(Henry trying to teach the geese to fly)
(Henry explains the finer points of flying - A little "Fly Away Home")
(The geese, Mathilda, Ruthie, Clara, Mabel, Lloyd, Alfred, Cleveland & Quackmire give it a try)
Days that stain your memory forever, start out like any other day. You get up, eat something and benignly go about your normal routine having no idea what is to come. The day my mother died Toby was making lemon squares in the kitchen. The day I was raped Lisa and I had a fight while driving over Laurel Canyon.
Today was Thursday and Henry went to gymnastics; I got a cut and color, went to Home Depot™ and applied for jobs online. Mike drove up from Tacoma to help me work on the front walk while Henry started his Tom Sawyer routine painting the fence posts white.
Mike and I started about 3:00PM and worked steadily until around 9:00PM when we began to lose both our stamina and the sun. As we were pouring the last concrete mold I heard a loud “MOOO”. I stopped and listened; it’s not often the cows moo. They’ll moo at me if they want a cookie, but not if I’m not walking by. I didn’t hear anything else so I continued trowling.
“MOOOO”. I looked up and scanned the field. Who was mooing? I couldn’t even see the cows. I wondered if they’d gotten out. Or if one of them did. I thought of Pancho and Lefty. When they’d gotten out the other cows had tattled.
“Mike, I think something’s wrong with the cows. I hear mooing.”
“I’m sure they’re fine. How’s the hay situation?”
“Well, there isn’t much down there just some fragments, but they have an entire field of grass. I’d be surprised they’re mooing about that, but I did give them treats yesterday, maybe they just want some cookies or grain.”
“That’s probably it. When are you getting hay? Do you know yet?”
“Little Chris is bringing some out tomorrow. Mike? I don’t hear any bells. Nothing. Listen.” We stood there listening while the cement mixer churned rhythmically. Silence. Loud Silence.
“MOOOOOO”.
“Mike something’s wrong.”
“I don’t know about the moos but the bell thing is eerie. No one is moving down there. I’ll go with you. We need a flashlight, it’s going to be dark quickly.”
“I’ll get my headlamp Tom bought me, it’s in the chicken coop.” I put it on, grabbed a bucket filled with grain because you never know when you’ll need a bribe and started running toward the pasture. “Mike, Let’s go!”
“Should I close up the geese?”
“NO! We can do that when we get back, we’re losing the light.” Usually I would have had a dog with me, but they were all locked inside because they kept stepping on the wet cement.
“I’m coming.” We started down to the pasture. Wearing my headlight I could see into the loafing shed. There was a pair of eyes reflecting back at me. Whew. One.
“I see one in the barn. But where are the others?” We looked around.
“Here’s one!” Mike called. “Anna is over in the barn, almost like’s she’s hiding.”
(Little Abie the Baby - wedged in)
“I found the trouble! Abe is stuck in the round bale feeder.” There he was half in and half out. He looked relieved to see me. He seemed to relax. I gave him some of the grain and pet him. He calmly let me try and guide him out of his predicament, but he just couldn’t seem to really move in either direction. I ran and got a sledge. We banged away at the board as Abe calmly allowed us to aim above his head. I thought he’d get wild and hysterical, but he just stood there looking at me. Suddenly there was a huge rustling in the bushes.
“That was a big animal.” Mike said solemnly. “I would be surprised if that was anything smaller than a moose. Keep working.”
The sledge didn’t work, Pea had built this thing and with his do it right motto, his structures aren’t comin down. I got the drill and began unscrewing things. I did get the upright piece out so Abe wasn’t wedged in. Now he had a couple of feet of room on either side of him to maneuver his body. I tried luring him with the grain, but he couldn’t seem to lift his leg high enough. I figured I’d have to unscrew the whole damn thing when I found the bolts Tom had put on either end. Big huge bolts I wasn’t going to be able to get out in this lifetime. Frustrated and cold Mike and I wondered what to do next. We decided maybe we could get him to step on a piece of wood and then he’d be able to get his foot over. So Mike left me with Abe and now Anna and Andy who were poking their heads through the slats angling for a bit of grain.
(Abe free of the upright)
(Abe snacking while Andy tries to horn in)
I stood there petting Abe. He let me lift his foot and try getting it over the wood barrier, but it wasn’t going to happen. Mike returned and I put the pieces on the ground as Abe tried to step on them. He was not certain about this idea at all.
(In between 2nd and third slats - eyes appeared to the right)
As I was maneuvering the board in relation to his foot my headlight caught a pair of green eyes about fifty feet away.
“Mike I can see eyes in the pumpkin patch.”
“Well, forget about that we’ve got do this. Let’s hurry.”
Suddenly, there was another pair of green reflective eyes. I figured it was a pack of coyotes. “Mike, there are now two. Do you see them?”
“No. I don’t see them. I don’t see them.” He said with increasing intensity.
“You can’t see them? Look. They’re right there.” I shined my light directly into their eyes.
“I don’t see them. I don’t see them.”
“Look right there."
"I don't see them."
They’re very close.”
One pair of shining emerald eyes dropped down. It was crouched down in the grass. There was no question in my mind. We were being hunted. “Uh. Mike, one is crouching down in the grass” as I spoke, the other pair of eyes leapt four feet in the air. It was like watching Animal Planet™ or being on safari, I thought how graceful, just like a gazelle as it dawned on me, Cats. Big Cats. In less than a moment we heard a strange purr/chirping mind-numbing noise come out of the dark. They were communicating. It was an amplified version of Alvin and Emmett when they’ve found a mouse. I knew exactly how much danger we were in. They’d been in those bushes forty minutes and had decided to come within fifty feet of us. We were prey. I was only thankful Henry was safely in the house. My mind flashed back to a story I’d heard last Fourth of July. Some neighbors had told us of two cats that had annihilated all the animals on their farm. I thought of the other night when Irish had barked so frantically, I’d brought him inside. I remembered the cat scat we’d seen when we’d first arrived. I stood there my mind racing. Cats don't usually come out of the bushes with humans, we had a light, we were making noise, yet they were still approaching. There were two. Cats usually hunt alone. I braced myself. I wondered how much pain was to come.
“Mike, they’re cougar.” I said quietly.
“I know. I heard.”
“What should we do? They’ve come for Abe.”
“We’ve got to leave him. We’ve got to get out of here. I only have a pry bar.” Absolutely. I knew he was right. He started moving quickly up toward the house ahead of me. I didn’t want to run and evoke some sort of prey response. My mind was clear as I walked slowly continuing to shine my headlamp directly at them. I knew I needed to appear as large and threatening as possible. I turned it around my head pointing my light at them despite my direction. We made it up the hill. I could see the light shining from inside the barn. The goats! I ran to the barn latched the front doors and called the goats and Miracle in. Every one of them ran into the barn as I slammed the second door and latched it. They were safe, hungry, but safe. As I came out, I could see Mike had secured the geese.
We went inside I grabbed my air horn from under the sink gave it to Mike and positioned him on the porch in case of an attack on Abe. He sat there listening. I went to the kitchen called Little Chris Donaldson and explained what was going on.
“Denise, you need is another gun. A shotgun not just a rifle.” Yawned a sleepy Chris.
“OK, we can argue that later, I don’t have a shotgun right now. I can't hit a cougar at night, I have an air horn. I have stuck steer and a couple of cougar. What do I do cowboy?”
“That’s good you’ve got the air horn, you can also bang some pots and pans. Use a wooden spoon. But he’s not stuck. He’ll kick that thing down if he has to.” I thought of the bolts and wasn’t sure he could, Tom had made that thing to withstand Pancho and Lefty. He could move though now that we’d gotten the upright down.
I called Tom, he sounded almost angry at everything I said. He told me he knew what was going on. He was short snapping at me telling me he heard. He said Henry had called while I was out on the porch. I knew he was just terrified and a long way a way. He couldn’t protect us. I thought of my mother’s safari. “I’m going down there in my van.”
“That’s a good idea, go down there and shine the lights in the field. You wont’ get stuck. It’s been dry so there’s no mud.”
“I think it’s safe. On safari’s you see big cats jump on vans and the people are safe.”
“You’ll also have your horn.” We hung up.
I started outside. “Henry?”
“Yeah mom?” I could see how frightened he was.
“It’s ok sweetie, we’re ok. But no matter what you hear, do not come out of this house. Do you understand me?”
“I do. I understand. I won’t, I’ll stay inside.”
“Good, because I can’t help Abe if I’m worried about you. You’re safe. You have the dogs. If you need to, call Daddy or Lisa.”
I informed Mike of the plan. He said he was coming. So armed with my headlamp, some pots and pans and the air horn we headed down to save Abe. But Abe was gone. He’d done just as Little Chris had said and gotten the hell out of there. Logic told me he’d have run toward the light and cookies– not toward the dark and lonely pond. Mike had been on the porch the whole time and hadn’t seen him, so he must have be back in the pasture. I tried shining my lights everywhere. No cougar. I could see pair of eyes in the loafing shed, so I knew some of the cows were inside. I had to believe Abe was too.
I dropped Mike at his car and he shined his headlights for me as I walked gingerly into the house. I knew I was safe now, but I informed the dogs no one was going outside under any circumstances whatsoever. They could all pee inside tonight; I’d clean it up in the morning.
Henry hugged me tightly. I knew the cats were probably long gone, and reason told me they’d never come in the house, but I closed all the downstairs windows anyway and took everyone of the cats and dogs along with Henry upstairs into my room closed the door and crawled into bed. The adrenaline rush and the terror had exhausted me. I listened for an attack. But it was dead quiet. No bells. I thought of all the times I went out by myself at night. I thought of the kids at the pond. I thought of the meeting about the turkey release when the woman from Fish and Game told us “You’d be shocked if you knew how many cougar are lurking around.” I started wondering why Abe had gotten stuck. Earlier in the evening I’d thought he’d just wanted to reach some loose hay, but as I thought back on it I started to see it differently. When we first went down the other cows were already hunkered down in the shed. Maybe the cats had been there and he’d gotten scared and bolted the wrong way. Maybe he was mooing out of fear. Then we came down and the cats had retreated into the bushes until they decided we weren’t a threat. I thanked God Mike had been with me and not Henry. What if I’d left him down there while I’d gone for the sledgehammer. I lay awake for a long time listening to the oppressive silence.