The Nine Lives of Montezuma (6 page)

Every available hour of daylight now was spent probing in the drifts for the sheep. The washing line pole, broom handles, anything
that was long enough was brought into service. They worked systematically around the perimeter drifts of each sheep field. On that first day after the storm they searched the drifts in the field by the brook and found nothing. But the next morning they discovered their first missing ewe trapped in a drift up against the spinney. She was lying dead with her lamb beside her. It was an ill omen, but just finding her gave the rescuers the encouragement they needed to work on. Like his father, Matthew was consumed by an exhaustion so profound that they had ceased to talk to one another. Once fed and warmed up back at the house, they were out again probing into drifts in a tacitly agreed determination not to give up.

Three days later, a week after the storm began, when hope of finding anything alive had all but vanished, Matthew felt his stick strike something soft. Like a desperate angler
who cannot believe the pull on the end of his line, Matthew refused to believe his first impression. He probed once more close to the same hole, gently. His stick met a little resistance at first and then sank into something that moved as he touched it. He screamed his excitement and in a few seconds his mother and father were at his side probing to confirm his find. The sticks were thrown to one side and the digging began. It was a huge drift that had climbed half way up the trunk of a great oak tree whose roots bulged out from the bank creating a warren of holes and hiding places, a favourite playing place for the lambs. In half an hour they had broken through into the roof of the hollow. Matthew pulled the snow away feverishly and peered through. ‘They're here,' he said. ‘They're all here, all five, and the lambs as well, and everyone's alive!' As if to prove the point one of the lambs set up a tremendous
bleating. The rest was easy, they scraped away the side of the hole, reached in and hauled the sheep out one by one onto the snow.

Matthew was reaching in to catch the last lamb that didn't seem to want to leave his sanctuary, when he noticed there was something lying in a hole behind one of the roots. At first he thought it was another lamb for it was covered with a thin coating of snow, but lambs do not mew and they are not ginger striped underneath. Montezuma was staggering towards him, shaking the snow from his back.

He looked up at Matthew, his eyes squinting against the sun. Matthew reached in and picked him up carefully. He turned to his mother and father. ‘Look what I've found,' he said. ‘Back from the dead!'

FOR MATTHEW IT WAS NEITHER DAFFODILS nor primroses that heralded the spring, it was the call of the invisible wood pigeons from the high branches of the elms behind the old cob barn. He stopped to listen one morning as they answered each other across the yard. Spring itself had been a hard time on the farm with the lambing barely over and the problems of tilling the barley weighing more heavily each day. The long dry days were spent on the tractors, ploughing, harrowing and tilling; and when it was wet there was the frustration and
worry that it might never stop and the barley might never be tilled. The cooing of the pigeons brought Matthew the hope of summer and the memory of the sun warm on his back.

Montezuma was with him as usual that morning, but he was keeping his distance for they were driving yearlings out to grass, and Sam was running about looking busy and officious. Like Matthew, Montezuma had heard the pigeons for the first time and welcomed the sound, but for different reasons. He pricked his good ear and lifted his head, but the sunlight through the filigree branches dazzled him and he had to turn away. But he had registered the place, and he would remember.

Montezuma was now in his hunting prime and this was the beginning of the hunting season, for birds that is. The secret of his success was
his acute computer memory. Every nest was surveyed and recorded meticulously. For the next month or so he charted the comings and goings of the parent birds as they fed their young. Sitting silent and immobile in the shadow of the hedges, the cat kept his vigil from the early strident cheepings from the nest to the appearance of the fledglings. He was always there to pick up the rejects or those unfortunate enough to fall from the nest before they could fly. Any robin suicidal enough to sit on a nest within reach of the ground was plucked off and eaten.

No one much liked Montezuma during the bird-hunting season. Boots were thrown more often than usual and there was never any reward nor even congratulations when he brought in a murdered pied wagtail and dropped it on the kitchen floor for all to admire. But his talent was not appreciated and
so he came home less often, preferring to spend his days patrolling his killing ground around the farm. And all the time he kept the cooing pigeons under constant observation.

The ploughing was all done now, the winter mud replaced by dust. The mowing grass was three feet high on the front meadow; they would be hay harvesting any day now. The air was humming with summer.

The cat stood under the eaves of the old barn and listened. Several times every day he came back to check on his pigeons. On several occasions he had tried to ambush the parents while they were out foraging, but with no success. Montezuma knew his chances were slim, but he welcomed the challenge. A pigeon was a rare prize and an awkward quarry, worth the waiting. Any day now the young would be teetering on the edge of the nest in the old cob wall and taking their first tentative steps in
experimental flight. This was the moment he had waited for. Pigeons are best caught either when they are very old or very young either too old to move or too young to know.

The nest above him was strangely quiet this afternoon, and to begin with the cat supposed the parent bird was in there with them, but from the beech tree by the pond he heard the cooing and spotted the pair of them just as they clapped their wings and flew up out of the tree to the top of the barn. The nest must be empty. Montezuma ran across the cobbles and shinned up a dead elm that overlooked the barn. He surprised a squirrel climbing on the blind side of the tree but did not give chase: he was no random hunter. From an overhanging branch he could better observe the nest, but he did not need to investigate further. Above him, along the ridge of the lichen covered roof, he saw the entire family – three fledglings and their
parents lined up alongside each other. It was a huge leap from the branch to the slate roof, but Montezuma had done it many times before. He walked out carefully as far as the branch would support him and then launched himself into the air twenty feet above the ground. His landing was perfect, his claws sinking into the grey lichen to give him purchase as he scrambled up the slates over and onto the ridge. The parent birds had flown already but at the other end of the roof the three grey fledglings seemed unable or unwilling to fly. As the cat approached they jostled into each other, turning this way and that in alarm. Then one of them took the plunge and fluttered off the ridge, half falling, half flying down the roof beating its wings in a frantic effort to achieve air power; this it finally did and soared away downwards into the yard below to land on the water trough. There were just the two left now
for the cat, but that was enough for him. He inched his way along the ridge towards them, his tail whisking from side to side in anticipation. A few feet away he stopped, crouched and eyed them hypnotically. All his power was concentrated in the back legs, his paws shifting to find a perfect balance, the perfect starting block on the narrow ridge. The two young pigeons never moved until they saw the cat leap; then they were gone in a flurry of flapping, impotent wings. But the nearest one had left it too late and fell to the ground in the yard, the upper feathers of the wings torn away.

Montezuma was disappointed – it had not been a clean kill; he had misjudged their speed. But down there below him in the yard lay his quarry struggling feebly to lift itself from the ground. That was compensation enough. The other two had gone and the parent birds with them, but that did not matter any more.
Montezuma was in no hurry to find his way down across the roof to the top of the yard wall; the bird was crippled and the cat was sure of his prey.

He came in through the yard gate by the dung heap and froze. The pigeon was lying where he had expected, its wings still flapping, feebly now. But Montezuma was not looking at the pigeon. From out of the darkness of the shippen at the far end of the yard came a huge
black tomcat, shining and sleek in the sun. He had seen the pigeon and was about to move in for the kill. The two cats saw each other almost at the same moment and had stopped dead in their tracks. All that moved in the yard was the dying pigeon.

Montezuma set up his battle cry and manoeuvred closer, his back arched and bristling. The pigeon was forgotten. His challenge was hurled back at him across the yard and the two cats crept slowly towards
each other uttering dire warnings, none of which were heeded. This was a cat Montezuma had not met before and he would take his time before he attacked. He watched the black cat move and noted the strength in his shoulders: he glared into its yellow eyes and probed for weakness there but found none. Once again he arched his back and hissed out his defiance. But the black cat blinked, crouched, and sprang. The two cats met in mid-air and fell to the ground, rolling together in a bundle down the slope towards the drain. Montezuma regained his feet first and struck out across the black cat's nose. But the black cat was young and knew only how to attack. He sprang forward again but this time Montezuma was prepared and swayed to one side, catching the cat a glancing blow on his head as he passed. Blood trickled down through the black fur and dropped onto the yard.

In most fights this would have been enough to finish it and Montezuma stood his ground now waiting for the black cat to retreat and call it a day. To encourage him he began the baying cry of victory. For several minutes the black cat sat down at a safe distance from Montezuma, seeming disinterested in continuing the combat; but none the less he would not give way, he would not concede. He was on Montezuma's territory and yet he would not give way. Once again Montezuma's victory call resounded around the barns; but the black cat sat and watched him, unimpressed and arrogant. Furious, Montezuma struck. Like lightning his front claws slashed out. He had anticipated that his opponent would run; after all that was what usually happened. But his attack was met head on, and the two grappled together, biting and clawing each other in a frenzy of hate. Montezuma knew now that he
had underestimated his adversary; he could feel that he was matched for speed and strength, that his every move was parried. As they broke apart again and stood back, a few yards separating them, Montezuma understood that this was to be no ordinary fight. He was already hurt badly, his good ear torn and bleeding. It was a challenge to his supremacy; lose this and he would have no kingdom. For the first time since he was a kitten, Montezuma feared defeat; for the first time in his life he felt tired and shaken.

Both now watched for the other's move, their tails swishing in anger, each trying to outdo the threats of the other. But unlike the black cat, Montezuma was thinking all the time, working out his tactics. He knew he must take the initiative if he was to survive. The standoff lasted some time until both cats had regained their composure, but still neither
would leave the field. They skirmished spasmodically, neither inflicting serious damage, but it was after one of these incidents that Montezuma yelled in pain and deliberately turned away and ran – but not too fast. The black cat gave chase as he had hoped and within seconds was on him. Montezuma flipped over onto his back before the teeth could bite and as he did so he found the black cat's throat exposed and unguarded. The bite was accurate and incisive. He felt the grip on him loosen and knew from the cry of pain that the bite had been well placed. The black cat half ran, half shuffled out of the yard and away into the fields. The feint had worked as planned, but at a cost; the ear already torn had been bitten again and the blood flowed freely from the wound.

Matthew found him only by chance late that evening when he came into the yard to
grease up the mower. Montezuma was lying by the water trough, blood still pouring from his ear. Not far away was a dead fledgling pigeon up against the barn wall. The cat looked more dead than alive, his eyes were glazed and his breath shallow.

‘Loss of blood, more than anything,' said the vet after he had patched him up and injected him. ‘He should pull through, but he'll have matching crumpled ears now. Looks to me as if he came off worse this time. Fights a lot, does he?'

‘Yes,' said Matthew, stroking the wounded warrior, ‘But he always wins.'

‘Didn't do so well this time,' Matthew's father said.

‘He's getting on, you know,' Matthew said defensively. ‘Not as quick as he was, perhaps. But there's not a cat to touch him.' Matthew felt almost personally insulted by this supposition
that Montezuma might have lost a fight.

‘Past his prime,' said his father. ‘He'll not come through many more like that.'

‘Maybe the other one's worse off,' said Matthew. ‘We don't know, do we?'

‘Well he couldn't be very much worse off than Monty is now, could he?' Matthew's father had to have the last word and it seemed to be fair comment. Montezuma lay there in his basket by the stove scarred and panting; but as they all watched him, the panting turned to the deep roaring self-satisfied purr they all knew.

‘What's he purring for?' said Matthew's mother. ‘He's no right to purr, he's practically dead.'

‘I bet the other cat isn't purring,' said Matthew.

MONTEZUMA'S BOUNDARIES EXTENDED AS the years passed. He was satisfied as a young cat to roam close to home, returning regularly to the farmhouse for his meal. His favourite hunting grounds lay in the hedges, barns and fields around the farm. Here hunting was a science, and with his knowledge of the ground and his wide experience he could be assured of at least some kind of kill. Beyond, out in the wilderness, hunting was a more chancy affair, and though often more exciting was invariably less successful.