by Lea Tassie
back yard.”
“I've never seen vermin out there. Not once.”
“That proves the point,” Fenella said. “The tabby killed them all. Did you know that, in Egypt, cats had their own goddess?”
There was a hint of satisfaction in her voice. What is it about those fur-covered little pirates that makes women so protective? But this was one of those times I knew it wouldn't pay to ask. Or argue, neither. “You mean they actually had a god to look after cats?”
“A goddess,” Fenella said. She began reading again. “In Egyptian mythology, Bast was depicted as a fierce lioness, later as a woman with the head of a cat. She supervised health, music and dancing, crops, hunting, wisdom and happiness, but she was most famous for her legendary wrath. She was listed as one of Ra's avenging deities who punished the sinful.”
“Who was this Ra?”
“I think he was the head god.” Fenella turned a page. “It says here that the Book of the Dead mentions the Great Cat Ra.”
I glanced out the sliding glass doors to the sun deck. The cream-colored cat was still there. Still staring. It was spooky.
“Well,” I said, “Ra, nor Bast neither, has any business in my back yard. Did those fool Egyptians spend all their time worshiping cats? I hope they had some fun.”
“Oh, they did, all right, according to this,” Fenella said. “They had a festival every October and thousands of men and women traveled to Bast’s temple on boats with music, singing and dancing.” Fenella adjusted her specs. “When they reached the city, they had processions of flower-laden barges and orgiastic ceremonies and drank as much wine as they could stomach.”
“Orgies, is it? Well, I suppose cats are as good an excuse as any. Sensible people don’t need any excuses.” I got to my feet. “I'm off to the greenhouse. I can do things out there that won't bother my back.”
*
By the time another two weeks passed, my back was healed and I worked in the garden every day. The vegetables were coming along fine but my pleasure was destroyed every day because I had to chase damn cats out of my yard. It wasn't only the gray tabby from next door who trespassed. There were cats of every color and description, sometimes two and three at a time.
I complained about it at the pub on a Saturday afternoon and my friend Lionel suggested I should get a slingshot and fire ice cubes at the cats. Lionel said the ice cubes might sting or even hurt, but wouldn't kill the animals. He figured if they got hurt instead of just yelled at, they might stay away.
This sounded like a fine idea; I'd had plenty of practice with slingshots as a boy. Monday I went downtown and bought a state-of-the-art slingshot. I knew Fenella would kill me if she found out what I paid for it, so I tossed the bill in the garbage. While she was off shopping, I took my weapon and a bowl of ice cubes and went out to sit on the veranda.
The gray tabby showed up ten minutes later. I held the frame of the slingshot at arm's length in my left hand and put an ice cube in the pocket. I aimed at the wretched cat, who was even then digging a hole among my cabbages, and yanked the pocket back as far as my cheek.
The pain was so bad I nearly fainted and the ice cube fell down the steps at my feet. The arthritis in my elbow was like fire. I sat there cupping my elbow in my left hand, cursing a blue streak, while tears of rage and pain ran down my face. In a few minutes, I pulled myself together and headed toward the kitchen to look for the pain pills. As I stepped in, I glanced toward the carport and, sure enough, there was the cream-colored cat under the wild currant again.
This time the creature was licking its shoulder and ignoring me. That made me madder than when it stared at me. It seemed to be saying there was nothing I could do to stop the invasion, no way I could protect my own property.
Which is what Fenella said when she came home and tore a strip off me for my slingshot caper. “That was a cruel thing to do, Angus McDonald. When I was a girl, my brothers used to kill rats with slingshots.”
“Ice cubes aren't going to kill anything.”
“No, but they could hurt something fierce. Like your elbow, Angus.”
“Ay, I get the message.” And I did, too, but I wouldn’t have minded a bit if that cat was hurting as much as me.
When the pain pills took effect, I drove to my favorite garden shop and bought a few things. At home again, I dug up a little earth beside the fence just behind the carport and planted some seeds. Fenella found the empty packet on the veranda railing an hour later.
“Catnip?” she said. “You planted catnip?”
“Ay, I'm beaten. I'm trying to placate the beasts. Maybe if I give them something to get drunk on, they'll leave the rest of the yard alone.” With luck, she’d never find out about the rest of my plan.
During the next few weeks, while the catnip grew, I was a gentler, kinder man. I no longer chased the cats, just shooed them away. I no longer shouted, just spoke in a quiet way. I weeded and hoed and harvested and mostly held my tongue, though it nearly killed me to do it. One morning I stepped out on the veranda with my mug of tea and saw the cream-colored cat sniffing the new catnip plants.
When Fenella went shopping after lunch, I hurried out and spread slug bait in the cat garden, hoping the cream-colored cat would spread the word about the catnip. If the creatures poisoned themselves with slug bait, I’d have won the battle of keeping my property to myself.
A little later, I sat on the veranda with a cup of tea and watched the cream-colored cat mince daintily over to the catnip garden. As it sniffed at the fresh green plants, I murmured, “Eat hearty! Make my day.”
The cat turned its back on the catnip, glanced at the porch to see if I was watching, raised its tail and sprayed.
***
Also by Lea Tassie
Adventure:
Tour Into Danger
Cat Humor:
Cats in Clover
Siamese Summers
Cat Under Cover
Cats & Crayons
Mainstream:
A Clear Eye
Double Image
Deception Bay
Science Fiction:
Green Blood Rising
Red Blood Falling
Shockwave
Short Stories:
Harvest (collection)
Too Blue
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