Friendships with Cats

When the moon rides high, don't let your hooks be dry.

http://www.n-sport.com/images/graphics/nightcaster1.jpg

Chain Golden smiled at the memory of Granny's favorite saying. "You got that right, Granny. My hooks will all be wet in a little while. God bless you wherever you are, Granny." Chain checked the large pistol snug to her body in its leather and nylon shoulder holster by habit. "We sure had some good times together when I was a kid. You and me in your big bass boat flying up and down the Mississippi River like eagles. I wish you were here, Granny. Man, I wish you were here. I sure do miss you."

Chain had stopped, as was her custom, and waited with the engine idling quietly at a horseshoe bend on the washboard gravel road to the Pearl River. She watched the dark twisting road behind her for signs of anything following her. The moon cast long blue and black shadows across the sandy clay soil as she waited for a slight hint it was time to run for her life again.

A group of punk kids at the store where Chain bought a full tank of gas and bartered two-dozen homemade heated jasper arrowheads for four dozen minnows had eyed her a little too much. Her instincts warned her not to dawdle as she made her trade and to walk quickly back to her truck. Ignore them. She had been warned.

Chain had bought a full tank of gas---she had cash money. She unwittingly made herself a target---a woman alone at night with money has always been considered an easy target for a pack of outlaws.

Less than an hour ago, Chain wondered if she was going to have to shoot her way out of a bad situation. These situations were quite common with the growing lawlessness across the country after The Blast. Even her beloved cat Bubba had sensed their staring and growled at them as he stood inside the darkened cab of the truck. He watched the crowd of teenagers dressed in dark clothes and hoods slowly approach the truck across the dark parking lot. They were as dark in their features as the shadows behind the store they had appeared from. Chain jumped into the truck hearing a brusque young male's voice growl, "Hey, you. Wanna talk to you. Hey! You can wait a ..." Chain didn't stick around long enough to find out what they wanted.

"I see 'em, boy." Chain slammed the door shut and locked it in one fluid motion. She unsnapped the strap holding her pistol in place under her left arm as she cranked the truck with the other hand. "I see 'em. I know they are up to no good. I can hear the evil in his voice."

Chain drove through the darkened parking lot quickly pulling her boat and boat trailer. Her tires gave a chirp as she hit the narrow two-laned road with her gas pedal pushed to the floor. She drove with her right hand on the pistol grip in case the thugs give chase though she saw no other vehicles in the parking lot---the main reason she had stopped there that late at night. "Not tonight, boys. You're not getting my truck tonight," she said under her breath with a quick glance into the rear view mirror. "Not without a fight anyways."

The roar of the V-6 engine was silenced by a specially designed quiet muffler Chain had purposely installed on the truck. 'If you don't stand out, you won't be a target,' she had told the mechanic at the muffler shop who had questioned her why she wanted such quiet mufflers. "The outlaws can't track you by sound when you get a ways ahead of them." He had nodded his head in agreement.

A woman alone at night at a backwoods bait store was asking for trouble if she didn't pay attention to her surroundings.

There was eight of them and you've only got six bullets in that big old pistol of yours. What would you do?

Chain entertained the thought briefly as she listened to the steady drone of crickets in the cattails and johnson grass along the sandy banked gravel road. She checked the hunting knife on her belt by habit, too. A sturdy knife with a good blade for fileting fish if she was careful and outlaws, if need be.

Nothing happened this time. Didn't get a back window knocked out by bricks like last time, either. We're doing okay. She replied to the thought with a dose of reality. "Besides, I've learned it's easier on the mind to deal with one reality over a million little what ifs."

Chain waited for a few more minutes watching her backtrail then put the truck into drive. She made her way carefully down the rutted road towing the long, camouflauged painted boat trailer and twelve foot camouflaged metal boat strapped tightly to it. With the life she had to live now, her favorite color was camouflage and her favorite sound was silence.

Bubba was a dark shadow curled up on the bench seat. She spoke low to him and gently carresed his head when he rose up at the sound of her voice. "Tonight we fish. Tomorrow, we eat good. Look at the moon, Bubba. It's rising."

Bubba rose, stretched and walked over to her to look up to where she pointed. I remember seeing the moon like that when I was a kitten. Scared out my mind, too. Something kept a steady pounding, banging noise for a long time. But that was a long time ago and I was a different cat in those days. Now it don't mean nothing and the one that left me behind, well, he don't mean nothing no more, too.

She had found the sandbar they were going to park on dark and void of life. Very slowly, she drove watching for signs of movement up and down the bar for signs of humans or old campsites. Satisfied the moonlit area was abandoned, she drove across it and turned the truck around to load the boat into the river.

Chain turned off the lights of the truck and sat quietly inside the warm cab holding Bubba. "If anyone seen those lights, they have got a big nasty surprise waiting for them, if they mean us trouble, honeybun."

She exited the truck with her pistol in her hand and stood for a moment surveying the area. The muddy musky smell of the river greeted her nose. The sound of the night bugs was loud in her ears as the water lapped the clay bank in front of her. She could feel the hard clay and sand blend crunch under her booted feet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHPQYvZTnRI Sounds Chain heard when she exited her pickup truck. You can listen to it while reading the rest of the story, if you like.

"The air is so heavy and thick tonight, I could almost cut it with my knife." The humidity of the southern late spring night had no mercy this close to the equator.

She told Bubba to stay in the truck when he approached the window meowing. "Be quiet, boy. I have to make sure it's safe before I get the boat ready. We do this in phases, remember?"

The road opened to a wide, hard-packed sand bar dotted with reeds and grasses. Chain waited in the shadows of the woodline bordering the sand bar listening for sounds of humans. Swatting a mosquito and then another and then another, she determined that if anyone was there, they would be doing the same thing unless they were wearing bug spray. "And lots of it. Enough for me to smell." Chain sounded the wind for any chemical or perfumed odor. Chain silently observed her surroundings for a good fifteen minutes before deciding it was safe enough to unload the boat.

Chain backed the boat trailer into the river by the light of the moon after unstrapping the boat's ratchet tie downs. Bubba stood up and watched her as she pushed the boat off the trailer into the narrow river and tie it off to a tree long dead and leaning over the river.

"River's down, boy. Hope it don't bother the fishing none. Water's warm, too. Real warm." She spoke to the cat who pawed at the glass window wanting to be outside. "Okay." She opened the door and Bubba slowly made his way out of the cab and onto the sand.

"Do your do, man. Once we hit water, it might be a while before we touch the shore again."

Bubba looked up and down the bank sounding the wind for his own enemies. A fox had passed there earlier and frogs and crickets sung heartily in the brush along the woodline and along the river. He could hear fish jumping in the river up and down from them. He could smell the forest around him and hear it's inhabitants calling to one another the way God had made them to do. With a slight breeze across his whiskers, he looked at Chain who was starting to prepare the boat for a full night's fishing trip.

As if he understood her, Bubba took care of his personal business as she pulled down the tailgate of the truck. She pulled an old and battered Coca Cola case towards her and removed the Coleman lantern and a small plastic bottle holding matches. She lit the Coleman lantern and set it on the tailgate. The smell of the warm glow brought back pleasant memories from decades before to her mind. Before the Blast changed everything. Before the "recession of '09' caused her to lose a good job and started the life she had to live now. "That weren't no recession. That was a depression. One day those Guvment boys are going to tell the truth about it." Chain shook off the bad taste the memory left in her mind. Looking at Bubba at her feet, she said, "Let's forget about those old days. Let's go fishing and have a good time, boy."

Bubba jumped up onto the tailgate and looked at the light already attracting small bugs.

Chain picked up her beloved cat and cradled him affectionately. "It's been a little while since we've fished here. Last time, I thought I was going to lose you forever. But we been practicing. Ain't we, Bubba? Doing the safety drill in case it happens again." The warm night produced beads of perspiration on her forehead. Her black cotton T-shirt clung to her medium frame where the sweat was starting to flow freely around her ribs. She barely noticed it anymore.

Bubba closed his eyes and returned the affectionate hug with his two big paws across her face gently touching someone who loved him deeply.

I know where we're going, Chain. It will be alright. I'll remember what we practiced yesterday.

http://www.malibupetcompanions.org/images/animals/A3819033.jpg This cat bears a resemblance to Bubba the Cat.

Bubba leaned over heavy in her arms signalling her to put him into the boat as she carried him to examine it for anything that could cause problems. Chain had a strong safety conscience drilled into by her previous job of nearly twenty years. "Bubba, is the plug in?" She asked playfully to the cat who suddenly turned and looked at the stern. "Yeah, boy. It's in. Put it in back at the store. Remember? Right after I got out of the truck, I did it."

Bubba was listening to something slide off the bank and swim behind the boat. The slight kerplop of the fat water snake rolling off the bank and into the river had not escaped his attention. Though his eyes were dimmed with age, he made out the water moccasin swimming away from them with no intention of returning as long as the boat trailer was in the water.

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It took only a little while to load the poles, anchors, and minnows into the old aluminum boat. She took the removable nylon covered, thick padded seat and bolted it down tight to the rear of the twelve foot metal boat. Her short handled green net and a canteen of water were loaded last. The Coleman lantern was hung on the hook suspended by a six foot piece of half-inch conduit pipe bolted to the stern behind the padded seat. The camouflage paint was peeling now where time and river water passed over it. It was still a good boat even with the dings and scratches from nearly twenty years of pulling catfish and white perch from the river. Her repairs were strong and never failed to correct whatever problem time and use created.

Chain depended heavily on the boat during the fishing season. The Time of High Water, she called it before droughts or government policies shut down rivers when the water level dropped. She needed the fish for survival and the work gave her hands something good to do. When she wasn't fishing, Chain prepared for the fishing times by creating lures of wood or feathers. She kept her fishing tackle and boat in order at all times.

The largest bass ever caught in modern times had found it's way into the bottom of her boat one cool November afternoon a couple of years before The Blast. Her own eight inch long hand carved cedar lures shaped and painted like an injured minnow had put many bass into the smoker at Camp Sapphire.

Chain knew the bass was a record breaker, but she was too practical to make the catch public. Chain had noticed through her life that people who caught or killed such trophies were severely scrutinized publicly by people either jealous or flat out lying about the circumstances the animal was taken. Chain's philosophy of stay low and stay out of sight even affected her sense of vanity. That huge bass gave her eight full meals. She needed meat more than fame, using her own logic.

"You ready, Bubba? I'm fixing to go and once we're off, I'm not turning back."

Bubba sat on the bow seat and watched her looking at him. He made no sound and didn't move.

Taking the wide-bladed kayak paddle, Chain laid it sideways on the boat and pushed the boat off the sandy, muddy bank from its side with a good shove. Bubba watched her get into the boat as graceful as a cat and take the paddle in hand. Even with the heavy rubber boots on and over sixty years of living in her bones, Chain still had the grace of a younger woman.

Bubba knew where they were going. They had been there many times since finding the spot a few years earlier. The Tree Pile Up, as she called the favorite fishing spot a quarter mile upriver where the river narrowed and bent like a serpentine dancer for miles. There were plenty of catfish and perch hiding in the submerged oaks and pine trees, but those water moccasins hanging like sausages in the trees made him nervous though he would never let on to her it did.

Keep an eye open for them, Chain. His manly meow escaped through yellowing, broken teeth as he watched her sitting back to look at him. With the kayak paddle across her legs, she softly called his name and then Bubba remembered the previous day's safety drills. He rose, crossed over the fishing tackle towards her and sat at her feet.

Chain's Ruger 10-22 rifle was in it's waterproof sheath back at their tipi, so the boat paddle would have to do if they crossed another snake intending to harm them. Bubba sat down by her feet watching the river bank flow past him slowly with each kayak paddle stroke. The Coleman lantern illuminated the eyes of croaking bullfrogs floating along the edges of cattails or sitting on the bank croaking loudly. The tiny eyes of spiders building nests among the reeds glowed like tiny green sparks.

Bullfrogs are easy to catch. Bubba heard the slap of a catfish jumping and wondered aloud with a meow if catfish ate bullfrogs like he did. If something happens to Chain and I wound up alone again, this would be a good place to live. Find a hollow tree somewhere and make it home. I hope nothing happens to Chain though. She would have a hard time without me around. And I would have a hard time if she wasn't around, too. Bubba looked up at the woman wearing her wide sunhat and saw the thin streams of sweat trickling down her face. She looked down for a moment and gave him a smile.

"Won't be long, boy. I'll get us there in a bit." Chain leaned into the paddling as Bubba watched the wildlife being revealed by the bright lantern. Great blue herons, raccoons, possums, ugly little river rats, and water moccasins were passed by the pair in the boat. They were making a steady progress in their journey up river when Bubba watched a pregnant doe leap up the river bank and run into the forest making loud snorting sounds. Another deer answered her. He surmised it was her last year's fawn still at her side.

Night bugs and crickets sang throughout the night till the sun was a pink light in the east. Frogs and peepers called out to each other and Bubba swore he heard the roar of a bull alligator down river as they moved across the water illuminated by the Coleman lantern.

The hissing of the Coleman lantern was like an old friend singing to him. Bubba had come to associate the boat, the warm nights on the boat's bow seat, and hissing of the lantern as a peaceful time with lots of tasty fish at the end. All Bubba had to do was wait and it would happen the way it always did for nearly twenty years.

Chain dropped anchors and settled into a favorite spot near the growing pile of oak and pine trees washed down by flash floods and poor erosion management. She took the lantern and carefully hung it low over the water with a swingout rod mounted to the tall conduit pipe that held the lantern over her shoulder as she paddled. The light would attract bugs which would attract baitfish which always attracted the fish she wanted.

Bubba found his place on the bow and settled in for a good nap.

It would be just about an hour before Chain Golden lowered the minnow baited #2 gold fishhook into the warm, muddy waters of the Pearl River. She sat back in the padded seat of her twelve foot aluminum boat to relax. A cool sip of water waited for her in her canteen as a trickle of sweat meandered down her spine.

"I love nights like these, Bubba. Moon's up high. Coleman lantern hanging low over the water now bringing in flies which brings in the bait fish. You and me together one more time enjoying each other's company. Hot bugs and frogs singing to us and to anyone who'll listen. Man, life is good right now, boy. Can't promise it will be five minutes from now, but right now, life is good."

Her lantern light illuminated two great blue herons sleeping on the fallen trees jammed into the sandy clay bank point north of Jackson, Mississippi up the Pearl River beyond the Ross Barnett Reservoir. When the sun would rise a faint pink in the east, the tall gray water birds would waken and begin their own fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic world. The ones on the other side of the logpile were awake. They would make an awwwk awwwk sound every so often. Maybe they wanted Chain to douse the light so they could go back to sleep.

The warm, peaceful night became a cool hazy dawn of a pink and gray sky. Looking up the river bank beyond the trees, Chain appreciated the view through the green leaves of summer.

"I have seen some of the most beautiful sunrises God ever made sitting in this boat, Bubba. This morning seems to be coming in a little cloudy. Maybe we'll get some more rain. That bit we got a couple of nights ago was something else. I actually figured the river would be higher than it is."

Chain yawned as she watched the pink clouds deepen to red and the pale gray clouds deepen to charcoal gray. The clouds moved eastward as a weather front moved over the state of Tennesee sending violent storms and flooding rains.

Chain's back was hurting again from too much sitting and she felt sleepier looking at Bubba dozing through the magnificent sunrise.

"If it wasn't for that melting bag of ice back at the truck, I'd curl up in the bottom of the boat and take a nap."

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SgXtwvHe1H0/Sja48nTOyOI/AAAAAAAAAFA/z2zcPZRJYpw/s1600-... Sunrise through the forest canopy over the narrow spot on the river where Chain fished.

The morning would pass into a hot and typically sultry southern afternoon. Chain looked over the side of her boat at her fish baskets floating with the current and smiled. At least forty fish, she thought. At least. Forty fish. Forty pounds. Maybe more. Caught some really nice cats last night. Those big crappie were a surprise, too. Twenty-five pounds of meat after gutting and cleaning.

The submerged log pile had been good to them again. Chain closed sleepy eyes and gave God a silent thank you for His caring for her.

When the haze over the warm water melted by ten o'clock, Chain put on clip-on sunglasses and baited another of the four fishhooks she had in the water with her last minnow. The dead minnows, she always saved them for last. Thirty minutes later, Chain pulled the last fish caught for the day. A two pound gaspergoo. A trash fish for many. A delicacy for Bubba, her old gray tomcat. He was snoozing at the bow of the camouflaged painted boat and only moved a whisker or his tail if a mosquito was pesky.

She put the rough, scaly fish into the basket carefully. The teasing bites of the last of her minnows produced no more fish worth keeping. It was time to leave. Her back was beginning to complain and she felt the need to stretch her legs. She had left the Advil back in the truck's glovebox.

Chain yawned as she stretched her arms over her head. "Oh, man. What a good night. What a blessed night. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for all these fish. Those big white perch were not expected in such warm, shallow water."

Chain lowered and secured the long, black delicate jig poles and put them into the 2" pipes she had cut and fastened to the boat as stable pole holders. She had gotten the idea in a fishing magazine she use to subscribe to as a child. She closed her tackle box after putting the needlenose pliars back inside. She reached for the fish baskets with a sleepy smile of contentment on her face.

It was the dragging of the heavy fish basket over the side of the boat that woke Bubba---he knew they were about to leave because Chain was moving around more and he heard the loud snap of the tacklebox lid when she locked it. He smiled to himself in his Bubba the Cat way. I smell a big gaspergoo. Smelled it when she put it in the fish basket. The faint odor of the oily fish made his nearly toothless mouth water.

Chain looked up and down the narrow river for boat traffic. Traffic of any kind, while she was at it. She listened carefully while holding her breath. No motors were heard.

Chain didn't want to have to suddenly make a run for the bank to avoid a collision with some stupid kid on a Ski Doo going fifty miles an hour in the twisting waterway. Water motorcycles, she called them. Just as dangerous, too, in her mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W89ZfzhHp0E YouTube video of a jetski nearly slamming into the side of a pontoon boat. Look at the water spray! A small twelve foot boat could easily be sunk by such a close call. Chain kept her wits with the near impact by a Ski Doo into her boat. She got out of the way as best as she could at the final second.

Satisfied the river was safe for the moment, she pulled the rear anchor up first. Muscles straining against the twenty pound steel weight and the rope digging into her hands reminded her for a moment she wasn't a kid anymore. The boat began to move down river a little sideways. After the boat stabilized, she pulled the front anchor up by the pulley fastened to the bow. Bubba could hear the slight squeak to the pulley that she never could as the rope passed near his face. The dirty white rope smelled of the river, mud, and fish. The first time he had seen her almost two decades earlier, she had the same smell on her truck and boat trailer.

"Bubba Boy. Get up, boy. We're leaving."

The ladened boat began to drift slowly sideways towards the Gulf of Mexico. Bubba noticed, but paid no mind to it. She wouldn't let them drift that far. Besides, she didn't like hurricanes and the Gulf of Mexico had been brewing up some doozies in the past decade. Not after Katrina, would they even consider living on any coastline.

Katrina had frightened them back in '05 and Bubba knew she wouldn't live in an area that had storms like Katrina every year, by his cat logic and Bubba had good cat logic. They lived three hundred miles inland from Gulf Port and Biloxi when Katrina slammed those cities into the dirt. Katrina pushed her way northward with category two winds and had knocked over half of the trees around their home with one huge oak barely missing her truck. It took Chain a couple of weeks to cut up the firewood and sell it along the side of the road near her rural home. Firewood had been cheap that winter after Katrina.

"Bubba. Come on."

Bubba ignored her. He felt comfortable and safe on the bowseat. He was enjoying the quiet tranquility of the river and the gentle bobbing of the boat. The metal was cool to his belly as he dozed the night away into mid-morning.

Chain tied the anchor off and looked at Bubba. He was watching her with half-closed eyes still soft from the good sleep.

"C'mon, boy." She motioned for him to come to her. "Get off the bow. You might fall in like last time. Don't want that to ever happen again."

The memory of the small, quiet fast moving watercraft rounding the sharp bend barely missing them came to the front of her mind. The propellers sprayed them with the dirty water as the driver cursed them visciously barely escaping a sure death for all. He never stopped as a frightened Bubba slipped from the bow seat and into the water desperately trying to hang on. Whoever said a water moccasin couldn't bite under water never met the one that nearly killed Bubba the previous month.

"I thought I had lost you when you went under." Chain looked up and down the river anticipating another Ski Doo at any second. "Water motorcycles and their knothead riders can be dangerous, especially when they're hauling dope on the river. We're lucky he didn't come back and shoot us." Chain shook her head and looked at the peaceful Bubba with a growing frown. "And when you did come up with that cotton mouth hanging onto your shoulder, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Pulling you and the deadly snake out of the water scared me pretty good, boy. Glad it got loose and jumped back into the river instead of the boat."

She looked at the dozing cat. "I am not ready to let you go, Bubba. You are my best friend. Now. Come here and sit by my feet just like we practiced yesterday." She motioned to the aged cat with her hand, but could tell it had little effect.

Bubba raised his sleepy face a moment later and cocked his head.

What did you say? He replied with a long yawn.

"Bubba." She spoke softly to her beloved cat and paused with a cock of her head. "Boy," she patted her knee and said in a loving, firm voice, "there might be a submerged log hiding fanged death. Just like last time. C'mon." Her tone was soft and pulled at his little cat's heart. She loved him and he knew it. He loved her, in his own cat way.

Bubba rose slowly and stretched out his entire body the way cats do when disturbed in a peaceful way. Her voice, it's tone, meant it was time to sit at her feet and lean against her legs for balance as she used the kayak paddle to paddle them back to the truck.

Bubba liked being fussed over and worried about. He could be mean at times and make her worry by delaying his appearance when called to come to camp because the sun was setting and coyotes would be hunting soon. She would go looking for him with her Coleman lantern and he would leap out from behind a tree and grab her legs and let her drag him back to camp playfully as he dug in with his claws and did a mock battle with her booted foot. Back at camp, a treat always waited. Always a treat, a hug, a caress, an affectionate word, or something pleasant to remind him he was wanted and deeply so.

Bubba felt the strong hands pat his head and massage his neck for a moment. The strokes down his side gently nudged him close to her legs. He knew his place. He had sat there plenty of times with yesterday's practice in the grassy field near their tipi, but the carressing was nice. He leaned into them and enjoyed them.

Now I understand what we were doing yesterday in the boat off it's trailer in the grassy pasture by the tipi. I guess nearly losing me to a cottonmouth bite scared her more than I realized.

Chain lifted the kayak paddle with its wide, black blades as Bubba sniffed the basket of flopping fish at her feet. He felt the strength in her legs while she paddled. But, it was the fish that had his attention---their gills struggling for the water just inches away. That many fish caught at one time only meant one thing to Bubba. The days of smoke. Campbound for at least a week. He didn't mind. She would feed him tidbits of the best cuts for days.

Bubba liked their camp in the woods on the hill. No one bothered them there. No one probably cared to bother them anyway. Times were too hard to stir up useless trouble with the likes of Chain Golden. The .44 magnum in her shoulder holster let the troublemakers know to leave her and Bubba alone. Bubba looked up at Chain as she paddled the heavy boat to the bank. She looked down and gave him a wink. "Good eating tonight, honeybun." She pushed into each stroke making for the bank as fast as possible.

The sun was hot and promised to be deadly hot in a couple of hours and Chain Golden wasn't a girl anymore. The wide sunhat on her head was like the ones her mother wore when Chain had been a girl. The ones Granny wore tied down with a bandana when they flew up river seventy miles an hour dodging barges and kayakers foolish enough to paddle down the middle of the wide Mississippi. They had laughed so hard back then and camped out on the river enjoying each other's company. Chain had great summer vacations with her grandmother who taught her everything she knew about living off the land and avoiding useless trouble.

Bubba smiled in his own catway as he felt the boat move over the river's rising current. He eyed the gaspergoo at the bottom of the fishbasket. Good eating indeed, he thought with a cat wink of his own. He sighed a happy sigh as Chain quickly paddled the boat towards the landing as fast as she could. The paddling was hard work, but she told herself she would rest at Camp Sapphire in a few hours.

Chain skidded the boat to rest on the muddy, sandy shore near the submerged boat trailer.

"I loaded the boat last time, Bubba. It's your turn." Chain took a brief rest with the kayak paddle across her lap.

Bubba acted like he didn't hear her. He rarely did when it involved lifting objects heavier than a can of tuna fish.

The newly painted boat guides stood like twin pale gray posts from the muddy water flowing around them.

Chain threw her rubber booted feet over the side and got her land legs back briefly while standing on the river bottom. "I hope we get some rain, Bubba. The river is getting awfully low. The Wildlife department might shut it down early this year like a few years ago." She reached into the boat and put Bubba in her arms as if he were a newborn.

You didn't feel the current rising, woman? I did and I'm just a cat who is not concerned with such things. Good thing you keep me around with you. Bubba meowed and leaned into her arm as she carried him over the muddy water. You need me, Chain. More than you know. You need me to watch out for you.

Chain sloshed out of the river and carried him to the tailgate of the truck where she had carried him many times before. For several years they had fished this same location and with each trip, he was always with her.

Chain placed him down gently and didn't let go of him till she was sure he was balanced on all four paws. The long hours of sitting had made her own 62 year old legs stiff, but that was no excuse to flop her aged and beloved cat onto a hard metal tailgate and walk away like he was nothing more than an animal.

"Whoa. I still feel like I'm in the boat. You know, that rocky sensation you get when you sit in boat for hours that's moving up and down with the current." Chain rested for a minute on the tailgate of the truck. "It's going to be a beautiful day, boy. A hot one, but a beautiful one. When I was a kid, I would spend the whole day swimming in the creek on days like this. Eating blackberries growing along the bank was a treat God provided. Those were good days, boy. Wish I had appreciated them more."

Chain pulled the small boat by it's long braided rope to the back of the boat trailer still submerged in the river. She flipped the rope over a boat guide and pulled the boat easily over the padded two inch by eight inch boards ten feet long hidden in the brown flowing water. She had bolted the treated boards to the trailer bed with three eighths bolts. She wenched the boat tightly onto the trailer through the tall and narrow boat guides as quietly as possible. There hadn't been any trouble with outlaws this trip, but that was no excuse to get noisy now.

Chain emptied the boat of it's fishing gear and Coleman lantern after pulling the boat trailer slowly back onto the sandbar. She didn't want the riveted hull to slam into the supports, though they were padded, as she crept up the sandbar so slowly that Bubba barely felt it as he sat on the tailgate. It was hot inside the truck and sweat dripped off her nose as she returned to the work of securing the boat for the journey home.

Chain loaded her truck while listening to the noises of the woods and river. Crows cawed to one another in the midmorning light. Rose-breasted buntings washed their small bodies in the shallow edges of the river. Far off, she heard the engine of a tractor cutting hay.

Life as all had known it was still pulling over to the dark lane along it's journey to the last day. People were still trying to cope with the losses by returning to familiar things as best as they could. The worst of times hadn't come yet, but they were not too far off.

"When I was a kid, you could get a haybale for about a dollar. Sometimes as low as fifty cents. I can't imagine what a haybale costs now."

She was vulnerable now on shore and knew it. Alone and very tired, she drank from her canteen listening for trouble approaching. The herons up and down the river gave no indication someone was approaching as the birds stalked among the shallow bank lined with cattails and other water reeds for frogs and dying fish. The birds in the forest sang in full circumference around her. No squirrels barked out a warning of a threat. No deer snorted deep in the forest because it had been alarmed.

A quick glance at Bubba who was looking at the fish basket calmed her anxiety. A six-shot revolver was not much protection from a serious group of outlaws, so she listened and watched the woods around her as she emptied the boat and loaded the truck. Her pump shotgun was nearby, but she only produced it when times were extreme. Unless she felt threatened, it remained in it's leather case wired under the truck seat.

Hot bugs and cacadias called out sporadically now around them in the woods or from the tall cattails along the river bank. Tall, white cattle egrets and great blue herons moved on long delicate legs along the river's bank in search of food. Red-winged blackbirds flew from their nests in the cattails calling out for other birds to leave their young alone. Dragonflies rested on slender twigs. As a child, Chain had been told that dragonflies were called snake doctors. That when a snake got sick, the snake doctor would fly to it and make it well again. She had read they got the name because they would warn snakes when danger was approaching.

http://insectzoo.msstate.edu/Images/odo-a-1.jpg Image of a snake doctor.

Chain watched and prepared for a journey of several hours homeward. No matter what happened around her she had to take chances, she had to provide for Bubba, and she had to eat.

Man or beast, you have to survive using the instincts God gave you and what you learned from others.

Behind Bubba the fish flopped again in the tight confines of the wire fish basket, but he paid them no mind. They weren't going anywhere. The bed of the truck had high walls. He knew the big green metal ice chest was waiting for them. They'd get cold. They'd get sleepy. He'd eat good. Simple cat logic.

With ratchet tie downs, she secured the boat to the trailer and checked each connection twice. With her experience, it only took a few minutes to make sure the boat was secured to the trailer. If there was to be a chase along the backroads going home, the boat would be able to withstand the jarring bumps and curves as she fled her outlaw pursuers. An event like that had happened to someone she knew and from the terrifying experience her friend spoke of, she learned much.

Chain shook her head in disbelief remembering her friend's ordeal. She pulled on a ratchet to make sure it was snug recalling him telling her the story of how he was nearly boat-jacked, as he put it. When the outlaws realized Strand was going to get away, they stopped, got out, and shot up his nice boat. Pumped a lot of bullets into it as he drove down the interstate at nearly one hundred miles an hour to escape the two cars that had tried to run him off the road. Chain sighed when comparing times now to when she had been a kid. "And Strand had a really nice boat, Bubba. It was a twenty-footer. Maybe twenty-five. I forget. But I remember it was white fiberglass with silver sparkles and a wide maroon trim all the way around it with more sparkles in the paint. It had all the bells and whistles. Real pretty in the sunlight when he drove it on the river." Chain pulled the boat plug out and put it into her jeans pocket. "Strand was so proud of that boat, Bubba. Took him fifty years of saving and doing without to get such a boat like that in his life. He loved that boat." She looked at the cat when he turned and looked at her when he heard his name. "Bubba, that's one reason why I'm staying with the basics, the quiet, and the camouflaged. We'll draw less attention if we find ourselves driving down I-220 at night going home. But we're not likely to do that, are we, boy? I try to get us home before nightfall or at least off the road."

Chain checked the trailer ball connection and plugged the boat's wire harness back into the truck's recepticle. "The insurance company found a way to not pay off and it broke Strand's heart. He had tears in his eyes when he showed me the boat all shot up from behind. I guess that's one of the reasons why he moved away. Too many good memories being destroyed by trashy people and viscious outlaws. Where did all these outlaws come from, boy? Were they here the whole time and it took The Blast to bring them from out under their rocks?"

Chain shook off the sadness her thoughts were making her feel and made herself focus on the moment at hand. "I don't want to think about those days, Bubba. They are not coming back and I'm foolish for missing them. Only makes me sad when I think of how things use to be before The Blast."

Satisfied the boat wasn't going to fall off the trailer, she pulled the ice chest out from under a tarp and proceeded to put the catfish and gaspergoo from the fishbasket into the chilly water of the melting ice. "That'll keep 'em fresh, Bubba, till we get to Camp Sapphire. Don't want the special treat of the live long day to spoil. Somebody's special treat, that is." Chain winked at Bubba.

Chain slammed the tailgate of the truck firmly and helped Bubba get out of the bed.

"Can't believe I paid six dollars for a bag of ice, but I knew it was going to be a good day fishing and that is a big bag." She wiped sweat from her eyes with a rag from her back pocket and gave a look up the sandy road they were about to travel. "This hyper-inflation is really something, boy. I think I am beginning to understand what my grandparents went through back in the 1920's. It's harder on our generation though, boy. Back then folks were closer to the land, an agricultural nation. Now it's computers, hydroponics, and fallout from The Blast making frogs have multiple legs and babies be born with no eyes or four legs."

Bubba waited for another pat on the head and stroke along his neck and back when he heard his name. He leaned into them everytime she patted him. He enjoyed them so much. "When I was born, gasoline was thirty-five cents a gallon and now it's getting on to twelve dollars a gallon. I never ever thought that would happen in my lifetime."

Bubba found his place beside her on the bed spread covered bench seat of the old F-150 as she turned off the gravel road and on to the pothole filled highway. Times were hard all over. No money for the streets. No big money for anyone anymore unless you were a criminal. Crime was rampant against the foolish. Root, hog, or die was the motto now. Root, hog, or die!

http://www.vintage-vocabulary.com/roothog.html Definition of root, hog, or die.

Bubba felt the cool air of the air conditioner blow over his body as he dozed for the long trip home. Yea, it burned a little extra gasoline, but they could afford it on really hot days like this one was turning into. Eleven in the morning. and it was already one hundred and five degrees Farenheit. That was terribly hot for May even in Mississippi. Though gasoline was above eleven dollars a gallon and climbing, Chain spoiled them both with a little air conditioning now and then. Besides, Chain grew or killed all of their food, so there was enough money left over for fishing trips when she had to go to town on business. Chain kept them on a budget. It was a lean one, but there was always money when they really needed something.

The hunting and fishing and the garden made this possible. Pineneedle tea and living off the land kept the cash flow balanced, too. Actually, their only cash expenses for the last five years had been gasoline, odd bags of ice or knick knacks, and an emergency vet bill when Bubba had been bitten by a water moccasin a month before. She either grew or traded for everything else she might have wanted or needed.

Chain rooted for both of them now that he was too old and nearly blind to hunt and they would never get hungry and die if she had anything to do about it. Bubba had taught her everything he knew about hunting and she was a fast learner. Maybe she had some practice before he came into her life on a cold February evening in 2001 when he really needed someone to love him.

Bubba looked out the window at the white hot sky and dying trees fleeing past his window at fifty miles an hour. Bubba remembered the first time she petted him. It had been the third time he had seen her. Her truck always smelled of the river and of fish. If only he could catch her eye. Let her know he was a good cat. A behaved cat. She always smelled of campfire smoke and food, too. Smoked meat that made his mouth water. The third time, he had been able to catch her attention and the third time he hadn't even been trying like the last two times he had seen her.

Abandoned and starving, she had picked him up off a stack of rotting pallets and took him home. He had fallen into her arms like he had fainted after she petted the boney head of the grieving and lonely abandoned cat. Her heart melted like snow in July when he did that, too. She understood the collapse as rescue me because I'm dying. Chain had picked him up carefully and carried him home to a slide-in truck camper. His home now, as she told him that first night. Not much bigger than the stack of pallets he had crawled into to get away from feral cats who attacked him visciously. He wasn't like them. He had known love before. He had been cared for and loved until times changed and a lie caused the only home he had ever known to be taken away from him.

The trip to an aunt's house who wanted a cat was actually him being left on the side of the road so somebody could go play pool till midnight. Bubba never forgot that shock when he realized he was being left behind and so cruelly done. Bubba's worst nightmares were of the times on the pallet pile scavenging for scraps from a filthy, smelly dumpster. He yowled in his sleep and Chain would wake him gently and hold him close till his heart quit racing.

Why did they abandon me? His desperate eyes asked her when she brought him home.

"I don't know why anyone would abandon a fine cat like you, Bubba."

Chain bathed and fed him, named him Bubba, and cared for him like he was a son. He had his corner of the queen sized bed in the slide-in truck camper and his own food and water bowl. It was almost the perfect home he could hope for. Almost.

Bubba looked at Chain while she was driving. She looked at him and smile. "A little while longer, boy. A little while and you'll have chilled gaspergoo on a silver plate fed to you." Bubba looked back out the window and remembered.

She showed him how to use the cat door (much to the dislike of the other three cats she had). They had hoped to trick him outside and then sneak back inside leaving him outside for the dogs to get him when they had noticed the neighborhood pack crossing the front yard. Didn't work out as planned. Bubba was smarter than he looked. His six months of street living had sharpened instincts these cats never had to develop to stay alive. He was the last cat out the camper that morning and the first one back in that night.

One morning Chain had all the cats line up on the tailgate of her pickup truck. She hugged each one and told them to be good. She would be gone for a day and maybe two, but that was no excuse to be bad children. Bubba watched her leave laying on top of the slide-in truck camper and if cats could pray, would have said a prayer for her safety.

You come back to me, Chain. Don't you leave me. I need you.

Chain arrived later on in the middle of the night towing a new metal boat with a new boat trailer she had won out of state. Times were so good back then after he met Chain. She took his old name of Mr. Kitty away and named him a manly name of Bubba. Took away his starvation and always had food left out just for him in his own bowl. Always protected him when stranger cats entered the yard at night looking for scraps from the outside feeders. Chased large dogs away with shouts and tossed stones, if he was outside and the dogs saw him and barked. Chain loved him and he loved her back.

I am Bubba now. I am Bubba. She calls me Bubba. Not Mr. Kitty like they did. This one won't do to me what he did. She picked me. I am hers. I had no choice with the others, but this one chose me. She picked me. I am hers.

Bubba remembered their little home on concrete blocks under the canopy of oaks and cedars. It was easy to clean and cheap to keep comfortable. The cat door. The cat feeders inside and out. The constant supply of fresh water. A comfortable queen size bed that fit all five of them nicely. A big truck. A new boat. Plenty of good times ahead. Compared to the feral cats, these three he shared his home with now were the Mr. Kitty's he left behind on the pallets. The Mr. Kitty's who depended on others to think for them and feed them. Well, maybe Danger was no Mr. Kitty, but The Girls sure were.

Those six months of autumn passing into a cruel and starving winter before he was rescued had changed Bubba. Bubba called those days The Days of Leaving. All six months of them. Everything he knew had left him along side of a dark road. Kittenish attitudes in a nearly three year old tom cat left, too. Starved out of him. Beatened out of him by feral cats bent on killing and eating his flesh.

Even when the catfood bowls inside and outside the camper were full, Bubba hunted. He brought her dead baby rabbits and dead birds to show her he wasn't the stupid Mr. Kitty type. He was a man of a cat now. He would pull his weight in her pride.

He was no Mr. Kitty now and would never be again. The Days of Leaving had changed him forever and he was not turning back into what he had been before no matter how easy Chain made life for him.

Chain always accepted his kills, too. The dead rabbit's fur was shaved off and made into dubbing for tying fishing flies and the dead bird's feathers were used for the same purpose. Bubba's hunting gifts left on the steps of the camper put many a bluegill and red-eyed bass in the freezer by way of her flyrod and fly tying skills. Chain always made sure Bubba got his share of the fish he helped to provide in his own way.

His new home was very small, but warm and dry and had a catdoor, so he was always free to come and go as he pleased. At his old home, he was kept indoors most of his life, so Bubba appreciated his new home greatly. There was never any talk of declawing him like there had been before.

Bubba knew the oily stuff at the base of the neck and tail that kept the fleas away and never refused her when she put it on him. Always an electric heated bed while she was away at work on cold nights. Always an air conditioner when she slept during the days in summer while working nights. Always trips to the vet to get rid of the worms and other ailments cats brought on themselves by eating their own fleas or eating birds and squirrels or getting into fights.

When Bubba was thought to have testicular cancer, he sensed her fear that he was leaving her permanently. He knew then in the vet's office that he was loved and that this one would never drop him off on the side of the road without even a goodbye.

The only sour note in his new life was the other male cat named Danger. When Danger, the most alpha male tom cat born in modern times, would jump him for a fight, she broke it up. Made Danger sleep outside one night because of his picking on Bubba, too.

Danger yowled and pawed at the cat door and then the big door she used. Back and forth for an hour then silence. Too silent. His two daughters Chain called The Girls were nervous because of the yowling and because it was their stern father who was doing it. When angry, he would take it out on them at times unless Chain stood between them and smack him with her cheapo plastic fly swatter on the rump for playing too rough.

Chain looked out the camper window over the sink wondering if he was still outside plotting more evil. A sudden tremendously loud thud over her head made her nod that he was still in the fight to get back inside the camper---his domain by all rights.

Danger had sat on the steps to the camper and cussed the most foulest language a cat ever meowed at Bubba and her for being so soft headed to bring him home. Oh, how Bubba had stank! The warm soapy bath hadn't helped much. Now he stank of cat shampoo. Danger set his mind both conscience and subconscience in plotting to remove Bubba from his life one way or another. Bubba had taught Danger the hard way not to underestimate him.

Danger forced himself to calm down to think out a fool proof plan. He was exceptionally smart for any animal alive at that time and he knew it, too. Danger knew how to use the remote control for the small thirteen inch TV to turn it off when she fell asleep with it on and the commercials irritated him with images of dogs chasing little boys.

Danger knew how to open most doorknobs and could spin the knob on the jalousy windows the camper had to open or close them, but now he had other ideas. He was afterall a cat that had pulled a lead off of a charging battery because it was overcharging and smelling as if it was about to explode. He sensed impending serious danger and did something about it. Who was she to put such an intelligent, regal cat like him outside like he was a bag of garbage that fouled the air. How dare her!

Danger looked left and right controlling his breathing. He'd get that Bubba. That Bubba. What a dumb name.

Danger looked at the big oak growing next to the camper and knew he was on the right plan now. His big green and gold eyes narrowed as the plan hatched in his clear, bright and clever mind to stand on its own two feet with its fists raised. He'd have his vengence and quite soon.

He climbed the tree on the dark side away from the automatic lights Chain had mounted to the camper, so she wouldn't see them turn on and know where he was and what he was up to. He knew how his movement triggered the lights and he had to be very careful while climbing. Danger crawled out like a commando cat onto the wide limb of the oak just over the camper. It was a good distance of ten feet from the overhanging limb to the camper roof. Just right. Not too far. He jumped on top of the camper as hard as he could by flinging himself down from the tree branch that grew where it did because it was suppose to happen this way using his cat logic.

Did absolutely no good and he almost broke his right front leg in the process. Chain was smarter than she looked at times. Maybe she had put a new roof on the camper because she had anticipated this move. He heard the familiar click of the air conditioner and hissed angrily. The hiss became a long growl of frustration. He was being treated in the most dispicable way a cat of his great intellect could be --- he was being ignored.

Chain turned on the air conditioner and turned up the radio. Talk radio shows all night inside the cool camper. He could hear the radio, too. He sat on the air conditioner willing it to burn up it's compressor.

Nothing worked out as planned that night. He gave up after a couple of hours of pulling at the trim for the camper roof and jumping off the roof mounted air conditioner over the bed. She had tarred the trim down securely from the last time he had done that. The sticky tar stuck to his feet and itched. Tasted awful when he licked his paws to clean them later, too.

Tired from the fight, and resigning that tonight was not the time, and because his leg hurt, he leapt back up to the tree limb and climbed down the tree. His fury was not entirely spent though. She had to be punished and he knew just how to do it, too.

Danger looked at the pickup truck parked outside the camper's elevated bed and grinned evilly. He curled up on the roof of her truck after saturatiing her windshield with his urine. And filling the air vent, too, with the pee of cat pride and indignation.

He'd teach her. Yes, he would. Turn on the air conditioner now, wench! Get a whiff of what I know how to do. Think about it. I'm a thinking cat. You know I am a thinking cat! I love you, but I won't let you treat me like this ever!

Can't you even, for a moment, realize that every single dog that comes into this yard is trying to hurt you. Not me. You! And I make their lives miserable and run them off and this is how you treat ME. Humph. And now you bring home road trash and cuddle it and kiss it and give it the most stupidest name I've ever heard. You ever call me Bub or Bubby or Bubbalicious or even Bubba by mistake and I'll slash your tires with my claws. Oh, I am so mad at you right now.

Mosquitoes and ciacadas sung to him all night as he stretched out on the cool metal of the truck's roof. At dawn, she would let the still quite angry cat in. He ignored both of them while he ate all he could of dried cat food and the tuna juice in his bowl to wash it down, so Bubba couldn't have any (Bubba had been given the entire can of tuna because he wouldn't fight). Danger never forgot that night and made Bubba pay for it when she wasn't around as Bubba's personal body guard.

This went on for years, but Bubba never left. He endured the name calling, the face slapping when he was doing nothing at all, and the dirty looks because when he compared his new life to the life of hiding on a stack of pallets from feral cats bent on killing him for food and hiding for hours with the hot sun burning his body while smelling fried chicken cooking just a few feet away inside a convenience store, life was good. There was always food here. There was always air conditioning in summer and heated blankets in winter. There was always hedgerows full of baby rabbits and the neighbor's low bird feeder that provided him with doves and red birds to give to Chain as thank you for saving my life gifts. Yes, life was good and Bubba wasn't about to let a foul-tempered and jealous, aging cat run him off from it.

I'm like the boll weevil, Danger. I'm here to stay. If you don't like it then you go live in the pile of rotting pallets and starve with food cooking just inches away from your face. Go do it and then you'll understand me better. Bubba sat and gave Danger the determined look that Danger knew was of no use to try and buffalo.

Towards the end of his days, Danger mellowed with time and toothlessness. They didn't know it, but Danger was very sick, too. Bubba and him became friends as long as Bubba remembered that Danger was there first and that he mattered most to Chain. They shared the tailgate of the truck when Chain would bring home fish from fishing on the river all night. They'd listen to talk radio and her comments about the topic. Danger would roll his eyes when space aliens was the topic, but Bubba listened. He had seen the strange lights in the night sky the author was talking about with the host. Bubba would come to understand Danger's almost phobic fear of fire, too, at the end of Danger's life.

Chain had rescued Danger from their burning house that had once stood at the apex of the rolling hill on the seven acres they lived on. Bubba had hunted mice from among the burned foundation near the slide-in camper. Danger's fur and her hair and clothes had been singed by the hot, yellow flames. Danger was not some picking up some stray cat from the back of a convenience store near a dumpster sitting on a stack of rotting pallets while he stank of garbage cans and filth like Bubba had been. Danger had made it a point to mention that, too. Bubba ignored the insult.

Danger had been born into her life by the lineage of Wild Momma Cat Under the House and A Stranger Cat Daddy. When her house was burning to the ground one summer's night while they slept curled up together in the coolness of central air, she thought of him first and held him close to body and let the flames burn her the most and not him.

Danger had been four months old then and recently rescued from a tom cat trying to kill him because his mother had abandoned him for having a wolf worm in his neck. Chain pulled out the wolfworm with a pair of sterile needle nose pliars and the wound closed and healed. Danger thought in his kittenish way that he could use a human like that in his life, so he stayed. Dogs got his siblings and his mother drifted away the way feral cats do, but Danger knew life was good with this human. His mother's stories of humans eating cats between slices of bread had obviously been her method of keeping him and his siblings in line.

Chain had ran through the flames and catching her hair and night clothes on fire so he wouldn't be hurt and Danger was grateful for this as he dug his claws into her side as if to crawl inside her and escape the hell around them. He had tried to warn her the electrical panel box smelled funny and the slightly burning wire at a breaker really should be looked at. He had noticed it the last few times she had used the electric dryer, the burning plastic odor of insulation turning brown from overheating. She thought he wanted a treat and gave him some of her pizza when he jumped on the counter below the panel box and pawed at it.

When Danger died in his sleep in his eighteenth year, Chain wept for her warrior cat, as she had called him many times, like she had lost a beloved child. "Danger to all dogs, you were, old man. I'll miss you so deeply." She held his frail, limp body close to hers and wouldn't let go until the tears were all soaked into his yellow fur. She knew it was time to put him in the hole she had dug for him near Camp Sapphire. The cancer had been cruel and detected too late to save him. She had plenty of money back then. Times were very good back then. She would have saved him, too, if they had discovered the cancer sooner. Chemo. The works. Whatever it would have taken. Her own blood for a transfusion, if it would have worked. He had saved her life and she never forgot that.

Bubba nervously treaded the grass beneath him at Danger's funeral and didn't know why he felt like he did. She looked up from her grief and saw him and motioned for him to come over to her. He did without pause.

Tears dripped off her chin as Chain placed the little body of the once big, strong tom cat into a small plywood box that she had found at work. She took her hammer and tacked the nails down on the lid. Tears rose with the emotion that flooded and ebbed in her heart. She hurt so bad at times, she had to close her eyes in the throes of it. Hunter and Daisy Chain sat close to her on each side and leaned against her legs as she knelt by the grave of their father. Bubba moved closer and put a paw on her knee. She stroked his head affectionately and told him he would have to protect the girls now. Bubba understood in his own cat way and looked at Hunter and Daisy Chain who returned an uncertain look back at him. They had been mean to him, why would he want to protect them?

Because I have honor, noted Bubba to himself as he looked out the window of the truck traveling down the Natchez Trace southward towards home. I never let you girls down either. I even blinded a pit bull for you, Daisy Chain. Remember? Bubba spoke to the ghost of the little calico cat in his mind. I leapt onto that dog's back, crawled up to his head as fast as lightning and let his eyes have the fury of my claws as you ran for your little cat life under Chain's truck. You ran. I stood my ground. MY ground. MY home. MY girls to protect. I never let any of you down.

Danger's toys went with him. His bowl, too. The small crocheted afghan made just for him of black and gold yarn with his name embroidered in red yarn.

Her face had ached with emotion from the final separation, but she was alone and had to bury him alone. No friends to mourn with her. The human family all scattered. The friends leaving to find jobs because they had lost theirs here in the city by the Pearl River.

Times were beginning to get hard. The beginnings of sorrows had started. Three had passed and now only three remained. She pushed the painful thought to the back of her mind. Danger's death heralded in coming sorrows for all who lived and not just cats.

Chain placed the dried deer tail he had played with the weeks before on top of the box and covered it all with the dark, damp soil of late winter. He had been with her when she took the deer with her rifle. Had sat beside her in the climbing deer stand. For hours in the deer stand while it had been very cold with frost forming on the toes of her hunting boot, they snuggled under a thick camoflauged blanket. She promised him a deer and he knew he would have it.

The doe stepped out from heavy cover and BAM!, she had made good on her promise after covering Danger's head with the heavy blanket to protect his ears form the gun's report.

Danger freed himself from the thick blanket and climbed down the tree faster than she could in the climbing stand, so he stalked the doe as it ran and dropped in a heavy canebreak a few moments later. Danger found the dead deer nearly half an hour before Chain did. He sat beside it and gave her the what took you so long look as the sun set blazing red behind the leafless trees on the clear, cold winter's day. He supervised the tying of the doe to the deer hauler and leapt on top of it as Chain pulled the doe, him, and her gear from the woods and back to their truck. Life had been so good that day. A wonderful memory day just for her and him.

He ate his share of the deer's liver. Sipped gravy made from drippings of it's flesh flour battered and fried tender. Played with the dried tail for hours. Taunted Bubba that he had a new toy and that Bubba didn't. Such good times. Such plentiful times. Why did it have to end?

When The Blast occured, all their lives changed. The rainwater they drank had toxins no one had seen before. Mutated bacteria that killed Danger and made The Girls sickened until they, too, died. Daisy Chain died first before Chain realized what was going on came from the water barrel outside. Hunter had to be put to sleep as a tumor grew unusually fast inside her body and spread visciously into vital organs. Two funerals just weeks apart. The camp became so quiet and still from the passings of her beloved friends that Chain put a radio outside just for the noise.

Her job slowed and she was put on an extended furlough. There was too much free time and Chain thought too much about what had happened. She watched the tragedy unfold on her small television. The passing of each beloved cat shutting down her soul into a small, darkened area in her heart.

Quiet nights passed as she listened to stories of The Blast survivors on the radio and wept along with them. Her job closed down within two years with sporadic openings and closings. Thousands of people had died that day. Thousands more died in the months that followed The Blast. Tens of thousands of people moved away. Chain would hold Bubba outside in the hammock she had made and stay up all night drinking pineneedle tea or coffee listening to the radio to the survivor stories. She prayed a lot, too.

They lived off her savings and the $4000 FEMA checkcard she had gotten in the mail. She bought a geiger counter and they ate or drank nothing until she passed the yellow clicking box over it. The first year after The Blast, she threw out a lot of food and both of them lost weight.

It was quiet and dark in the slide-in camper the night Danger died, too. Danger felt the pain medication wearing off. Good, he told himself. I'm no sissy cat. I can stand on my own four feet just fine. He tried, but didn't have the strength. Even laying down, his legs trembled slightly. If it wasn't for you, Chain, I'd kill myself. Wait for the postman's truck tires to get me like it did old Smokey the Cat last year. That was no accident, Chain. Old Smokey gave up. Got old and gave up, but I know you need me. I know you want me to hang on. I am. With all my might, I am.

Danger's head hurt and the pain and cancer medication made him feel nauseated. He tried to go back to sleep when suddenly he felt afraid. Something was wrong. They weren't alone in the camper anymore. That was it. Danger sensed another presence and his soul trembled when he understood what it meant. The air in the tiny slide-in camper suddenly became chilly though the furnace was working perfectly and his blankets and afghan were warm.

Danger didn't want to die. He resisted death in his spirit. His body too weak to move from the impending event. He fought to the very end in horrific pain as the cancer ate him up alive like gnawing worms in every cell of his body. He wanted to hold on. Danger tried to drag himself under the table, but had no strength left. He didn't know how much longer he could keep up the struggle. He was worried, too. In the back of his brilliant cat mind, he was deeply concerned for Chain.

Who was going to take care of Chain? He meowed his question at the shadowy presence weakly. She needed him and he needed her. They were boon companions, as she described them. He loved Chain and she loved him and he knew it. The shadow gave no hint of changing its mind about its mission and moved slowly closer to Danger extending its hand.

Chain had promised him a new vet out of town that had better treatments he told the spirit. They were going in a couple of days. 48 hours. All he had to do was hold on. He had promised Chain he would hang on and he couldn't break his promise. She said that to him before going to bed that night. "Hold on, my precious. Hold on. We'll be sitting in the new vet's office in 48 hours. Hold on! I don't want to lose you ever. I would have died in that house a horrible death of flames had you not been born and given to me by God. You saved my life. Hold on, so I can save yours. Hold like you did the night we ran through fire and fury as the house burned. Hold on." Danger had sensed fear in her voice and touched her nose gently with his paw to calm her just a few hours before.

Everything will work out as planned, my human. I know you love me. I love you, too. I'll hang on for your sake.

He held on to Chain in his heart as he listened to her breathe deeply in her sleep a few feet away from him. Doing this seemed to weakened the grip of the shadowy presence and he held on tightly like he had when the house was burning down around them and she was his only way out. They deeply needed each other. Why couldn't the spirit accept this and leave them alone?

The shadow spoke to him with a nod of its head and Danger knew it was useless to fight the inevitable any longer.

His flesh was dying he was told and Danger understood completely because he was an exceptionally intelligent cat. The spirit spoke to him again and told him his heart was eternal and he could have kept this up for as long as needed, but it was a useless struggle because his flesh was dying and that the passing was going to occur either tonight or very soon.

Danger was suffering needlessly and if Chain had known this, she would have encouraged Danger to let go. Danger understood and the spirit knew this and spoke again. Yes, Danger had successfully fought every dog that had dared to enter into his domain and he knew that Danger would fight him like it was the worst dog yet, but in the end, the dying flesh wouldn't let him fight any longer. This was one dog fight he was going to loose. The dog that would take Chain away from him forever wasn't really a threat after all and neither would the separation be permanent, the shadow explained to Danger and then fell silent as Danger weighed what was said to him some more. The shadow spoke to him again after a moment and Danger relaxed the struggle when he realized the shadow spoke the truth and made a promise.

She will be taken care of. Come with me, Danger. It's your time. Go ahead and meet her when it is her time, so she will have a friend waiting for her. Come with me, Danger.It is your time now.

In his own way, Danger said goodbye to her and let go because Death pulled at his paws and forced him to let go. Death spoke to him and convinced him he was needed elsewhere and for her sake, too.

Danger slipped away from the good life he had known saying goodbye to Chain with tears in his green and gold eyes.

This is really going to tear her up when she finds out I'm gone.

Danger felt his spirit slip through the veil of tears and into the spirit realm. He was carried away gently into a bright spotlight that healed him with a warm glow. Danger gave a loud meow as health was returned to his body in waves of healing energy. He leapt up and down and ran in a fast circle before standing and feeling the strength in his body he hadn't felt in years. No, he had never felt like this in his entire life. Never this strong. Ever.

Death had not lied to him afterall. Danger would wait for Chain and they would never ever be separated again because if there were ever two beings who were meant to be together eternally, it was Chain and Danger.

You look after my girl, Bubba, he spoke from his heart to Bubba's dreaming mind. That's my girl you are protecting. My human. She loved me first and the most. I'm the one she'll weep for years from now, Bubba. Protect her, Bubba. That's an order.

Danger was summoned by an unseen voice and he moved with strength and grace towards the voice that had returned his youth and vigor. Death had brought him here to this point in time and space, but the voice would carry him for the rest of eternity.

I will wait for you, Chain. Somehow, time is different here than where we were. I promise on my yellow cat heart I will wait for you and greet you personally on your day when it is your time. One day we will meet again and never be separated. We will share a life only dreamed of by the most brilliant minds like mine and even I am amazed at this new life we will share one day. In time, my human. Just you wait.

Chain could smell the fresh turned earth and hated it. For the rest of her life, the spicey smell would remind her of this moment. Her eyes, rimmed with tears, measured the depth of the grave when compared to the height of the box. Chain's pained expression developed another wrinkle. Danger's grave wasn't as deep as she wanted it to be. "If I had a backhoe, I would go six feet." Her throat ached with emotion as she wiped a tear off her face. She sat back on her feet and looked around the yard. Then she saw a bag of charcoal outside her storage shed. Charcoal would absorb any odors escaping from the plywood box.She scattered the large bag of charcoal all around the little box holding her heart. Her boon companion. She didn't want any scent of death giving away his location. In deep anger, she would have strangled any animal trying to dig him up.

Chain sat on the ground beside his grave and wept out her personal agony of the loss and all three cats curled up near her to comfort her the only way they knew how. She had prayed for this cat eighteen years earlier. Asked God to send her a yellow tom cat that was exceptionally smart for she was so alone at that time. A One in a Million cat, she had described her present to God. She prayed and believed God for a companion that would be exceptionally different. A hunting buddy. A fishing buddy. A camping buddy. God gave her Danger (Danger to All Dogs, she had name him because he fought every dog that came into the yard and made them run away screaming in terror of his claws and teeth) and she knew she would never have another one like him ever again. The loss was so deep that she would never pray for another cat again no matter how lonely she got.

Bubba tucked away the memories and stories and drifted off to sleep in the cool truck. She would drive straight home today. The hot ambient heat was quickly melting the ice in the cooler under the tarp and he knew she wouldn't want his treat to spoil. It would be sunset and hot as blazes when they got to Camp Sapphire, their real home. The bugs in the trees and on the ground would sing all night so loudly it disturbed his rest at times. But, for now, he slept and slept deeply in the cool air of the pickup truck rolling south dodging pot holes and fallen dead trees.

The road noises were different under the truck's tires as Bubba felt himself slowly waken. Pavement hum turned to gravel noises. Bubba wakened and felt the truck slow down and make a familiar series of turns. He sat up. He knew where he was. Camp Sapphire. Home.

It's gaspergoo time, thought Bubba. Bubba looked up at Chain as if to prompt her memory as she pulled the big truck up to Camp Sapphire, their home. There was a lot of work to be done, but first the gaspergoo had to be filleted. That came first and foremost.

"Hungry, boy?" She asked as she pulled the truck to a stop.

"Always." She answered for him. She stopped at the gate, got out of the truck and opened it. Climbed back inside the truck, drove through and padlocked the gate behind them tightly. She drove past the pile of bricks that had been a chimney that had warmed a small cabin once. Drove up the grassy hill and up to Camp Sapphire. Her dark green teepee at the woodline still there and waiting. Her camp no worse for wear in the couple of days they had been gone into town on business. "We were blessed again, Bubba. That storm that passed through while we were gone didn't do much damage that I can tell. C'mon, boy. Let's get you some fish and then I'll gather some wood for smoking the catfish as hard as the bricks we just passed."



END

Street Violence - gangs of thugs - what it is and methods to prevent it from happening to you: http://www.answers.com/topic/street-violence

Fishing on a river at night (tips and tricks): http://www.gameandfishmag.com/fishing/catfish-fishing/gf_aa076704a/

Smoking Fish - hot or cold method: http://www.marinews.com/boat_article_details.php?recordid=40

Mother Earth article about tipi living: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1979-05-01/Building-A-Tipi.aspx