“I don’t know. I think…” Crap. Do I really need to say the words out loud? “I think…that Iam.”
CHAPTER FOUR
BROCK
Dad and I reach the first set of coordinates—rather, as close as the roads get us. He pulls the pickup over to the side and fiddles with his phone.
“Is this our property?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Dad says, his forehead wrinkling.
“Okay… What’s wrong, then?”
“This particular tract of land is rented.”
“To whom?”
“Dr. Mark Sheraton.”
“The vet?”
“Yeah. He owns a tract adjacent to this tract. He had a house built, and he does business there.”
“I suppose he doesn’t make much as a small-town vet.”
“Well…he could make a lot more than he does.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“About ten years ago, Uncle Bryce and I made the decision to bring all our veterinary care in-house. We probably should’ve done it decades ago, but our family has always tried to support our local community as much as possible.”
“I guess I knew that. I just never thought anything about it.”
“Yeah. We have one full-time and one part-time veterinarian on our staff and payroll. We take good care of our livestock, but with the sheer number of animals we have on our property, it just didn’t make sense to have the town veterinarian coming out so often.”
“And financially?”
“Financially it benefits us, yes. But that wasn’t the main consideration for taking the business away from Doc Sheraton.”
“Whatwasthe main consideration?”
“As I said, we’ve always liked to support our local community. But we’re not the only ranch close to Snow Creek. We’re the biggest, by far, but we felt Doc Sheraton was spreading himself a little too thin. We paid him a lot of money every year to take care of our livestock, but he couldn’t always get out there as quickly as we needed him to.”
“Did you offer him the job?”
“As our veterinarian on payroll? No, we didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“That’s a long story.”
“You can tell me now or later. Right now I suppose we need to check out this coordinate.”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Suffice it to say, for now, that we chose a brand-new veterinarian right out of that school in Fort Collins, armed with the newest techniques specifically geared toward cattle and horses. Specifically grass-fed cattle bred for meat consumption.”
“Makes sense.”
There’s more to the story. I know my father too well. Plus, he said it was a long story.