One big *cat was good enough for me.
Even though we were in our human bodies and had lost our trickster powers, animals still knew us by the lingering telepathic-empathic defense. They knew what people, and sometimes gods, didn’t know. To a wolf, a trickster would be an alpha. To a lone ranging mountain lion, we’d be its mommy, no matter how old it was. They knew us, and they obeyed us . . . most of the time. This time had turned out to be one of those times. Leo found a full-grown cougar who would’ve nursed on Leo’s leg if Leo had let it. But it was happy to ride in the well-ventilated U-Haul too, and then wait in the lovingly watered large silver-green sage bush of one house while Leo turned into Lenny, who could croak one very convincing imitation of a pet cat’s meow. And as the meows became more smug—because no one did smug as convincingly as Leo, someone decided to put another notch on the handle of his bloodstained knife.
Here’s another common fact—cats? The thing I love most about them . . . next to their curiosity? There is no such thing as a tame cat. You see the survival-challenged tourists in Africa at the rehabilitation preserves where young abandoned lions are being educated to be reintroduced into the wild. You see them sitting next to that “tame” lion to have their picture taken, all smiles, and the next thing they know they’re wondering how their neck managed to get in that good-natured lion’s mouth. How had that five-dollar souvenir photo gone so wrong?
As any granny knows, five-pound Marshmallow with the poofy white fur, the slightly crossed eyes, the adorable purr, and who loves you dearly would eat you within ten minutes if he suddenly grew to the size of a Great Dane. It doesn’t mean Marshmallow doesn’t wuv you; it just means Marshmallow loves eating creatures smaller than he is more than he wuvs you. That’s what being a cat is all about.
When our pet killer crept through the yard, softly calling, “Kitty kitty,” until he came to a particularly large bush that a raven perched atop, he probably thought he wasn’t tame either, but a carnivore out to kill, torture, and maim, if not devour. That’s when a brown and tan head with happy-to-see-you, come-in-for-dinner anticipation in its yellow eyes came out of that greenery and proved him wrong.
It’s amazing how fast you can go from “I taut I taw a puddy tat” to choking on your own blood.
One more lesson learned.
Our friend the cougar ended up back in the mountains with a full belly and some leftovers courtesy of another ride in the U-Haul, and Leo had called to give me the story on his way back. That left time for Griffin, Zeke, and me to catch a very late dinner. I was sorry I had missed the fun, but there was always more to be had.
As I went to bed that night, I did some wondering of my own. What did someone . . . something like Cronus, who’d thought it hilarious to eat his own children, according to legend and truth—what did he do for fun?
Chapter 6
Checkers.
It was true and I never would’ve guessed, but the world is strange like that. Cronus liked checkers.
He was waiting for me when I came downstairs that morning. Actually, not really. I gifted myself with an ocean full of flattery there. He was waiting for Leo. Leo had reached out and touched someone, as the commercials used to say, and that someone had in turn touched someone who in turn . . . Bottom line, Cronus was waiting for Leo to show up at work. Because this is where Leo had probably called from and to beings like Cronus, occupation versus a personal life . . . work versus your home, it was all anthills to them. And as powerful as Cronus was, in a way, that was a weakness too. An anthill was an anthill and so much trouble to tell the difference between them.
Waiting here would do.