Don't Name the Ducks

by Wendy Dudley

  This is so out of character for Fergus. A fearful cat, he rarely strays, considering a journey of twenty feet beyond the house a wild adventure. Normally, when we know he is outside, we keep the sliding door open so he can flee indoors, but today there was no passage to safety, leaving him at the mercy of the barking dogs and a savage afternoon thunderstorm. Poor Fergus, he'd be frantic, his hair bristled and his pathetic little mew a mere whisper among the clashing clouds and reckless wind.

  With forty-five acres, you don't know where to start looking for a cat, especially one that trembles when a patch of dry orchard grass rustles, a dog yips, or a raven croaks. Neither worldly nor smart, Fergus's chances of surviving a night outside are slim. Orange cats camouflage well in the desert, but out here they're like lighthouses against a sea of green grass. Of the feral barn cats we've owned, the pumpkin ones disappear first, grabbed by hawks, owls, coyotes, or weasels.

  It's dark now, and we've left the windows and screen doors open, just in case he comes home during the night, scratching and mewing with the hope we will hear him. Already I miss his chirping meow, his warm body curled up next to my toes, his gentle pat-pat on my face, and his favourite game of batting moths. I find the empty space in the house cruel, as I stare at the loft above my bed where he sits for hours in what I call his treehouse, content to study life below. I want to leave candles burning in the window, like a guiding light to welcome him home; I must hope, I can't give up, but guilt seeps in as I start to think of Fergus in the past tense.

  He was just a teacup-sized kitten when I found him at a farmers' market, so sweet and cuddly, with hair the colour of beach sand. As the months went by, he bonded with Hud, my teddy bear of a brown tabby, kneading his ample belly while snuggled close to his chest. The two played crazy nocturnal cat games, bounding through the house and up and over the furniture, as if the chairs and sofas were trees in a jungle. Hud became his king, while I was relegated to being caterer and water girl, except when it came to baths. Whenever I soaked in the tub, Fergus would walk along the edge, yowling until I dribbled handfuls of warm, soapy water along his spine. He'd arch his back, flick his tail and rev up his purring, never satisfied until he was dripping water from his ginger tail to his pink triangle of a nose. Outside the bathroom, however, I was often the victim of what I can only call a nasty streak. If I lay in bed, he pounced on my belly, and in the morning he batted my eyelids, using his claws if I refused to get up. And I can't say he held onto his cute looks, since, as an adult, he was cow-hocked and missing a few teeth. But he wasn't unhealthy, having rung up a vet bill only once in his eleven years, when he stuffed himself with his own hair. He finally threw up the wad, a hairball the size of a baseball. Quirks and all, I loved him, embracing him, as I do all the animals that come to stay at Burro Alley.

  This is ridiculous; I must stop thinking of Fergus as gone, as an animal I once owned. He could still come home. I must remain positive.

  In the night, I dream of him, waking because I'm sure I hear his plaintive call. I get up earlier than usual, looking out all the windows and checking the decks and the doorsteps, but he isn't there. When I let the dogs out, Maggie runs into the garage whining, but she doesn't dive into the corner piled high with boxes and books the way she does if a squirrel or barn cat is hiding. Back in the kitchen, I make the animals' breakfast, filling two bowls with tinned food and a sprinkle of dry crunch. Fergus's dish sits empty. I have had pets die before, so I know the stages of grief and recovery, the dreams, the phantom mews, and finally the letting go, but still, I hate this. Struggling to accept his possible death, I recall having read somewhere that wild animals go numb moments before they are attacked, and that their souls leave their bodies seconds before death strikes. I cling to this, clutching it as I would a rope pulling me to safety. Animals have souls they must, because a heaven without them would indeed be a lonely place.

  After breakfast, Mom and I walk through the bush, looking for tufts of yellow hair, remnants that will at least bring closure. Otherwise, I will forever scan fields for a streak of familiar orange. Finding nothing, I am miserable.

  It is late afternoon and I'm sitting outside with a book and a mug of tea. I hear a mew and Hud, who's lying next to me, raises his head. Then silence. I shrug it off as another phantom voice. Then another mew. The dogs stop playing, their ears perked. My heart flutters. Around the corner of the house steps Fergus. I want to jump up, run over, sweep him into my arms, and smother him with kisses, but he darts into the house, a blur of yellow. I run inside, yelling to Mom that Fergus is home, that the cat has come back. We rejoice, hugging the dogs and cooing to this waif of a ginger cat. That night, while I'm filling the tub, in parades Fergus, eager for his bubble bath. He purrs as I sponge his face, then sits and stares at me the way cats do. I tickle his ears and whisper how much I love him. Heaven will have to wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Fearless Farriers

  The local blacksmith used to shoe horses and make tools. Factory-made tools threatened his profession, but a renewed interest in ironwork has kept the forge burning. My farrier turns old horseshoes into hat hooks

  After three weeks and dozens of phone calls, I was still trying to find someone willing to trim mule and donkey hooves. One farrier was polite enough to respond, even if he did say he wouldn't touch anything called Equus asinus, but most just ignored my desperate phone messages. Horses too can have nasty tantrums over their pedicures, but donkeys and mules are blacklisted before anyone touches their feet, receiving a guilty verdict without a chance to prove their innocence.

  Now four months old, Lucy was ready for her first trim. I handled her feet almost every day, tapping her hooves so she wouldn't be alarmed when the farrier rasped and filed her toes. At first, wide-eyed and twitching, she would jerk her leg, but I held on, not letting go until she settled down. If she behaved, I released her leg, so she soon learned that standing still has its rewards. But convincing potential farriers that she was indeed a good girl, though cheeky at times, was another matter. Stories about how I could pick stones from her hooves without risking my life were considered fables. By the time I contacted Steve Bennett, a farrier used by some of my neighbours, I was suffering from repeated rejection. Before he even answered, I gave him an out.

  "You might not want to come," I said. "I just have the donkey and mule. And there's only a single light bulb in the barn, and it isn't heated. And you should know that the mule is young, so this would be her first trim. So I don't know how you feel about this. If you think it's too much of a bother, that's OK."

  Several times the poor man tried to interrupt, but he couldn't plug my pessimism. I must have sounded like Eeyore, so gloomy and grey-dayish.

  "It's OK," he said. "I'll come."

  "Really? You will? Oh, that's wonderful. She's a pretty little mule, and I've done some work with her, so maybe she won't be that bad," I said, my spirits lifting like a thinning slate cloud just before the sun comes out.

  But Steve didn't need convincing. A long-time solidas-a-rock mule man, he's one of the best when it comes to understanding their unique ways. For years, he worked with mules in the outfitting business, where their sure-footedness and gentle walk make them the preferred pack animal. Because they move forward instead of rocking from side to side like a horse, their loads are more likely to remain balanced in rugged terrain, a bonus when you're riding in the backcountry and can't afford to lose half your goods along the trail.

  It was almost dark, with a light snow falling, when Steve arrived at the front door. Immediately I knew he was the right one for my Lucy. A genuine horseman, he looked like he'd walked off the pages of a Will James story, his long legs built to wrap around the barrel of a tall horse and his hands strong and scarred from a life spent working with hooves and nails. A dark felt hat shadowed his brow and a loosely tied bandana collared his neck.

  Moving slowly, he spoke softly, shrugging off my worries like a seasoned pack horse. Nothing was a problem; not the snow,
the ice, the cold, or the pale light.

  I was still apologizing for my primitive set-up when we arrived at the barn, but he never said a word, his eyes searching the paddock for the mule.

  "Here she comes," I said, as Lucy trotted around the corner. Spotting Steve, she dug in her hooves. A new person, new smells —a stranger. Steve spoke quietly, letting her come to him. He smelled good, like horses, like her mare mother.

  "That's a good girl," I whispered, as Steve picked up her front foot, picking out the mud from around the frog at the centre of the hoof. It wasn't until he started to trim that she began to fray like the loose end of a string. She tried yanking her leg away, but Steve held on. The two of them see-sawed back and forth, Lucy tugging his arm and Steve giving and taking with each pull. When Lucy didn't get her way, she gave up.

  Discipline should not be part of a farrier's job, but Steve's a natural with horses, having spent five years as a trainer on the Ya Ha Tinda Ranch, the home base for horses used in western Canada's national parks. He developed his passion young, sketching horses in the margins of his school notebooks and using the money he saved from his paper route to buy an Arabian cross. She was barely broke, but he rode her the ten miles home. Being only fifteen, he did not yet own a trailer.

  Lucy may not have been as big as the horses he was used to training, but by the time he finished trimming her hooves, she had reared, kicked the barn wall, and stepped not on his foot, but on mine. Just another youngster enduring growing pains, Steve said.

  "She really wasn't all that bad, considering it was her first trim," he added. "Just keep handling her lots." I took this to mean he would come again, and that I could stop apologizing.

  Lucy did indeed improve, but not without trying to master a bag of evasive tricks. She would stretch her neck forward, then rotate it sideways as she lowered her head to the ground, twisting my arm as I tried to hold on. Turning around to see Steve still working on her hind leg, she would then flop down, her tail thumping and sweeping the ground like a dog's. Her favourite joke, however, was the leaning game: pushing against Steve until he had to fight to keep his balance while he tried to cradle one of her hooves between his legs. Accepting only so much abuse, he would eventually elbow her in the ribs.

  After several such pranks, I decided Lucy was due for a lesson. What might be amusing in a young animal isn't so funny once the animal weighs a thousand pounds. So Steve and I plotted a plan that worked wonders. The next time Lucy shifted her weight, Steve gave me the nod, a sign that I was to let her go. Dropping her lead, I stepped back, as did Steve. Without her private leaning post, she collapsed to the ground, with a thud and a look of disbelief. We hadn't touched her: it was as if she had tripped herself. After a few grunts and groans, she got up. She stood there still as a heron, her weight evenly planted on three legs while Steve finished each foot. She never leaned again.

  It's been nine years since Steve first drove his truck down the lane to Burro Alley. Lucy adores him, nickering when he pulls in and nipping his jacket collar when he gives her a pat. She slimes his chaps and tugs at the hoof pick in his back pocket, excited at his return after six to eight weeks. He's always on time, and he appreciates the difference between a mule hoof and a horse hoof, the angles on a mule's being more upright than in a horse. A mule or donkey with improperly trimmed hooves can easily go lame. It's a common ailment, as many people neglect their animals, allowing their feet to grow so long they turn up like elf shoes.

  Because I don't ride my animals on hard surfaces, I allow them to go without shoes, making Steve's stop at my place pretty straightforward, but still, it's a thankless job, leaning over all day like a tree bent in a strong westerly. There are moody mares, cranky owners, and, in spring, mudholes up to mid-calf. And so much can go wrong: a horse that spooks can drive a shoeing nail into your hand; a fractious animal may break your arm or crack your rib, sidelining you for months. When Steve inquired about insurance, he was told he would be ranked the same as a stuntman.

  Lucy and I know that someday Steve will hang up his farrier tools, though I don't think he will ever pack away his chaps and saddle. A cowboy through and through, he may once again hit the rugged trails, working from the back of a horse instead of from behind it. But it will take a team of horses—or perhaps I should say a mile-long mule train—to keep Lucy from seeing her favourite farrier. When the day comes, Lucy and I will track him down, hoping for just one more pedicure.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Where Cougars Walk

  When I walk through the forest, my eyes search for cougars. When I walk through the desert, I look and listen for rattlesnakes. Nature teaches us to stay on our toes.

  I placed my hand in the mitten-sized paw print. Even with my fingers stretched, the tips were still a good half inch short of reaching the track's outer edge. I climbed back up on Lucy and we continued across the snow-laden meadow, my eyes darting from bush to tree to bush. Lucy's gait was choppy, her head was high, her ears pointed, and her eyes open wide. Resting one hand on her mane, just in front of the saddle horn, I tried to calm her, but those tracks were as clear as a blue winter sky—massive paws with a heart-shaped pad, set out in a single line. A cougar, a big one, probably a male hunting alone.

  Cougars are solitary and curious, not unlike sofa-loving cats, but it bothered me to think a pair of pale yellow eyes was watching from somewhere in the snowdrifts. Even though I knew our creek valley was a natural corridor for the big cats, there seemed to be more sightings than usual this year, many in broad daylight. Several horses, sheep, pigs, and pet dogs had been killed, their remains often raked and left under a mound of leaves and dirt. The deer, who usually criss-cross our meadows by the dozens, had moved out.

  Squeezing my legs lightly, I pressed the saddle's fender against Lucy's sides, the leather creaking in the cold like a rusty door hinge. With the snow now flying horizontally, I had to squint to see the trail ahead. Suddenly the cat's tracks changed from individual prints to wallows, big gouges in the snow from where the cougar had begun to bound downhill, until the depressions disappeared beneath the low-lying boughs of a giant spruce, its skirt less than a foot from the trail we were travelling. With the wind now tossing the snow every which way, deafening all other sounds and scattering wild scents, I pulled Lucy in. She was willing to stop, but not for long, sensing this was not a good place to be. I heeled her left flank and we turned in a tight circle, heading east and home.

  The two of us lowered our heads, both our manes now knotted by the wind. Every few seconds, I glanced over my shoulder, just to make sure we weren't being followed, but with our decision to head for the barn, Lucy was now relaxed and I trusted her instincts. I urged her into a trot, relieved when we broke trail down the last hill, the sides of the red barn now visible through the grey aspens. Slipping off Lucy's saddle, I rubbed her back dry and then gave her a flake of hay before turning her loose with the donkey. Heading back to the house, I noticed her hoofprints already vanishing under the swirling snow.

  "Cougar's around," I said to Mom, who was preparing dinner at the stove.

  "We'll have to keep an eye on Lucy and Raven, maybe keep them up by the barn at night."

  Within a few hours, the storm had blown itself out, the clouds now brushing the plains of Saskatchewan. I made a quick trip to the barn, forking the hay into two mounds in the paddock. Hearing Lucy and Raven leave their shed, their hooves squeaking and crunching over the cold snow, I waited until they arrived.

  "You two take care of each other now. No sleeping at the same time," I whispered, patting each one on the neck before bidding them a safe night. Back in the house, I stacked my pillows, snuggled between my flannelette sheets, and began to read. Within minutes, the outdoor sensor light went on. I knew it was too cold for the barn cat to be prowling about and too still for it to be a wind-whipped tree, so maybe the deer were heading up the hill to lick clean the bird feeders. Sitting up and leaning towards the window, I studied the snowdrifts, their troughs and cr
ests flooded by light, but there was no sign of movement. Then, pressing my nose against the window, I looked down to our back deck. At first, I wasn't sure if what I was seeing was real, but I couldn't mistake those yellow eyes staring back. The cougar didn't move, just stood on the deck, studying my face in the window. His round amber eyes penetrated my soul, and I was paralyzed by his beauty; he had a long back smooth with sleek muscle, powerful furred feet, a sweeping golden tail, and a stunning, intelligent face with a snow-white muzzle and a black moustache. His entire being was magnificent, a perfect specimen of grace and power. I was hypnotized by his stare, my feet frozen to the floor. I wanted to get my camera, but I couldn't move. I was afraid this was a winter mirage that would soon melt into the night. Slowly, very slowly, the cougar began to backup, one foot at a time, placing each foot in the track behind. It would be a trail with an abrupt end, one without a set of retreating prints. Not until he slipped into the blackness did I realize I had been holding my breath.

  This was my first glimpse of a wild cougar, and it left my heart pounding and my lungs pleading for air. Awakening from my trance, I remembered Lucy and Raven, feeding on their hay only strides away from where the cougar was headed. Hesitant to venture outside, I opened the front door and then slammed it shut, hoping the heavy bang might sound like a warning gunshot. Other than that, the girls were on their own. I feared for their safety, but country living comes with risks, and this was one of them.

  Several weeks later, a photograph of a hunter kneeling over a dead cougar appeared in the regional newspaper. Apparently the cat had attacked and killed a miniature horse. Reading about his impressive size, I sensed it was the same cougar I had watched from my window. It saddened me to know he was gone, but I also understood the loss of livestock. Once the cougar discovered that killing penned animals was easier than chasing fleeing deer, he could become an opportunistic feeder, preferring to raid horse and sheep pens than to hunt in the wild.