I jumped out when Doc pulled his truck into a lot beside a converted barn. A weathered wooden sign outside said MOUNTAIN MIST COMPANION HOSPITAL. Doc lowered the truck gate and tossed his keys to Maggie, who ran to unlock the door.
Russell, kneeling in the truck bed, slid the stretcher toward Doc.
“Easy,” said Doc. “As easy as you can.”
Waya looked dead. A lot of the fur on her stomach was dark and wet with blood.
Together, Russell and Doc carried Waya into the hospital while Maggie held open the door. I followed behind, feeling guilty and useless.
Inside was a small waiting room with old wooden chairs and a linoleum floor. A counter divided the room. Behind it was a wall of files and a bookcase crammed with thick textbooks and dusty diplomas propped on top. On the counter was a ceramic statue of a smiling golden retriever standing up on his hind legs, wearing a white coat and stethoscope, and holding a large syringe. The caption said, “Paybacks are hell.”
“Keep going straight back to the OR,” Doc instructed Russell.
Maggie turned on the lights in Doc’s operating room, and on Doc’s orders, lay towels on the metal operating table in the center of the room. Doc and Russell lifted Waya onto the table.
“Grab that IV stand over there, please, Diana,” Doc said. He lathered his hands and arms over a deep sink.
This was the first time anyone had said anything to me since I’d told Russell about letting the wolves go. I got the feeling that if they could have thrown me out of the moving truck they would have. As quickly as I could, I pulled a metal stand on wheels over next to the operating table.
“Now, I need all three of you to lift her up so I can get this compression bandage around that wound to stop the bleeding.”
“On three,” said Maggie. “One, two, three.” We raised Waya up. My arms shook, but I didn’t let Waya’s hind section drop. Doc tightly wrapped a bandage around her abdomen.
“Okay, lay her down now. I don’t know if I can reach any of my assistants this time of night. You folks might have to help me do surgery,” Doc said.
A spot on the bandage started to turn pink.
“Let’s get a muzzle on her. She’ll bite if she’s scared. Diana, there’s one in the bottom drawer over there.”
I found the leather muzzle. I hoped Doc wouldn’t ask me to put it on Waya.
Doc took the muzzle from me and slid it over Waya’s jaws, then buckled it behind her head, all the while talking to her. Waya moaned softly.
“We need blankets,” Doc added. “Check the closet in the hall.”
I ran down the hallway, opening doors until I found the linen closet. I bundled several blankets in my arms and rushed them back.
Maggie and Russell gently spread them over Waya.
“Maggie, you and Russell hold her while I get the IV going,” Doc instructed. And then he began shaving the fur from the top of Waya’s front leg.
My eyes burned, and my throat caught so I couldn’t breathe for a moment. I stroked Waya’s ears and pulled my hand back when I felt the heat of Russell’s eyes.
Doc hung a bag of clear liquid on the IV stand, swabbed brown, sharp-smelling iodine on the bare patch on Waya’s leg, and used what looked like a long needle to start the IV.
“I’m letting the fluids run in full blast,” he said.
Now he examined Waya, shining a penlight in her eyes. Lightly pressing on the bandage, which had stained a deep red. He lifted the skin of her snout, revealing her sharp teeth, and then pressed on her gums with the ball of his thumb. “Don’t like her color,” he said.
“She gonna make it, Doc?” Russell whispered.
“Too soon to tell.” Doc clicked off the penlight. “She looks like she’s in shock. I want to get at least one bag of fluids in her before I try to get that bullet out.”
“Please save her,” I said, practically choking.
“You know what?” Russell said. He finally looked at me, the pupils of his eyes huge with anger. “She could die. And it would be—”
“Russell!” Maggie cut him off. “Shhh! What we need to do right now is help Waya.”
Doc was making calls to see if he could get some assistance. I heard a dog barking back in the kennel area. Its voice sounded hoarse and lonely.
“Nobody’s home.” Doc left messages for both of his assistants and hung up. He yanked the rubber band from his gray-blonde ponytail, shook his hair out. Pulled it back again, tighter this time. “As soon as I can get this bolus into her, I’m going to need some help with surgery.”
“How long?” Maggie asked.
“It’ll take about fifteen minutes for the fluid to run, and then the surgery itself will take about two hours.”
Maggie looked at her watch. “I can’t! I’ve got desk duty at the lodge tonight. I already took one day off this week.” Maggie patted Russell’s shoulder. “You’re gonna have to help Doc do this, Russell.”
Russell nodded.
I swallowed and looked only at Doc. “I’ll help,” I said.
Doc nodded. Five minutes later, Maggie left in the truck. I didn’t dare try to talk to Russell. It was pretty clear he wanted nothing to do with me. It was as though all we’d talked about that first night, all we’d shared today had never happened. We sat in silence watching the level in the bag of fluid drop and the stains on Waya’s bandage grow.
Suddenly a truck screeched to a halt outside.
“Did Maggie forget something?” Doc came back from prepping for surgery. He wore a green gown and rubber gloves.
The front door slammed and someone shouted, “Doc! I know you’re in there!”
I glanced at Russell, who sat bolt upright.
“My dad!”
Just then Stephanie and Nick showed up at the end of the hall. Their faces looked white. Stephanie was limping. Joe Morgan stepped around the corner behind them. “Go on,” he said, pushing them forward. “Look who I found by my wolf pen.”
I stared at Stephanie, who saw Waya lying on the surgical table and covered her mouth with her hand.
Mr. Morgan saw, too, and his face flushed. “What have you done to her?”
“Someone shot her, Joe,” said Doc carefully. “I’m getting ready to remove the bullet so I can try to save her.”
“You got no right to do this without my permission.”
“Dad!” Russell jumped up. “You can’t just let her die!”
“It ain’t my fault she’s shot. These here kids admitted to letting my wolves go.”
“You have to let Doc save her life,” I said.
“Yeah? And who’s gonna pay for it? You?”
Russell’s voice was monotone when he spoke. “If you let her die, Dad, I’ll never forgive you. Not ever. Not for the rest of my life.”
“You ain’t never gonna forgive me anyway, so what’s the difference?” Mr. Morgan whispered.
There was a horrible silence, and the air closed so tightly around us I could hardly breathe. Stephanie drew in her breath, and I looked over at her. We both knew Russell and his dad weren’t talking about Waya now.
And I suddenly realized how Russell’s mom had died. Russell’s dad had been driving the car. Stephanie’s face showed recognition, too.
“Hey,” Doc said. “I’m not even—”
“I’ll pay for it,” I interrupted. “I’ve saved two hundred dollars. And if it’s more I’ll send my allowance every week. Whatever it costs. This was my fault. Not Stephanie’s or Nick’s.”
Mr. Morgan glanced at me. The whites around his small brown eyes were tinged with red. He rubbed his cheeks, then shrugged and said, “Go ‘head.” He seemed much smaller now. He stared at Stephanie and Nick and then turned to leave.
“I’ll see they get back to the lodge later,” Doc said, and then returned to the operating room.
Stephanie and Nick clearly looked relieved.
Mr. Morgan looked at Russell, and after a long minute, he heaved a sigh and shuffled down the hall. A moment later the door slammed and his truck started.
I looked at Russell. His face was wet. He turned away from me.
Doc called us from the surgery room. “Russell! Diana, her color is coming back. Time to work.”
We hurried in as Doc turned on the anesthesia machine and held a mask over Waya’s muzzled snout. After a few minutes, he took the muzzle off. Her jaw hung open limply.
“Put your hands under her body and help me roll her over onto her chest.”
Russell and I rolled Waya up on her chest. Stephanie and Nick stood in the doorway and watched.
“I need one of you to open her jaw while I pass a tube into her windpipe. Just spread her jaws wide open.”
Russell didn’t hesitate. He hooked his fingers over the ends of her teeth and opened her mouth wide, revealing her grayish-pink tongue lolling between yellow fangs.
“Good work.” Doc pulled her tongue forward, then slid a clear plastic tube down her windpipe. He hooked the tube to the anesthesia machine.
We helped Doc roll her again, onto her back this time. The green line on the blipping monitor told us Waya’s heart was beating, but she seemed totally lifeless. Doc clipped the fur on her abdomen and around the bullet wound and swabbed the whole area with iodine.
He tossed surgical masks to Russell and me. “Put these on,” he said. He soaped his hands up to the elbows and put on a green surgical cap, mask, and plastic gloves.
With shaking hands, I tied on the mask.
I looked at Russell. Above his mask, the whites of his eyes showed all the way around.
Doc unrolled a couple of surgical packs on a tray, pulled up a stool, and selected a scalpel. Then he cut a long incision right down the middle of Waya’s belly.
Dark blood oozed out. I glanced at Russell. His eyes looked scared above the green of his mask.
Doc inserted a metal retractor into the abdomen to hold the incision apart and suctioned out some blood.
Doc examined Waya’s abdomen. “Looks like the bullet destroyed part of the spleen,” he said. “I’ve got a spurter in here. I need one of you to wash your hands and throw on a pair of surgical gloves.”
“I will,” said Russell. He washed his hands and then got a pair of rubber gloves from the same box Doc used. They snapped as he pulled them on.
“Have a spleen,” Doc said, holding up a purplish-red organ shaped like a big tongue. “Hold it while I tie off the vessels.”
Because Doc was so sure and calm about what he was doing, I felt calm, too. I looked at the spleen with curiosity and fascination.
Doc placed Waya’s spleen in Russell’s outstretched hand and began tying knots around the vessels attached to it. Suddenly Russell swayed.
“Oops,” said Doc. “You’re looking green around the gills, buddy.”
I glanced at Russell’s face, which had gone pale. He dropped the spleen back inside Waya.
“Russell!” barked Doc. “Diana, walk him out into the hall!”
I grabbed Russell’s arms. His weight was starting to sink onto me when I got him into the hallway. I felt strangely detached as I watched Nick and Stephanie help him slide down the wall.
“Get back in here, Diana, I need you!”
I ran back.
“Quick, I’ve got a gusher; wash up and get on a pair of gloves!”
I somehow managed to wash my hands and get the gloves on, but it was like I was outside my body, dimly aware of what I was doing. Then I was standing above Waya, my palms opened, and Doc gave me Waya’s spleen. I watched a pulsing blood vessel attached to the spleen as it pumped blood into the open belly.
Doc quickly clipped a pair of scissors around the bleeder, only it had serrated teeth like a steak knife and clasped instead of cut. “Got it,” he said. “Now I need another pair of hands.”
“Steph!” I yelled. “Doc needs you!”
Stephanie limped up behind me.
“Grab that hemostat!” Doc yelled. “Those angled scissors!”
Her eyes went wide, but she limped over to the operating table and held the hemostat in both hands.
“Just like that. Don’t move until I say so.” Doc used surgical thread to tie knots around the blood vessels leading to the spleen. “I’m tying off the blood vessels so I can remove the spleen and stop the bleeding,” he said. My shoulders were beginning to cramp from holding my hands so still. A spot between my eyes itched, but I dared not move. Stephanie was gripping the hemostat with both hands and blowing upward at stray hairs in the corners of her eyes.
“One spleen,” said Doc, taking the spleen from me.
“She doesn’t need it?” I asked, letting my shoulders relax.
“She can live without it.” Doc examined the injured organ. “Well, good news and bad news. The good news is the hemorrhaging has stopped. The bad news is I can’t find the bullet. It’s still somewhere inside.”
“Oh, no,” I said, feeling panic rising again.
Doc placed the damaged spleen on a tray and gently, patiently searched inside Waya for what seemed like an endless period of time. My chest started to hurt. I realized I’d been holding my breath. I let it out slowly, watching Waya’s heartbeat on the monitor.
“If I can’t find it, we’ll have to take an X-ray,” whispered Doc under his breath. More seconds ticked by, then he sharply inhaled. “Got it!” Doc held up a mangled gold pellet. “Hey, it’s scrunched. It was underneath the kidney, right up against her aorta. She is one lucky wolf. Waya, you put a hurting on this bullet, didn’t you, girl?”
I stared at the squashed bullet. I could not believe that such a small thing had done such horrible damage to Waya’s insides.
“We can close,” said Doc. His voice sounded almost happy. “It’s still very much touch and go, but you’ve done a good job, Diana. You, too, Stephanie.”
I breathed while Doc sutured the bullet hole and incision and then bandaged Waya, and Stephanie and I followed his instructions to get a cage ready. He turned off the gas machine and removed the tube from the wolf’s windpipe. Waya started to whimper.
I passed Russell and Nick in the hall, my arms full of clean towels. Russell stood up, looking embarrassed. “Is she gonna live?” he asked.
His voice had lost some of its harsh tone, and I felt my chest loosen a tiny bit more. “Doc says it’s touch and go,” I said. “Do you want to go back in?”
“Nah,” Russell said. “Not right now.”
But Nick went into the operating room and helped carry Waya to the recovery room. He gently laid her on the folded towels. Doc attached her IV bag to the metal door of the cage. He stood looking at Waya through the kennel walls.
“Doc,” Nick said in a low, questioning voice. “Uh, Stephanie stepped into a trap. Could you take a look?”
“Sure,” Doc said. “We might need to go down the mountain to the emergency room.”
While Doc looked at Stephanie’s leg, I stroked Waya’s head as gently as I could, with only the backs of my fingertips, and talked softly to her. I had wanted freedom for Waya. Instead I landed her in this cage, barely able to move.
“You’re lucky,” Doc said while holding Stephanie’s foot. “You’re able to put weight on it, so I’m pretty sure it’s just a bad bruise. Definitely have it checked out, though.” He lowered her foot and reached into his pocket. “By the way, Diana,” he added. “Here’s a souvenir for you.” He placed the small, misshapen bullet into my waiting palm.