When the Wind Blows Read Free

who usually bragged on his kill, with his little girl begging to save the animal’s life. Among his other bad habits, Duffy
     occasionally stopped by and brazenly hit on me. A sticker on his 4x4 bumper read
:Support Wildlife. Throw a Party.
    “The fawn?” he asked.
    “Maybe,” I said. “Help me get her gassed down and we’ll see.”
    I gently slid the mask over the doe’s face. I kicked at the pedal and the halothane hissed through the tube. The doe’s brown
     eyes showed terror, but also unimaginable sadness. She
knew.
    The little girl grabbed the doe around the belly and started crying her heart out. I liked the girl a lot. Her eyes showed
     spunk and character. Duffy had done at least one good thing in his life.
    “Damn, damn,” the father said. “I never saw her until she was on the hood. Do your best, Frannie,” he said to me.
    I gently peeled the little girl off the deer. I held on to her shoulders and made her face me. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
    “Angie,” she sobbed out.
    “Angie, now listen to me, sweetheart. The doe doesn’t feel anything now, understand? It’s painless for her. I promise you.”
    Angie pushed her face into my body and held me with all of her little-girl strength. I rubbed her back and told her that I
     would have to euthanatize the doe, but if its baby could be saved, there would be a lot of work to do.
    “Please, please, please,” said Angie.
    “You’re going to need a goat. For milk,” I said to Duffy. “Maybe two or three of them.”
    “Not a problem,” he said. He would have acquired nursing elephants if I’d told him to. He just wanted his little girl to smile
     again.
    I then asked both of them to please get out of the exam room and let me work. What I was about to do was a bloody, difficult,
     and ugly operation.

Chapter 2
    I T WAS SEVEN in the evening when the Duffys came to the Inn-Patient, and maybe twelve minutes had already gone by. The poor
     doe was out cold and I felt so bad for her.
Frannie the Sap
—that’s what my sister, Carole, calls me. It was my husband David’s favorite nickname for me, too.
    A little less than a year and a half ago, David was shot and killed in the physician’s parking lot at Boulder Community Hospital.
     I still hadn’t recovered from that, hadn’t grieved enough. It would have helped if the police had caught David’s murderer,
     but they hadn’t.
    I cut along the abdominal line with my scalpel. I exteriorized the uterus, flipping it out intact onto the doe’s open belly.
     I cut again, this time through the uterine wall. I pulled out the fawn, praying I wasn’t going to have to put it down.
    The fawn was about four months, nearly to term, and as best as I could tell, uninjured. I gently cleaned the babe’s air passages
     with my fingers and fitted a tiny mask over its muzzle.
    Then I cranked on the oxygen. The fawn’s chest shuddered. It started to breathe.
    Then it bawled. God, what a glorious sound. New life. Jeez, Louise, the whole magical thing still makes my heart go pitter-patter.
     Frannie the Sap.
    Blood had spattered on my face during the surgery, and I wiped it off with my sleeve. The fawn was crying into the oxygen
     mask and I let the little orphan snuggle up against its mother for a few moments, just in case deer have souls, just in case…
let mother say good-bye to her child.
    Then I clamped off the cord, filled a syringe, and euthanatized the doe. It was fast. She never knew the moment she passed
     from life into death.
    There was one can of goat’s milk in the fridge. I filled a bottle and popped it into the microwave for a few seconds to warm.
    I removed the oxygen mask and slipped the nipple into the baby deer’s mouth, and it began to suck. The fawn was really beautiful,
     with the gentlest brown eyes. God, I love what I do sometimes.
    Father and daughter were huddled close together on my antique daybed when I came out into the waiting room.
    I handed the fawn to