CAT STORIES —Stiles

CAT STORIES

I was staring at my cats the other day. They annoy me tremendously. I never wanted cats, had always been a Dog Guy and regarded felines with wary indifference. But first one cat showed up, and then she promptly gave birth to the second. I named them Fuzzy and Stupid as a way of exercising some control over a situation in which I had no control. It was my only avenue of revenge, but it didn’t really work. They didn’t care what I called them, as long as I provided them the necessities and even comforts that they think Life owes them. It was clear from the start who would own who. So ten years later, they’re still here–they come and go at will, eat when it pleases them, sleep mostly and can lick 99% of their own body area. They show no shame or regret. Ever. They show affection when they want some. When Stupid left the head, spinal column and tail of a dead rat in front of my Victrola last week, I knew it was pointless to rub her nose in it, as one might do to a dog. These cats don’t know the meaning of the word humility.

But finally, over the years, I have come to respect these cats in a grudging sort of way. I…admire their indifference. In fact, I find myself wishing I was a cat from time to time. No…that’s not right. I find myself wishing that almost all of the time. And it reminded me of a couple of “cat stories” from my years in the National Park Service…

During those years at Arches, we seasonal rangers developed at times, almost an intimacy with the wildlife. I learned to recognize the same big buck by the unusual twist of one tine on his right antler. There was this incredibly stupid jack rabbit that hung out near Panorama Point. On most nights he liked to jump out on the road in front of me, and run just ahead of the park truck. On other nights, he’d run at me, like a crazed kamikaze rabbit. I’d pull to the shoulder, while he shot by…he looked like a blur, hugging the yellow center line.

There was the kit fox family near the Fiery Furnace, the coyote that liked to watch the sunrise near the old pipe line, the ringtail that lived on Rough and Rocky Mesa. Lots of stories.

But cats. You rarely saw the cats. Only two types of felines reside in this country, and when any of the rangers actually saw a bobcat or, even rarer, a mountain lion, they were the envy of the staff. Even finding their sign or a track was an event to be relished. But sometimes we got lucky.

One perfect morning in June, I set out to find a petroglyph I had heard about from fellow ranger Kay Forsythe. Kay was the seasoned veteran (the seasoned seasonal) when I was the rookie ranger. It was Kay who taught me to be reticent about revealing secret places and hidden treasures. I am proud to say that I have grown up to be pretty damn reticent myself.

But Kay did like to throw out a clue or two. And so, in this instance, she tossed me a hint. Armed with this fragment of information, I stepped into the morning sunlight, in search of my petroglyph, but I never got that far. Side canyons have a way of distracting me, and as usual, I could not resist the temptation to see what surprises this one might hold.

It turned out to be a short trip. The canyon boxed out in a jumble of boulders, none of which were big enough to allow access to the rim. Still, I thought a scramble up the rocks might give me a nice view back to the canyon’s mouth, so I started to pick my way to the top.

I had not climbed more than ten feet, when I heard an odd sound.

Rrrrrmmmmmmm.

Amazing, I thought. It sounded like a car revving its motor, somewhere down below on the park road. Sounds sure travel in the dry desert air. You can never get away from the noise of those damn machines, I groused. I took another step.

Rrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmm.

What kind of a car is that, anyway? Onward and upward.

RRRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

I looked up and there, practically in my face, was a bobcat. She was peering around the corner of a boulder staring at me through the most intense amber eyes I have ever seen. Utterly motionless, she continued to…well, sort of hum at me. I stumbled backwards down the pile of rocks and regrouped in the sandy wash below. There, I noticed the remains of a recently eaten cottontail–all that was left were the little guy’s feet. So much for bringing good luck. I glanced back at the top of the boulder pile and was surprised to see that the bobcat was still there. In fact, she had positioned herself, sphinx-like, on top of the highest rock, and continued to stare at me.

I would bet that neither of us blinked for 5 minutes. While we tried to stare each other down, I wondered why she found me so interesting. I remembered that most bobcats breed in late winter and that their young are born in the spring, after a gestation period of around 70 days. And since they make their den in a rock pile or crevice, it was safe to assume that somewhere up there in the rocks, three or four kittens were waiting for waiting for Ma to return.

But I wasn’t quite ready to leave. I knew the naturalists would die for a photo and I did have my little Rollei with me, but it didn’t have a very long lens. I was 75 feet away. So I started to walk slowly toward the cat. We never took our eyes off each other as I steadily closed the gap between us. Her expression never changed…she looked bored, maybe slightly amused. I continued to move in. 40 feet, 30 feet, 15 feet…

Rrrrmmmm.

It was a short Rrrrmmm, done without much enthusiasm, but it was enough to convince me that this would make an excellent photo point. She posed regally and managed not to jump when the shutter clicked. I retreated once again to the dry wash, picked up my pack and headed downstream. She followed me along the crest of the boulders until she was convinced I was leaving for good, and then turned back into the shadows and disappeared. I never saw her again.

Another cat story. Four years later, my friend Annjanette and I were descending into a canyon in a remote part of the park. With us was my dog Squawker, who, by her sheer presence, was in blatant violation of the Code of Federal Regulations, Volume 36, Section 2 something or other. As a ranger it was my duty to issue her a citation, but I didn’t. I avoided being a hypocrite by never taking my dogs on the trails (which I believed did create a problem), and by refusing to issue citations to dogs I saw in the backcountry (I never saw any).

We were bushwhacking our way through some dense oak brush, and I thought Squawker was somewhere to our right, doing the same thing. But directly in front of us, less than ten feet away, an animal emerged from the thicket. I assumed it was Squawker. It was a mountain lion.

I believe we both said, simultaneously, “Holy shit,” or something similarly profound. The big cat stepped onto a wide sandstone ledge, turned slowly, and looked directly at us. The muscles in her shoulders rippled with every step.

In that moment, I remembered an incident from just a few weeks earlier. We had gone to a small circus that passed through Moab, and were horrified at the sight of the animals, particularly the mountain lion. Fat and slow-moving, it flinched and cowered every time a human walked near it. The scene was too disgusting to watch and we left 10 minutes after we arrived.

But now. Stories have been told about the remarkable strength of these animals. They have been known to climb trees carrying a deer that weighs as much as they do. I read once that a mountain lion dragged away an 800 pound horse. This remarkable mountain lion was capable of doing all those things. She paused only briefly, then jumped over the edge into another tangle of oak. We emerged from our own thicket, crossed the sandstone shelf, and gazed into the canyon.

There was not a trace of her. Not even a movement in the brush. The entire experience lasted less than ten seconds, and even that was extraordinary. Mountain lions rarely travel during the day and will cover 10 to 20 miles a night in their never-ending search for food, especially deer.

While we stared into the shadows below, I suddenly realized that Squawker was missing. Panicked that the cat had pinched her head off, I started to call her name. Finally she emerged from the oak brush, looking absolutely terrified. “Squawker,” I said, “You could have been that cat’s dinner.” Squawker was always a pretty dumb dog, but this time, I think she understood.

The third cat story. A year later, hiking illegally with my dog again, this time, the other dog, Muckluk, Squawker’s mother. (If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, “You can’t go wrong with a dog…except for those damn Pekinese, because if you get them real upset, their eyes pop out.”)

We were trying to avoid the tourists (even then), and had cut cross country from Willow Flat in a direction we’d never tried before. From the dirt road, we crossed a blackbrush meadow, but soon found ourselves in the head of a drainage that eventually reached Courthouse Wash, several miles away. Muck had exited the wash on my left, in search of some poor helpless rodent to harass. But a split second later, she seemed to be charging right at me from the other side of the drainage. But it wasn’t Muck, it was a coyote. This wild canine came within 30 feet of me, stopped, and started to bark at me. Muck came back and the coyote barked at both of us. Muckluk barked back, and I would have too, if I thought it would have served any purpose. In a moment, another coyote appeared, also barking. And then another. And another.

In a matter of a minute, we were surrounded by six coyotes, all of them howling and yipping and barking like crazed loonies or certain members of my own family. What was the deal? Had they mistaken me for the full moon? Were they in love with my dog? Were they part of the choir? I realized that I had disrupted something, and they were very upset as a result.

I began to look around me, along the wash bottom, and on the edges of it. It didn’t take long to solve the mystery. Beneath a juniper tree, 30 feet downstream, I found a cat…a house cat, complete with a collar, a frayed tether, and killed so recently that it was still oozing blood. Somehow, this cat with bad karma must have broken away from its owners, probably at the Balanced Rock picnic area, and had wandered away, never to return. Who knows how long it had been out there, before meeting its end at the hands of a bunch of hungry coyotes? I had interrupted their dinner.

There was nothing to do but let them eat. This little kitty had become a part of the natural scheme of things. She’d probably consumed her share of kangaroo rats and whiptail lizards, before the predator had become the hunted.

Muck and I left them to their meal. When we passed by there again, several hours later, I followed their tracks for awhile. I could see where the pack took turns dragging their victim to a place where they could eat in peace. This time they were adamant…no more interruptions.

I looked at my cat Fuzzy, who was casually grooming herself on my living room carpet. Looking ever so much like Jabba the Hut, resting on her haunches, licking her own stomach. “You ungrateful little wench,” I snapped. “You have no idea how lucky you are. You could be a coyote’s meal if it weren’t for me.”

She stopped briefly, leveled a scornful eye in my direction for just a moment, and returned to her grooming.