The Cat

Two days later, Jess was climbing the walls and Slim decided he was well enough to ride back home. There was still some snow on the ground in patches, but the drifts were in the shadows. The open trail would be clear enough.

That morning Slim had packed the horses and closed up the cabin for another year. It proved a challenge to get Jess up on a horse, but after a lot of bickering and cursing, they had done it. They wouldn�t stop until they got home.

Slim had already posted three of the signs he�d made around the area. He�d caught sight of the cat a couple of times, always watching from a perch high on the rocky cliffs. It was a magnificent creature and Slim felt an inexplicable kinship with it.

He had saved one sign to post as they left on the lower trail. It was the only real trail into the area, and a sign there would be seen by anyone trespassing from the lower plateau.

Jess rode ahead, his splinted leg hanging down away from the stirrup. Slim had put a couple of socks on his foot to keep it from freezing, but Jess wasn�t able to wear a boot.

About three miles out from the cabin, Slim stopped and swung down from his saddle. He took the hammer and some nails out from his saddlebag and pulled the wooden sign from under his bedroll. Jess pulled up and turned around to wait.

Slim took the sign over to a big cottonwood and drove two nails in, securing it to the old tree. He admired his handiwork and then returned to his horse and put away the hammer. He mounted, and he and Jess continued their slow journey home.

The cat had followed at a safe distance. Curiosity perhaps. Perhaps it was just instinctively pushing the intruders out of its territory. It padded up to the tree where the man had stopped. Content that the invaders were no longer a threat, the cat rubbed itself against the tree, marking it with its scent, and then regally returning to his sanctuary in the high country.

The sturdy little sign remained, to be chuckled over in years to come by all who passed on the trail.