my brave barney

After a brief thunderstorm, I walked to the trailer park mailbox row along the busy highway near Little Rock, Ark. As I approached the driveway I saw 3 boys playing with something in the muddy ditch. It was September and blast-furnace hot after the storm and I wondered if the kids had found a frog or, worse, a snake but as I got nearer I heard a sound - a faint squeak, more of a gasp than a meow. A cat? A kitten? I walked quickly to the boys and saw, to my horror, what they were doing. Someone had thrown a cardboard box containing 3 newborn kittens into the ditch and the boys had found them. They had cut off the baby’s tails; indeed, had just completed the final amputation as I arrived. I will not go into what I did to the little monsters but suffice it to say they ran away leaving the gaunt, soaked and mutilated babies on the ground. I took them to my vet’s where 2 kittens died but one little fighter seemed determined to live. It was cleaned, it’s wound tended to and cord gently removed. My vet didn’t hold out much hope but I asked them to do all they could for the little creature. I didn’t have much money but I’d made up my mind. If it lived, that cat was mine. It was too tiny for gender to be determined and, at that time, it didn’t seem to matter.

Long story kinda shorter, almost 3 weeks later, little Barney (named because of a resemblance to Barney Fife) was recovering nicely.

Just about that time we discovered Barney was, indeed, a female but I didn’t change her name. By then, she just looked like a Barney to me. Anyway, I’d been bottle-feeding her, carrying her around in a warm homemade pouch I wore like a sling, designed so she could hear my heartbeat. I’d never raised an animal so young but I read as much as I could about techniques and successful attempts at such by others. Stoked with helpful advice and instruction, I weaned Barney with little trouble and began to try to teach her cat ways but that’s where she stopped learning and I began. She already knew how to be a cat. She didn’t have a female feline to fine-tune her instincts but whatever she lacked in professional, as it were, lessons she made up for in creativity. She was strictly an indoor cat until my husband and I moved to a rural area in South Arkansas 2 years later. The area was sparsely populated, bordered on one side by a river and on another side by a wildlife refuge. Barney’s paws had never touch dirt before that move and I had not intended for her to roam freely once we got there but she managed an escape shortly after our arrival. I was terrified she would be eaten by something - God knew what - but she stayed close to our little cabin and seemed content to observe that wild place from the hood of our car. And instead of succumbing to a predator or becoming completely wild (as some had predicted) Barney thrived. She became a renowned mouse killer, hunter of vermin and destroyer of snakes. Whatever her heritage, she was a fierce predator and won the appreciation of the few other area residents for ridding their barns and outbuildings of critters. She became known locally by some as The Nubbed One since none of our neighbors had ever seen a cat with almost no tail. But her lack of appendage proved no obstacle to Barney. The problem was, after a while, she grew weary of solitary slaughter and began bringing her captives home, unmangled and highly upset.

We were in the process of building our little cabin and had not completed the interior walls so, while the house looked finished on the outside, the inside was insulation and bare studs and rafters. Our patio door did not close all the way and Barney quickly learned how to slide it open enough for egress onto our big covered porch. To our horror, live mice began dropping from the rafters in the wee hours of the night thanks to The Nub’s wicked sense of humor. Many’s the time I’ve tangled myself in the covers trying to rid myself of a small, terrified mouse only to glance up into the rafters to see this face…

My old girl. There are many more Barney stories but I’ll stop here. She died at the age of 19 and though I’ve shared my life with other felines, this one was extra-special. Thank you for taking the time to read her story.