2004-07-21 - 11:13 p.m.
Miss Kitty was missing but I thought maybe she was just out hunting for herself or her kittens.
I had seen her walking alongside the road the previous evening as I drove up the hill home, and remember thinking that she better be careful. But I had no premonition and did not even worry when I missed her the next day. The reason for this lack of concern was partly due to my being busy loading the tools I needed to install the kitchen at the dome house. Paul and Antoinette will be hosting a wedding there this next Saturday for Antoinette’s brother and his fiancé, and the push is on to get the place ready.
It had been thundering in the distance all morning. I had just put away the circular saw behind the front seat—the last of the tools to be loaded. Thinking I’d beaten the storm, I shut the truck door and turned to get the dogs when I spotted her lying in the high grass not five feet away—curled stiff, seeming dead. Flies flitted about her, landing at the base of her tail. She was breathing, but I had to get down on my knees and look closely to detect the slightest in and out movement of fur on her exposed side.
I was running late as the storm bore down, and already it was beginning to sprinkle. I wondered, momentarily, if I should just leave her and hope for recovery. I touched her, spoke her name; she roused, stood wobbling a few seconds and then plopped back down on her side. Instead of meow she cried out in a pitiful dried-up raspy Mawk and I knew I couldn’t leave her to suffer.
*******
I go and get the gun from the house, an old Springfield-style .22 that I’d bought for five dollars at the age of fourteen. The clip is empty, but I remember the faded, thirty-year-old red paper box marked Federal Hi-Power that I keep stored as a memento in the clock that hangs on the living room wall. The carton still contains a few cartridges. Picking out a single shell, I load the gun, and walk back down the gravel drive to my stricken cat.
Pointing the muzzle to the back of her head, I notice a house across the way and realize it is in the line of fire if the bullet should ricochet. I rearrange myself, holding the gun at a different angle so that, if anything, the bullet will hit only the side of the barn. I hesitate then flinch, pulling the trigger. But nothing happens. I hold the gun awkwardly in the air, having forgotten to release the safety. Taking a breath, I let it out slowly. I place the muzzle once more to the back of Miss Kitty’s head, push down the safety, and fire.
The ground absorbs the sound of the gunshot. Instead of a report, there is only a muffled Phittt. Miss Kitty goes into a slow sideways crawl, seeming more alive now than before, and I wonder momentarily if I’ve made a mistake.
It thunders and rains as I bury her and by the time I am finished I’m soaked.
I lift the hand that carried my cat to her grave palm to the sky, as if to rinse away the taint.
