Buffalo Medicine: A Novel

by April Christofferson

Overview

Tension is running high in Big Sky country over the controversial slaughter of buffalo that wander outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park and onto land where cattle graze. At the heart of the dispute is "brucellosis," a dangerous disease that could devastate the cattle industry—and be transmitted to humans.

Veterinarian Jed McCane is working on a new vaccine that could wipe out the disease. It never occurs to him that anyone could feel threatened by his research—until someone tries to kill him. The attack brings an unlikely ally into his life: an activist from Buffalo Nation, a group determined to stop the slaughter of America's last free-roaming bison. It also devastates Jed's world: who are his friends? Who are his enemies?

Why would anyone object to a vaccine that could wipe out brucellosis forever? Jed must find the answer before time runs out, for both the buffalo and the safety of the world's food supply.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429911009
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	388
File size:	565 KB

About the Author

April Christofferson studied veterinary medicine at the University of Illinois and has worked as a lawyer in the biotech industry, a background she draws upon for her acclaimed medical thrillers, including Patent to Kill, Clinical Trial, and The Protocol. She lives in Idaho.

Read an Excerpt

Buffalo Medicine

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By April Christofferson

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2004 April Christofferson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-1100-9

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CHAPTER 1

NOW THAT THE seed of distrust had been planted, Jed McCane felt it gnawing away at his insides like a maggot on dying flesh. Even the brilliant sunset over the Gravellys — pink cotton candy swirls against a blue that only Montana skies could deliver — failed to work its usual magic on his tired soul.

He glanced at his watch.

Nine o'clock. It would be well past eleven by the time he drove by the Double Jump. Too late to drop in unannounced on Rebecca, who, during the summer months, rose by four-thirty to put breakfast on the table for over a dozen ranch hands.

Or maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe dropping in unannounced ...

A flash of anger — not at Rebecca; but at himself, for the way his mind had been working recently — brought Jed's fist down hard on the padded steering wheel of his pickup.

In the next instant, his truck lurched violently to the right, careening off the two-lane highway, toward a deep, empty creek bed; and in that nanosecond when Jed first realized he was in deep trouble, he blamed his temper.

But then he realized that the truck tilted dramatically toward its right front end. He'd blown a tire. Struggling to retain control, fighting his natural instinct to stomp down on the brake, Jed eased off the gas and used his considerable strength — a result of wrestling thousands of pounds of flesh on a daily basis — to keep the truck from flipping. As it veered crazily toward the upper crust of the creek bed, which dropped off into a black void several yards from where the asphalt ended, Jed braced himself for the inescapable roll.

His mind flashed briefly on the thirty-gallon tank of gasoline he kept in the back of the truck — a hazard made necessary by the long days he spent on the road, far from any gas stations. He'd become careless about it. How long had it been since he checked the straps that held it against the wall of the truck bed? If that tank broke loose, the impact when he flipped into that creek bed, then smashed into its other side, would likely blow the truck, along with Jed, sky high.

Using every fiber of muscle in his body, Jed fought the wheel, trying, with no success, to turn it back toward the center of the highway.

Suddenly his headlights picked up a huge, dark form. Just ahead, lying on the side of the road. It took just an instant for Jed to recognize it.

A steer. Dead, its body bloated twice its size by the summer sun.

Fixated on the carcass, sweat now pouring down his face, Jed gave the steering wheel one last, explosive effort.

Miraculously, the truck's course straightened — by no more than a few degrees, but enough to delay its meeting with the creek bed by seconds.

Enough to send it directly toward the dead steer.

The impact — a surreal explosion of metal and blood and rotting flesh — threw Jed forward. His head smashed the windshield, shattering it, and, as the truck entered a strangely silent roll over the massive carcass, Jed's world went black.

SLOWED BY THE cushion of bloated flesh, the pickup rolled onto its roof, slid across gravel and dirt and scrub grass toward the drop-off, then flipped — almost gently, like a pair of dice tossed by a loving hand — into the creek bed, miraculously landing upright.

When Jed came to, he had no idea how long he'd been out, how long he'd sat there, strapped into the truck. His head felt like it had been used by the gods in a game of squash. He sat quietly, drifting in and out of consciousness, a crescent moon and the crude field of diamonds in a sky of ink providing just enough light for him to see a coyote slink across the creek bed twenty-five yards up ahead. It moved like liquid gold up the bank and disappeared across the road.

That — the coyote's presence — told Jed he'd been there a while.

Suddenly, the hum of a motor pierced the night's silence.

Jed craned his neck forward, and looked up, through the shattered windshield, toward the road.

Lights! An approaching car.

Jed pulled the door handle, then let out a grunt as he hoisted his upper body against it. It didn't budge. Frantically, he reached for the light switch on the dashboard, flipping it on and off, but the impact — either with the steer or the ditch, he could not know which — had broken the headlamps.

He tried the horn, twice, but each time with no luck. The impact must have loosened a wire.

He could not signal for help.

But then, something amazing happened.

He heard the whine of poorly maintained brakes. They'd seen the truck and were stopping to help.

Through his veil of grogginess, Jed leaned out his side window — the glass of which had crumpled into a thousand jigsaw-puzzle pieces and now coated both the ground and Jed's lap — and heard footsteps.

Help was on its way.

A true modern-day cowboy, Jed waited patiently. Silently.

After a brief silence that indicated his rescuer had stopped for some reason, he heard a female voice. Even in his haze, he thought it one of the most unusual voices he'd ever heard; almost like the sound of the newborn calf he'd delivered the day before — bleating for its mother as it tried to rise on stick-thin, unsure legs.

"Damn, K.C.," the voice said. "Looks like it's been here for days. Whew! Get a whiff."

Confused by this discussion of the dead steer — why on earth had she even stopped to look at it? — Jed strained to hear the reply from the car, which still sat, motor idling, in the middle of the road.

A man's voice. K.C.? "Okay, then, hop in."

Incredulous, all his reactions slowed by his head injury, Jed heard the sound of footsteps running back across the road's pavement, before he could react. They were running away from him.

The slam of a car door followed. They were leaving!

Even in his fog, Jed knew this was a bad thing. A very bad thing. He leaned out the window.

"Wait."

The car's motor shifted in pitch as the car lurched forward.

Jed lifted a hand and brought it down again, harder this time, on the truck's horn.

The blast pierced the night. Jed felt his head begin to throb, in long, sadistic pulses that kept time with the horn.

Still, he did not let up.

The other vehicle had already covered at least fifty yards, but now, Jed heard it braking. Then it began backing up. They must have heard the truck's horn.

"What the fuck was that?" Jed heard a man say.

"Down here," Jed yelled, once more struggling to open his door, which the impact had crumpled. "In the ditch."

This time, two car doors opened, then slammed shut. Footsteps again, running toward the ditch.

"Oh, my God," the woman called from somewhere above. Jed still could not see her. "A truck. Someone's in it."

Rocks and gravel ricocheted noisily off the truck's hood as she scrambled down the incline, into the creek bed.

A mass of long, dark curls appeared behind Jed's shoulder, filling the gaping hole that had housed the window on the driver's side.

"Are you okay?"

That voice. A blend of silky honey and metal grating against metal.

The moon's light, reflected off the hood of the truck, revealed eyes the color and warmth of hot chocolate in a pale, narrow face. The unmistakable concern in them made Jed wonder how bad he looked. Aside from the slow reactions, and the headache, he didn't feel all that bad. But he also knew that shock was likely.

"I think I'm okay," Jed answered. "But I can't get out. The door's stuck."

Jed literally left his seat when, without warning, the metal toe of the woman's hiking boot drop-kicked the door at his elbow. She looked about the size of one of those calves her voice reminded Jed of, but that leg packed a hell of a wallop.

"Open, dammit," she ordered, yanking angrily on the door.

Suddenly, something stopped her cold, her hands still frozen to the door handle.

She lifted her nose — a small, perfect ski jump of a nose — into the air and sniffed. She turned and yelled over her shoulder.

"K.C., quick. I smell gas. We've got to get him out."

"Here I come," K.C., obviously the slower of the two, yelled from somewhere behind her.

In his first moments of coherency, Jed hadn't noticed, but now he could smell it, too. The unmistakable odor of gasoline.

He struggled against his seat belt, fumbling in the dark to find its release, but the locking mechanism had become jammed against the caved-in door.

For the first time, Jed realized that the car's motor still hummed quietly.

Slowly, he reached for the ignition, but a man with hair even longer and curlier than the woman's had appeared on the seat next to him and he beat Jed to it, flipping the key to the off position.

Then he directed his attention to getting Jed out of his seat belt.

The woman had gone round the other side and stood watching over his shoulder.

"Hurry," she urged.

"We're gonna have to cut him out," the man declared. "Megan, run back to the car and get my bowie knife."

"You loaned it to Bear the other day, don't you remember?"

"Shit," K.C. replied. "You're right."

"In the back," Jed said. "There's a scalpel in my medical bag."

The woman, Megan, turned to go.

"Wait," Jed cried, realizing what he'd just suggested. "There's a can of gasoline back there. That's what we smell. The back of the truck's rigged with lights. They go on automatically when the door's opened. They could spark a fire."

His two rescuers looked at each other briefly.

"He's right," K.C. said.

"We have to get him out of here," Megan replied. "I'm getting the scalpel."

Without further discussion, she disappeared.

"Stop her," Jed directed the man.

K.C. lifted calm eyes — were they drugged? How else could they remain so serene? — to meet Jed's.

"You don't know Megan. There's no point in trying to stop her."

Megan reappeared. "It's locked. Where's the key?"

Jed felt like he was moving through thick molasses. Megan had already jerked them out of the ignition by the time he'd reached for them.

"Stop her," Jed ordered again.

K.C.'s only acknowledgment was to call after her as she disappeared again. "Be careful, Megs," K.C. said. "Please."

All it would take was a spark. If the fuel had spilled and splattered all over the back of the truck, even turning the latch could ignite a fireball big enough to be seen a hundred miles away, in Ennis. Jed held his breath as he heard the keys jingling in the dark.

K.C. too had turned to look toward the back of the truck. Jed sensed K.C. felt more fear than he let on.

Seconds passed, then a minute. Finally, lights from the back of the truck parted the darkness.

"Man, you smell something burning?" K.C. asked, his eyes now wide.

"Yes," Jed yelled. "You two get the hell out of here. Now. Do you hear?"

K.C. disappeared toward the back of the truck, in search of Megan, but like a ghost suddenly materializing out of nowhere, she reappeared at Jed's window.

"Got it."

She stood triumphantly holding the surgical scalpel Jed had used just hours earlier on Cyrus Gibbons's mare.

"Give it to me, then go," Jed ordered. "Quick."

Ignoring him, Megan reached inside. Moonlight flashed briefly off the blade as, with one quick, fluid motion, she sliced through the top strap of the seat belt. Next, without regard for the shards of broken glass, she grabbed the strap that ran across Jed's lap.

In another second, Jed fell free.

He could see the blue-jean-clad rear end of K.C. as he scrambled up the side of the ditch.

Megan remained at his side, pushing him through the window, toward the open passenger door.

"Hurry."

Jed scrambled out the passenger door. He glanced over, to make certain that Megan was heading toward the road, then ran to the back of the truck.

The minicooler was lying on its side. Deeper inside the truck, permanently affixed to the wall behind the truck's cab, was a generator-operated refrigerator he'd had installed. The impact had swung its door open. Broken glass vials, mingled with blood, littered the back of the truck.

Megan had turned and now stood at the top of the ditch.

"What are you doing?" she screamed. "Get out of there!"

Jed grabbed the cooler and sprinted toward her.

As he did, a large black form rushed by him, heading toward the truck.

A dog.

"Pie," Megan screamed. "Don't go down there."

She started down after the dog, but K.C. suddenly appeared and stopped her, grabbing her by the arm.

"No, Megan. You can't go after him." He cupped his free hand to his mouth, screaming, "Pie."

Tossing the cooler toward them, Jed yelled, "Take this."

Then he turned and headed back toward the truck, his eyes searching the dark for the dog.

THE EXPLOSION ROCKED the night. Megan felt it coming at her, a wall of heat so intense and thick that it lifted her off her feet and threw her, facedown, onto the asphalt.

Heat seared through the back of her blue jeans. She lifted her head to look for K.C.

He lay dazed, several yards away, shielding his eyes as he stared back toward the ditch.

"Megan?" he screamed, blinded by the fireball.

"Here."

K.C. ran to her, crouching beside her.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said, rolling into a sitting position. "Where's that guy? Where's Pie?"

"There."

Megan looked in the direction K.C. pointed.

Silhouetted against the white-hot flames, several yards behind her on the side of the road, the man was rising from his belly to his hands and knees. Flames had taken hold of the scrub grass and now licked at his clothing.

A dark form, completely still, lay next to him.

Pie.

K.C. ran to them. Sobbing, Megan raised herself up. As she stumbled toward them, Pie suddenly sprang to his feet, tail wagging despite a dazed expression.

"Pie," Megan cried, bending to give him a quick hug. The dog whimpered, then, tail dropped, stole back toward the safety of the car.

Together, Megan and K.C. pulled the man onto the asphalt. He was big. Not fat, but even through his green overalls, Megan could see he was as muscled and rugged as her beloved Houdini.

Once they got him clear of the fire, Megan beat at his smoking overalls with her bare hands.

Your dog okay?" he mumbled.

Megan nodded. "Yes," she said. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

His eyes had a glazed look, but scanning the scene, they apparently missed nothing. He rose to a sitting position, nodding toward the car.

"Do you have any blankets in there?"

Rising to his feet with a shaky urgency, he shrugged out of two wide straps and, with his overalls hanging around his waist, began unfastening the buttons of his long-sleeved shirt. Impatient, he ripped them apart, never taking his eyes off the flames by the roadside as he removed his shirt.

Across the creek bed, for ten or fifteen yards beyond, the ground was lit up by dozens of tiny fires.

"Grab whatever you have," he said. "We have to put the fire out."

K.C.'s mouth dropped open, his eyes glued to the sight of the truck engulfed in flames that shot at least twenty feet into the air.

"You're crazy if you think we can put that out."

"Not the truck. It'll be okay in the creek bed. But we've got to stomp out the grass before a wind spreads it. Hurry."

Megan opened the back door of the Subaru and grabbed the sleeping bag she kept stashed there. She threw it at K.C.

"Here, use this."

She turned back to the car and bent over the backseat floor, scooping odds and ends (a box of dog biscuits, empty bottles and cans bound for recycling, a stack of newsletters) out of the way, her thin arms flying like a dog digging for a long-buried bone, and emerged seconds later with a pad of carpet, about two feet by three.

One folded paper fluttered to the pavement, disappearing under the car.

Calling to Pie, she ordered him inside the car and shut the door.

The man had already started across the ditch, running up the road several yards, far enough to stay clear of the fireball. He jumped down into the creek bed. From how wobbly he looked, Megan wondered if he'd ever emerge from the other side, but then she saw him scramble up its bank, waving his shirt at the flaming grass, using his big booted feet to stomp at the clusters of burning scrub grass.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Buffalo Medicine by April Christofferson. Copyright © 2004 April Christofferson. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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