I nodded and started over at the beginning so Carlos, too, would know what we were up against. "According to the warden, this particular cougar attacks at night."
"So we make sure we're ready when it comes."
Carlos nodded. "I'll take my turn. After last night, you two were so tired you weren't good for much and I can't run this place by myself." He shoved a stick between the cast and his leg and moved it up and down. "Darn leg itches like crazy."
“You shouldn’t stand watch.”
"I said it itches, I didn't say I was tired. I can sit on a bale of hay as well as either of you and watch in case an overgrown cat wants to eat the horses." He looked from Max to me. “So? Do we take turns?”
Max and I eyed each other and silently agreed. “Okay, for tonight and we'll see how you feel in the morning."
He snorted. "I'll be fine. I just hope you two will be functional enough to drag the cat's body away after I shoot it."
Max's eyes narrowed. "I'll take the first watch and Maggie takes the second. The cat will most likely come right after sundown, especially if it's hungry and, if it's wounded, it's hungry. So, if we're lucky… or unlucky… it'll come then, I'll shoot it, and you both can sleep through the night."
Carlos harrumphed. "If I hear a shot, I'll come. I want to see the cat that is trying to eat my horses."
But no cat came. The night was peaceful. But I had a hard time sleeping. Several times I went to my window and looked out. One time I saw Max walking around the clearing that was Green Forest Stables, having shut and locked the stable door. In the moonlight, he was a moving shadow. If I didn't recognize his walk, a rangy stride that could carry him easily for miles, I might have mistaken his shadow for that of the cougar because both were in my thoughts.
Looking down on the scene, I thought ahead to my turn. I'm a lousy shot. That was a concern when I took a job at this remote wilderness stable. I'd voiced my concerns to my dad.
He'd taken a double-barrel shotgun down from the wall and handed it to me. He loaded his own ammunition and handed me several boxes of shells. “You don’t have to be a good aim, just point it in the general direction and it’ll do the job. Won’t kill anything big, but it’ll do damage and chase it away. And it makes enough noise to scare anything, even an elephant.” That shotgun had rested in the gun case in my office since then until the cougar appeared. Now it was downstairs, waiting to be used.
The thirty-ought six that rested beside it had been a joint decision between Carlos and my dad, who had both decided it was the right gun to kill just about anything that could threaten anyplace I happened to be. Now Max carried it on his tours around the property, not on his shoulder but in one hand so he could fire it instantly.
When I judged the night to be one-third gone, I crept downstairs and told Max that it was my turn. He didn't like the idea. "I'm not tired. Go on back to bed and get some sleep."
"I can't sleep." He towered over me, so close I could feel his breath and the scowl that said he preferred to handle things himself. "And it's my turn." I crossed my arms across my middle and waited.
Eventually, with no other choice, he handed me the thirty-ought-six and went upstairs one step at a time, slowly, reluctantly, hoping the cougar would appear so he could shoot it before disappearing into his bedroom. But the night remained peaceful and quiet and as the door closed quietly behind him I was fairly sure his Ranger training had taught him to sleep when he could. Unlike me, he wouldn't be looking out the window.
Unlike Max, I didn't walk the perimeter of the property. Nor did I keep the thirty-ought-six, replacing it with the shotgun I knew would hit anything. I kept the stable doors and windows locked tight and sat on a hay bale and waited for the penetrating scream that would tell me the cougar was near but it never came and, as the moon dropped behind the horizon, Carlos hobbled from his room to take his turn protecting the horses.
He didn't turn the light on and started down the stairs in the dark so, thinking to help him see, I headed for the wall to switch on the overhead lights. But before I got there I heard a yell followed by the sound of someone falling. He'd stumbled and was crashing down the entire flight of stairs. And he had a broken leg.
I ran to help even as I heard Max's door upstairs opening and the sound of him running to see what was wrong. As the lights came on, I saw Carlos in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. He wasn't moving. Only his steady swearing told me he was alive.
When Max and I reached him at the same time, we saw his broken leg in its cast. It was sticking out at an unnatural angle.
"It's broken again."
"In another place."
Carlos was too angry to feel pain but that would change quickly. "Damn leg." He stared at it in frustration.
"We have to get him to the hospital."
Max shook his head. "We can't leave the stable unprotected. Call 911 for an ambulance."
"We're so far from town that an ambulance would take forever. We can get him there quicker ourselves."
Max accepted my pronouncement and looked around for something to make into a stretcher but there was nothing. "I'll carry him, Maggie. You get a pillow for his leg and hold it so it won't move. I'll get him in the truck, and then you drive him to town." We looked at each other, acknowledging silently that I'd have to do it alone because Max had to stay to keep the horses safe.
By the time I found a pillow and Max could begin gingerly lifting the injured Carlos, his anger was gone and the pain had begun. His deep grunts through clenched teeth told us how severe his pain was but there was nothing we could do about it. Green Forest Stables had medication for horses and I knew there were things that could alleviate his pain but it would take time. It was more important to get him to the hospital as quickly as possible.
As I started the truck with Carlos in the jump seat rocking in pain, Max called ahead. He spoke briefly, and then flipped his phone shut. "They said we're doing the right thing bringing him in ourselves. It's faster. When you get there, they'll be waiting."
I drove as carefully as possible so as not to jolt Carlos' leg any more than necessary but his grunts of pain told me how bad his leg was. When I pulled into the emergency entrance, waves of relief swept over me at the sight of the white-coated crew waiting to take over. And I spent the rest of the night staring at a lovely blue-tinted wall waiting to hear how bad the new break was.
It was about as bad as it could be. "He's not going home today. Maybe not tomorrow. We had to get rid of the cast he already has. Thankfully it's healing somewhat so as far as that break is concerned, all we have to do is make sure we don't do anything to make it worse. But his leg is now broken in two additional places and that's bad. As soon as possible we'll set those breaks." There was more, I could hear it in the doctor's voice. "Then we'll want to run some tests to find out whether this is a fluke or whether there's a reason his bones are breaking so easily."
"He fell down a flight of stairs."
"Which would explain it. But we still want to do some tests."
"Of course."
He let me see Carlos before I returned to the stable. The man in the hospital bed looked so small and helpless that I felt guilt at the thought of the work he did at Green Forest. "Max wants to learn about horses." I took Carlos' hand. "When you come home, your job will be to teach him everything you know, not to do it yourself."
Carlos didn't think much of my idea but the drugs that were beginning to circulate through his system didn't allow him to argue much so he had to content himself with a mumbled protest before his eyes closed and he slept.