Part 9
Luis put his hand over Owen’s and took the strain before asking him to open his fingers. Owen managed it slowly. The line left marks across his palm that stayed white after the pressure was gone.
“She’ll step off if that slips,” he said.
“I’ve got it.”
Luis added a separate line and a wider support beneath Willa, working without drawing her toward the broken edge. Owen watched the lamb’s legs gather under her as the crew above began taking her weight. She resisted until there was nowhere left to place her feet.
Her body rose through the light. For a moment the cream fleece swung over the dark passage; then hands above drew her onto firm ground. Somebody called that she was secure.
Owen shut his eyes, opened them again, and looked for Fern. She had stood when Willa left the shelf. Luis reached for her harness, keeping his movements slow enough for her to see them.
Fern went back to Owen.
She pressed along his side, muddy fur against his wet jacket. When Luis encouraged her toward the upper bank, she took one step and returned. Owen put his hand behind her ears.
“Go with him.”
Her gaze stayed on his face. He had spent weeks letting her choose when to come close, and now the thing he needed most was for her to move away.
“Fern. Go on.”
He lifted his hand toward Luis. She followed it, paused, then stepped beside the rescuer. He secured her in the lifting equipment before disconnecting the tether still leading to the cedar.
Owen watched every part of her rise: front feet leaving the earth, body turning slightly in the sling, the gold of her face coming level with the opening. He kept watching until the crew had her behind the boundary. Then he could give Luis his full attention.
The timber moved under the controlled pressure of a lifting bag. Luis stopped once to check the surrounding soil, then continued until Owen’s leg was no longer taking the load. A splinter still caught his trousers; the rescuer cut the fabric away instead of pulling him against it.
The ankle throbbed as soon as the pressure eased. Owen started to draw his knee toward himself, but Luis stopped him with a hand and told him to stay still. He obeyed while the team prepared to bring him up.
He could do very little during the lift. Rain struck his face; lamps moved over him; somebody told him where a supporting hand was about to go. He made himself listen and leave the work to them.
On the stretcher, he began shivering hard enough that his teeth hurt. A medic covered him, examined the ankle, and worked to get wet clothing away from his skin. Glen took Owen’s muddy jacket when it was handed out from beneath the blanket.
Fern lay down beside the stretcher. Tucker put his front paws against its frame, and Glen lowered him gently before he could climb farther. Boone remained near the cedar, still facing the dark ground.
“Boone.”
The dog turned. Glen brought him over on the lead, and Owen reached out from the blanket.
He touched Fern first, then Tucker, then Boone. All three were warm under the rain-soaked outer fur. He counted them with his hand because he could not seem to stop counting.
“They’re here,” Glen said.
Owen nodded. He tried to answer, but the shivering broke up the words.
A groan came from the chamber. Leah called for everyone to move farther uphill, and the stretcher began traveling before Owen could turn his head. Behind them, water broke through the lower workings and rotten timber collapsed into the passage.
Part of the opening folded inward. Willa was already above it; Fern was beside the moving stretcher. Nobody remained below.
At the hospital, the X-rays showed no fracture. The physician described a severe sprain, bruising along Owen’s hip and shoulder, and hypothermia that needed observation while he warmed. No heavy work for several weeks, she told him, with more instructions to follow once the swelling could be assessed.
Owen looked at his ankle. It had become a shape he did not recognize above the brace they were fitting. The absence of a broken bone was less useful news than he had expected.
“Several weeks?” he asked.
“We’ll judge it by how you recover. You don’t get to make it shorter by needing to finish a fence.”
He wanted to object that she had not seen the fence. Instead he asked whether someone had reached Glen.
Glen had taken all five animals to his farm. Briar and Willa stood together in a sheltered pen, with food and water and more fencing between them and the weather. The dogs came into the house wet, restless, and unwilling to use the places he chose.
Tucker lay against the front door. Fern left the clean blanket Glen spread in the kitchen and found Owen’s jacket where it had been set to dry. She circled once, then folded herself around it with her muzzle against the sleeve.
Boone went to the farm gate. From there the road curved toward Alder Creek. Glen tried calling him inside, then brought a sheltering cover near the gate when he would not settle elsewhere.
Before dawn, Glen carried out the thermos and sat with him. Boone did not turn around. Glen drank his coffee, keeping the dog company until the light began to show between the trees.
Owen woke in a hospital room with a dry mouth and one hand reaching over the side of the bed. It found the metal rail. He lay still, looking at the bare floor where Fern would have been.
For a few seconds the emptiness was difficult to bear. He had spent years arranging rooms so nobody could leave a space like that. Now three bowls sat in the kitchen of a house he could not yet reach.
He found the call button, then stopped. Glen had already told him where the animals were, and he was allowed to believe him. Owen put his hand back on the sheet.
The brace lay heavy beneath the blanket. He would need Glen to drive him, somebody to carry feed, and help with the gate before the lambs could return. He pictured the porch chair with his bad leg propped in front of it and disliked almost everything about the arrangement.
After a while he asked the nurse when the doctor would come back. He needed to know what he could do to get home safely.
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇