“Gus?”
“I’m here.”
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“I’ll feed. You stay with Morgan.”
“Thanks, Gus.”
I arranged for the one mortuary in Highland to come for Emily while Morgan took care of matters with the hospital. I then drove her home. I wanted to take her to my place, but she insisted. I got a fire going while she straightened up. Emily had fallen in the den and things had been left disturbed.
“It’s cold in here,” Morgan said.
It wasn’t cold, but I said, “I’ll have the fire good and hot shortly.”
“She just fell over, John.” Morgan was standing in front of the sofa. “She didn’t make a sound. I didn’t see her face. I don’t think she felt anything. The doctor said she probably didn’t feel anything. He said her heart probably just stopped.”
I walked to her and lowered her to the sofa. I sat beside her with my arm around her.
“Do you think she went peacefully?” Morgan asked me.
“I do,” I said.
Morgan didn’t cry, but she fell fast asleep quickly. I untwisted our bodies and went outside to feed her horses and check the gates. I came back into the house and called Gus. He took a long time answering and I started to get upset. He picked up.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“All is fine,” he said.
“What took you so long?”
“I was busy, do you mind?”
I caught myself, caught my worry and caught the anxiety that had been working on me. “I’m sorry, Gus.”
“How’s Morgan?”
“She’s asleep.”
“I’ve got things covered here.”
“Okay.”
“Get some sleep,” he said. “I mean it.”
“Yes, sir.”
I didn’t wake Morgan, but let her sleep the night on the sofa. I sat nearby in a stuffed chair and watched her, realizing with each sleep-breath she took that I did, in fact, love her. And I didn’t love her because I needed to love someone, but because she wouldn’t go away, not physically, but in my head.
Morning came and Morgan was still asleep. I went out into the clear crisp air to feed the animals. I put the hay in the feeder in the pasture and noticed Morgan’s horse, Square, arching her neck and coughing. It was an odd behavior, but she went for her food. She wanted to eat, so I didn’t think she was about to colic. Then she arched again and I thought she might be choking, which seemed odd since she hadn’t eaten anything yet. Choking on hay is uncommon and choking on the green grass is really uncommon. I haltered her and removed her from the food. I put her in a paddock and made sure there was water for her. Morgan came from the house in a thick robe, her face already worried.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Square’s acting funny,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know if there’s anything wrong yet.”
Just then the horse arched her neck again and coughed.
“What was that?” Morgan asked.
“That’s the funny thing,” I said.
“What’s wrong with her, John?” Everything was piling up on poor Morgan. She started to cry. Since there’s nothing wrong with crying, I didn’t get in her way. I simply proceeded with what I had to do with the horse. “Go to my truck and bring me my red box. I’ve got a speculum in there.”
She trotted, the robe trailing behind her, crying there and back.
I had my thumbs in the horse’s cheeks and was trying to see into her throat, trying to spot any kind of obstruction. “I need a flashlight,” I said. “There’s a penlight in the jockey box.”
She ran crying to get it. She came back and I asked her to hold the lead rope while I looked. I held the light in my teeth and opened Square’s mouth again. I grabbed her tongue and pulled it to the side. She was drooling and I saw that there was a bit of blood mixed in it. I saw a wire or a stick in her throat.
“Yep,” I said.
“What is it?” Morgan asked.
“She’s got something in there all right.”
“Oh, my god,” she said.
“She’s okay, Morgan.”
“Can you get it out?”
“I’m going to try.” I didn’t want to tell her that if I couldn’t we were going to have to take her to the clinic down in Laramie and have the vet knock her out and find a way to get it out. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her that. “It’s not too far back there.”
“John?”
“Okay, I’m going to give her some butte; that will make her feel better. I’ve got one shot of that left right here. And I’m going to sedate her slightly as well, but you’re going to have to hold her. Okay?”
“Okay.” Tears were streaming down Morgan’s face now.
I gave the horse the shots. Morgan watched as I found the vein, pulled a little blood into the syringe, then pumped the drug into the horse. In just a few minutes, Square’s head was hanging low.
“Is she all right?” Morgan asked.
“High as a kite,” I said. “Come and stand over on this side.” I took the rope and let Morgan walk around me to the right side of the horse. I set the speculum in Square’s mouth, essentially a piece of metal to wedge between the horse’s back teeth, and said, “Morgan, you’re going to have to hold this right here for me, okay, honey?”
She nodded, taking the metal tee of a handle and bracing it against the nose band of the halter.
“Oh, John, what if you can’t get it out?”
I didn’t say anything at first and then I thought that my silence might alarm her more. “This thing, whatever it is, is probably just sticking up through her soft palate. Shouldn’t be a problem.” Of course I didn’t know that at all. The horse began doing what horses do and that was chewing. At least she was trying to chew; the coil of metal of the speculum was in her way. But she was chewing enough that she was catching my knuckles. It hurt like hell, but I had to get the thing out. I couldn’t let this crush Morgan. Instead, my hand was getting crushed. I grabbed the object and it poked me; it had thorns. I didn’t pull back. I was in there now. I grabbed it, a thorn piercing my thumb, and I worked it free and slowly pulled it out. I held it out for Morgan to see. It was a four-inch-long wishbone of a rose twig.
“That’s it?” she said.
“That’s it.”
Morgan looked at my bleeding knuckle and my bleeding thumb. “Your hand,” she said.
“It’s okay.”
I was about to tell her I was all right, to take the horse back and not worry about me, but I was proud that I made a good decision for once, a selfless and right decision, a smart one. I let my friend take care of me. I let her look at the damage, wash me and bandage me and it was good. I let her take care of me and it was right.
I drove to town to pick up butte powder for Morgan’s horse and more for my supplies as well. I needed other things and tried to remember as best I could. Gus had told me to go take care of that and to pick up some groceries and a paper, too. He could feel, I imagined, that I was starting to worry about him and he was essentially kicking me out of the house until I came to my senses.
At the feed store, Myra was shaking her head. “Emily,” she said. “I thought she’d live forever. I thought she and old Clara Monday up on the reservation would never go. But I guess everybody does.”
“Sounds right,” I said.
“How’s Morgan?” she asked.
“It’s hard.”
“It always is,” Myra said. She looked at my stuff on the counter. “Let’s call it fifty even.”