Dec 01 20
By strange conjunction Shiva our cat had disappeared with the arrival of the panther. Shiva, in her 14 years had never gone farther than the back porch. Her disappearance was deeply unsettling; as her unerring congeniality seemed to keep our house from slipping into mute obduracy from a general state of emotional plainness. We of course thought she had been eaten; but she returned unharmed four days after the ordeal.
Dad was the first to encounter the beast, though he never saw it. At 4 AM on a wet March morning, after filling the chicken feeders, he said he heard a “heavy breathing.” After that he only remembers waking up tied to the kitchen table with my sister stitching up his torn thigh. He didn’t yell at the needle pokes, just thrashed a bit. (There are still grooves in the kitchen floor; as well, a faint dent in one of the coop’s fence posts where he was knocked unconscious.)
After his breakfast, my uncle about to light his first cigarette, saw the animal poised over his brother. With no time to reach his rifle, he grabbed two metal garbage can lids and smashed them together like “in an orchestra” — then flung them. He said they looked like “UFOs gliding through the mist.” One he overshot, but the other hit the cat by its tail; which sent it back to the edge of the cornfield, where it crouched watching. My uncle when telling the story, emphasized that he never broke eye contact with it — even as he was pulling my dad up the back steps.
As my uncle was dragging dad over the porch into the kitchen, a boot caught on the last step and fell off. When the screen door slammed the cougar ran over to it and grabbed it bolting away into the fields and brush beyond. No one ever saw it again.
Quite a few years later when my uncle and dad were grouse hunting in a small forest on the edge of the property line, they saw my dad’s boot way up in a tree. They shot it down and brought it home. It sits next to Shiva’s bed on the hearth as a sort conversation piece and Shiva seems to like to crouch and just look at it.
Dad was the first to encounter the beast, though he never saw it. At 4 AM on a wet March morning, after filling the chicken feeders, he said he heard a “heavy breathing.” After that he only remembers waking up tied to the kitchen table with my sister stitching up his torn thigh. He didn’t yell at the needle pokes, just thrashed a bit. (There are still grooves in the kitchen floor; as well, a faint dent in one of the coop’s fence posts where he was knocked unconscious.)
After his breakfast, my uncle about to light his first cigarette, saw the animal poised over his brother. With no time to reach his rifle, he grabbed two metal garbage can lids and smashed them together like “in an orchestra” — then flung them. He said they looked like “UFOs gliding through the mist.” One he overshot, but the other hit the cat by its tail; which sent it back to the edge of the cornfield, where it crouched watching. My uncle when telling the story, emphasized that he never broke eye contact with it — even as he was pulling my dad up the back steps.
As my uncle was dragging dad over the porch into the kitchen, a boot caught on the last step and fell off. When the screen door slammed the cougar ran over to it and grabbed it bolting away into the fields and brush beyond. No one ever saw it again.
Quite a few years later when my uncle and dad were grouse hunting in a small forest on the edge of the property line, they saw my dad’s boot way up in a tree. They shot it down and brought it home. It sits next to Shiva’s bed on the hearth as a sort conversation piece and Shiva seems to like to crouch and just look at it.