Thursday! 2-48: This Week, It Is Storytime (And There's A Cat)
V2, I48
I had a different plan for this week’s issue of Thursday! but…you know how sometimes you know just want you want to do and then, when you sit down to do it, you find out you really don’t want to do it at all, not even a little bit? I’m not talking about laziness here but the feeling that the idea you had wasn’t quite as good or as ready for public consumption as you thought. That’s what happened yesterday morning. I had a plan for today and then I didn’t. I continued to not have a plan through the day and into the early evening. I tried, for an hour or two, filling the empty space with panic and perhaps a touch of despair1, which filled the time but didn’t actually put words on the screen.
Then, I had a thought. Turns out I’m a writer2. Turns out even more that I can write things that aren’t essays. I can write poetry. I can write a story. I can even write a humorous few paragraphs about how I’m not perhaps the best newsletter writer on the planet3. So I sat myself down and concocted a new plan.
Last year, I wrote a shorty-short story that introduced an old monster hunter named Red Deadnettle4 and his companion in the hunt, a black cat named Hosanna. It wasn’t a deep story — more of an introduction to them than anything else, but I rather liked them. I had planned back then to write more stories about Red and Hosanna and their brave adventures against the dark and evil things that hide in the corners of the world but, for various reasons5, I never did.
In just a moment, I’m going to share that story with you, revised and slightly expanded. It is my hope you will enjoy it. It is also my hope that giving it to you will rekindle the desire I had to write those stories. You can help me, of course, in a couple different ways. First, if you like the story and want more, just tell me. Reply to this newsletter or drop a note in the comment section. I’ll see either one! Second, you can jump into my Patreon and become one of my cherished patrons.
[You may choose one of three tiers: $2, $5, or $20 a month. It takes barely any time at all!]
Either one works for me! Now…let’s get to the story.
The Dance of Hosanna
"Hey, Red. Is that your cat on the fencepost?" Royce stood at the sink and looked out the window, a glass of Red's best whiskey half-raised to his lips.
"I expect so" came the answer in a low, distracted tone. Red sat at his kitchen table, a relic from the late 50s that he predated by an easy decade. Gun parts lay in front of him in neat order across the green formica surface. The kitchen smelt of gun oil, solvent, and the steaks he and Royce had eaten for dinner. He bent low over the parts, peering through his dollar store glasses, and spoke again without looking up.
"You never seen a cat on a fencepost before?"
Royce raised the glass the rest of the way and took a long sip. In the back yard, a hundred feet or so away, a black cat stood on its hind legs on a fence post. The bright full moon sat low on the horizon behind it and obscured most details. All Royce could see was its lean and furry silhouette, up on its hind legs, and a glint of silver at its neck. That, alone, would have been odd enough for anyone, but it was not the most odd thing.
The most odd thing was that the cat appeared to be dancing. It spun gracefully on his hind legs and brought one forepaw out its side. The other forepaw it lifted above its head. Then, it lifted one hind leg and balanced on one paw and spun slowly to face the small house. Royce saw its eyes were closed and the look on its face was almost beatific.
"Hmmm," Royce mused as he drained the glass and sat it on the counter. "As it happens, I have seen a cat on a fencepost a time or ten. What I haven't seen is a cat dancing on a fencepost, which is what your cat appears to be doing right now."
Red fixed the slide on the frame of the pistol and made sure it moved smoothly before he finally looked up. Outside, the cat leaped into the air and kicked its hind legs forward savagely, and landed on all fours, low and eager. Its tail swished back and forth slowly, low and relaxed. He shook his head slightly and said, "I don't reckon she's dancing. I reckon she's doing Tai Chi.
Royce was momentarily dumbfounded. "Wh...Hosanna knows Tai Chi?"
"Of course not, Royce you clod, since she's a cat and all. You can't just walk into a dojo and sign up a cat, not even in a big city dojo and not even a cat as special as Hosanna. But she knows what she knows pretty well, too. Got herself a fancy collar that's about as good as a black belt. Ain't you ever noticed?"
Royce leafed through his memories. "As it happens, I did notice! I even asked you about it, on account of how fancy it is. I don't recall as you ever answered me."
"I didn't, because you didn't need to know. Still don't, really, but...Hosanna special. Very special. Maybe there's only three or four like her in the whole world. She's born and bred for the hunt, but not just any hunt. She hunts evil things, things like what killed Clem Fassman last week and what's been stalking the Old Meadow since then."
Royce listened and watched the cat against the rising moon. Hosanna’s forepaws moved in a flurry of claws that sliced like the scythe of Death itself. He swallowed heavily at the thought of being in front of her at that moment. Still...
"Red, you know that's pretty crazy, don't you?"
Red finished assembling the gun and shrugged again. "Believe it or don't, you old coot. But you saw that Slash Dog enough to take a shot at it. You saw what it did to Clem. You believed enough to pray yourself up and come here tonight, dincha?”
Royce nodded. “I believe in evil, Red. I might even believe in God and angels, but…”
Red shook his head and picked up the clean and shiny pistol from the kitchen table. “Ain’t no ‘but’ to it, Royce Gillespie. Not tonight. I’m telling you true, as true as I know. Hosanna came right from a holy place. I can't tell you where, but you'd know it if you heard. She's been blessed and sanctified. Hunting the dark and evil is her calling. Like it's mine. Like, tonight, it's yours. Don't think about it hard. Just be glad she's here. I am." He finished, looking out the window as Hosanna stretched and cleaned a paw daintily. The sight made him smile, just for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and turned back into the room. "Grab that alley cannon and let’s get going. You do like I asked?"
Royce shrugged and picked up the shotgun. The silver inlaid cross on the stock gleamed under the incandescent light of Red's kitchen. "I got prayed up at First Baptist. Pastor Randy looked at me weird when I asked him to bless that jerry can full of spring water but I said it was for you and he blessed it pretty good.”
"Good. It’ll do us just fine," Red opened the screen door, stepped out, and chambered a round in the pistol. The sharp racking sound echoed across the yard and Hosanna's head turned quickly toward the two men, her ears perked high. She gave what Royce would have sworn was an eager smile, leaped down from the fencepost, and loped toward his battered blue pickup truck.
Okay, a little bit more than a touch.
Who knew?
YSWIDT?
Thank you, Cedar Sanderson!
Not great reasons, mind you. Fear and laziness, mostly.