King for a Day

King for a Day

by Cleve Taylor

There was great excitement in the mouse colony. Horatio, who had led the mouse colony for three mouse generations, who had led the colony through treacherous fields fraught with danger when the colony had been forced from the Sugar Loaf barn to the Mt. Ephraim Rd. barn where they now thrived, was being challenged.

They left Sugar Loaf when the barn owner moved a big orange cat, a mouser of renown, into the barn and they had immediately lost five members of the colony to the predator. Now despite his undeniably effective leadership, Horatio was being challenged in combat-to-the-death for his leadership position.

Horatio had been expecting a challenge. He knew he was not the mouse he used to be. He had lost a step in his speed, he could not smell and locate food sources as well as he used to, and worst of all, he had started forgetting things. Just yesterday he had laboriously climbed upon a table to find that he could not remember why he wanted to get on top of the table. He faked it by pretending that he had come for a cotton boll that was there.

But Cassius seemed suspicious of his action and had started watching him closely. It was Cassius's friend Anthony who had challenged him, no doubt on the advice of Cassius. Horatio was smarter than Anthony, but Anthony was younger, stronger, and faster. Assuming Anthony defeated him, Horatio was sure that it would be Cassius ruling the colony from the shadows, and Cassius was not trustworthy.

Horatio did not mind the idea of dying in combat. He mostly didn't like the idea of dying at the teeth of one of the dumbest mice in the colony and leaving the colony in the oily paws of a puppeteer fraudster like Cassius. If he could survive just a couple of weeks more, Achilles, his choice of successor would be of age and Horatio would gladly and peacefully turn over the reins of power to him. Cassius knew this, thus the rush for a challenge.

Under the rules of combat, the challenger got to pick the day of the leadership fight but the challenged got to pick the place and the time. Anthony, being rushed by Cassius, picked today for the fight to death. Horatio chose to have the fight inside the barn at last light.

Horatio stood in the barn doorway and watched the light begin to fade on the western horizon. The whole of the mouse colony awaited in a circle around the space marked off for the fight. A mouse elder acted as ringmaster and reminded the colony of its longstanding rules for picking their leader, of the right to challenge at any time except during the four-week period immediately following a completed challenge. That was to give the winner time to recuperate from the fight.

"Do you understand?" the elder asked, first looking at Horatio, and then turning his eyes to Anthony. They both nodded their understanding. Then, as the elder was about to start the fight, Horatio asked if he could have a private word with Anthony. Anthony nodded his okay, and Anthony listened, and as he listened, he couldn't keep himself from grinning and nodding his head in assent. Finally, with a wink to Anthony, Horatio backed away, and the elder shouted, "Begin!"

Horatio charged at Anthony. Anthony smoothly turned aside and Horatio stumbled onto the dirt floor. Horatio dusted himself off and charged again. This time Anthony again calmly stepped aside and slapped Horatio on the back of his head as he stumbled by. Horatio, now embarrassed, rushed back only to be slapped down to the floor face down. Anthony climbed onto Horatio's back and lifted his paws in triumph, soaking up the cheers from his supporters, before administering the coup-de-gras bite on the neck.

No one saw the barn owl launch himself from the rafters where he had been watching the fight. With his black eyes trained on Anthony and his talons outstretched he swooped down and plucked Anthony from atop Horatio. He grasped Anthony in his talons and took him to his nest in the rafters in the barn. Anthony had stood there, making a target of himself, just as the owl’s friend Horatio had promised. Horatio still owed him the one called Cassius.

Horatio rose from the floor, amazingly recovered from his humiliation by Anthony. To the colony he said, "I remain your leader and claim my four weeks of 'No Challenges'. However, I recognize that I am aging and in two weeks’ time I will name my successor subject to your ratification."

As he walked away, he saw Cassius and dropped a paw over his shoulder as he whispered in his ear, "The first job of a leader is to pick his allies carefully."