Trooper

by Forrest Bryant Johnson

  “Then, why don’t you leave that ugly lizard and see what his reaction will be,” she suggested. “I don’t think he eats lizards.”

  “Don’t know if he does. I doubt it, but that’s a good idea.”

  The third morning I found a newest selection: a dove and some kind of brown rat, the likes of which, in all my years of desert wanderings, I had never seen before. The lizard had disappeared during the night, carried away by my hunter friend.

  So Trooper eventually—or so he believed—learned my preference: doves. I guess the brown rat was just a special treat. No doubt, Trooper believed he had assisted in my recovery by furnishing me fresh meat. He knew I could not provide for myself. I had given him food over the years, now he returned the favor.

  This time both the bird and rat went to the trash. Although I’ll never know if he believed I actually ate those creatures, he seemed pleased, that I must have enjoyed it all. Other than the lizard, I always “cleaned my plate,” so to speak.

  The next day I received permission from my doctor to walk about the place and enjoy real food in the kitchen. Trooper watched as I finished a large cheeseburger. Of course I saved a piece for him. The next morning there were no dead birds, no lizard, and no brown rat, only Trooper sleeping next to me.

  As weeks went by I gained strength, walked that short distance to the office each day, and began to drive. The bandages were removed and life returned to normal.

  One night during my recovery, Trooper did not sleep in my bed, and the next morning we couldn’t find him in the house, office, or anywhere else about the property. At first this didn’t alarm me. He had ventured off on some special mission and remained absent a day or two before. The morning of the third day he had not returned and I became concerned. That night, near 11 p.m., we heard the unmistakable scream of one bobcat, followed in quick succession by another. Had it come from Trooper?

  I was college-aged the first time I heard a bobcat scream. That had been long ago, in 1955 and in the hardwood forest of western Kentucky. The wonderful smell of autumn leaves permeated the countryside, a wilderness filled with oak, maple, dogwood, and hickory, and their brilliant colored leaves that fell like raindrops around us.

  My friends and I had followed the owner of that beautiful land, an old farmer, up a path to a limestone shelf, which protruded from the earth like a swollen lower lip. There were Native American carvings in that stone, the farmer told us, and being science students, we wanted to see them.

  Suddenly a scream broke through the soft sound of falling leaves. We all stopped and looked for the source. The old farmer laughed at our response. My first thought was that the scream came from a panther. We were in “Panther Valley,” had crossed “Panther Creek” a mile back, and were only a few miles from (truly named) Panther, Kentucky. But we had been assured there had been no mountain lions, or panthers as they were once called, in the area for over seventy-five years. Nonetheless, we each heard the scream.

  “So ya heard the lady scream, did ya?” the old man said.

  “What lady?” my friend inquired.

  “The lady of the woods,” the farmer replied. “She has been roaming these parts for years. Carries a long knife and tomahawk and hunts for her food with bow and arrow. Makes her bows from Osage wood. Indians knew that’s the best for bows.”

  I believe that my friends and I all chuckled at the same time.

  “Go ahead and laugh,” the old man mocked, but his response was interrupted by another scream, this one with a shriller sound.

  “Yep, that the lady,” he added.

  “You ever seen this lady?” I asked. I had heard many legends in the backwoods of Kentucky, most involving Native American folk tales, monsters, or strange characters living in the wilds.

  “Nope. Not me,” he replied. “But my grandfather seen her and his grandfather before.”

  “She must be very old,” I joked.

  More guffaws from my friends followed.

  “Oh, yes. She’s old, but beautiful. She’s got raven black hair and green eyes. Runs like a deer and drinks limestone water that smells of sulfur. It’s the water what keeps her young. At night, my grandpa said, her eyes flash red like coals.”

  My eyes continued to scan the woods as the old man entertained my friends with his story.

  Then, I saw it. First a blur of brown color, moving silently near the narrow creek about fifty yards away. It was not the beautiful lady of the woods, but instead a large cat. It paused, leaped across the creek, and disappeared between the trees, his color blending with that of the falling leaves. The first bobcat I had ever seen in the wild and I shared only a moment of his life.

  But as wonderful as they were, memories like that one were of no comfort to my present concern. With Trooper missing and that late-night scream, coyotes became my greatest worry. We had not heard them howling for several days, and then the sounds were at a great distance. But there was that possibility they had moved closer to our property.

  How often pet owners worry for their little friends who have wandered away and did not return when expected. This is nothing new. An 1805 English nursery rhyme states it clearly: Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?

  That afternoon, as I worked in my office, my wife’s voice came through the two-way radio.

  “Come quickly!” she yelled. “I’m in the kitchen. Trooper is here. He’s hurt!”

  I ran to the house, ignoring the fact that my surgery site had not completely healed. Chi was kneeling next to Trooper as he drank at his water bowl. Blood oozed from wounds in his neck and ear.

  “Let’s get him to the vet!” I shouted hoarsely as I left to retrieve his hated travel crate. Trooper appeared weak and exhausted and offered no resistance this time as I carefully lowered him in and secured the latches.

  Doctor Marg and a female assistant stood by my side in the examination room and opened the top of the crate. As the cat raised his head Doctor Marg lifted him to the stainless steel table.

  “Wow” she exclaimed, “you have become such a big boy! You’ve gained weight since your last visit.” Then she added, “Oh, Trooper, Trooper. You gave up another one of your nine lives! So this is number seven now? Could it be number six? How many years have I been patching you up? Six years? I can’t remember without looking at your file.”

  “It’s been seven years.” I said.

  “Seems impossible!”

  “You think these wounds were done by a coyote?” I asked.

  “No,” she replied. “The bite marks are too small for a coyote or dog. He tangled with another cat.”

  “What kind of cat would be big enough, stupid enough to fight with Trooper?”

  “Another bobcat,” came the answer.

  “Really! Why would they fight? Trooper wouldn’t be after a female cat.”

  “The other cat wouldn’t know that,” she laughed. “They fight for the same reason domestic cats get into it; most likely, it was over territory. Either Trooper wandered into an area claimed by another cat, or that cat entered his territory. Male wild cats and domestic cats behave the same when it comes to fighting. They resolve the situation in their own way. If they can’t settle the disagreement with hissing, growling, and screaming at one another, like humans, they resort to blows and bites.”

  Doctor Marg turned to me and said, “We got to get this big kitty cleaned up and start an IV with fluids and antibiotics. None of the bites are serious, but our worry is infection. We don’t know how much blood he has lost—hopefully, not much. Still, I want to keep an eye on him overnight. Don’t worry. He’s going to be okay. True to his name, Trooper can survive most anything. Plan to come in about five tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to bandage this ear with the hole in it. I doubt if he’ll let it remain in place, though.”

  “I’ll be here at five.”

  The doctor was silent a moment, then continued, but in a mellow tone.

  “We never get used to it, do we? Our pets wander off. We don’t know where they ar
e and we make ourselves sick with worry. Our little friends become so much a part of our life. Did you ever stop and think that they worry about us when we are gone longer than they expect? We are the center of their universe. Well, Mr. Johnson, they will always return, if physically capable.”

  When we arrived home the next evening, Trooper, bandage still in place on his ear, leaped from his crate and went directly to his dry food bowl in the kitchen. The bandage remained on the tip of his ear for about an hour, then it disappeared. We never found it.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Fox and the Black Cats

  “A righteous man has regard for an animal, but the wicked are always cruel.”

  Proverbs 12:10

  IT WAS AFTER 2 A.M. We were later than usual returning home from our hotel gift shop. We had just completed a turn onto our narrow country road from the wide, east-to-west street when something dashed in front of our car, its eyes flashing red in the headlight beams.

  “Was that a coyote?” my wife asked.

  “No. Too small for a coyote. It stopped over there, under those pine trees next to that old stone foundation.”

  “Look, a rabbit!” Chi exclaimed, pointing to the foundation.

  A large jackrabbit, native to the Southwest, sat peacefully munching on long stems of green grass. Actually a “hare,” the jack is much larger than a rabbit and has longer ears, which help regulate body temperature in the desert’s scorching heat. Originally called a “jackass rabbit” because of those ears, the creature became famous as a “jackrabbit” after Mark Twain published his 1872 book, Roughing It. The book recounts Twain’s journey with his brother, Orion Clemens, the then Secretary of Nevada Territory, on a journey west. On this trip, Twain became fascinated with the rabbits’ ability to elude coyotes. Both predator and prey can reach speeds of over forty miles per hour, but it is the zigzag running style of the rabbit that can keep him from becoming a coyote dinner.

  In the Southwest, night was truly a time for animals. Distracted by the large rabbit, we had almost forgotten about the odd little animal that ran in front of our car.

  I pulled the car onto the left side of the road and came to a halt. The moon’s bright light illuminated the desert floor, giving the appearance of fresh snowfall. But the warm June breeze brought reality and the sweet fragrance of pine needles greeted us as I rolled the window down.

  There, bathed in the moonlight, sat the odd little animal, apparently not at all alarmed by our sudden appearance.

  “He’s cute,” Chi observed, “he looks like a toy dog. His ears are so tall!”

  The little animal with a black tip on his long, bushy tail waited not far from the front of our car. His gray-and-rust-colored coat appeared glossy in the moonlight and he turned to look at me with large eyes and an alert expression, giving the appearance of a smile on his face. His long nose twitched as he carefully studied us.

  “He’s a kit fox,” I spoke quietly. “A distant cousin of dogs and a closer relative to the red and gray fox in the mountains, only much smaller. Do we have any food in the car?”

  “I don’t think so. Wait, here’s a bag of beef jerky you didn’t finish yesterday. Think he’ll eat it?”

  The fox stood, his eyes locked on me. But the rabbit must have been frightened by our voices, as he stopped eating and became motionless.

  “He’s sure a little fox.” Chi said, “Maybe he’s a baby.”

  “I don’t think so. Seems to be full grown. He’ll never be larger than a house cat. I don’t mean Trooper; an ordinary cat at about six to eight pounds.”

  I opened the bag of beef jerky and moved slowly towards the grassy area. The jackrabbit gave me a long, uncertain look; then, with casual hops, it disappeared into the darkness. I, not the fox, seemed to have prompted his concern. The fox was smaller and posed no serious threat to the full-grown jack; I, on the other hand, appeared gigantic in comparison.

  I placed the strips of jerky on the ground about five feet before me, sat down, and waited to see how he reacted. Would he come to me and take the jerky? With an elegant trot, resembling that of a five-gaited horse, the fox traveled around the car, stopping to sniff in a few places, then stood on his hind legs below the passenger window. His keen sense of smell told him someone was in the vehicle and he stretched, unsuccessfully trying to look inside. He dropped to the ground and trotted in my direction, paused, then began to move in circles around me, coming closer with each pass.

  No doubt the fox had seen cars and people before, but never up close. He slowed to a walk, his bushy tail held straight, parallel to the ground, then came to a stop directly in front of me.

  I spoke to the fox in a whisper, telling him how beautiful he was and that I had brought him food. I pushed the jerky in his direction and held out both hands, palms pointing upward.

  He came to the jerky, sniffed each strip, snatched one, and trotted into the night. I heard a noise behind me and turned. Chi was leaning out the car window with her camera.

  “I didn’t use the flash,” she said. “I thought it might frighten him. Hope the photo comes out. See how he runs! Maybe that’s where the dance name came from.”

  “What dance?”

  “The fox trot,” she replied with a giggle.

  “Funny girl. Look! Here he comes again!”

  The fox approached the jerky, sat down, and tilted his head back, startling me with a sharp yap. Somewhere in the darkness there followed a yap response, and another fox, much smaller than the first, joined us.

  In a few moments all the jerky was gone, relocated to a place of safety.

  “What an experience,” I remarked as I entered the car. “I think the larger fox called the other one once he felt things were safe.”

  “Where do they find water?” Chi asked as we drove that lonely road a mile to our home. Our wildlife encounter had left her feeling curious.

  “The kit fox doesn’t need to drink water like other mammals. God put him in this arid environment and gave him the ability to survive on very little water. He gets all the moisture he needs from what he eats.”

  “So what does he eat, besides beef jerky?” Chi asked jokingly.

  “A variety of small creatures, like mice and bugs and little nesting birds. He’s a night hunter, but I’ve seen them playing in the desert during the day.”

  A few nights later we saw the fox again in the same grassy area. This time we had some leftover baked chicken from our evening meal at the hotel’s restaurant. Carrying the plastic to-go box, I walked to the now designated feeding area. The fox smelled the chicken the moment we arrived and came directly towards me, followed closely by the smaller fox. The chicken quickly disappeared.

  The fox feeding became routine, mostly with leftovers from the hotel meal. We discovered the little animals had some “table manners.” One fox always waited for the other to arrive before eating. Often we watched as they gracefully leaped over sage, like a deer, then returned to that familiar trot as they neared.

  Wildlife enthusiasts and government officials discourage the feeding of wild animals such as the kit fox for two reasons. First, they believe that human food is not healthy for wild animals and in many instances, they are correct. Much of the food we eat is not good for us, either. But the kit fox, like the coyote, is a scavenger. His diet is quite diversified: small rodents, garbage, insects, and even a carcass, if it comes to that. Its stomach is designed to digest a plethora of items.

  The second reason has more merit. Wildlife enthusiasts, especially those belonging to certain organizations such PETA, BLM, and state and federal wildlife agencies, worry that wild animals may become dependent on food given to them by people and forget how to hunt for survival. Unless the animal has been held in captivity for a long time, I doubt that it will lose the instinct for hunting.

  Trooper is an example of this. Raised from a kitten on commercial cat food (and yes, some human food as well), he never lost his hunting instinct. Once we moved to the ranch, until he was too old to hunt
, he continued to stalk rabbits, birds, lizards; except for the lizards, he ate what he killed.

  Right or wrong, we fed the foxes once or twice a week for almost three months.

  The desert, at the edge of town, is quiet late at night and the foxes quickly learned the sound of our car engine. When the car came to a stop they would appear near the side of the vehicle to learn what special treat Chi and I had brought.

  One night, as my headlights revealed the foxes waiting at the usual spot, I felt a little guilty. We had no food for them. After a brief discussion, I turned the car around and drove to the nearest all night convenience store. There I purchased a package of hot dogs and returned to feed my waiting friends.

  I placed the hot dogs in a row as I had with strips of beef jerky months earlier. The larger fox came forward and sniffed the food, then gave me a curious look as if to ask, What’s this? Where is the good stuff you usually bring?

  After a few moments, the fox carried a hot dog into the darkness. I was in for a surprise. He returned with a twelve-inch stick in his mouth and placed it on the ground in front of me.

  How do I respond? He wouldn’t understand a game of “fetch” if I tossed the twig, and furthermore, I feared that might frighten him. So, uncertain of his intentions or desire, I picked up the stick and held it next to my cheek, then pressed it to my forehead. I have no idea why I did that. I got up and handed the stick through the open window.

  “Keep this for me,” I said.

  “I got a picture of you, the fox, and the wood. What is he trying to tell you?”

  “I wish I knew,” I confessed. “He’s communicating, but what?”

  “Maybe he thinks the hot dog tastes like wood,” she replied with a grin.

  Nonetheless, the pair ate all the hot dogs, but the purpose of the stick, a special gift, is anyone’s guess.

  A few days later we returned with some leftover fried chicken. This, I knew, the fox would eat without question. Very few animals can resist the tempting smell of fried chicken. We were in for another surprise.