Mad Amos Malone

A Mountain Man and a Cat Walk into a Bar…

Certain things in life are unavoidable. The weather. Falling in love. Summer sniffles. Jokes that begin with “A priest, a rabbi, and an imam walk into a bar…,” “A pilot, a truck driver, and a boat captain walk into a bar…,” “An ecdysiast, an enthusiast, and an entrepreneur walk into a bar….”

Well, you’re out of luck: I don’t know any of those.

But I do know that one day, bereft of inspiration, I was thinking about those jokes I don’t know, and Amos Malone came to mind, and I mused, “A mountain man and a… walk into a bar.”

I just didn’t have anything to put in place of that central “…”

But our seven cats did.

“What’re you starin’ so hard at, old-timer?” Malone asked as he swung his buckskin-clad left leg up and over the vertiginous back of his mount. Dust motes erupted from where his boot whumped into the unpaved main street of the central Kansas town. The impact left an imprint, much as an elephant might do in the soft mud of Lake Victoria’s foreshore.

His leathery, weathered visage much softened by the early light of evening, the curious senior squinted at the enormous horse from which its equally gargantuan rider had just dismounted.

“Tryin’ to decide which of you is bigger, your animal or you.” Turning his head to his left, he spat into the street. The tobaccoid spittle immediately sank and vanished into a dry wagon rut several inches deep. “That’s a might interestin’-looking critter you’re riding.” He raised a slender but muscular arm and pointed. “What’s that leather patch across his forehead for?”

Malone tugged at the wide, silver-studded belt that struggled to encircle his waist. “He gets sunburned easy.”

“Ain’t you goin’ to tie ’im up?”

Swaying toward the entrance of the hotel saloon like a China clipper battling a Force 8 gale, Malone glanced back briefly to where he had left thick reins hanging loose.

“Worthless ain’t goin’ nowhere. He’ll stay put.”

The old man continued masticating the unnameable. “Well, what if somebody takes a hankerin’ to make off with ’im?” He grinned with the remainder of his teeth, between which there was ample space for whistling and perhaps the occasional misguided flying insect. “Me, for example.”

Malone lowered his gaze, the wolf’s head that covered his scalp sliding slightly forward. “Why then, I reckon you’d stay put, too.” He nodded once in the direction of his seemingly somnolent horse. “Anyways, I wouldn’t try it. We been on the trail awhile and Worthless, he’s getting’ on to bein’ a mite hungry.”

The old man started to chuckle. “That so? What’s he gonna do? Mistake me for a bucket o’ oats?”

The towering mountain man just smiled back, his own orthodonture flashing surprisingly white among the surrounding jungle of gray-flecked black beard. Then he turned, stepped up onto the protesting wood plank sidewalk, ducked his head, and pushed through the double doors leading into the saloon.

The old man looked after him for a moment, then turned back to the untethered horse that was part Percheron, part Arabian, and parts of something other. Appraising the reins falling vertical and unsecured, he took a step toward them. Swinging its head around, the unclassifiable quadruped closed one eye, squinted out of the other, and gave a snort. That did not give the tough oldster pause. What did was the puff of smoke that emerged from both equine nostrils to feather away into the early evening air.

Abruptly smacked upside the head with second thoughts, the old man turned around right quick and began to walk away. Swiftly, with an occasional nervous glance back over his shoulder. Seeing that the horse was still watching him and perhaps detecting a flicker of red in that single squinting eye, the oldster proceeded to accelerate his pace accordingly.

Malone just did avoid nudging the cat with his right foot as he entered the saloon’s main room. A fleeting glance in the animal’s direction as it darted in off the street and dashed past him showed an ordinary tabby of average size. Its coat was in surprisingly good shape for a street cat, in coloration falling somewhere between gold and tan, with a distinctive black swath running across its upper back from shoulder to shoulder. Hugging the baseboard while striving to be as inconspicuous as possible, it raced away from Malone to disappear among the tables.

These were occupied by the usual assortment of cardplayers, double-dealers, braggarts, liars, cowpokes, military veterans, military deserters, failed gold miners, unremarkable townsfolk, and a sprinkling of seriously underdressed women who had lately been deficient in regular church attendance. The volume of their conversation dropped by about half when Malone lumbered into the room. He disliked the effect his size and appearance had on regular folks, but there was nothing much he could do about it.

Making his way to the far end of the bar, he quietly settled down on the last, empty bar stool. This prompted a rush by the half dozen or so patrons seated nearby to vacate their stools, the occupants thereof having experienced a sudden mutual desire to betake themselves somewhere else. When the rest of the crowd saw that the enormous newcomer wasn’t about to pull off anyone’s leg and start gnawing on it, the usual energetic conversation was resumed by the room’s relieved populace.

“Whiskey,” Malone told the barkeep politely. When that uneasy but admirably professional attendant produced a bottle that looked as if it might have been filled at a horse trough, a frown crossed Malone’s face. “Better.” Pulling a less unsanitary container from a shelf on the backbar, the rotund bartender placed it in front of Malone and removed its predecessor. “Better,” the mountain man reiterated.

This time the barkeep dug under the bar until he found and brought forth a stoppered glass bottle immaculate of shape and label. Malone examined it with a practiced eye, then nodded approvingly. “That’ll do. Leave it and a glass.” The barkeep was relieved to comply.

An hour or so passed in silent contemplation. Apart and away from the now-isolated Malone, money was lost, temporary assignations were forged, two men were thrown out for fighting, two women were cheered on for fighting. Vociferous accusations of cheating at cards were resolved without the use of gunplay, which in contrast to the way it was portrayed in dime novels was noisy, dangerous, and counterproductive for all concerned. A steady stream of regulars and visitors came and went.

One of the latter drew more than the usual casual looks, mostly because the fellow had his dog with him. A handsome black chow, it trotted along behind its owner as they made for the bar. The animal certainly was in better shape than its human, who was tall but of a girth suggestive of a pampered life in the city, and not one spent toiling at manual labor. He had two chins or three depending on whether he was looking up or down, an absurdly long thin mustache more suited to the face of a riverboat gambler, and piercing blue eyes that were small and sharp. His nose was plump and red, as if a ripe plum had been plucked from its tree and glued to his face. When he removed his handsome but oversized wide-brimmed hat, it was to reveal a pate ornamented with a flourish of carefully coiffured blond curls. As near as anyone could tell, they were actually growing out of his head and were not the result of some desultory scalping of an anonymous ten-year-old girl.

Defying caution and present convention, he took a seat once removed from where Malone, a mountainous figure wreathed in buckskins, wolf headdress, and Zen, sat steadily working his way through the bottle in front of him. The chow did not sit. Instead, it took up an alert stance directly beside its owner’s stool. The newcomer ordered, took a sip from his glass, had the barkeep pour him another. Looking over, Malone nodded in the direction of the chow.

“Judgin’ by his attitude, your dog don’t seem t’ like me much.”

Jowls aquiver, the man turned blue eyes to him. “It isn’t you.” With evident deliberation, he lowered his gaze. “It’s your cat. Elehzub doesn’t like cats.”

A surprised Malone looked down at his feet. Sprawled half on, half off the upper portion of his right boot was the tabby over whom he had nearly stumbled while entering the saloon. It lay on the battered leather with its eyes shut, one paw under its jaw, purring contentedly. Occasionally it would move its head, rubbing against Malone’s ankle. Given the profound panoply of odors that clung to that outsized footwear, the feline’s response was not surprising.

The newcomer’s attitude, which until now had ranged from placid to outright indifferent, turned suddenly unpleasant. The blue eyes narrowed. “I don’t like cats, either. In fact, I hate cats.”

Deploying a massive shrug, Malone returned to his contemplation of the backbar. A sizable painting hanging there displayed its creator’s modest competency in oils. It showed a somewhat thickset woman lying on a bed in a typically clichéd yet no less pleasant state of complete deshabille.

“Not my cat.”

Having got hold of the issue, the newcomer seemed unwilling to let go of it. “Then what’s it doing lolling in simpering disgust all over your foot?”

Malone did not turn from the aesthetic that was currently holding his attention. “Why don’t you ask the cat?”

It was plain that the visitor was not used to being so casually dismissed. One hand pushed away the half-filled glass resting on the bar before him.

“You are toying with me, sir. Know that I am Gustavus Eyvind Hudiksvall, and I am not one to be toyed with.” He waved in the general direction of the crowd. “Unlike these simpletons, I am not intimidated by your great unhygienic bulk. Would you like to know why?” When Malone chose not to respond, Hudiksvall continued.

“You see this fine animal standing proudly beside me, that has no hesitation in expressing its dislike for your cat? I am not only its master. I am a master of all the dogs of the Americas. It is my profession. It is my avocation. I know American dogs. I understand American dogs. I perceive them and their inner selves in ways that you and others cannot imagine. I comprehend their needs, their desires, their innermost being! Yea, even their thoughts, for those who believe that dogs do not think know nothing of the animal.”

Lovely, Malone thought as he continued to gaze at the painting. He sighed. Just lovely. Someone he had not known, but would have wished to. “Cats think also. They just don’t jump around stupidly and brag about it.”

The color of Hudiksvall’s cheeks began to approach that of the rugoid bulbosity attached to the center of his face. “You persist in playing me for a fool, sir. Well, I will not be played.” He peered down at the chow that was growling softly. A most disagreeable smile creased his wide, wide face. “Neither will Elehzub. I think… I think I will let him eat your cat.”

“Not my cat.” Malone did not shift his attention from the painting.

“Then you won’t mind.”

Leaning over and grunting with the effort, Hudiksvall whispered something in the chow’s direction. Tongue hanging and eyes eager, it perked its black ears up intently. Whatever the fat man was whispering clearly made an impression on the animal. It tensed as it listened and its soft growling took on a new, more lethal aspect.

The sound was enough to wake the tabby. Eyes snapping open, they shifted to focus on the eager dog. Rising from where it had been slumbering while contentedly inhaling the inexpressibly powerful effluvia from Malone’s boot, it moved behind the mountain man’s leg. Its ears flattened against its head and its back arched as it hissed warningly.

Malone took a swallow from his glass. “Looks like your animal might have a fight on its hands.”

If Hudiksvall was concerned, he didn’t show it. “I thought something like this might happen.” His eyes zeroed in on the alarmed cat, twin blue gunsights targeting prey unable to escape. “Did I not tell you I was a master of dogs?”

Leaning over once more, still straining from the effort, he whispered something else to the chow. Something more than mere communication this time. Something powerful and private and ancient that would be known only to an individual possessed of some special and unique knowledge. Malone caught the gist of it and reacted. By which is to say a couple of black whiskers twitched among their multitudinous companions.

“Et pugnare crescere.” Hudiksvall revealed impressive elocution in commanding his animal. “Pugnare, et interficere!”

A dark, dank, flea-free cloud began to coalesce around the chow. Small bursts of miniature lightning flashed within the murk, each one accompanied not by thunder but by a short, sharp bark. The vapor continued to darken until the chow could no longer be seen. Two men seated nearby arguing over the ownership of a mining claim noted this unexpected manifestation of necromancy and stared, but did not flee.

The miasma began to dissipate. In its place Hudiksvall’s dog still stood as before, only it had been transformed. In place of the black chow there now squatted a massive, wide-shouldered bulldog. When it growled, the sound was deeper and far more menacing than anything that had been expressed by its previously chowly form. A collar of taupe leather studded with two-inch-long spikes encircled its thick neck. In response to its master’s command, the revamped dog’s eyes and attention were now focused exclusively on the cat that had taken shelter behind Malone’s right leg.

Hudiksvall’s grin arose directly from the nastiness of his soul. “This won’t take but a moment, sir. When this strapping expression of Elehzub gets done, there’ll be nothing left of your cat save a few picked-over bones.”

“Not my cat,” Malone reiterated. Thick dark brows drew together over eyes as black as the lowermost reaches of a failed Montana copper mine. “On the other hand, I like cats. I also don’t much cotton to an unfair contest.”

It was a remarkable thing to see a man as big as Malone, who stood just shy of seven feet and whose weight approached three hundred pounds, bend nearly in half. But that was the kind of astonishing flexibility he proceeded to display. He bent over, bent some more, and whispered something to the hissing cat. As a surprised Hudiksvall looked on, a swirl of gold and white opacity coiled up around the cat. Light twinkled within, flashing and blinking, accompanied by a sound like the boiler of a small Mississippi riverboat letting off steam. Or it might have been an extremely attenuated feline hiss.

As Malone straightened and returned to his drinking, the white-gold mist faded away. Where the tabby had stood before now stood—another cat. Much larger than its former self, it was heavily spotted and thickly muscled, with a high butt, short tail, and unmistakable dark tufts rising from the tips of its ears. It snarled more impressively than any street cat while simultaneously displaying very impressive teeth.

Having initially taken a step forward, the bulldog, now finding itself confronted by a decidedly more imposing opponent, whimpered once and retreated.

Hudiksvall’s anger was palpable, but he was not about to withdraw with a nonexistent tail between his legs.

“So! A man of learning and cleverness you are, also. One would not gainsay it from your uncouth appearance. It seems then it is to be tit for tat, cat for cat. I have no fear of that, for I grasp the soul of such conjuring. Just as you must know that only a cat native to America can counter a transformative American dog and vice the versa. It is written so, in aged tomes I suspect you may also have read.” He eyed the lynx that now stepped out from behind the mountain man’s leg. “While your adroit alteration is a fine example of the wild continental feline kind, it remains no less only a cat for all that. You think I am done? Then observe, learn, and prepare to sweep up the scraps!”

Once more bending low, this time over the bulldog, Hudiksvall murmured anew, now with more energy than before.

“Surgens autem, vinco inferno, et occidas!”

For a second time a dark cloud ballooned to life around Hudiksvall’s companion. It swallowed up the bulldog, obscuring its canine reality. The cloud itself grew larger, much larger than before, until when it finally evaporated there stood in its wake a dog of truly imposing proportions. It was huge, with a blunt, powerful face and a tail that curled up over its rump. It looked down, down at the lynx, which held its ground, albeit with an effort.

“American mastiff.” Hudiksvall’s triumphant smile was wider this time. “Bred to protect herds of sheep and cattle.” Piggish eyes blinking, he gazed expectantly down from his seat at the lynx standing firm beside Malone’s leg. “Bigger bones will be left this time, but bones nonetheless.”

“Dogs be dogs and cats be cats.” With a shrug, Malone bent over once again to whisper something to the lynx. Tufted ears flicked immediately in his direction.

A miniature cumulus colored gold and ivory enveloped the lynx even as the mastiff started forward, drool dripping from its powerful jaws. Then it halted and began backing up, until it was standing, though still growling, behind its master, whose buttocks overflowed both sides of the bar stool.

Having come to the decision that it was about time that they pushed their argument off to another day, the two miners who had been looking on abandoned their table in favor of a joint quick-march in the direction of the saloon entrance. Simultaneously, several ladies of the evening determined that it was time to embrace the lateness of the hour, if not potential customers, whereupon they proceeded to hightail it up the nearby stairs in a concerted rush for the second-floor back rooms. Torn between fear and fascination by the increasingly ominous transformations taking place at the bar, the rest of the saloon’s motley population mostly remained, transfixed.

Standing beside Malone, its smooth tan back rising to a level not far below the height of the bar, the puma fastened bright yellow eyes on the mastiff and hissed loudly enough to be heard out in the street. Exhibiting unified homage to the true frontier spirit, no one outside proved dumb enough to enter and investigate the sound.

By now the newcomer was beside himself, near apoplectic with frustration. “I am Gustavus Eyvind Hudiksvall, master of American canines and all knowledge thereto related, and no stinking mountain of a man and his cat will best me this night or any other! It is the nature of existence that dog should lord it over cat, that the latter should run before the former, and I swear it will be so this night as it is on every other night!”

Holding his glass between thumb and forefinger of his left hand, Malone took a half swallow of the good whiskey while with his right hand he reached down and stroked the back of the neck of the fully alert cougar. It growled in response.

“Not my cat.”

Sliding off the stool, an avalanche of fat, Hudiksvall squatted in front of the mastiff in order to look directly into its eyes. Reaching out with thick fingers, he grasped both ears of the dog. This time he did not even try to murmur. Instead, his voice rose until it rattled around the saloon.

“FORMARE MAXIME AUTEM!” The fat man’s bellow rattled the second-floor rafters and shook dust on those seated below. “FRATRES, DE DENTE, ET INIMICOS TUOS INTERFICERE!”

At this, the one couple in the saloon that was actually married rose from their table and departed in haste, leaving behind the uneaten remnants of their supper. A well-dressed rancher of some means swore mightily in a foreign language. Everyone else could only sit and stare, half-paralyzed. The situation had turned serious. Spittoons were missed.

As with its predecessors, the cloud that rose around the mastiff was dark with bark and lit with snarls, but this time the vaporous manifestation fractured, splitting into two, three, and many more distinct upwellings. Straightening, a sweaty but confident Hudiksvall surveyed his canine handiwork. In time each cloud began to dissipate, swept away by the fat man’s sinister and definitive necromancy.

“Or should I say, and this I suspect you know,” he told Malone, “simply ‘Cave canum.’”

Growling to themselves, the pack assembled beside Hudiksvall. Tongues hanging out, panting, they flashed sharp teeth set in jaws strong enough to bring down a bear or a bison. More than a dozen of the huge timber wolves began to spread out, forming a semicircle in front of Malone and the cougar in preparation for an attack.

Whereas until now the mystical, inexplicable manifestation of dogs and cats of increasingly larger species had served largely to enthrall the majority of the saloon’s patrons, the appearance of the wolf pack succeeded in emptying the establishment of its remaining customers. Libations were left unimbibed, poker chips were scattered, chairs were overturned, screams and curses were essayed with a mixture of vehemence and panic, and at least two heretofore atheistic shopkeepers competed in a footrace to see who could arrive first at the Baptist church that was located at the far end of the town’s central thoroughfare.

“Maybe,” a heavily perspiring but expectant Hudiksvall ventured maliciously, “your cat will not be sufficient to satisfy the appetite of my pets, and they will express a desire to taste man as well. They are certain to find attractive the jambalaya of effluvia that clings to you.” He licked thick lips expectantly. “Well, sir, I await your response. Your final response. Is it again to be ‘Not my cat’? Or perhaps, if you grovel with sufficient eloquence, I may command the pack to spare you. Though not, to be sure, this current, final, and failed iteration of your unfortunate feline.”

By way of response Malone carefully set down his glass. The bottle before him was now empty, the liquid warmth it had dispensed a pleasant glow deep within his belly. Turning, he regarded with sad eyes the bloated boaster before him.

“A true necromancer knows how to fight fair.” Raising a huge, callused hand, he gestured at the pack that was systematically positioning itself prior to rushing in for the kill. “Twelve against one ain’t hardly fair. But if that is how it is to be…”

Bending toward the cougar, he commenced once more to speak softly.

Hudiksvall was neither impressed nor worried. “What is to be now, sir? I know you cannot do the same spell of multiplicity as I, for I sense it, and I have the perception of the animals for whom I care. What single local feline will you draw upon now, to counter the kings of canines, who cooperate in a fight better than any other of their kind? I await your last and best counter, prior to your animal’s—and possibly your own—dismemberment!”

A strange sound began to seep into the saloon. It came from outside the building as Malone continued to whisper—never shouting, never raising his voice. It took a moment for those who had fled outside to identify it. It was in no wise alien; they had all heard it before. It was the collective symphony of cats yowling—every cat in town and onward to its outskirts screeching and hollering at the tops of their lungs.

The golden cloud that enveloped the cougar was darker than any that had preceded it. As Malone looked on with interest and Hudiksvall’s gaze narrowed uncertainly, the vaporous mist grew and expanded, becoming larger, vaster, immenser (if you will), until eventually it passed into the realm of the ridiculous. At last it began to clear, revealing… a cat.

It was a tabby, of sorts, albeit one that weighed about half a ton and might’ve been thirteen feet from its wet black nose to the tip of its tail. Colored somewhere between gold and tan, it showed a distinctive black ruff across its upper shoulders. A black ruff that was thick and wide and flaring. More of a mane, really. Lowering its head and dipping its brow forward, the beast contracted its mouth into a most terrible expression: death writ in wrinkles. Then it opened its jaws, revealing teeth that were large enough to chomp a man in half with one bite.

Having anticipated, called forth, and recognized the breed, Malone nodded to himself with satisfaction.

Rooted to the spot, one hand held out defensively before him, a terrified Hudiksvall stumbled backward. The pack of timber wolves were already gone, having vanished under and through the saloon’s swinging doors. One, caught at the back of the pack as the other eleven struggled to squeeze through the portal simultaneously, opted for leaping through a flanking window in order to escape the room and the gargantuan feline that had materialized before them. That the window in question happened to be closed at the time did not in any way forestall the wolf’s decision. Their judicious flight was accompanied by a notable absence of growls and much frantic whining.

Overweight and underpowered, Hudiksvall had no such opportunity. It was to his credit that despite his fear, it was his curiosity that came to the fore.

“That… that monstrous beast is not an American cat! It is not possible for you to call forth a feline expression from the African continent to confront American canines. It refutes the magikal canon and cannot be so!”

“Wal now,” Malone drawled as he used his right hand to ruffle the ruff of the massive creature standing beside him, “you are right correct about thet, Mr. Hudiksvall.” Despite Malone’s efforts to calm him, the gigantic cat continued to incline murderously toward the other man, barely restraining itself. “This here is an American lion. Felis atrox, if you will. First dug up by a fella name of Bill Huntington near Natchez in 1836 but not described in much detail until ol’ Doc Joseph Leidy wrote somethin’ up on ’em in 1852. Lot bigger than their African cousins, they are.” He leaned forward. “Danged impressive teeth, ain’t they?”

Advancing on paws each one of which was more than broad enough to completely cover a man’s head and face, the lion took a step toward Hudiksvall and let out a single… ROAR.

The folks who heard it over in the next county thought it was a storm a-brewing. The church bell in town shivered out a couple of desultory clangs that did nothing to reassure the pair of shopkeeper converts who huddled inside. Children woke up crying, in which exercise of their tear ducts they were equaled by a significant number of mothers. Strong men quaked in their boots and the town sheriff hurried to lock the jail door—from the inside.

Gustavus Eyvind Hudiksvall turned positively white (well, whiter than he had been previously, anyhow) and suddenly found his feet. Despite the effort required, they conveyed him with admirable rapidity to the saloon’s entrance, which portal he exited with such velocity that one of the swinging doors was knocked askew on its hinges.

Having nothing else to confront or on which to focus its attention, the splendidly immense example of Felis atrox turned back toward Amos Malone. A relic of an age only recently bygone, the great jaws parted. With interest, Malone peered down the throat thus revealed.

The tongue that emerged licked the mountain man’s face and copious beard so that both were soon dripping with leonine saliva, until Malone finally had to put a stop to the display of primeval affection. Reaching out, he dug his right hand into the vast black mane and began scratching. Like all its kind, the lion could not purr, but it lowered its head contentedly.

“It were that black ruff o’ yours,” he murmured to the big cat. “I saw the connection right off, but ’tweren’t no reason at the time t’ pursue it.” He nodded toward the damaged doorway. “Until it were forced. On the both of us.” Leaning forward, he whispered into the lion’s right ear.

This time the cloud shrank instead of expanding. Which was a fortunate adjustment, because it was unlikely the town itself would have survived a cat-thing of any greater dimension. When the last of the gilded cloud vanished, it left behind on the tobacco-stained floor a tabby of normal size, gold and tan in color, with an odd black streak in its hair that stretched from shoulder to shoulder. It shook itself, licked one paw to briefly groom the fur on its forehead, and then began to arch its back and rub against Malone’s right boot. Reaching down, the mountain man picked it up and placed it gently on the now-deserted sweep of mahogany bar. Then he leaned forward and over to peer down behind the barrier.

“Barkeep.”

Trembling visibly, the bartender rose from where he had been hiding. He looked at Malone, at the cat sitting contentedly near the giant’s right hand, then back at Malone.

“Wh-wh-wh-what’ll it be… sir?”

“Whiskey. Same label.” Malone indicated the serene feline seated nearby. “And a saucer of milk for my friend. Straight up.”

The barkeep managed to nod. “This… this is a saloon, sir. Milk, I’m not so sure…”

“This here’s also a hotel, friend. Got t’ be some milk or cream on ice in the kitchen.” He leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice. “Go find it. And you’d best come back.”

No one else entered the saloon that night. No one else came near the saloon that night. Its interior was occupied solely by its shaky proprietor, a mountain man of measureless smells and unsuspected abilities, and the gold and tan cat seated comfortably on the bar off to his right. Not his cat. Together the three passed the remainder of the evening undisturbed and mostly in silence, until the time finally came for Malone to exit. At this the bartender allowed himself to faint gratefully and with some grace. He did not hit the floor too hard.

The cat followed Malone outside. After the mountain man finished admonishing his horse for eating half the hitching post, he turned to look back at the plank sidewalk. The cat was sitting there, its tail switching slowly back and forth, staring at him in the unblinking, fearless manner of cats everywhere. For certain a most ordinary cat.

“G’night, puss. Got t’ be on my way. Watch your step. Don’t eat any mice I wouldn’t eat.”

The cat turned to depart, looking back only once to meow.

That is generally remembered as the Manhattan, Kansas, earthquake of 1867.