Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 7:19 pm
by Sharkey
New Year's Eve, Trace went out of the barn into the corral, went down around 9 PM and was unable to rise. It had just begun to rain, so I covered her with a blue plastic tarp and crawled underneath with her, laying next to her body along her back, my right arm around her neck.
For the next hour and a half, she lay fairly calm, occasionally starting, attempting to upright herself. I talked soothing words to her, speaking directly between her ears.
During the next three and a half hours, she became more restless, having convulsions, and trashing her hooves, attempting to run while laying on her left side. The rain intensified and the wind began to come up. At 2 AM Thursday, Jan 1, 2009, I decided that I needed to go inside and take some of the chill off of my own body, and went into the Housetruck for a hour of cold-sweat sleep on the couch. Outside a storm mounted, and the rain came down hard.
I got up to check on her at 3 AM, hoping that she had grown weak and perhaps expired. That was not the case, and she was now thrashing with enough vigor to throw off some of the tarp and churn the ground into muddy soup. I decided that I could do no good, and went back to the couch until 5 AM.
Another check showed no lessening of her distress, and I knew that I was going to have to have her euthanized as soon as I could get Hayden the Vet to come out.
I called Hayden's home phone at 8 AM, and left a message. At 9 AM, I left a message on his cell phone. This call he returned within a few minutes, and said he'd be out in a half hour or so. I began to have an anxiety attack after hanging up, and quickly made a cup of coffee and gulped it down, pacing the floor of the Housetruck the entire time.
The storm had slackened a bit, but it was still raining some when I went down the hill to open the gate. I sat down on a large rock with the back of my raincoat to the wind driven rain and my head in my hands.
Hayden arrived soon thereafter, and motioned for me to get into the car to ride back to the house, I opened the car door and told him that I'd stay down at the gate, and to please cover her body with the tarp when it was done. I sat back down on the rock while Hayden drove up the hill to the house.
In a very short time, there was the report of a handgun from the house, a single shot.
I'll describe my reaction only as a short burst of uncontrolled hysteria. I slumped from my seat on the rock, and sat limply on the wet ground. A calm, and very empty feeling of relief came over me.
It took Hayden what seemed like a long time to come down again. I imagined he was checking for a heartbeat with his stethsoscope. I dreaded the sound of another shot, telling me that the job had not been finished.
When Hayden did come down, he rolled down the car window, and I weakly said "Thank you" . He told me to get up and get in the car, he wanted to talk to me, so we would go for a short drive. I peeled off my wet raincoat, the muddy windbreaker underneath that I had been laying in the corral in, and one of the three pairs of sweat pants that I had on and threw them into the shed next to the gate, took off my rubber boots and put them on the mat, and got into the passenger side of his car. Hayden headed the car east, up over the ridge to Mapleton. Once we were away from my place, he told me that he was taking me to his home for the day, that I needed looking after. I was too wracked with grief and sadness to offer much resistance.
I don't remember much of the drive, the familiar road, or landmarks. Hayden wanted a complete report on Trace's condition over the last 48 hours, how much she ate and drank, at what times, and when various stages of her failing functions occurred. I thought that he was just trying to keep me busy talking, but in reality, he was trying to determine whether or not she had died as a result of rabies infection, which would mean that I had been infected by contact with her over the last few days. I answered his questions with as much accuracy as I could and with as little emotional disruption as I could manage.
By the time we arrived at the turnout to park at his home, I was going into shock. My arms and legs were going numb, and I could feel my blood pressure slowly dropping.
Hayden and his wife Dawn live on an island in the Siuslaw river channel. In order to reach their house without miles and miles of back-road driving, it's necessary to take a boat across the river. Hayden used his cell phone to call his laborer to come across with the boat and pick us up. When he saw the boat back away from the dock on the other side, we exited the car, and climbed down an embankment. It's necessary to cross Highway 126, which is a very busy road. As dazed as I was, I knew that it was important to watch for traffic. What I wasn't prepared for was that I was nearly immobilized by the shock, and could only walk in a drunken stumble. I did make it to the opposite guardrail, which I climbed over. Down a steep metal stair to the waiting launch. I scrambled to the rear of the craft and fell into a fetal position against the transom, dimly aware of the slap of the water on the hull and the rocking caused by the turbulence of the storm-provoked river.
On the south shore, it was up the dock ramp, through the gate and over to the house, staggering all the way.
Once inside the pack porch, I asked to use the restroom and was directed into a small back toilet. That the walls were so close was beneficial, as I bounced off of them several times before I was able to gain enough balance to take care of my task.
Before leaving the service area of the back of the house, I washed my hands, arranged my clothes and attempted to smooth my hair. Hayden had mentioned that he had house guests, and I was going to present a fairly rough picture. I couldn't remember the last time I had brushed my teeth, hadn't shaved in three days, and was wearing rumpled, partially muddy sweat clothes. Not surprisingly, I looked like I had spent the night laying in a field.
I emerged into the living room and attempted to enter with as much grace as possible. I was introduced to Bev and Eileen, the house guests, to whom I apologized for the intrusion, and my physical and emotional conditions.
I needed to sit back and raise my legs to try and recover my strength, and so flopped down in a leather recliner. Dawn brought me a cup of coffee, a peanut butter and jelly muffin, and lots of paper napkins, which I put to use. I chewed vacantly at the muffin, and if I seemed to get too far away and stop eating, Hayden or Dawn would come over and encourage me to eat, that I needed to raise my blood sugar. They also plied me with home made sugar and ginger snap cookies.
Waves of emotion washed over me. I attempted to take an interest in the conversation in the living room so as to not seem too much of a wreck. The two guests had stayed overnight, and they had all stayed up talking until 2 AM. Breakfast was just coming off the stove. It was about 10:30 AM. Unhappy New Year!
Time seemed to crawl, but not unpleasantly so. By noon, Hayden Dawn, Bev and Eileen had set up an electronic keyboard and began to practice their choir singing. I sat, dazed in the recliner, listening to their voices blend. I was in far-away observer mode, but it was good.
Shortly after noon, Sharon, my across-the-road neighbor called. They had sensed that something was wrong, and Sharon had sent Tim, her husband over to check. Tim found Trace laying in a pool of blood with a bullet hole in her head, and knew what had happened. Sharon came over a short time later to find me and became concerned when all my cars were here, all the doors unlocked, and no me to be found. She called Hayden's looking for me. Dawn assured her that I was being taken care of, and that I'd be home later. Sharon told her to have me come over and pick up some prepared food when I got home.
An afternoon meal was assembled, large "King Tut" beans, cooked up as a stew with onions and garlic.
Outside, the rain got heavier, and the wind picked up again. A cold front was coming in over last night's warm front, and storm force winds were predicted for the coast and coast range. Looking out through the house's large windows across the estuary to the south of the house sheets of heavy rain could be seen pounding down from the sky. Trees rocked and rain beat against the skylights. Hayden suggested that if Bev and Eileen were not planning on staying that night, that they might want to start packing so that they could get across the river in the boat before the conditions became too hazardous.
About this same time, the water in the kitchen stopped, and Hayden and his laborer had to leave to go up to the water intake and clear the intake screens. Since this required a trip across the river as well, Eileen and Bev readied to go. Hayden's house is not connected to the utility grid, he generates his own electricity with a small hydroelectric generator, and without water coming down from the mountain, we would have no water and little electricity unless we depleted the batteries.
I wondered if my time to push off hadn't come as well, but Hayden told me that he thought that I should stay for the night, as there wasn't enough daylight left to fix the water, take me home and get back across the river before dark. I accepted because I really dreaded what I would see when I got home.
Everyone exited to their paths, and I laid on the leather couch alone in front of the glass-front wood stove, warming and watching the storm gather outside, grateful for a safe shelter. Hayden's home is built of massive post-and-beam construction, and only the heaviest gusts were noticeable inside. Weathering this kind of blow in the Housetruck would be anxiety by itself without what I was already going through.
Hayden came back from his water service trip looking like a drowned cat. He changed into dry clothes and headed out to feed the animals. He came back a wile later drenched again. I was beginning to feel a little guilty laying around in front of a warm fire while everyone else ran around outside getting soaked.
Evening, and Hayden wanted me to tell him again the entire story of Trace's recent illness, asking me more questions this time, and provoking me into as much detail as possible. He wrote all of it down in his files. Given the symptoms, timing and end results, he pretty much decided that it was a central nervous system failure, brought on either by pathogens or age-related organ failures. The risk for rabies exposure in horses in Oregon is nearly non-existent and the symptoms didn't match the patterns that would raise red flags. This was a relief to me, because he had been suggesting that if the profile fit rabies, I would have to drive Trace's severed head over to Oregon State University for testing in the morning.
With that out of the way, it was time to decide what I was going to do about Trace's body. I had already picked where I would have her buried, but needed to arrange the equipment and operator. I have a credit with one of the local excavators, and I called him well after dark. After explaining the situation, he agreed to send over his son, Jeff with the backhoe at 9 AM Friday morning. I had worked with Jeff at the radio station tower project, and got along with him well.
I then called Tim and asked if he could meet Jeff at the gate and direct him to the place I wanted Trace interred, a sunny spot in her corral where she liked to stand, a place where I can raise a simple memorial and plant some flowers, a place to visit when I feel the need to be close. Tim agreed and told me to not worry, he'd see that she was buried properly and respectfully. I began feeling a bit of relief. From very early in my relationship with Trace, I knew that I'd be responsible for her after death, and that I wanted something better than "disposal", which would be the end result if she had died when I lived in the city, where you could hardly bury anything as large as an equine. That I would not have to see her contorted and bloody in death was cold comfort, but I knew that I would have a haunting setback if I had to handle this part of the incident personally.
Some time around 8:30 or 9:00, we all decided that it was time to turn in. I was directed out to "The Bunkhouse", a small apartment built into one of the barns. It also served as the tack room for the riding equipment, and horsemanship ribbons from past shows line the walls. The interior is lined with rough-sawn planks, a simple kitchen is installed, and an attached bedroom features a large, old, and very comfortable bed piled deep with warm blankets and flannel sheets.
When I looked out the window, I saw a horse standing just outside. There are 31 horses on the ranch, and quite a few of them would overnight in the attached barn. In fact, I suppose the beginning my recovery was being conducted in Horse Heaven. Hayden had been a breeder from years back, and Dawn was an accomplished farrier, and still practiced the craft. Their home and this bunkhouse were filled with horse art, pictures, furniture, sculpture and artifacts. A framed photo of a horse hung over the bed.
I took off my sweats and got into bed, not really feeling sleepy, but having a fairly successful time with self control. Laying there, I could hear the horses in the adjoining barn, moving about and occasionally nichoring or snorting. Rain beat the roof and skylights, and the wind heaved the walls, although not alarmingly. Eventually, I drifted off to another cold-sweat sleep, but a comfortable one.
Sometime just before the first cock crowed, probably 4 AM or so, I awoke fairly fully, and realized that there was probably not another place I could be that would start my healing as much as being here had. Drifted off to sleep until first light.
A little after I got up and as I was standing, warming myself in front of the propane heater, I heard Hayden's laborer, a kindly Hispanic fellow, coming to feed the horses. The horses heard him as well, and started nichoring their approval. The chickens began making a fuss over the spilled grain
Hayden had warned me that he would need to be on the run fairly early the next morning. He and Dawn both had clients to see, and a man, frantic with emotion had called after dark, wanting his cat euthanized. Hayden assured him that he should be there as quickly as possible in the morning, but that passage across the river was impossible during the peak of the storm. He told the guy to give the cat an aspirin, that it would help.
Since I didn't want to delay the start of the day, I went to the house, but found no one rustling about there. I decided to go for a walk down the road along the estuary. The storm had lifted, and a few patches of blue sky showed between the clouds. I hadn't even gotten out of the yard before Hayden's German Shepard ran up and wanted to come along. I'm not a dog person, but I decided it wasn't worth the fuss to shoo her away. The storm had ravaged the trees, and there were many small branches on the ground. The dog, of course, wanted to chase sticks and kept dragging branches and dropping them at my feet, nearly tripping me. I finally picked one of the stouter-looking sticks, stripped it of it's foliage and threw it for the dog. This made it now a "special" stick, and she carried it and ignored all the others.
Went down a half mile or so and came to what appeared to be the next ranch over, so I decided to turn around and walk back. Returning to the house, Hayden was just packing his Doctor's kit and preparing for the day's activities. We went inside and ate a quick meal and drank a bit of coffee before all piling into the boat for the trip back across the river.
Haden was running a bit late for his appointment to see the cat, so rather than have him go 90 some-odd blocks out of his way to let me out, I agreed to just stay in the car while he and Dawn did their duty to relieve the cat's suffering. A few rays of morning sun peeked thought the clouds, and I felt sadness overtaking me, so I laid down in the back seat of the car, not wanting to make a scene in the client's driveway. The cat procedure didn't take very long, and we were soon on our way back towards the north end of town.
Hayden and Dawn dropped me off at the radio station, where I expected that I'd be able to talk someone into driving me home. I had no keys, no wallet, was still wearing the soiled sweats and rubber boots I had on when Hayden scooped me up. I looked like hell, in short. I figured that they'd want to get me out of there as soon as possible, which is a good way to provoke a ride. I got lots of pats on the back, hugs and sympathy, and Bob, the news guy drove me up the North Fork to home. I think he was partially motivated by the fact that I had the station's cell phone at home, and he needed it for a remote broadcast tonight.
The storm had beaten the trees along the river, but not as badly as I have seen in the past. The County had already cleared any fallen trees, and there were no landslides to see, a common problem along some parts of that road.
Closer to home, there were several large trees across the road, a section a little wider than a car cut through them, one of which is on my property. A couple of these had severed the power lines, which were laying slack on the ground.
No real damage to the house or yard. The wind picked up a couple of sheets of corrugated tin roofing I had left out and tossed one about 25 feet up a tree, twisting it around the trunk. I have no idea how I'll get that down.
Tim and Jeff had done a satisfactory job of burying Trace. She is interred close to where I described, and Tim raised a small marker to indicate the place among the excavation. They provided a layer of fresh soil where she had laid dying and thrashed ruts into the ground with her flailing hooves, covering the blood that was not washed away by the rains. I haven't had the heart to enter her corral and approach the grave yet, I'll have to wait a few days before I can do that.
Since the power was out, I got busy and got my backup systems online. The spring was still delivering water to the house, so I connected the big propane tank to fuel the instantaneous water heater and threw the proper circuit breakers and got the 24 volt photovoltaic system and inverter connected to the house breaker panel, I let the refrigerator run for a couple of hours to make sure that the freezer got pumped down good and cold. We had sun the whole time, so I didn't use any battery capacity doing that. I called Tim and thanked him for his help, and offered hot showers to him and Sharon.
Built a fire to warm the Housetruck, took a shower myself and changed into some clean sweats. Brushed my teeth for the first time in I don't know how long. The electric power was restored right about dark.
I catch myself instinctively looking over to the barn and corral every time I exit the Housetruck or walk out of the carport. I caught myself almost clucking my tongue, calling out to Trace without thinking. It's going to take a while to break those habits.
In the next few weeks, during nicer weather, I'll clean up the grave excavation and decide what I want to do for a memorial there. I'll take down all the crappy old fence and pull up the rotten fence post that comprised Trace's corral. The dilapidated barn/shelter will be knocked down. Assuming I ever did get another horse, I'd want much better fencing and shelter. Right now, I don't feel that I'll ever want to form an attachment to any other living creature. So much has been taken from me over the last four years. Now I've lost that last thing that I cared about. I feel that it's not possible to get much lower on the emotional scale.
Hayden just called, he wanted to check to see how I was doing. I gave him the short report, as well as can be expected for my first night home alone. I thanked him again for his kindness, and related a bit of what I've written here about being at his ranch. He and Dawn are going to Mexico next week, I wish them a safe and pleasurable journey. I asked when he gets back, and when I'm feeling ready, if I could come to the ranch sometime and pet one of his horses, one that doesn't mind being close to strangers. It will be hard, but I want to experience their energy, touch that warm skin and bury my nose in a mane.
I'll keep distracted until then, I still have a radio station transmitter site to finish building.
