The Cat & The Cowboy

The Cat & The Cowboy

by Ben Boulden 

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Pete tested gravity by smacking wallets, cups, coins, and anything else he could find off the kitchen counter. His expressive eyes glimmered with disappointment when the objects bounced on the floor. The same as they had the day before.

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Snow fell in waves on that cold December morning. The car’s wipers swished and rattled across the windshield as my wife and I began the nearly 1,300-mile drive from our Salt Lake City home to Fort Worth, Texas. I had accepted a months-long work assignment and our planned two-day drive spiraled into three. We made it halfway to our goal on the first day; fighting snow packed roads mile after mile. We slept in a dumpy off-season motel that smelled of paint and dirt in Southeastern Utah.
      The sky lightened as we crossed New Mexico on the second day, but the shrill wind piled snow in drifts and plunging temperatures covered the highway in black ice. Amarillo’s twinkling lights had never looked as good as they did that night. The next morning the winter pale sun rose in a cloudless and frosty blue sky and, according to traffic reports, the asphalt into Fort Worth was clear and dry. But on that cold Texas morning Pete, our mischievous black cat, was anxious and weary.
      He was tired of the road, and completely done with the car.
      Pete became a member of our tight-knit family the moment he arrived in our home. That first evening he dashed onto the linoleum kitchen floor, extended his claws, and drifted into a power-slide that any stunt driver would envy. He never missed an opportunity to take advantage of an open lap, often jumping before his target was fully seated, which made for some delightful misses.
      Pete tested gravity by smacking wallets, cups, coins, and anything else he could find off the kitchen counter. His expressive eyes glimmered with disappointment when the objects bounced on the floor. The same as they had the day before.
      Pete was a cat’s cat, but he had a few quirks that made him different from most. He enjoyed walking in the park on a leash. He rushed to greet visitors at the doorbell’s chime. He always met family members when they returned home. These doorway visits were very coincidental. A surprised cast to Pete’s kaleidoscope eyes, his back leg frozen in mid-preen, followed by a hefty purr, a stretch, and exuberant ankle rubs.
      I always imagined Pete saying, “What a surprise to see you here!”
      Pete’s greatest eccentricity was his love of the car. He raced to his carrier when it thumped on the floor, sat on his haunches and glared a contempt only cats can muster, until the door was opened, and he could swagger inside. Once in the car, and out of his carrier, Pete stationed himself at the passenger-side window. His back paws were anchored to the passenger’s right thigh, his forepaws on the door panel beneath the window. From his perch Pete mewled at birds in a low and soft tone. His head bounced side-to-side as telephone poles flashed by. His favorite sighting were the gleaming silver wheels of semi-trucks spinning in the next lane. His head bobbing and rolling as he studied the wheels’ rotations in a bemused and curious posture.
      But Pete preferred car rides much shorter than that long drive to Texas. He started yowling in central Utah that first day. He stalked, from front to back, again and again with the intensity of a lion. Outside Shiprock, New Mexico, he stopped pacing, looked straight up at the cold sky from the back window and howled an unsettling roar.
      On that third morning in Amarillo, Pete hid under a motel chair. He hissed at his carrier. He snubbed a chicken treat and dashed across the small room just outside my reach. He faded into a dark corner where my wife snatched him up and pushed him in before Pete knew what had happened. The carrier rattled and bounced with Pete’s fury. His eyes flared demonic from its dark recesses. He yowled in desperation, but as bad as I felt there was no other choice than to finish the trip.
      Fort Worth was 300 miles away. We wanted to be at the hotel before dark, which allowed us a few stops. Every time we pulled off the road, Pete rushed to the passenger door for a hasty exit. When it was time to get back in, Pete turned hostile. He mewled, jerked on his leash, and once he even scratched my wrist. We were stopped at tiny gas station at midday. Pete was studying an aluminum can, batting at it and then sniffing where it had been, when a pickup truck pulled into the parking lot, bypassed the gas pumps, the store, and drove straight at us.
      If you have ever walked a cat, you know it elicits a reaction. Most people show surprise and awe, but, on occasion, there are those with a self-righteous disdain. Disdain for both the walker and the cat. Pete and I were on a busy highway. In rural Texas. A place where everyone drives giant pickups, wears sweat-stained cowboy hats, dusty boots, and – in my imagination anyway – go out of their way to squash cats.
      I thought about all those things as the pickup crunched to a stop. Pete must have sensed my unease because he took cover behind a scrawny brown weed. The driver’s tinted window whooshed down. My reflection sharp in the leather-faced man’s mirrored sunglasses.
      I expected him to say something sarcastic, but his question – “You like cats?” – surprised me.
      I hesitated before finally saying, “Yeah?”
      A sheepish grin danced on his face. “Want another one?”
      He told me that a stray had birthed kittens on his small ranch outside of town and the mother had disappeared. “Not sure what happened to her,” he said. “She’s been around for years. I’ve been looking after her kittens, but I reckon they’re big enough for real homes.”
      Pete stepped out from behind his weed and sat next to me, studying the cowboy.
      I explained we were traveling to Fort Worth, and as much as I loved cats, a new kitten wouldn’t work for us since we’d be in a hotel for months.
      He waved off my explanation with a chapped hand. “Not a problem.” He jotted his name and telephone number on the back of a business card and handed it to me. “I’ll tell you those kittens are cute as dickens.” He shook his head, the smile steady and wide. “Give me a call on your way home and I’ll set you up.”
      The cowboy waved a gnarled finger goodbye and then pulled away.
      After he was gone, I said to Pete, “I guess we misjudged him.”
      Pete stared at me with soulful eyes and seemed to admonish me for my close-mindedness. He turned and dashed to the car. He leaped in, landed on my wife’s lap, and curled into a tight ball.
      Pete slept all the way to Fort Worth.
      We lost Pete to cancer a year later. In the dark hours I regret the anxiety that long drive to Texas caused my little pal. A regret that is tempered only by the memory of Pete’s reaction to the old cowboy’s obvious decency, which is the same virtue – that wholesome goodness – Pete displayed every day of his life.

Copyright © 2022 by Ben Boulden / All Rights Reserved