Free Who is Mackie Spence? by Lin Kaymer Page A

for a peahen that someone shot and a young male coyote that was brought in the day before. Later, I’ll ask Mackie if she already saw him when she worked yesterday afternoon.
    I finish suiting up and wait for Dru to join me for our check-in. Afternoons are prime sleep time for animals because many are nocturnal. But when you factor in injuries, any bird, mammal, or reptile that’s hurt requires sleep off and on, around the clock.
    First, we look in on the peahen, Pavo cristatus, a domestic bird. That’s a genus and species name that I don’t get to see, or practice saying, often. She’s been placed in a medium-sized cage in one of the rooms with some smaller birds. The feathers on the tip of her right wing have been damaged. A surgical envelope, shaped like a rectangular sleeve, has been slipped over the last five inches of her wing. She’s been given a light sedative to quiet her. Her food and water bowls are still full. Soundlessly, we leave the room and close the door.
    â€œWhy would anybody shoot a peahen?” Dru asks in a whisper.
    â€œWho knows? It’s stupid. Her mate wouldn’t have been too far away. If she came from near Hawke Harbor, I know the people that raise them. Have you ever seen the Henrys’ peacocks?”
    â€œNo, but the males’ feathers are gorgeous. I couldn’t see the hen well. Do the females have any bright colors?”
    â€œNot really. Mainly they’re sort of brown and gray.”
    â€œHmmm,” Dru looks up at me with a giggle. “So the pea men are styling. Seems like the males are big show offs.”
    I grin at her. Male peacocks, with their deep-blue, iridescent green, and rust-colored feathers, compete to attract mates. When a peacock fans his tail he can make the males of any other species look downright dowdy.
    We continue down the hall, looking in on sleeping animals through door windows. All is quiet. I try to concentrate on what’s in front of me, but images of Mackie and the whale keep surfacing, like hallucinations.
    Moving back to the main room, we rejoin Mrs. Vartan.
    â€œThat new coyote pup made a mess in Cage D this morning,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I heard Doc had to reset his back leg and the pup went bonkers when the team walked in. Probably the tranquilizer wasn’t strong enough. He’s in isolation right now, so would the two of you do the cleanup, please? I’ll keep an ear open for the phone and clean out the small birdcage.”
    Dru and I nod and turn to the cleaning closet. We need buckets, disinfectant soap, and scrubbers. I also remove two respirator masks from the upper shelf.
    â€œHow stinky is this going to be?” Dru asks, eyeing the masks as we exit to the outside.
    I hand her one. “You’ve never smelled coyote urine before?”
    â€œNo. It’s bad, right?”
    â€œOh yeah,” I reply as we round the bend to the fourth of ten outdoor cages.
    Even with the advantage of fresh air and a breeze, the foul odor hits us like a wall. We set our cleaning materials down and quickly put on our masks. The base of the cage is splattered with feces. Other fluids have splashed on the open metal links and dried. Seeing how bad things look, I turn back to the main building. Before I put too much distance between myself and the cage, I lift my mask and motion for Dru to join me. She runs to my side.
    â€œI need to get the pressure washer,” I tell her quietly. “Don’t do anything until I’m back.”
    It will be best to first power-spray everything from a distance, and cleaning will be a real challenge. Using their urine, coyotes mark territory to let each other, and other animals, know they’re around. Farmers and gardeners sometimes buy and apply the urine concentrate to keep deer away. I can understand why it works. Stinkeroo! And we humans don’t have nearly the acute sense of smell that wild animals have.
    After the pressure