in a mirror the rest of the day. Her clothes were invariably practical. Her skin care regimen consisted of little beyond simple cleaning, moisturizing and frequent applications of sunscreen to keep her fair skin from burning. Her technician and friend Rita Delgado, whose devotion to skin care and makeup was profound, was frequently appalled by Antonias blasé attitude.
What is sickening, she would say, shaking her head, is that you do almost nothing and still look the way you do!
Antonia went to her office and pulled on a clean lab coat from the closet, then walked down the hall to the locked door that led to the back part of the clinic, where the sick animals were kept. Miguel was waiting for her there, and they started on their rounds, beginning with Dingo, who was miraculously hanging on.
She had checked over only three animals, approving one for dismissal that day, when the door from the main office burst open and Lilian, the receptionist, bustled in. Lilian, a middle-aged widow of very precise habits, was often the first person to reach the clinic. She liked to have the coffee made and her book work done before the clinic opened at seven-thirty. Lilian had a rather militaristic bent, Antonia thought, and she wanted to have her supplies lined up and her plans in order before she did battle with their clients.
Dr. Campbell! Lilians soft-featured face, so at odds with her crisp, no-nonsense personality, was creased with concern. Daniel Sutton just called. Hes having trouble with one of his mares. He said to come right away. Shes been in labor for a while, and shes losing ground.
Daniel Sutton? Antonia asked, already unbuttoning her lab coat and starting back toward the front of the clinic. The ranch I went to last week?
No, thats Marshall. His father. Daniels on the same road, though, about ten minutes further west. Marshall Suttons a cattleman, but Daniel raises horses. Hes knowledgeable. If he says theres something wrong, then there is.
Okay. Ill take the mobile. Antonia hung her lab coat on a hook beside the back door, listening as Lilian gave her detailed directions to Daniel Suttons horse farm. She took the key to the clinics mobile vet truck from another hook. It was the task of whoever drove the truck last to make sure that
it was filled with gas and stocked with supplies so that it was always ready to go the next day.
She ran lightly down the steps and crunched across the gravel lot to where the mobile truck sat parked beneath a shade tree. Dr. Carmichael had told her many tales of his early days in the area, when he had driven around to the nearby ranches in his old International Harvester truck, a forerunner of the modern SUVs, with a stock of supplies in the back that he would need for his large animal practice. Today, of course, like most vets who practiced in rural areas, he had a modern mobile, a truck equipped with a shell, looking much like one of the smaller motor homes, in which there were sinks, refrigeration for some of the medicines and samples, and nearly every kind of instrument or medicine needed for working on animals in the field. It was generally far more practical for the vet to go to the horse or cow than for the animal to be loaded into a trailer and brought to the veterinarian.