Page 14 of Raven's Instinct
KENDRA
Kendra thought for one horrible moment that she’d been hit by a car, but it was from the wrong direction, and although the blow rocked the van, it didn’t deploy the airbags. Kendra slammed on the brakes and put a hand out to the car seat out of habit, but of course, Amy wasn’t there.
She put the van in park and checked the mirrors next, getting a glimpse of something big in the far side-mirror. Had one of Tabby’s horses escaped and followed her? Why would it charge her van?
Though the collision had caused her more than a little alarm, instinct was not suggesting immediate danger, so Kendra unbuckled and went warily around the front of the van.
There was a big, black bull standing beside the vehicle, head lowered like he was ready to charge again, but he paused when he saw Kendra. He was a Spanish bull, Kendra thought, and a big one—probably three quarters of a ton of attitude and wickedly sharp horns.
She immediately realized what his problem was; he was dragging a tangle of razor wire that was wrapped around one lacerated rear leg. Kendra kept the nose of the van between herand the bull, ready to bolt around to safety if he charged her as she considered her options. He was clearly in pain, and Kendra was not going to simply approach a hurt animal that could trample her without effort. She had tranquilizers, but she’d have to get close enough to inject him. She found herself wishing she had a tranquilizer gun, or a blowdart. But this wasn’t a movie, and she’d need to inject him with a whole lot of sedative to take down a creature of his size anyway. Anesthetic wasn’t cheap!
The bull snorted and blew, pawing with one of his front legs before he turned, the cage of wire ringing on the gravel as he dragged it around as if to show it to her.
His attack suggested aggression, but was it possible that he’d simply been trying to get her attention?
Kendra stepped from the shelter of the van and the bull swung its head to look back at her, snorting.
A hurt animal might instinctively seek a human for help, especially a tame one, but it wouldn’t be acting so careful, especially after crashing recklessly into the side of a vehicle. Kendra wryly noticed that he’d managed to scratch a line through her logo and dent the side slightly. Would her insurance cover an act of bull?
But he wasn’t really acting like a bull.
Kendra took a tentative step closer, prepared to bolt if he made a move, but the bull only lowered his head with a sigh and swished his tail.
He was a shifter, Kendra realized, as soon as she was close enough. There was a little tingle of recognition that every shifter gave off, like a familiar smell or sound, but not of any usual sense. It was always stronger with proximity, and most noticeable with touch.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m a shifter, too!”
Kendra dropped her reservations and approached, putting a hand on his flank to make sure he knew where she was as she knelt to see the extent of the damage.
Her owl cooed in sympathy.
It would have been a hazard on any animal, and if he hadn’t been a shifter, Kendra knew that it would be much worse; some of the wire was wrapped up around his leg, like he’d fought to remove it, and there was a dragging coil that would be a swinging weapon if he struggled or was restless. The dragging part was full of dead leaves and grass, and there was dark, dried blood staining his leg, even though part of the wound was fresh and bright.
“How long have you been hauling this around?” Kendra asked in horror. “Have you beenstucklike this?”
A cow’s leg was considerably thicker than a man’s and Kendra couldn’t understand why he hadn’t shifted to slip himself out of the metal trap, but she wasn’t afraid that he would accidentally hurt her now. She rose to her feet to go to the back of her van for the tools that she would need.
First were leather gloves. They did a good job of protecting her from testy clients with claws, but she knew that the razor wire could still pierce them if she wasn’t careful.
She grabbed wire cutters (because this would not be the first bovine she’d untangled from a poorly considered encounter with a fence), and a first aid kit. The bull watched her come around from the back of the van with a steely gaze, but he didn’t budge an inch as she knelt beside the mangled leg again.
“I’m going to be right back here,” Kendra said. It helped to talk constantly when she worked with animals, so they knew exactly where she was and there were no surprises when she touched them. “I’ll take the weight off the wire first, and then we’ll work on getting the rest off. If you feel like kicking me, justdon’t, okay?”
The bull snorted his agreement. He was clearly keeping his weight off of the leg, and Kendra hissed in sympathy as she got a better look.
“Here we go.”
Snip, snip.
Kendra wished she had the heavier-duty wire cutters; the fencing was thick enough that it took all of her strength to snip each strand and by the time she’d gotten the dangling coil disconnected, her hands and forearms were already feeling the strain of it.
The stuff wrapped around the leg was trickier. Some of the strands cut deep into the flesh, and Kendra couldn’t see immediately how to get the cutting blade underneath them. She cut it away doggedly, unwinding what she could, cutting it when she couldn’t. The barbs bit through her gloves several times, no matter how careful she tried to be.
“Oh, sweetie, this looks bad,” she said soothingly. There was a reason she was a vet and not a human doctor, and part of that reason was that she liked to tell things like they were. Her bedside manner was much more about avoiding being bit than it was about breaking news gently. “You’ve definitely got some infection in here, and I’d have been surprised if you didn’t, because this isfilthy.”
She had to rip the wire from the hide for the last few winds because the flesh had swollen around it, and fresh blood oozed down the bull’s hock. His sides heaved, but he stood absolutely stock still while she worked. Traffic went by semi-steadily, but they were shielded from view of the highway by the bulk of Kendra’s van and no one stopped to offer help.
“You’re a lot easier than my usual clients,” Kendra observed. “I’d have called in an assistant for this one for sure. Did you come to me because I’m cheaper than a doctor? Because I’mgoing to have to charge hazard pay for this—oh my God that is gross.”
