Chapter Four: The Kitty Is Lured into My Trap

But of course we mustn’t forget that there were other circumstances involved.

Did I think to mention that I pulled a muscle in my right hind leg? Oh yes, bad muscle pull. I hadn’t warmed up, see, and the cat had probably spent all morning warming up and preparing for that sprint to the cake house, so one interpretation of the facts is that she, well, cheated.

Or if she hadn’t actually cheated, she had certainly taken unfair advantage of the situation. Hey, I had a steady job, many things to do besides warm up for a silly little race to the cake house, which, in the larger scheme of things, meant almost nothing anyway.

I mean, who cared, really? Life is filled with challenges, and racing a rinky-dink cat ranks very far down the list.

And did I mention about the cockleburs? Yes. Not only was I slowed by a tragic injury to the Greater Boogaloo muscle in my right posterior thigh, which would have put most dogs out of the race right there, but once the race began, I found myself running over gobs and gobs of dangerous cockleburs.

You ever try to run a hard race on cockleburs? It’s virtually impossible. You talk about pain! No ordinary dog could have stayed in that race. I not only stayed in the race but finished a respectable second, and might very well have won if it had gone on another twenty feet.

And if the cat hadn’t cheated and used underhanded tricks to . . . but the important point is that the race meant nothing to me, and finishing second to a stupid cat sure didn’t damage my self-esteamer, and just to prove how insignificant the whole thing was to me, I went over to the cat and gave her my congratulations for a race well run.

“Kitty,” I said between gulps of air, “as a small token of my admiration for your athletic ability, I am going to make sausage patties out of you.”

A lot of cats will run when you, uh, offer them such a small token. This one whirled around, humped up, hissed, stared at me with those strange yellowish eyes, and said, “Listen, clown, you lay a paw on me and I’ll take out your eyeballs and feed ’em to the crows!”

“Huh?”

“And don’t think I can’t do it.”

I, uh, took several steps backward. “Settle down, sister. I think perhaps you . . .”

“I’ve been marooned on this ranch for two long years. I’ve survived coons, coyotes, bobcats, skunks, badgers, hawks, eagles, and rattle­­snakes.”

“Well, sure, and I admire that . . . in a certain limited sense.”

“You may think you’re tough, potlicker, but you won’t know what that word means until you lay a paw on me.”

I cleared my throat. “You know, I sense that we’re barking up the wrong road here, and perhaps you misappropriated my meaning. All I meant to say was that, well, you run a pretty good race . . . for a cat.”

She studied me with those unblinking cattish eyes. “What about the sausage business?”

“The sausage business? Oh that. Ha, ha. It meant nothing, almost nothing at all, just a little attempt at humor. Ha, ha.”

She heaved a sigh and relaxed the hump in her back. “It’s been so long since I tasted sausage!”

“Right, exactly, and that was my whole point, you see. I was just saying, wouldn’t it be nice to have a bite of sausage and . . .” I leaned forward and whispered, “. . . cheese.”

The word had a dramatic effect on the stupid . . . on Miss Mary D Cat. All at once her pink little mouth curled up in a smile. She closed her eyes, began to purr, and started rubbing on my leg.

“Cheese! Oh, what I’d give for a piece of cheese! I dream of cheese, you know, and . . .

“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!”

Hmm, very interesting. It appeared that I had stumbled onto a classic case of Skip­so­frazzled Personality, and in case you’re not familiar with these heavy-duty technical terms, let me explain.

Your typical Skipsofrazzled Personality skips from one mood to another, don’t you see. They’ll be chirpy one minute and the next minute they’ll be yowling and hissing, and in your extreme cases, they’ll even make boastful threats such as “I’ll tear out your eyeballs and feed ’em to the crows.”

Another trait or characteristic of your Skipso­frazzled Personality is that the skipping mechanism can be activated by a certain code word. And you will notice that it took me only a matter of seconds to sniff out and discover Mary D Cat’s code word.

Heh, heh.

Cheese.

Heh, heh.

Pretty clever, huh? And now I can reveal for the first time that the so-called “Race to the Cake House” was just a ploy I had used to gather important information about this weird little cat.

That’s correct. I had planned it from the start, and losing the race was just part of the overall stragedy.

Are you shocked? Surprised? Heh, heh. Don’t ever underestimate the cunning of a Head of Ranch Security, and don’t forget that we spend a good part of our time operating underground. And don’t forget that staying at least one step ahead of the kittens is just part of my job.

Okay, where were we? Oh yes, I had just outsmarted and outflanked Mary D Cat and had gathered crucial information I needed. And now she was purring and rubbing on my legs and driving me nuts, and once again I found myself thinking, “GET AWAY FROM ME!”

But rather than coming right out and saying that, which would have been tacky and un­friendly—and, well, might have caused her to skip back over to the “Tear Out Your Eyeballs” skinario—I elected to, well, flee.

Surrender my spot.

Run around to the back of the cake house. And guess who or whom I found hiding back there. Mister Shivers.

He greeted me with his usual simple grin. “Oh, hi Hank.”

“What are you doing back here?”

“Oh . . . watching the snowflakes fall, I guess. And shivering.”

“I see. Is there some reason why you can’t shiver and watch the snowflakes around front with the rest of us?”

“Well . . . I guess I wanted to get away from that cat. I just don’t know what to do or say when she starts rubbing on me.”

“She’s just trying to be friendly, Drover.”

“Yeah, but she gives me the creeps. I never met a cat like her.”

“Yes, well, you must understand, Drover, that she’s been living out here by herself for years and she doesn’t know how to respond to the sudden appearance of dogs who are . . . well, highly intelligent, dashing, daring, donder, blitsen, and handsome.”

“Yeah, that’s me, all right.”

I glared at the runt. “Actually, I had myself in mind, but since you’ve brought up the subject of the cat . . .”

I placed a paw on his shoulder and led him a few steps away. There, I glanced around to be sure we weren’t being watched and conducted the rest of the conversation in a whisper.

“Since you brought up the subject of the cat, I wonder if you might do a little job for me.”

“What little job?”

“Actually, Drover, it’s not so little, and in fact, it’s a mission of great importance.”

“Gosh, and you’d let me do it?”

“That’s correct. I’ve had my eye on you for a long time, Drover, with this particular mission in mind, and I’m proud to tell you that I think you’re ready for it.”

He puffed himself up and beamed with pride. “Gosh, I’m so happy and proud, I don’t know what to say.”

“I understand, son, and saying nothing will be just fine.”

“But if it’s such an important mission, how come you’d trust me with it?”

“Because . . .” I began pacing, as I often do when I’m reaching into the gaseous clouds of vapor and trying to find the right words to express a deep thought. “Because, Drover, it’s time. It’s time for you to take on more responsibility. And it’s time for me to allow you to take on more responsibility.”

Suddenly, I stopped pacing and whirled around and . . . by George fell right over the edge of a little embankment . . . hadn’t noticed it there before.

I climbed back out and gave him a steely gaze. “Are you ready to handle more responsibility?”

“Oh yeah, sure, you bet, unless . . . what’s the job?”

I paced back over to him and, once again, placed my paw upon his shoulder. It was a touching moment.

“Drover, we’re building up our profile of this cat and we need some additional information.”

“And?”

“And we’ve selected you to . . . well, conduct a little survey, and ask the kitty a question. Here is the question: ‘Kitty Cat, what would you say if I told you that I’m going to make sausage patties out of you?’”

He twisted his head and stared at me. “Sau­sage patties?”

“That’s correct. It’s just routine market re­search, Drover. We want to know what she thinks of . . . uh, sausage patties.”

“Well, that sounds simple enough. Just ask her the question, huh?”

“Yes, and then come right back here and tell me her answer. I’ll take it from there.”

“Gosh, I can handle that. Here I go.”

“Good luck, son.”

While Drover went skipping around to the front of the cake house, I moved to a chinaberry grove nearby and established an observation post. There, I watched.

Very interesting. Her answer to the question about sausage patties was a handful of claws to Drover’s nose. WHACK!! And instead of reporting back to me, the little mutt went screaming all the way back to the house.

Well, we had sustained a small blot on our record, but we had gained important information. Mary D Cat wasn’t one to waste words, and she had zero sense of humor. I mean zilch.