by Michael Sowders
Careywood, Idaho

I was foraging in the general store on my usual monthly run into town when a voice seemed to just barge into my thoughts: Michael, why don’t you pick up a few cans…just in case? I was standing in front of a shelf full of cat food. Just in case of what? I wondered. Just in case that darn stray cat came sniffing around my place again? If I was going to do anything with a can of cat food I would probably throw it at him. I’d moved way out here in the middle of nowhere—a 12-mile truck drive then six more miles via snowmobile from town—so no one would bother me.
    But the urge to buy cat food kept at me. Finally I picked up a few cans and shoved them in with the rest of my groceries. I headed for the register.
    I dreaded this part. I’d have to stand there while the girl rang me up. Sure, she was used to me, never asked questions. But it was uncomfortable standing there while she eyeballed each and every item, like I was being X-rayed or something. The cat food. That would get her attention.
    I stared at the wall above her head, down at the floor, at my hands.
    “You got a cat?” she asked, her eyebrows arched as she rang up the cans.
    “Nope,” I said. Her face red, she went back to bagging my things without saying another word. Probably thought I was trying to stretch my food dollar.
    I paid for my stuff, piled into my pickup and hit the long, snowy road home. Home was a cabin I’d built myself, from scratch, using money from a small inheritance and some of my savings. My nearest neighbor—a real nice lady named Ina Rae—was two miles away. Close enough.
    If I sound like a fellow who’d given up on life, well, that’s not quite true. I’d given up on people. I suppose it started when I was small. My parents were kind of rough on me. I’d hide out in my room and stay below the radar. If this was the way people who were supposed to love you treated you, then just imagine how the rest of the world must be, animals included. And God? Well, when you give up on people you kind of give up on him too. I guess.
    I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth. College? Yeah, right. I hit the road and didn’t look back. I hadn’t talked to my folks since. In fact, I didn’t even know where they lived anymore.
    I worked a whole bunch of jobs, eventually settling in as a janitor at a school. People left me alone unless something needed fixing. I made sure things stayed fixed. Sometimes I’d go down to the boiler room or into an empty classroom and read. One of my favorite books was Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau sought meaning by living alone in a cabin on a lake. That appealed to me. Self-discovery. No one to answer to. No one to talk to. Just me.
    I traveled. Alaska, British Columbia, the Yukon, all over the Northwest. Eventually I got to Sandpoint, in northern Idaho, and decided to stick around for a while. Found myself a nice spot of land and built my own Walden. There was something in the air here, just a nice feeling. Peaceful.
    There was nothing better than sitting out on the deck and kicking back. I’d look at the mountains, the clouds and the pine trees until my mind got quiet and all I could hear was the babbling creek. Times like that it was almost like I just dissolved into the air.
    One cold day when the air froze your breath as soon as you exhaled, something under the picnic table caught my eye. A splash of gray against the winter white. I stooped over for a better look. A cat. “Shoo!” I yelled. The critter looked up at me. I stamped my foot and yelled again. The cat shot off the deck and disappeared.
    How the heck did a little cat get out here in the middle of nowhere anyway? I wondered. Well, it wasn’t my problem, and I wasn’t taking in boarders.
    All right, then. So how come I’d just bought cat food? I couldn’t come up with an answer. I stopped the pickup and transferred everything to my snowmobile. Still had another six miles to go.
    Yep, I really was in the middle of nowhere. Once in a while I’d run into Ina Rae. She knew not to ask me too many questions. Maybe you could get her to come take the cat, I thought.
    The snowmobile bounced along, jarring me back to my senses. Get Ina Rae to take the cat? And then be caught up with her always telling you about how it’s doing, asking if you want to visit? No way. It was bad enough I had to deal with people in town once a month.
    I finally reached my cabin. No sign of the cat. I put away my provisions, shaking my head at myself for wasting good money on cat food.
    Next morning, there he was, out on the deck. Just a ball of gray fur. He wasn’t moving. I walked over. Was he dead? No. Still breathing. I couldn’t just leave him out there. I cradled him close to my chest, carried him inside and sat down next to the stove. His fur was covered with ice. After a while he opened his eyes and stretched a bit. Then he reached a paw out toward me.
    “Hey,” I said, shaking it.
    I set out the cat food in a bowl next to some water. He was wary at first, but when he finally dug in he practically licked the dish clean. I let him be while I did some chores. Frankly, I wondered how I’d ever get rid of him now. Then, just like that, he was gone. I felt panicky. “Here, cat!” I called from the deck. I went back in and searched all over. No cat.
    Fine, I told myself. Better that he doesn’t start depending on you anyway.
    He came back, though, scratching at the door. That night he jumped up onto the bed and settled down on my pillow. “Get out of here! It’s bad enough I took you in. You are not sleeping with me!” I nudged the cat off the bed. He jumped right back on. The only way I got any sleep was to give in and let him stay.
    The next morning I decided that maybe Ina Rae could give me some advice.
    “Michael, what a surprise!” she said when I showed up at her door.
    “I found this cat,” I told her, “and he’s driving me nuts.”
    “Cats are all different,” she told me. “But don’t worry; he’ll let you know what he needs. And he’ll settle in eventually.”
    “He’d better not,” I said. “Come spring, he’s gone.”
    One morning I awoke to a quiet rumbling, like an outboard motor way off in the distance, as peaceful a sound as I’d ever heard. I lay back and just let it kind of vibrate through me, and for the first time in years I found myself thinking of my parents. Finally I turned my head. The cat was curled in a ball, eyes closed, purring contentedly.
    “What am I gonna call you?” I asked him. “Can’t keep saying ‘cat all the time.” I went through a bunch of possibilities, finally settling on Jake.
    Jake slept next to my head every night. He followed me on walks in the woods and nestled in my lap while I sat out on the deck. Ina Rae told me how happy I looked. Once she wouldn’t have dreamed of saying such a thing.
    Time for my monthly supply run came. I loaded up on cat food. The poor checkout girl probably thought I’d developed a taste for it. Taking a big breath, I gave her the news. “I got a cat. His name’s Jake.” It was the first time in a long time I’d told anyone a thing about myself.… Just a simple, insignificant fact, but for me it was a momentous occasion.
    You know something? It felt good. It felt like I’d opened a window and let some fresh air in. And I found myself saying a little prayer. Thanks, God, for sending me that little cat. You knew I needed someone like Jake. You knew it all along, I bet. Now I was anxious to get home to my cat.
    Plowing through the backwoods of Idaho on my snowmobile, I couldn’t help but think of how beautiful everything looked, almost as if I hadn’t noticed it before. I really did live an isolated existence. Even Thoreau eventually rejoined society. Maybe other people weren’t so bad after all, at least in small doses. I mean, look how wrong I’d been about cats.
    And while I was at it, maybe I could track down my folks and give them a ring.

The above article originally appeared in the May 2005 issue of Guideposts. To subscribe to Guideposts click here.

To read the next article featured in the DailyGuideposts.com 2006 Animals Newsletter, A DOG NAMED BEAR, click here.

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