January 1

This January 1st  morning followed a wintry wind that had beaten Shenango’s old bones all through the night.  Brutal gusts had blasted the rural fields for hours and in the morning, sharp-toothed icicles gnawed the town’s rooftops.  Dawn saw fresh snow falling softly on the hills and new blue contours outlined the roads.  Sunlight gleamed on diamond drifts.  Inside the Mooner barn, cat breaths hung visibly in the air.

“Happy purring to y’all!” called Tuxey as he leapt across the doorstep.  Tux lived in a trailer down 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 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 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.”

“Yeah?  Well, he sure causes enough of it!” chuckled Brode, who, unlike klutzy Jones, was famously speedy.  A Shenango Cat legend 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, then 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 breakfast!”  He tossed Berry a wink.  Hayes just rolled his eyes and turned his mauve head back toward the windowpane.  Outside, the frigid fields looked as peaceful as a Christmas card.  Little did the Shenango Cats know how soon all that would change.