Dressed in my scrubs, I stretched, stepping away from the cheap desk I used most nights when I stayed this late. I had a busy day looking at a ton of cats and dogs, and a few rabbits. It was a little after nine and I still had a few more patients to tend to once I actually left the office. It was the birthing season. A lot of the farms around the area were calling in left and centre about calf births and I was up to my neck in work right now. Not that I was complaining. It helped me pay off my school loan and the country house I bought a little over a year ago. If you asked me, I was pretty thrilled to be able to pay it all back faster.
I grabbed the backpack I carried around instead of a purse because I wasn't your typical woman. I was more practical than pretty. Not that I didn't have purses, because I did. I had a ton of them, I just didn't use them.
Grabbing my keys from the front pocket of my backpack, I locked the place up before heading to my car. I had two other places, both farms, to stop at before I could head home and crawl into my bed. It was what I was looking forward to the most. I had the next day, which was a Sunday off. It was an emergency only day. Call me if you needed me. It was the one day a week I could look forward to crawling in my bed and only having to move if I got a call.
I was hoping for no calls, but in this season, that would be rare. It was also shaping up to be a solid calving season just a few weeks in.
Getting in and turning on my car, I flicked my heated seat on. It felt amazing on my sore back muscles.
My office was on a highway road. In the middle of nowhere, really, the town just down the road, where I was technically located, was just a small farming community. I blip on the map, blink, and you would miss it. I enjoyed knowing everyone, face to face. Occasionally, we had new people from towns around us coming to check out my vet office, hoping for better prices and better services.
The downside to being on a highway was all the dead wildlife, most I couldn't help. No matter what I did, most of them would die. This was just the biggest downside of it all.
Pulling out onto the highway, I got behind a transport truck. This drive was one I knew pretty well now. I had been visiting both these farms since the season began, to check on calves and all the cows.
The transport in front of me slammed on its breaks came to a complete stop. I slowed behind him, also coming to a complete stop. My brain said this was because he had hit something and it was big. He wanted to check the damage he had done to his rig.
Call it my vet brain, But I also got out of my car. I wanted to see what he had hit. I doubted there was anything I could do to save it. It was probably only a deer, and it would most likely be dead on impact. Jogging to the front of the truck, the driver looked shocked and was cursing.
"Excuse me, I'm the driver behind you. What did you hit?" I said rather loudly.
He turned, his eyes looking me up and down.
"A wolf I think... Or a dog?"
There was indeed a black lump at the side of the road. I stepped around him, rolling up the sleeves on my sweater, and got closer. If this thing was still alive, it would probably try to bite me. From a foot away, I could see it was still alive.
"Help me carry this to my car! Please, I'm a vet. I can help it."
"Lady, It's going to die. Just leave it."
"Please, just help me!"
He went to his truck and grabbed a dirty blanket and we tossed it over the animal before he and I carried it back to my car and put it in my back seat.
The trucker shook his head as I got back into my car and drove all the way back to the clinic, going way faster than I should have been. The thing in my back seat was still breathing and would let out a whimper now and then. Back in the parking lot again, I pulled out my keys, shutting off my car. Racing to get the front doors unlocked.
I didn't want to hurt the animal that I was pretty sure was a wolf anymore. Grabbing the closet cart, I shoved it out the door. Getting to the car with the cart, I opened the back door. The wolf let out a whimper when I moved it from the car to the cart and moved it enough to close my car door.
With my keys shoved into my pocket, I pushed the wolf into the clinic and prayed I had enough time to save this beautiful animal.
Inside I moved him, now knowing it was definitely a him, to the table and took X-rays and other images. I wanted to know what I was dealing with and how bad his injuries were. I rubbed his head, trying to keep him awake as I waited for the X-rays to load up on my computer.
I was positive there was going to be internal damage and this guy would have a death sentence, but when the tests all came back. There was none. Just broken bones.
I wanted to shake my head in disbelief, but I was grateful for this. There was nothing that was going to be a death sentence for him, and everything that was broken, based on the X-rays, would be an easy fix for the most part. The worst of all of it looked to be his left front paw, which was in a few pieces, but nothing that I wouldn't attempt to fix.
After putting him under and doing everything that needed to be fixed, double-checked my fixes with another X-ray. I gave him pain medication, Via injection and stopped the sleeping medication. I needed him to wake up now. Once he came too, that would be proof enough he was going to be ok.
Checking my phone, It was almost one in the morning. I had been working on this guy for a while, but I was confident he would be ok. I was extremely exhausted now. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep until next year.
Yawning, I covered my mouth and stretched again. I needed to get up out of my chair and walk around, or I was going to fall asleep. I wasn't sure if that was going to be a good option, considering my new bedmate, the wolf.
Standing up, I walked around the office until I heard the whimper of the wolf. I had wrapped most of his wounds and made sure they wouldn't move when he did. He was lying on his side still, whimpering now. Until he saw me again. Then he growled.
"Calm down, boy. I fixed you up. We are friends."
He growled at me again, this time far more feral like, and it only got worse when he realised he was having issues moving things.
"I had to wrap some of your broken bones, but you wouldn't understand that. You are a wolf."
I shook my head. Why did I even try to explain what I had done to the wolf, to the wolf? He wouldn't understand, anyway. He was an animal, a wild one at that.
I let out a sigh, sat down in the chair, and just watched the growling wolf. He really couldn't go anywhere, but I still wanted to monitor him for a little longer before I figured out where I was going to move him to look after him. There was no way in this shape he could look after himself, at least for a few weeks. If I called the wildlife place, they might just put him down, and I didn't want them to do that.
"I think you might have to go home with me."
His ears moved at that sentence.
"If I tell the wildlife place I have you, they might put you down and I just spent a lot of time putting you back together like the worst puzzle you can play."
He let out a puff of air, as if he was trying to laugh at me.
"Trust me, You wouldn't know anything about it, you were having a great sleep. I envy you, I want to have a fantastic sleep too. Keeping you alive was so much more important, though. You are super lucky you only had broken bones. I was sure you were going to have internal bleeding."
I rolled closer to the wolf in my rolling office chair. He had stunning yellow eyes which looked back at me with almost human emotions.
"If you come home with me peacefully, I might even let you sleep on the guest bed."