Page 21 of Xel: Broken Bond

Thankfully, Leesha was available, and she said she’d be here in about half an hour. I shot a quick message to Bo, lettingher know what was going on, then grabbed the keys to my car from the table by the door and an armful of equipment from the storage room off the garage. “Here, can you carry this?” I said to Xel, handing him a halter, a few different ropes, some thick gloves and half a dozen other things I thought might be useful. “You’ll find a crate out by the car. You can chuck it all in there. And… wait, yes, these’ll probably do,” I added, grabbing a pair of spare boots from the rack by the front door. I had pairs in a dozen different sizes, for when visitors or trainees came without suitable footwear – which was surprisingly often – and I was pretty sure one of the larger pairs would fit Xel. “See if those feel okay. If they’re too tight, there’s a larger pair.”

With his standard reply of “Yes, sir,” Xel disappeared outside, and I heard the sound of a crate being dragged about, then a variety of indistinct thumps. By the time I had my medical kit ready to go and joined him by the car, he had the boots on and was looking rather pleased about them.

“We just need to hitch up the trailer,” I told him, leading him around to the side of the carport. There was a small float out there, large enough to fit a donkey or a thumbit. “I’ll back the car up, so can you tell me how far I need to move it?”

It had been quite a while since I’d had a second pair of hands for this sort of thing. And I was immediately grateful for how much easier it all was. Instead of having to jump out and check where the rear of the car was a dozen times, Xel just gave me a couple of simple tips about how far to the left or right I was going, and in less than five minutes, we had the whole thing hooked up, packed and ready to go.

“Come on,” I said to Xel, as he stood there, gazing proudly at his handiwork. “Let’s go. I’ll need a hand to get the donkey into the trailer, and Doot’s probably going to have his hands full dealing with everything else.”

Xel stared at me in confusion for a moment. “You… want me to come with you?” he asked, blinking in surprise. But for all his astonishment, he also looked rather delighted about the idea.

“Yes, I do,” I said with a smile. Had he honestly not picked that up from the fact that I’d just given him a pair of boots? “Jobs like this don’t come along very often, so it’s as well for you to see how this side of things works while we have the chance.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, with far more enthusiasm than the words usually contained, and then he darted around the side of the car, climbing into the passenger seat.

It took about half an hour to get to the small farm, and I spent the time filling Xel in on the various laws surrounding animal care and ownership on Rendol 4. Cases of animal neglect usually came with heavy penalties, but Doot had said that the owner of the donkey had dementia. It was a pretty rare illness these days, with medical advances in the last fifty years having greatly decreased the incidence of it, but there were a few subtypes of the disease that unfortunately still persisted.

“So on the basis that he’s probably not going to be considered legally capable,” I explained, as we pulled onto a winding lane that led to the man’s house, “he’s probably not going to be charged for any of the neglect. But at the same time, he’ll be banned from ever owning an animal again. The authorities will track down his family and make sure he has suitable accommodation.”

I didn’t say it to Xel, but I was privately relieved that the owner was mentally not all there – as awful as that might have sounded. I’d had to put up with far too many disgruntled owners deciding they could try to bully me based on the scars on my face. A fair few of them had honestly expected me to back down just because they called me ugly – as if the idea had never occurred to me before. This man was far more likely to simply be confused, and as much as I wanted to know that he would bereceiving appropriate care, my job here was to see to the welfare of the animals.

I parked beside a familiar yellow vehicle and got out, looking around for Doot. I spotted him a little way off, with a small cluster of people around him. One of them was holding a crate with two chickens inside, while another had a goat on a lead, and I guessed they were the neighbours who had agreed to take on the man’s other animals.

I led Xel in their direction, keeping an eye out for the owner or the police officers who would inevitably have been called, but I couldn’t see them. Nor could I see any sign of the donkey. I stopped a way back from the group, not wanting to engage with the neighbours if I could avoid it, and thankfully, Doot saw us coming. He nodded in our direction, then finished up whatever he was explaining to the neighbours, before he dismissed them with a cheery wave and wandered in our direction.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, offering his hand, and I was once again grateful that it had been Doot to call me, rather than one of the other animal welfare officers the city employed. We’d met two years ago, in the midst of a warehouse explosion that had involved eight injured kittens, and the emergency had meant we’d both spent a solid three hours helping to treat the kittens’ wounds at a nearby veterinary clinic. By the time either of us had had time to stop and take a breath, Doot had gotten accustomed to my scars. He’d handed me a damp cloth to wipe the soot off my face, and a shot of whisky, and then complimented my skills at inserting a venous catheter into a vein so small it was little bigger than a piece of string.

I’d responded with a wry, “Ugly but useful, right?” and he’d laughed so hard he’d shot whisky out of his nose.

“This is Xel,” I introduced him, before Doot could ask who my new companion was. “He’s coming to work for me after my uncle passed away. So where’s this donkey at?” I rushed on, withoutgiving Doot the chance to start asking questions about Xel. “And how’s the owner dealing with all of this?”

“Welcome aboard, Xel,” Doot said, then he shook his head. “I’m amazed the owner has managed to keep the house going for as long as he has. There’s hardly any food, most of the animals were roaming free and the electricity company’s been threatening to shut off the power for months. That’s what finally got us out here. They sent a man to turn off the power, he saw the state of the place and called in the authorities. Sad story, but at least now, he’ll be getting the help he needs. The animals, on the other hand…”

What little optimism there had been on Doot’s face vanished as he led us into a ramshackle stable with a door that was almost falling off its hinges. “This is Huckleberry,” he said, turning the corner and coming to a stop in front of a low stall door. I stepped closer, trying hard to make out the donkey in the dim light. Giving up after a few moments, I turned on the light on my comm instead… and gasped as I finally got a look at the sorrowful creature.

“Oh god, Doot…”

“He’s in rough shape,” Doot confirmed, though I could clearly see that for myself. The donkey was emaciated, his coat falling out in clumps, his mane matted and his hooves… Oh god, his hooves were overgrown to the point that he could barely stand up. And now I understood what Doot hadn’t said during our call. Getting him into the trailer was going to be a nightmare, not because Huckleberry didn’t want to go, but because the simple act of walking was damn near impossible.

“Would you be able to bring the trailer over here?” Xel suggested immediately. “So he doesn’t have to walk so far?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” I agreed. “Is he injured?” I asked Doot. “Aside from the obvious, I mean? Can he walk?”

“Slowly, but yes. He was in a yard around the back, in the full sun. We brought him in here to give him some shade. He had a barrel full of green water and some mouldy hay. I’ve given him some fresh water, but I wasn’t sure about food. I didn’t want to accidentally make him sick by giving him the wrong thing.”

I nodded. “Good quality hay with a protein supplement is ideally what we’re looking for. Assuming his teeth aren’t in too bad shape. Is there any hay around here?” Perhaps I should have thought to bring some.

Doot looked dubious. “Not really. I’ll show you what there is.” He led the way around the back of the stable, to a hay shed that was filled with…

“Oh, heck, no,” I blurted out, backing swiftly out of the shed. The smell of rotting vegetation was strong in the air, and a quick glance at the bales revealed that they were covered in a pale, fuzzy mould. “No way in hell he should be eating that. Well, we’re going to have to try and get him into the trailer using old fashioned coaxing and pushing. Give me a minute, I’ll go and bring the car around.” I hurried off, doing my best to avoid the two police officers who were now hanging around out the front of the owner’s house. From inside, I could hear vague shouts – a man declaring that he wasn’t going anywhere, thank you very much – and I did my best to ignore it.

Towing the trailer across the uneven grass was a slow and painstaking exercise, but when I got close to the stable, Doot did his best to guide me around the worst of the potholes, until I finally had the rear of the trailer just a metre or two from the stable door.

I got out of the car and headed back inside, expecting to find Xel in there, keeping Huckleberry calm. He’d already proven to have something of an affinity for animals, and they seemed to like him in return.

But the stable was empty, aside from Huckleberry himself, and I stepped back outside, looking around. “Where did Xel get to?” I asked Doot… just as Xel himself came dashing around the corner, an armful of long grass in his grasp.

“Will this help?” he asked, with a hopeful look on his face. “There’s a patch of long grass just over the back fence. Everything inside the fence has been eaten down to bare dirt.”