Cats in the Cradle
We lost our barn cat yesterday. I found her sprawled out on the concrete just a few feet away from the cat door we have out in the barn. It looked like she may have died from a head injury, probably attacked by a coyote. I didn’t know this cat well. Occasionally she would dart through the barn to a proven hiding place when I entered to leave food and water. Last week she came around the house and even got into our back room where she drove our indoor cats crazy with her carrying on. I’d mentioned to my husband, Ron, that she was probably in heat. Our neutered, grey tabby, Fast Eddie, kept us up for three nights, some primal residual egging him on to mate. The sound was low and sorrowful, like he understood what we had done to him; what he’d missed out on.
I’d been out on a walk when I noticed the cat. After putting the dogs up in the house, I grabbed a garbage bag and a pair of gloves. I’ve had to do this kind of thing before: the kitten that was half-eaten by a coyote; birds, lizards, and mice that lost their lives to cats and other predators; the Great Horned Owls that perished atop a faulty electrical transformer; song birds that chased their reflection right into our living room window. Each animal I’ve stumbled upon has caused a catch in my throat.
The barn cat was brown and white. She was young and had six toes on her front feet like my nineteen-year-old house cat, Little Miss Molly. Seeing those paws, I fell to my knees and sobbed. You don’t belong here, Beth, rose from somewhere deep inside me. There is no taming this wild place. I either play by nature’s rules or pack my bags and get out. Last week it snowed, followed by three days of brutal, frigid wind. Today it’s seventy degrees. The trees in our orchard are confused. The plum trees have blossomed in tandem. The peach trees are giving it another go after the buds froze in the last storm. Songbirds are fighting for space on the feeders, and the bees, so heavy with pollen, are buzzing around like they’ve had too much to drink. All this was going on yesterday while I walked back to the house with the barn cat cradled in my arms. I cried when I placed her on a table in the garage where she wouldn’t be disturbed until Ron could bury her. I cried while I poured a glass of wine and got dinner started. I was still crying when I went outside to feed the dogs. By then I had convinced myself I didn’t belong here. That I would be better off in a small house in town where my life would be manageable, a place where I’d have some peace of mind for God’s sake.
Then I looked up from the dog dishes and caught the sun setting behind the Chiricahua Mountains, leaving in its path a crimson sky; a slice of cornflower blue cut through the middle exposing a glimpse of heaven. I wiped my eyes. “Okay,” I said. “For now, I’ll stay.”
