A Surprise Visit

D. E. Larsen, DVM

     “Dave, I am flying from San Francisco to Seattle this weekend,” Marsden said on the phone. “If it works out for you, I could stop off in Eugene, spend the weekend and then catch a flight out of Portland.”

    “What a surprise,” I said. “That will work great. I can pick you up in Eugene, and we can drop you off at the Portland Airport.”

      Marsden had been in the Army with me. We had both been in Company D at Fort Devens, a duty company, while we were waiting for class spaces to become available.

     After Fort Devens, I went to Korea for 13 months and then went to West Germany. Marsden was at Wobeck, a small outpost out of the village of Schöningen when I arrived. We worked together in the maintenance shop for the 17 months that I was there. We worked well together, and along with a few others, we became quite a team.

In the early summer, Marsden stepped out onto the ramp of the small commuter airplane at the Eugene airport. My seven-year-old daughter, Amy, had made the trip with me to pick Marsden up. Her hair was whipping around in the stiff breeze. 

“I bet you had a bumpy ride in that little puddle jumper,” I said as I extended my hand. Marsden had not changed any in the 10 years since we had seen each other. Still tall and slim with thinning rusty red hair. At least taller than me, but that is pretty easy to accomplish.

“It wasn’t bad until we came down to approach the airport,” Marsden said.

“I was hoping I could identify you,” I said. But you haven’t changed a bit.” 

We had both returned to school after the Army. I became a veterinarian, and Marsden got a Ph.D. in Geography. He was working for a German company now and living some in the US and some in Germany. His wife, Elke, was from Schöningen.

“How long do you have to stay,” I asked. 

“Not long, I have a flight out of Portland on Sunday evening,” Marsden said. “I hope that doesn’t inconvenience you much.”

“No problem at all,” I said. “We can find something to do on Saturday and take the back road to Portland to give you a flavor of Oregon.”

The only complication we had was my folks were staying with us this weekend. That made sleeping arrangements a little tight. We put my folks in Brenda’s bedroom and Marsden in Derek’s bedroom. Kids are adaptable enough that they can sleep anywhere.

Finding something to do on Saturday in a veterinarian’s house is not difficult. The phone rang early. I had a cow to look at in Cascadia. She was down after calving the day before.  She was out in the brush, so we would have to walk a bit. What an opportunity to show Marsden a slice of Oregon that few visitors get a chance to see.

“The only problem,” Marsden said. “I don’t have any old clothes to wear. I probably don’t want to wear a suit out there.”

“I think you will sort fit some of my stuff,” I said. “What size of shoes do you wear?”

“I wear a size 10,” Marsden said. It looks like I could probably squeeze into an old pair of your shoes.”

So I decked Marsden out in an outfit that would fit right in at Cascadia. Old pair of Levis, they could have used another 3 inches on the legs, but at least his pants legs wouldn’t get wet. I found a shirt that fit and a wool shirt to keep him warm. We would be fine if the weather held.

The drive up the river was a pleasant one. In the early summer, the streamflow was still vigorous, and everything was green. Marsden was quiet. I was hoping he wasn’t regretting his decision.

“I am impressed,” Marsden said. “Your life is just what you said you wanted when you left Germany.”

I hadn’t thought much about that, but I guess he was right.

We pulled onto the place at Cascadia and were greeted by an old gray-haired lady and her son. The cow was down in a little thicket of brush. We gathered my stuff and followed the son out to the cow. Turned out to be a milk fever. I gave her some IV calcium and a couple of other shots, and we were done.

“Since we are halfway to Mountain House, I will take you up and show you a big tree.”

We continued our drive up the river and turned up Soda Fork Creek, right before we got to Mountain House. A couple miles up the creek, I pulled over, and we got out to look at a massive old-growth Douglas Fir. This solitary tree was located between the road and the creek. I am not sure of its height, but it was 10 to 12 feet in diameter at the butt.

“Are there any others like this one,” Marsden asked?

“Over the hill, on the Middle Santiam, there is a whole hillside.”

“Can we go there,” Marsden asked?

“Sort of, to get into the trees, we would have to cross a massive slide,” I said. “We are not really dressed for that trip. But we can get a look at the hillside. There is a big struggle going on right now, trying to make that entire area a wilderness area.”

“I would like to go look,” Marsden said.

“It is a little bit of a drive. We should go down to Mountain House and get some gas first. I could probably make it on what we have, but it is just a good idea to drive with a full tank in the backcountry.”

We drove back down the road to Mountain House and entered the rustic combination, store, restaurant, and rest stop. They did have a gas pump.

“We need some gas,” I said to the unshaven guy behind the counter.

“I am out of gas. If you come back on Tuesday, I can sell you all the gas you need,” the guy said.

Marsden chuckled at that.

“We won’t be around on Tuesday,” I said.

“You might be able to get some at old man Totman’s down at Cascadia,” the guy said.

We drove back to Cascadia. The old man was in the cluttered station. I motioned Marsden to look at the stuffed bobcat on the high shelf. It took some idle conversation and a couple of stories, but we got our gas tank full and headed back to Soda Fork.

The road over the ridge to the Middle Santiam River followed Soda Fork for several miles and then climbed the hill to Cool Camp. Cool Camp was probably once a logging camp location, but now it was just a large intersection of logging roads. 

From Cool Camp, it was all downhill to the banks of the Middle Santiam River. The road passed through timber and areas of regrowth on the harvested ground. There were many twists and turns in this road, so the 5 or 6 miles seemed much longer.

We came to a stop at the large slide. I had hoped that Marsden would have the panorama of the Middle Santiam’s old-growth forest in full view. Unfortunately, the drive was somewhat in vain as the forested hills were shrouded in fog. 

We spent some time here and then returned home for the remainder of the day: dinner that evening and some idle conversation over a beer. Sunday morning, we took Oregon Highway 213 to Oregon City. This provided a much better slice of Oregon than the drive along the freeway. I was trying to show the best of Western Oregon, and Marsden was most impressed with the old car bodies in the back yards along the way. Those don’t exist in the east, where salt is used on the highways in the winter.

From Oregon City, it was a short trip to drop Marsden off at the Portland airport. A handshake and we parted ways again, almost the same as in Germany, but this time it was Marsden catching the plane.

For Marsden’s information, the area we spent those few minutes on the Middle Santiam is now located well within the Middle Santiam Wilderness Area’s boundaries.

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

From the Archives, one year ago

Charlie and Betty Land, At the Track

https://docsmemoirs.com/2020/03/17/charlie-and-betty-land-2-at-the-track/

The Deadly Breakup

D. E. Larsen, DVM

“The sheriff is on the phone for you,” Sandy said as she leaned against the surgery room doorway. “I don’t know what he wants, but you don’t want to get in the middle of a mess.”

“Good morning,” I said into the phone, not sure who I was going to be on the other end of the line. “This is Dr. Larsen. How can I help you?”

“Doc, this is Jerry, I’m a Deputy Sheriff,” Jerry said. “I have a case that needs your expertise.”

“I’m not looking to become an expert witness in a long trial,” I said. “I can’t afford that kind of time away from this practice.”

“Nothing like that, we have a situation out on Berlin road where a couple had a breakup, and the guy caused a lot of problems.”

“That doesn’t sound like something I have any expertise to provide.”

“During the breakup, the guy shot her horse,” Jerry said.

“Is the horse dead?”

“Oh, yes,” Jerry said. “The horse is dead, but we need the bullet.”

“You want me to find a single bullet somewhere inside of a big horse?’

“That’s right! If it can be done.” 

“And who is going to pay this expertise?” I asked.

“I’ll have the girl’s mother give you a call and take care of that part,” Jerry said.

“Okay, I can give it a try, but if I am going out to a place where things are getting shot, I’ll ask to have a Deputy with me.”

“That’s no problem,” Jerry said. “As soon as you get the payment taken care of and set up time, I can either stop by the office and follow you up there, or you could ride along with me.”

“That sounds like a mess,” Sandy said as I hung up the phone.

“Jerry didn’t provide any names, but when a lady calls for me to look at a dead horse, you get her credit card information and tell her there is no way to know how much this is going to cost. Once we get the payment details worked out, we can schedule a time. I don’t want this horse laid out there in the sun for a few days before I have to go digging for a bullet.”

We had no more than finished the conversation when the mother called. Apparently, when the kids broke up, the guy went berserk. He tore up the little house they lived in and shot the horse.

“That poor horse,” Sandy said. “He had nothing to do with the situation, and he gets shot. Why would the guy do that?”

“Just his way of causing the most amount of hurt he can,” I said. “She’s probably lucky that it was the horse and not her.”

With the appointment set up for right after lunch, Jerry was waiting at the clinic when we returned from lunch.

“Why don’t I follow you,” I said as I headed out the door to my truck.

It was a short drive out to the small house on Berlin road. The landlord was there cleaning up the mess when we arrived. 

“Look at this house,” Bud said, waving at the inside of the small house. “He slashed the water bed, and the whole place is flooded. He tore the doors off the cabinets and broke the bathroom door. I don’t know how much this is going to cost to fix.”

“The story goes that he stood here on the porch with a 30-30 and shot the horse out in the pasture,” Jerry said.

“That is a pretty good shot,” I said. “That horse is over a hundred yards out in the field. Let’s go get a look at him.”

The horse was lying on his left side. The ground was undisturbed, giving evidence of no death struggle.

“This horse was dead when he hit the ground,” I said as we approached the horse. 

There was a single bullet wound. In the perfect spot, just right between the eyes and a little higher.

“I would hate to have this guy shooting at me,” I said. “This is an amazing shot for a 30-30 with open sights, from over 100 yards.”

“Do you think you can get the bullet,” Jerry asked?

“We will know pretty soon,” I said as I swiped my necropsy knife on the wet stone.

I pulled the horse’s head back and slit the throat, dissecting rapidly to its attachment to the first vertebra. A couple of knife strokes then, and the head was severed.

I set the head on the horse’s shoulder to explore the wound. 

It was easy to trace the bullet’s path through the head. The bottom of the brain case was blown off.

“Look at that,” I said, showing Jerry the exit hole from the brain case. “If there is anything good about this whole affair, it’s that this horse didn’t feel a thing.”

Returning to the horse’s neck, I got a little lucky. The bullet’s path went into the left side of the neck, went through a couple of feet of muscle, and came to rest just under the skin. 

I sliced the skin over the bullet and picked it up.

“Here you go,” I said, holding the bullet up for Jerry to see.

I dropped the bullet in Jerry’s little evidence bag and pulled off my gloves.

“That was a whole lot easier than I thought it was going to be,” I said.

Jerry tucked the baggy into his pocket and looked back at the house.

“I hadn’t thought about it before,” he said. “That was one hell of a lucky shot.”

“There is a difference between lucky and good,” I said. “This guy might be an SOB, but I think he is one hell of a shot. I could stand up there and shoot a hundred times with a 30-30 and not hit a target like this.”

Photo by Erik-Jan Leusink on Unsplash