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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1343400-Cat
Rated: 13+ · Short Story · Animal · #1343400
Cy saved a magnificent wildcat, and it repaid him. But how?
It was a cold autumn morning when I found it by the side of the lake. Four large dogs lay dead around it, one still with its teeth in the cat’s neck as the cat’s claws had disemboweled it with a last violent kick. The cat was large – not lynx-sized, but still a big bobcat that had obviously fought courageously against overwhelming odds. If it had not quite won, it had also not entirely lost its last battle.

Or so I thought until I realized it was still breathing raggedly. The dog’s teeth had not gone home before it had died itself. Overwhelmed myself with admiration for the cat, I forced the dead dog’s jaws apart and pulled it away to see if there was any hope left for it. Bleeding from the cat’s wounds had stopped. How the dog had missed its arteries or failed to crush its trachea with that death grip I doubt I will ever understand; but though from the look of it the cat had lost much blood, it still lived. I doubted it would if I left it there, so touching it gingerly at first, and finding that it remained unconscious, I took it in my arms and carried it back with me to my camp.

Not really expecting it to live, yet I boiled some water, cleaned out the deep gashes and outright holes in its body, smeared into them an entire tube of neomycin antiseptic I always carried with me into the woods, and covered up the open wounds as best I could. If it lives until morning, I thought, I will take it to the local vet and see if she thinks it worthwhile to sew up. A cat such as this deserves a chance, I thought.

The night was cold, so I brought the cat into the tent and wrapped it right into my sleeping bag with me. What sort of idiocy is this, I asked myself as I was drowsing. Who takes a wildcat to bed with them and expects to wake up alive? But the cat hardly stirred, and it was wrapped up well enough that even if it started to move it could not quickly get free.

In the morning, I was awakened by a rough tongue on my face which was nose to nose with the cat. Its eyes were open and clear and bored into my own as I opened them. I could not tear my eyes away. It seemed to be holding them by sheer force of its own will, boring into my mind, indeed into the soul I had never before been sure I had. Feelings came to me which nevertheless seemed not to be my own, and that I found hard to identify – something like gratitude, but tinged with malice, something like comradeship, yet tinged with manipulation. And pain, great pain but a determination not to acknowledge it. Immobility, but not helplessness. Oh, it is quite indescribable; one would have to feel it oneself to know the experience! Then its eyes closed and it slept, and I was released from their spell.

No little shaken, I hastened out from the bedroll, grabbed a bar of soap, and ran to the icy lake, barely remembering to slip out of my clothing along the way before leaping in. I scrubbed myself from head to foot, but especially around my eyes and head, trying as it were to scrub myself free from the morning’s experience. Why had it so unnerved me? The animal’s response had in no obvious way been threatening, had even, with its lick, been apparently affectionate. It had not apparently objected or fought against its restraints. What could have rattled me so?

Beginning now to feel the cold of the water, and no little foolish, I climbed onto shore, searched for a few moments fruitlessly for the towel I had forgotten to bring with me in my haste, and laughing now at my foolishness, ran back to camp. Pulling a towel from its heap to dry myself, I looked to the bedroll where the cat lay watching. I pulled on my jeans and a clean flannel shirt and went to the cat.

Cautiously, I removed it from the bedclothes. It barely twitched a muscle, though it cried softly when I lifted it. Taking it outside, I started to place it in the back of my pickup, then thought better of it and laid it gently on the passenger seat. It rumbled a little in its throat, like it was trying to purr. I didn’t think the big cats could do that, but I took it as a sign that it wouldn’t be giving me any trouble and we drove off.

The vet in these parts is a tiny woman who somehow manages to turn foals and calves around inside of troubled mothers, which is a thing some mighty strong men find hard to do. Once a beauty, according to the pictures on the wall, she was a tough wizened thing who loved animals and if she didn’t hate people exactly, certainly had never given men the time of day except professionally. But respected? You’d better believe she was respected: nobody more so, not even the preacher. The girl at the desk squealed a little loudly when she saw what I was carrying in, and I felt the cat stiffen in my arms. Doc came out from the surgery, saw what I was carrying, and waved me straight in.

I laid the cat on the table, and it rowled and tried to get to its feet. I put a hand on its shoulder where it somehow hadn’t gotten gashed and it settled down, but its eyes were fastened on the doc like thumbtacks.

“Quite a handful you’ve got there, Cy.”

“You have no idea, Doc, what a handful this lady can be when it’s a mind to be. But she’s been a kitten to me since I found it. This is the first she’s tried to stand or even complained, outside of pain.”

“Pretty torn up. Well, I guess we can put her out of her misery.”

“Are you sure, Doc? This one deserves a chance if ever one did.” I explained how I’d come to find her and what I’d done. “She seems to have taken the treatment pretty well, and just getting up now shows she’s getting stronger.”

“I’ll have to sew up a lot of those wounds, and I don’t know if she can take anesthesia. Probably kill her. Probably die anyway if it doesn’t. Somebody’ll have to pay for it, and it won’t be me.” She had put on rubber gloves, and approached the cat; but when she reached out a hand, the cat screamed and took a swipe at it, catching a claw in her finger and ripping it like jerking out an embedded fishhook instead of pushing it through.”

“Holy hot damn!” she cried, somewhat paradoxically. She pulled off the glove and ran it under the water. “Like as not I’m gonna need stitches myself, now.” She grabbed some antiseptic from out of a drawer and applied it liberally. It bled furiously, and she held it tight trying to stop the bleeding.

“How the hell am I even going to give her a painkiller shot?”

I laid a hand on the cat, and it stopped growling. “Try now,” I said.

“Not likely. Try it yourself!” I looked up at her. This didn’t sound like Doc. Dang, everyone knows Doc loves animals better than people, and this isn’t the first one that had hurt her in the course of treatment; but she didn’t like this one, and that’s a fact! I rested a hand over the cat's claws. Most cats hate that, but she didn't resist.

"Try again, Doc. C'mon."

Gingerly reaching a hand for the cat to smell, she got no reaction with my hand over its claws, but that boring stare. As I had that morning, Doc seemed to be being sucked into those eyes, and I called her name.

Shaking her head vigorously, Doc tore her eyes away. "Whew!" That was weird. I wonder what came over me? For a second there I thought...Oh, never mind." She filled a syringe.

"You keep that cat steady, now. If it gets those claws on me again, I'll let her die, I swear I will. This is no sweet kitty cat you've adopted, Cy. She's wild and mean."

"Doc, I've never heard you talk that way before about any animal. She's just hurt and scared I imagine. She doesn't know you're trying to help. Why shouldn't she try to protect herself? And look how quiet she's being now."

"Cy, I don't know what kind of attachment she's formed with you, but there's something wrong about that cat. I don't know what it is and I can't explain it; but my guts tell me you're letting yourself in for a heap of trouble not letting that cat die."

Doc gave her a knockout shot, then one with antibiotics. The cat's bowels and bladder relaxed on the operating table and elicited another curse from the Doc who had to stop and re-sterilize everything. I thought the cat had died, but Doc said no, worse the luck. Anyway, she did sew her up right enough finally and then told me to take her out.

"I don't want that cat waking up again in here. Take her back to the woods, Cy, and let her go."

By the time we got back to camp, the cat was sitting up in the passenger seat watching the world go by outside. What an amazing animal, I thought. Here's a wild beast, never been in a truck before, and acts like she's born to ride. We pulled into camp and I looked over to her. She stood up and stretched, which looked like it hurt her, and she lay down. I went around to the other side, picked her up, carried her back to the tent and lay her down again on the still open sleeping bag. She kept staring at me, rumbling a little in her throat, but for some reason I avoided looking her in the eye. Something about them bothered me.

Stretching a bit myself, I grabbed my fishing rod and worm can to catch us some supper. I was about starved, not having eaten a thing all day, but the fish don't bite well in the day, and all I did was drown worms until the sun was almost gone. I caught two little sunnies I would normally have tossed back, but thought the cat would like them, and a fair perch that wasn't enough but would have to serve for my supper.

When I got back to shore, the cat was waiting for me there. It padded along next to me and ate its sunnies in slow deliberate fashion while I started a fire and cleaned the perch. It polished off the perch leavings pretty quick, too, and then lay down by the fire like an old house pet, not in the least spooked by what is supposed to be the wild animal's mortal enemy. I sat by the fire for quite awhile myself, just enjoying the cool night air and the crackling fire and the satisfied feeling that after all what I had done for the cat had worked pretty darn well

Next morning I woke feeling a weight on my chest. As I felt about in the pre-dawn dark, something fell in my face and began flapping around. The cat hopped off my chest and sauntered out of the tent. The flapping hit me in the face again, and I floundered about, finally catching the proof that the cat was a better fisherman than I am. Well, thought I, I'm hungry enough for breakfast now, I suppose, and disentangling myself from the bad, I rose to wash and light the fire.

For the next few weeks we lived like that as companions. The cat would regularly bring me breakfast, sometimes a fish, sometimes birds and other things I didn't especially want to eat. It seemed puzzled at first that I didn't, but then shrugged its feline shoulders and acted unconcerned.

As time went on, it disappeared for longer and longer periods. While it was in camp, it would spend much of the time just staring at me. Once, after it had caught my eyes, I seemed to come to, and realized that I had been gnawing on the remains of a chipmunk the cat had brought me earlier for breakfast. I threw up and had to spend the rest of the morning cleaning up my favorite place by the fire. After that I avoided meeting the cat's stare. It seemed silly to blame my zoning out on the cat; but I had always been uncomfortable for some reason with that stare.

I never did leave camp very often. Until it got too cold to stand it, I loved to just sit around and listen to the sounds of nature. I'd catch fish almost every day, and occasionally would get a shot at a partridge or pheasant that happened to wander near. When the ducks flew over, I'd get a few, and trade some for the whatnots you have to have to live decently. I didn't worry much about hunting season, and neither did anyone else who lived hereabouts. The little money I needed came from the free lance writing - nature stories and articles, mainly. I kept several batteries for my laptop, and when they got low, I'd spend some time at the town library doing some internet research and charging them up. Sometimes it would be weeks before I'd go to town. It was a sleepy kind of backwoods place. Usually the biggest thing doing was news about a record fish or a four-eyed frog someone found. This time the atmosphere was charged. People were stopping each other in the street and talking earnestly to each other, waving their arms, and then going away, shaking their heads.

I went into the post office, and asked the clerk, "What's going on here anyway? Everyone's talking about something that's got them riled!"

"You haven't heard? Something killed Doc last night. They found her tore up something awful."

"Tore up? No kidding."

"Yep, guts pulled right outen ‘er, tooth marks and scratches all over, like some big cat ripped her up."

My insides went cold.

"Funny thing about it, though. The doc says the bites weren't cat bites."

I felt a sense of relief wash over me. "Not a cat? A dog maybe?"

"Nope. They were human."
© Copyright 2007 revdbob (revdbob at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1343400-Cat