January 1

This January morning followed a winter storm that had beaten Shenango’s old bones all night.  Brutal gusts had blasted the rural fields for hours and in the morning, thick icicles gnawed the rooftops in town.  New snow covered field and town alike; blue contours defined the roads and the sun danced on diamond drifts.  Inside the milk barn, cat breaths hung visibly in the air. 

“Happy purrings to y’all!” called T.T. as he leapt across the doorstep.  Tuxey lived in a trailer on Debny Road but his afternoons were often spent rolling in the dairy’s hay bales or lying across barn rafters where the smell of cow hide and manure rose from eighty Holsteins.  And it was definitely Tux’s policy to accept with no complaint every opportunity to enjoy fresh milk topped with two inches of sweet cream.

Marigold, a  tiny Calico, settled on the window ledge next to Hayes.  “What’s the Carrier?” she asked Tux.

Looking up at her he said, “Well, Chaos Jones was tossed out on his tail—again—for knocking over a stack of engraved dinner plates at the Golden Apple.”

“What a furball!” grunted Hayes.  “It’s a wonder they keep that cat.  Oh…sorry, Berry.”  He remembered that Jones was Raspberry’s brother.

“I’ll admit he’s cattywampus now and then,” she whispered hoarsely through her damaged vocal cords, “but you know he means no harm.”

“Well, he sure causes enough of it!” laughed Brodie, who, unlike klutzy Jones, was famously speedy.  A Shenango cat story said that Brodie had once sneaked into the Golden Apple Restaurant, leaped across a customer’s plate without ever touching the table, clamped his jaws around a whole portion of meatloaf and turned tail out the door again before the astonished Mr. Herb Ferg could determine what had become of his entree.

“Tux, how about we raid the loft and spook the starlings?”  Brodie circled a barn beam in anticipation—or maybe, like twirling a stick on tinder, he was attempting to generate some heat.  Marigold performed her own delicate pirouette on the windowsill, an orange dot against the worn wood.  Tux and Brode watched her with appreciative grins.  Hayes, always unimpressed by physical exertion, just licked his ample belly.

“Okay, we’ll scatter the flocks,” Tux agreed, “but after a lick of breakfast!”  He tossed Berry a wink.  Hayes rolled his eyes and turned his plummy head back toward the windowpane.  Outside, the frigid hills looked as peaceful as a Christmas card.  Little did the Shenango Cats know how soon all that would change.