Рита Браун: Catch As Cat Can

Pewter stretched, then gleefully sat, her back to Harry's face. She gently swept her tail over the woman's nose.

Mrs. Murphy walked up and down Harry's back. When that didn't produce the desired effect she jumped up and down.

“Uh.” Harry sneezed as she pushed the tail out of her face. “Pewter.”

“I'm hungry.”

“Me, too,” Murphy sang out.

The dog, awake now, yawned. “Chunky beef.”

“You guys.” Harry sat up as Murphy stepped off her back. “Oh, my gosh, it's six-forty. Why did you let me sleep so late?” She threw off the covers. Her bare feet hit the hooked rug and she sprinted to the bathroom.

“I'm standing vigil at the food bowl.” Pewter zipped to the kitchen.

Murphy, in line behind her, jumped onto the kitchen counter.

Tucker, much more obedient, accompanied Harry to the bathroom, looked quizzically while she brushed her teeth, then quietly followed the human into the kitchen, where she put a pot of water on the stove for tea.

“All right, what is it?”

“Tuna!” came the chorus.

“M-m-m, chicken and rice.” She put that can back on the shelf.

“Tuna!”

“Liver.” She hesitated.

“Tuna!”

“Tuna,” Tucker chimed in. “If you don't feed them tuna they'll make a mess and it will take me that much longer to get my breakfast,” she grumbled.

Harry reached into the cupboard, lifting out another can. “Tuna.”

“Hooray.” Pewter turned little tight circles.

“Okay, okay.” Harry laughed and opened the can with the same hand opener her mother had used. The Hepworths, Harry's mother's family, thought fashion absurd. Buy something of good quality and use it until it dies. The can opener was older than Harry.

The Minors, her father's family, also practical people, proved a bit more willing to let loose of money than the Hepworths. Harry fell somewhere in the middle.

After feeding the cats and dog, she turned on the stove, pulled out an iron skillet, and fried up two eggs. Breakfast was her favorite meal.

“Well, I've got Mr. Maupin's seeder for the weekend so I'd better overseed those pastures,” she said to the animals, good listeners. “I was lucky to get it. Anyone with a seeder can rent it out for good money, you know. I'd love to buy one but we'd need almost twenty thousand dollars and, you know, I'd rather stand in line and wait to rent Mr. Maupin's. Even a used one is expensive and you only use it in the spring and, in the fall, depending . . .” Her voice trailed off, then rose again. “The trouble is, when you need it, you need it. We were lucky this year.” She reached over to stroke Mrs. Murphy's silken head, as the cat had joined her at the table. “I just feel it's going to be a lucky spring. Worms to turn and eggs to lay.”

She washed her dishes, walked out on the screened-in porch, and threw on her barn jacket which hung on a peg. The temperature was in the forties but by noon would near sixty-five.

As Harry stepped outside into the refreshingly cool air the first thing she noticed was the fog on the mountains. The sun, rising, reflected onto the fog, creating millions of tiny rainbows. The sight was so beautiful that Harry stopped in her tracks and held her breath for an instant.

The cats noticed the rainbows but their attention was diverted by a huge pileated woodpecker, lying in the dust, just off the screened-in porch.

“Cool.” Pewter hurried over, tried to pick up the freshly dead bird in her jaws. It was quite heavy. She gave up.

“I could help you with that,” Tucker offered.

“Touch my bird and you die,” Pewter hissed.

Mrs. Murphy laughed. “It's not like you brought it down, Pewter.”

“I found it. That's almost as good.”

“Yeah, the great gray hunter.” Tucker curled her upper lip.

“I don't see you catching anything, fat bum.” Pewter's eyes narrowed to slits.

“I'm not fat. I don't have a tail. That makes me look fat,” Tucker replied sharply. “Bubble butt, you should know.”

Pewter lashed out, catching the dog squarely on the nose. “Weenie.”

“Ouch.”

“What is going on with you two?” Harry walked over to the fighting animals. “Oh, no.” She knelt down to examine the giant woodpecker. “You hardly ever see one of these up close.”

“I found it first.” Pewter put her paw on its plump breast, claws out for emphasis.

“Pewter, let go,” Harry commanded her.

“Only if I get my birdie back.” She swished her tail.

“You'd better let go, Pewts,” Mrs. Murphy advised.

“Oh, sure, so you can grab my woodpecker.”

“'Cause she's top dog,” Tucker wisely noted.

“I'm not a dog.” The gray cat said this with a supercilious air.

“Good, because I'd hate to claim you.”

“You're being a real snot,” the cat said but she relinquished the bird, retracting her claws.

Harry first felt the woodpecker's neck because a bird will sometimes fly into a windowpane and break its neck. The woodpecker's neck was fine and woodpeckers usually don't fly that close to houses. She turned the bird over. Not a mark.

“This guy is heavy.”

“Tell me,” Pewter agreed.

“In perfect condition. Strange. Really strange.” Harry lifted the bird by its feet as she stood up. “Taxidermist,” was all she said.

“I can pull the feathers off a stuffed bird as well as a live one.” Pewter smiled.

“Indulge her, Pewter,” Tucker growled, her nose still hurting.

The cat said nothing, following Harry closely as the human located her old large cooler, filled it with ice, wrapped the woodpecker in a plastic bag, then placed it in the cooler. She would visit the taxidermist after overseeding.

She then walked to the barn, turned the three horses out, picked stalls, scrubbed water buckets, and was on the tractor in no time, happy as she could be.

The animals had no desire to run after the tractor as Harry monotonously rolled up and down the fields, so they reposed under a huge white lilac bush, blooms half-opened. Pewter and Tucker called a truce.

“It was weird—that woodpecker.” Mrs. Murphy watched a swarm of ladybugs head their way.

“An omen. Found treasure,” Pewter purred.

Tucker rested her head on her paws. “A bad omen if you're the woodpecker.”

2

What do you think?” Harry leaned over the heavy wooden table where Don Clatterbuck studied the recently deceased pileated woodpecker.

“I can do it. Sure can.” His smile revealed teeth stained by chewing tobacco, a habit learned from his maternal grandfather, Riley “Booty” Mawyer, who was old but still farming.

She folded her arms across her chest. “Lots?”

“Not for you.” He smiled again.

“Well—?”

“Oh, how about a hundred dollars and you give my card out when foxhunting starts again? At the meets.”

“Really?” Harry knew she was getting a good deal because stuffing birds was more difficult than stuffing deer heads.

“Yeah. We go back a ways, Skeezits.” He called her by a childhood nickname.

“Guess we do.” She smiled back and pointed to coffee tables, the tops covered with old license plates, some dating back to the 1920s. “These are good. You ought to carry them up to Middleburg and put them in those expensive shops there.”

His shop, a converted garage, overflowed with hides, knives to cut leather, and a heavy-duty sewing machine to sew leather, though usually he employed hand tools even for sewing. Donald repaired tack, leather chairs, car upholstery, even leather skirts and high-fashion stuff.