Chapter Three: We Meet the Weirdest Cat You Ever Saw

Have I mentioned that Loper had taken a lease on the Hodges’ ranch? Maybe not, but he had, and we were wintering a bunch of cows on it. It was a dandy place to winter cows, because all the canyons and rough country gave them protection from storms.

But it wasn’t such a dandy place to reach in a two-wheel-drive pickup, in a snowstorm. Once you left the blacktop highway up on the flats, you faced nine miles of long, lonesome road, without a single house to mark the way or give you the feeling that you could get help if you needed it.

And there were spots in that long, lonesome road where a guy could get himself stuck. Slim came pretty close on several occasions. The road was bad and getting worse.

The road came to an end at the little camp house. When we got there, Slim shut off the pickup and took a deep breath.

“Whoo boy! I wasn’t sure we were going to get here. We shouldn’t have tried to make it down here without a four-wheel-drive. It’s a good thing we’ve got the Cammo-Stealth army truck down here. Let’s see if she’ll start.”

We all piled out of the blue pickup and moved over to the Cammo-Stealth army truck. What was the Cammo-Stealth army truck? A 1953 Dodge 4 x 4 with big mudgrip tires all the way around, a six-cylinder engine, and a four-speed transmission. It had a canvas top and was painted camouflage colors.

That’s where the “Cammo” part of the name came from. The “Stealth” part came from . . . let’s see if I can remember what Slim told Little Alfred . . . the old truck was so well camouflaged that it was “invisible to enemy radar.”

That’s what he said, and if you want to know who the “enemy” was and why they were using radar on the ranch, you’ll have to ask Slim.

Actually, I think it was some kind of joke.

Anyways, we hiked over to the Cammo-Stealth, which was parked on the west side of the camp house. Slim climbed in under the wheel and called Little Alfred over to watch.

“Pay attention, Button. I may get hurt down here one of these days and need you to drive me to town. I want you to know how to start this old thing.”

The boy climbed up on the running board. “Okay, Swim.”

“First thing you do when you drive any vehicle is check the gas gauge, only the gas gauge don’t work on this truck, so you run a shovel handle into the tank. Here, I’d better show you.”

He got out and ran a shovel handle into the tank. He pulled it out and showed the boy the wet mark. “That means you’ve got about ten gallons of gas.”

He got back inside and went through the whole starting routine: put the gearshift into neutral; pull out the ignition switch; pull out the choke as far as it will go, but don’t press on the gas pedal, “’cause this thing will flood if you even say ‘gas pedal.’”

“What does ‘fwuud’ mean?”

“It means the motor won’t start because . . . I don’t know why. Just do what I tell you and never mind the how-come.”

It was then that the cat appeared. Descrip­tion: female calico, medium height and weight, longhair, pink nose, long white cat whiskers, and a pair of eyes that were something between greenish and yellowish.

They called her Mary D Cat.

She crawled out from under the house and came running toward us—yowling. Now, most of your ranch cats will yowl once in a while but not all the time. This one, once she started a yowl, she hung on to it and didn’t quit.

It wasn’t a short and simple “meow.” It was more like “Meeeee-yowwwwwwwww.”

Well, Drover and I were standing there beside the Cammo-Stealth, listening to Slim’s lecture. The cat came bounding over to us, and right away I noticed that she didn’t have much respect for a dog.

I mean, most of your ranch cats will approach a dog with some caution. They should. Not only is that the proper and mannerly thing to do, but it is the smart thing to do.

See, some dogs don’t need much of an excuse to thrash a cat. You might even say that we . . . uh, they . . . you might even say that they consider pounding cats part of their job. Or even a form of sport—a good, clean, wholesome sport that all the family can enjoy.

And for that reason, your smart cats . . . or to put it another way, your cats who are less dumb than the dumber ones will NOT come bounding up to a dog they’ve never met before, because that is a really stupid thing to do and it can get a cat into deep trouble.

But this one? Here she came, bounding straight toward us and yowling.

“A crust of bread? Baloney, cheese?

Spare a morsel, if you please.

Marooned, I am, oh hateful place!

At last I’ve found a friendly face!”

Well, this was very strange. She came right up to me and began rubbing on my leg and yowling in my face. I guess you know how much I love being rubbed on by cats. I don’t. But there she was, all over me, just as though we were old friends, and we weren’t. Not yet and maybe never.

“A crust of bread? Baloney, cheese? Spare a morsel, if you please.”

I pushed her away. “Uh, Kitty, I think there’s been some . . . I don’t have any cheese. No cheese, no baloney, no bread, and would you please stop rubbing on me!”

She went right on. “Marooned I am, oh hateful place! At last I’ve found a friendly face!”

I backed up several steps to get away from . . . fellers, this was a weird cat! I’d been rubbed on by cats before, but nothing like this. I backed up to get away from her, but there she was again—rubbing, purring, and yowling about cheese.

“Kitty, I’m sorry you’ve been marooned and I guess you think you’ve found a friendly face after all these years, but . . . get back, will you? I think you’ve made a slight error. That is, I think you’ve mistaken my face for . . . WILL YOU STOP RUBBING ON ME!”

“Cheese, just one little piece of cheese. I dream of cheese, you know. And baloney. And Vienna sausage. And sir, you have such a friendly face, I just know you won’t turn me away.”

I was baffled. I mean, what can you do with a cat that is half-starved, half-crazy, and trying to love you to death? You can’t just beat her up and go on about your business.

I solved the problem by surrendering my spot. I ran around to the other side of the army truck and waited to see what Drover would do. When I left, Kitty didn’t miss a beat. She moved right in on Drover and started the same routine about cheese and a friendly face.

Drover wasted no time with niceties or small talk. He didn’t know what was wrong with this cat but he knew something was screwy, and he wasn’t going to take any chances. You’d have thought he was facing a python or a boa constrictor or a ghost.

Zoom! He vanished. Kitty had just lost another friendly face. Not one to be discouraged, she went straight to the Cammo-Stealth and jumped up on Slim’s lap. He was deep into his lesson on starting the truck.

“Okay, you pull out the choker, let ’er sit for a minute, then . . .” He pitched the cat away. “Then you mash down on the starter . . .” The cat was back in his lap. “. . . with your foot, like this here.”

He pitched the cat and pushed on the starter. It turned over with a growl. The cat jumped back on his lap. He pitched her again. The motor continued to turn. Then it fired once. The cat was back in his lap.

Slim stopped what he was doing and looked down at her. She rubbed her ear across his chin and then flicked her tail over his nose.

“Kitty, I know you love me and I don’t blame you ’cause I’m so wonderful, but we’re fixing to have a problem. I can’t start this truck with your tail in my face. Now scram.”

He pitched her out, and two seconds later, she was right back. “Button, will you get this love-crazed cat out of here? ’Cause if you don’t, I’ll be forced to break her heart and possibly her neck.”

Little Alfred took charge of the cat problem, and right away I could see that he had just the right approach. Holding her in a loving headlock, he began dragging her around through the snow. And it worked. The cat just went limp, didn’t fight or scratch or struggle or make any kind of protest.

Well, with the cat under control, Slim turned back to the problem of starting the truck, which sounded as though it didn’t want to start. He hit the starter again and the motor turned over and over, until at last it kicked off.

I had the misfortune of standing near the exhaust pipe when the motor kicked off, and it may be years before I get all of that blue smoke out of my lungs. Boy, that was quite a . . . COUGH, HARK, ARG . . . quite a cloud of smoke, and I decided to move my business around to the front.

Slim revved up the motor and adjusted the choke and told Alfred to get in—without the cat. Then they pulled around to the cake house and started loading sacks of feed.

I followed and heaved a sigh of relief. At last we were rid of the . . .

You’ll never guess who went streaking past me and headed straight for the cake house. I’ll give you a hint. She was calico-colored and weird.

Yes, it was the cat.

Perhaps you know where I stand on the issue of letting cats pass me on the way to the cake house. I don’t allow it. It sets a bad example, don’t you see, and can lead to trouble later on. Cats should always be last.

So I reached for the afterburners and hit full-throttle and went streaking through the snow. And she beat me to the cake house.

Hmmm. That was a pretty fast cat.