could close us down quicker than you could wiggle that cute little ass. Understand me?"
She nodded, understanding thoroughly.
Leah stood back, remaining silent as Graham checked the animal's vital signs: respiration, heart rate, gut sounds, the color of its gums, its temperature. He checked the stall: kicked around the shavings, toed a pile of dung, then glanced into the water bucket, hay and feed bin, then told Lorian to move the horse to the clinic to be palpated.
Lorian shook his head. "I'm gonna have to hock my truck to pay this bill, Jake. Shit, man, that Ranitidine alone is costing me two hundred bucks a week. Hell, I could go down to Wal-Mart and buy up a buncha Tums to give this bag of bones."
Jake turned on Lorian so fast that Lorian nearly tripped on himself. "Fine, Lorian, you do that. Go buy you some Tums, and while you're at it a plot to bury the goddamn horse in because that's what's going to happen if you don't start following my directions in the care of this animal. Is that it? You trying to kill the horse? You got plenty of insurance on him or what?"
Lorian's face went beet red. "What the hell are you accusing me of, Graham?"
"I told you not to be giving that horse grain for a week. There's molasses on his breath and oats in his droppings. You've been graining him, you stupid bastard."
"He was losing weight. I can't run no damn horse if he's fifty pounds underweight. He won't make it around the goddamn track."
"He sure as hell isn't going to make it if he's dead, is he?" Jake shouted back, then turned on his heels and stormed from the barn, leaving Leah to take the lead rope from Lorian. He glared at her with sweat running down his temples.
"Who the hell are you?" he said through his tobacco-stained teeth.
"I'll be assisting Doctor Graham for a while. I'm Doctor Starr." She extended her hand and tried to give him a steady smile. "I'm sure your horse will be fine, Mr. Lorian."
"I don't give a shit, lady. He ain't won a goddamn dollar since last year and if you ask me I'd just as soon put the sombitch down. Je—sus. Get the nag outta here, why don't ya?"
Lorian walked off, shouting orders to a pair of Hispanic grooms, who scuttled like crabs out of his way. Leah ran her hand along the horse's withers and down its massive shoulder bone, smiling as Cool Me Down raised his head and turned his big dark eyes, reflecting intense pain, on hers. "No wonder you have ulcers," she said, then headed back to the clinic.
"There is a swelling on the left that might be a gas pocket, but I don't think so." Leah leaned further into the horse, her eyes closed as she visualized the interior walls of the colon and the location of the spleen and kidneys. The pressure and heat around her arm, all the way to her shoulder, felt uncomfortable if not outright crushing. "The gastric ulcerations are probably contributing to his discomfort, but in my opinion I think we're dealing with a nephrosplenic entrapment. The large colon has somehow gotten tossed over the ligament, probably while he was rolling." Leah gently withdrew her arm from the stallion's rectum, peeled the examination sleeve off and tossed it in the trash. Turning to Graham, she said, "You can run another CBC fibrinogen and PCV for total protein but I suspect they're not going to tell you anything you don't already know. He's anemic and dehydrated, which means this has been going on a while. I suggest a good shot of calcium and a thirty-minute turn out on the walker at a trot. The calcium will shrink the colon and the exercise will allow it to shift back into place."
"Unless the entrapped area is distended by the goddamn grain Lorian has been feeding him."
"Then you sedate the horse and manipulate the colon rectally."
Jake reached into his medicine cabinet for a vial of clear liquid and a syringe, then proceeded to ease the needle into the horse's vein, first drawing back blood to check his efficiency. Tossing the syringe into a canister labeled Hazardous Waste, he glanced at Leah.
"You may as well know I think your working here is a bad idea."
"I don't have to be psychic to figure that out."
"It's no reflection on your abilities as a fine veterinarian. I've asked around about you. You've got a decent rep.