The Good Ones

Chapter 1: Lonely Girl

The Spur H Ranch wasn't difficult for Mavis Rogers to find. It sat off Highway 93 in northeastern Nevada, and not much else did. The entrance of the ranch was a large timber frame gate. The Spur H brand, a capital H with a spur connected to its left side, was cut from a piece of metal and hanging from the top beam. Mavis stared at the entrance to her future, having the feeling that someone had her heart by a string and they were tugging it through her stomach. She was only partially able to fill her lungs with air. Her breathing quickened. She sought the pressure point on her wrist her therapist had taught her to press when she felt a panic attack coming on.

"Calm down," she told herself. "Everybody struggles their first year out, not just you. You'll have a mentor and he'll be really nice and help you not kill anything."

She repeated the words over and over, waiting for them to sound more believable. They never did. She knew she was going to be an awful veterinarian. Sure, she'd gotten decent marks in her clinical year of school. Reviews from her senior clinicians were the same on every rotation. They raved about her work ethic, compassion, and collegiality, noting, however, that her knowledge base needed much work. What good would work ethic, compassion, and collegiality do if she didn't know what the heck she was doing?

An eighteen-wheeler roared past Mavis and broke through her internal monologue. She took a deep breath and could once again smell the sweet sage brush that covered the desert floor. She put the car in drive and continued past the gate, determined to act like the doctor she now was. Good doctors didn't have panic attacks.

The dirt road after the entrance eventually led to a group of houses, all modulars, surrounded by patchy yards thirsting for water the desert couldn't provide. Past that were red barns and wood pole corrals. She drove until she spotted a red tin building with a white veterinary caduceus symbol above the entrance- the Spur H Ranch's own fully functioning veterinary clinic.

As Mavis stepped out of her car and walked toward the front door of the clinic, a beat up, red Ford truck with a white vet box inserted in the bed pulled in from around the corner. One of the doors on the rear of the box was broken, bouncing up and down with every bump in the road. Cross Canadian Ragweed blared from the speakers as a man hopped out of the driver side door. He was lost in thought, humming the words to Lonely Girl, and didn't see Mavis until he nearly ran right into her.

"I'm so sorry, ma'm," he said in a thick Oklahoma drawl. "Nobody told me I had somebody waiting for me."

He wiped his hands on his jeans, rubbing more manure onto his fingers than had been there before. He smiled and lifted his ball cap from his head as he extended a hand toward her. He was average on the handsome scale, but had a smile that made her heart skip a beat. Embroidered on the right side of his scrub top was Alex Dodd, DVM.

Mavis's heart skipped another beat. She was speaking to the head veterinarian of the Spur H Ranch for the first time, the mentor who would guide her and influence how she practiced medicine for the rest of her life. She channeled her inner professional and shook his hand. "It's no problem, Dr. Dodd. I just got here."

His smile grew wider. "Please, call me Alex."

Alex appeared to be in his mid-thirties and stood taller than Mavis. He wasn't chubby, but he never missed a meal. He wore thin-rimmed glasses and had thinning, sandy brown hair. His old Wrangler jeans, worn boots, navy blue scrub top, and orange Oklahoma State Cowboys ball cap had seen better days. In better condition was his leather pocket knife sheath clipped to his belt. There was something else about him, but she couldn't put her finger on it. It was almost as if the density of the air around him was different.