The Totem

He looked and saw another carcass, this one wedged between two trees. Another deer. Or possibly an antelope. From this far away, he couldn't tell. He likely couldn't tell regardless. The winter had been so severe, the snow so deep, the storms so frequent and intense, that many animals who normally survived up in the mountains had come down here for food. But the winter had been just as bad down here, so they had wandered, becoming thin and weak and cold until they dropped and maybe tried to stand up once or twice and dropped again and died. Sometimes scavengers would find them and, when finished, would leave only bits of bone and skin. Other times, like this, the carcass hadn't been discovered; it had dried and shrunk till just the empty hulk remained. The positions they assumed were on occasion fascinating. Like this one that was wedged between the two trees. An outsider might think that it had tried to squeeze between the trees, had gotten stuck, and there had died. But then of course the ground had not been visible in the winter. The animal had walked upon a floor of ice-impacted snow. The snow had been quite deep, at least ten feet and likely more. The two trees veered apart at that height. The animal had lots of room. It walked between, and died, and with the thaw, it settled toward the ground and wedged.

He rode down near it, passing it, and he was right. Deer or antelope. He couldn't tell. It was the fifth such carcass he had seen today, and he was sure that if he looked around more intently, he'd find several others. He couldn't take the time. It didn't matter anyhow. He wasn't out here just to admire the land, to commemorate an a

The low of cattle was much louder now. He guessed that they were just below the coming rise. He reached the top and saw them spread out across from him, a gully between, and he was riding toward the gully, looking for an easy place to dip down, up, and then across to them. At first he thought the carcass in the gully was another deer. It had the same tawny color. But then he saw that it was one of his stock, and frowning, he was pulling up and getting off. He looked around to tie the horse but couldn't find a place, holding tightly to its reins as he walked slowly down among the open earth and rocks. The steer was lying on an angle with the slope, its back to him, and he was thinking that it had fallen and snapped its neck. But coming toward it, he saw nothing strange about the neck, and none of the legs looked broken, and he was thinking, afraid now, of disease. He shifted toward its head, peering at its mouth, but there wasn't any froth on its lips, and he was thinking of a dozen diseases that could kill a steer and leave no trace when suddenly he came around and saw its midriff and was nearly sick. He stumbled back and dropped the reins. The horse began to bolt.

TWO

The old man in the chair was tired. He'd been out and making rounds all day, from just after dawn till well past sup-pertime, checking on some newborn calves, giving shots, a dozen other things, once even coming on a case of founder. Odd how people who had worked with horses all their lives could still forget the basic rules and get their stock in trouble. He had needed just one look to know that the case was classic. Take a hot day and a tired, hungry, thirsty horse. Give it too much grain and water. Something happened to the horse's blood. The veins within the hoofs swelled. The horse went lame. He'd helped to get the horse to stand in water. That would cool the veins and possibly reduce the swelling. But not much. The horse would never be the same. The swelling would leave scars and, more, would change the horse's gait. He'd cut away part of the outside crusted nails, had given purgatives to get the horse's stomach and its bloodstream back to normal. But he didn't have much confidence. Most cases like this ended with the horse dead on its own or else destroyed. On rare occasions when the horse recovered, it almost never worked well after that and ended as a family pet. If the rancher had the tolerance. Livestock out here was a business after all, and anything that didn't earn its way was hardly welcome.

The old man sat in the rocking chair and glanced out at the setting sun. Its stark, red, swollen disc was very close now to the mountains. Shortly it would touch and disappear behind them. From the kitchen he heard cupboards being opened, dishes rattled, knives and forks selected. Supper had been heated and reheated, he'd been told. His wife had been mad about it. Not because she'd had to do more work. God knows, she never let that bother her. But she'd been mad that he had let himself go on so long. A man his age should be retired. At the very least he ought to cut back on his hours. But at a time when he should take things easy, he was working more than ever, more than any other vet in town, and she was angry, claiming that his system couldn't take it.

"I'm a doctor. I know what I'm doing."

"Sure. Of animals. Not people."

"What's the difference?"

"Don't be smart," she said. "A doctor doesn't treat himself."

"You've got me there. I'd best sit down and take it easy."

He'd smiled then as he left her in the kitchen, sitting, glancing out the window, hearing pot lids being lifted and replaced. No point in telling her that she had not slowed down much either, going out to see the sick, the orphaned, and the poor, cooking for them, mending clothes or making them. There was a phrase they used to have for that. What was it called? The corporal works of mercy. The truth was that he was more tired than she guessed, short of breath and feeling dizzy. There had been a time when he would come in after making rounds all day and smoke and make a drink and sip it, eat, and go out with her for a walk or maybe to a movie. Then he'd read till one or two o'clock. Now he couldn't stay awake. The cigarettes and whisky were long gone. The walk was too much, the movie something on the TV while he slept. It was more than feeling tired. He was feeling sick. His appetite was less each day, his stomach faintly queasy. He told himself it was the heat, but he knew better. It was something with his heart. No pains yet in his chest or down his arm. Just a vague discomfort that would shortly be much worse.

All the same, he didn't know what he could do. It was in his nature to deny himself, to make of weakness strength. Besides, he didn't know how he would fill the time. He'd been a vet now forty years. He couldn't just forget all that and sit around the house. He joked about that to his wife. "You wouldn't want me under foot all day. Be grateful." But the joke was very poor. A man whose occupation was his life, he didn't have much choice. He had to work.

And one thing more: the ranchers who depended on him. He had worked with many of them all their lives, all his own life. He had seen their fortunes rise and fall, or fall and rise, their families grow, their ranches go through all the good times and the bad. He had measured out the seasons with them. Now they were a part of him, the rhythm of his life. He couldn't any more restrain himself from going out to work with them than he could stop the racing in his blood each April when the warm winds first began the long slow thawing of the snow. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe they didn't depend on him so much as he depended on them. Or maybe it was both together. There were vets enough to go around. That was sure. But he was part of their lives too. They'd had him with them through so many times that maybe they felt incomplete without his presence in their common rituals. Maybe. It was hard to say. He'd never ask. But ranchers had their superstitions. They had patience only with what worked, and what worked best was often very old.