Monster Nation(7)

He just shook his head. 'Lots of people get them, Ma'am, I'm just doing my job.' He bit his lip before securing her right wrist, perhaps wondering if she was going to fight him. The thought hadn't crossed Nilla's mind until then. 'It's rabies, we think.'

'Rabies? What the hell is going on? I haven't even seen a doctor yet!' Fear rattled inside of her emptiness, desperation at being imprisoned. This was a hospital, goddamnit! They were supposed to help her. 'Get away from me!'

'Ma'am, you've got a textbook pattern of bite marks on your shoulder,' he said quietly, with infinite delicacy. 'Ma'am, I have a gag here, too. That you don't have to get, if you cooperate.'

It was a second gunshot, though, that convinced her. Together they looked up'and then their eyes met and she knew he was deadly serious. Something was happening outside, something very bad, and the orderly didn't know any more than she did but he intended to complete his task one way or another. He tied down her ankles and then turned to go. 'Thank you, Ma'am,' he whispered, as if he didn't know what else to say.

'Tonight theSixteenth Street pedestrian mall is closed to foot traffic. Police cars blockaded the popular shopping destination after reports of dangerous animals on the loose. Our action reporting team is on the way to downtown right now. Here's Chip with local pro team action. Chip?' [9News (Denver) Evening Broadcast, 3/17/05]

The air turned the color of burnished metal, growing so thin Dick was panting by the time he crested the slope. Up top no trees grew at all, just scattered patches of lichen like greenish doilies glued to the rock. Thankfully the track went over the ridge just ahead and started downhill again, heading for a narrow valley below so thickly packed with pine trees that when the wind stirred them the valley looked like a bowl filled with shimmering green water. There were buildings tucked away amongst the trees, modest clapboard structures of a kind that had been built in the mountains for over a century'split-wood shingles over roof beams weathered by the sun until they were grey veined with silver and as dry as bone.

Dick paused at the ridge line to drink some water from his day pack and phone in to his field office. He reached a teenage intern who swore he was writing down Dick's GPS coordinates but who was probably just doodling on NIH stationery. Dick didn't suppose it mattered too much. It was standard practice to report one's position on a regular basis'the best way to die up in the mountains was to have nobody know where you were'but he was no more than a quarter mile from the road and even if a snowstorm came through in the next few hours he was certain he could make it back alright. He'd lived through some bad scrapes in theRockies and always he'd come through alright. 'Do we have a phone number for my next interview?' he asked, pretty sure the answer would be no: there were no phone lines or satellite dishes attached to the buildings down in the valley, his next destination.

'Uh, uh, no,' the intern replied after paging inexpertly through Dick's own calendar. 'Mrs. Skye, right? Yeah, uh, she said she, uh, I can't really read your hand-writing but it looks like she walked into town to use a payphone.'

Dick nodded and hung up. He remembered now'he'd received the message himself from the field office's voice mail system. This was a scrapie call. Scrapie was becoming the lion's share of Dick's business. Scrapie: a fatal and nasty disease of sheep and sometimes goats named for its victims' habit of scraping their skin off against trees and rocks. Most ranchers never bothered to report it when they saw it'the disease wasn't traditionally infectious, spreading over a span of generations instead of months. By the time a shepherd finally panicked and called for help the illness had usually compromised an entire flock.

Those calls were coming more and more frequently, which was truly scary to someone like Dick who knew the numbers. Nearly ten per cent ofColorado 's sheep were potentially infected, and that was just the known cases. Mad Cow disease, a related illness, had decimated the livestock population inEngland a few years back and he fully expected a similar disaster in American sheep within the decade.

Dick knew enough to assume the worst and he expected to find that Mrs. Skye's sheep would have to be destroyed and the carcasses incinerated. He didn't exactly skip down the path into the sheltered valley. It was tough to be grim on that track, though, with the sunlight streaming down through the branches in long dusty shafts, with the musty smell of pine needles baking in the warmth of spring mingling with the fresh winter smell of powdery snow. He had a smile on his face when he approached the main house. 'Hello!' he called while he was still a hundred yards away. 'Hello there!' In this part of the West, in such a secluded spot, you made a point of announcing your presence well before you arrived. You had to assume that everyone you visited was heavily armed and unfond of intruders. 'Hello! Mrs. Skye?'