Page 35 of His Country

He’d barely hung up the phone before Aiden was snatching it from him. He scrolled the contacts until he found Ethan’s number.

It rang twice before he answered. “Dr. Landry.”

“Ethan,” Aiden breathed, the line staticky with the force of it. “I need you.”

Something clinked on the other end, and he heard Ethan swallow. “What happened?”

“Eagle is colicking.” he tried to keep his voice even, leading Eagle out of the barn to keep him walking at a sedate pace. “I don’t know what happened. He was fine this morning but when I dropped hay this afternoon he was down. I don’t know how long. I can’t hear any gut sounds and he’s uncomfortable.”

“Okay, Aiden, take a deep breath. I can be there in twenty. How are his gums?”

Aiden paused to lift Eagle’s lips to check the color of his gums. He pressed a thumb into the skin. “A little pale, but perfusions not bad.”

“All right, good. Keep him walking. Do you have any meds?”

He nodded before realizing Ethan couldn’t see him. “Yeah, I’ll give it to him.”

Ethan promised to hurry, and he let Isaac walk him while he drew up the pain medication. Sometimes just relaxing them could help them through it without any other interventions. Using Isaac’s phone flashlight, he gave him the medication intravenously and then took over walking him.

Isaac went to finish the evening chores and keep Frank updated. He was at a cattle auction and would be gone until latetomorrow. Aiden kept one hand on Eagle’s neck, scratching him just under his mane as they walked big circles around the barn. He wasn’t sure if the walking really helped, or if it was one of those things they said just to keep the owners from losing their minds, but he did it anyway hoping it would keep him from twisting a gut.

Aiden remembered the time his mom lost a horse to colic. They’d done all they could at the barn, so she’d left Aiden with a neighbor while she and his dad trailered the mare to the big clinic attached to the university. They tried surgery but the mare died on the table. His mother had cried for two weeks, refusing to fill the stall for even longer.

Every time they came around the barn he glanced over at the driveway, desperately searching for Ethan’s headlights. He kept running the lead rope through his hands, letting his callouses catch on the nylon like little bites to keep his attention. When he was beginning to lose himself in the memory of watching his parents come home with an empty trailer, the little snags would catch and drag him back to the present.

By what felt like the hundredth circle he looked up to see Ethan’s truck. Tension bled from him as he watched the truck pull up to the barn and park. He could finally get a big breath, relax in the knowledge that Ethan was here. Ethan was the best at what he did. He would make everything better. Just like he always did.

With a stethoscope around his neck, he nodded to Aiden but didn’t say a word as he began checking Eagle.

Aiden’s heart was beating so fast he wondered if Ethan could hear it through his stethoscope.

“When did you give him the pain meds?” he asked, eyes flickering between his watch and Eagle as he counted respirations.

“Twenty minutes ago. Seemed to help a little.”

“Good,” Ethan muttered, probably more to himself than anyone else. There was a little frown on his face, but he didn’t say anything as he removed the stethoscope and went back to his truck to get supplies.

While he was gone Aiden stroked Eagle’s forelock. His hands were shaking, and he cursed himself. He was better than this. Aiden was farm born and raised. This was certainly not his first sick animal, and it wouldn’t be his last.

But it wasEagle.Any other horse and he’d be worried, but he’d keep his head. It wasn’t like he didn’t care about them, but they weren’t Eagle.

He was there when Eagle came into the world, nostrils crinkled and ears back. Aiden had watched him make up for his size by being thebiggestpain in the ass in the paddock. He’d taught him everything—from grooming, to trailering, to riding. He’d even taught him to bow one winter when he’d been bored. They spent many nights in the hills under a blanket of stars with nothing but Sugar’s snores to keep them company. Corny as it was, if Aiden had a best friend, it would probably be this cantankerous little asshole of a horse.

Ethan returned with a silver bucket and tubing. Aiden had seen it before, but it never ceased to amaze him how a vet could sedate a horse and pass a thick rubber tube through their nose into their stomach. With the tube, Ethan could release painful trapped gas and give him fluids directly into his stomach. It was a common treatment, but watching Ethan do it was something else. His movements were fluid, confident. Ethan was born to be a veterinarian. If it wasn’t apparent in his test scores or his number of clients, it was in this. The pinch of his lips as he analyzed stomach contents or the way he instinctively grabbed the tube before Eagle shifted, keeping it from damaging the sensitive tissues along his nose.

After pumping in fluids and oil they gave Eagle more pain meds and let him rest in his stall.

“He seems more comfortable,” Ethan commented as he joined Aiden at the stall.

Chewing on his cheek, Aiden nodded distractedly. “I should have checked his breakfast. He was acting normal and put his head in the bucket, but I didn’t check to see if he finished it.”

Ethan shook his head. “It was probably the temperature change.”

“He’s been spending a lot of time out in the field, and I haven’t been able to manage his water intake. Should have had him on salt.” He picked at his cuticles; eyes glued to Eagle. His brain was recycling the same thoughts over and over, but he couldn’t stop. Now that he wasn’t actively helping Ethan treat him, he felt like he was too focused. Everything was sharp and his skin felt taut, like someone had added corset strings to his shirt and just kept tightening them past his ability to breathe.

And the more he talked the less he could breathe but if he stopped, he felt like he might explode. He ripped a cuticle off his finger and felt the blood drip across his nail.

“Or maybe a blanket with these temperature?—”