by Lea Tassie
***
We'd had plenty of rain in late summer but in early September the weather turned hot and dry and the garter snakes seemed to multiply overnight. One day I caught a glimpse of George on the driveway, carrying one toward the house. I raced around closing all the doors and windows, including his cat door, so he couldn't bring it inside, then went to the laundry room window to watch his progress, which was much slower than usual.
George gripped the middle of the snake's body in his mouth so that the head and tail both dragged on the ground. At almost every step, he stumbled over one or the other, which jerked his head down so that he nearly lost his grip. The snake reacted by waving its head and tail back and forth and George would manage another couple of steps unimpeded.
By the time he disappeared around the side of the house I was laughing so hard I could barely find breath to ask Ben to separate George from his latest prey.
"I wish you were less squeamish," the Houseboy said. "He's made it quite clear that he's your cat, so you should have the honor of releasing his trophies."
"All right, but I'll have to go to Mora Bay and buy gardening gloves. I couldn't touch a live snake with my bare hands. Or a dead one, either."
Ben muttered a profanity and went off to deal with the snake.
I went off to the veranda to dispose of the cherry tomato plants. The pitiful harvest had proved to Ben once and for all that I had black thumbs. For an investment of twenty dollars and hours of my labor, Ben had collected ten tiny tomatoes. Even the jade plant Sue had given me was slowly withering. I seemed to have a black thumb when it came to writing, too. The last story had been rejected as quickly as the first. I had no intention of giving up, though; in my current story I'd killed off my lawyer ex-boss, a most satisfactory revenge for all the trouble he'd caused me.
Much of Ben's two acres of garden had been mauled by the deer and we still had to chase them out almost every day. When I went after them, they'd jump smartly over to the next row and keep on eating. Nicky, still a roly-poly baby, barked bravely at them from behind me, but they merely lowered their heads and snorted at him. I'd grown hoarse from shouting and frustrated to the point where I wanted to buy a gun so we could have a freezer full of deer meat.
The tins of urine placed around the perimeter and tufts of hair tied to barbed wire, as suggested by Cal, hadn't done a darn thing. Except embarrass Ben when he showed off what was left of his neat rows of vegetables to giggling guests.
When Ben returned from depositing the wriggling snake into the neighbor's field, I said, "I think you'll have to give in and build a higher fence around the garden."
"Nicky will take care of the deer once he's a little bigger."
"Uh huh. That dog is a wimp."
Ben picked up the puppy and cuddled him. "Don't bad-mouth my guard dog. He'll be fine once I've trained him."
The training thus far had consisted of Ben saying firmly to the dog, "Heel!" and Nicky wagging his tail and bouncing around Ben's feet. Then Ben would say in a conciliatory tone, "Heel, Nicky, okay?"
George was doing a much better job than Ben. In the evenings we restricted Nicky to the kitchen and laundry room by blocking the cat door and the other two doors with sheets of plywood. Ben put newspaper on the floor to take care of his still frequent 'accidents' while assuring me that as soon as the pup was older, he'd learn to tell us when he wanted to go out. George didn't mind this arrangement; he could easily get to his litter box in the laundry room by leaping over the plywood.
One night we'd been watching a thriller on television when we heard Nicky yelping in the pen. We dashed down the hall and peered in. George was herding the pup toward the litter box with well-aimed smacks on the bum. As soon as the pup was in the litter box, George sat by while Nicky obediently pooped in the sand. Then the pup watched with great interest while George covered it up. This had happened several times since.
I threw the dead tomato plant skeletons in the compost box and said to Ben, "You and George are doing such a good job of training Nicky that I'll leave you to it. And now there's less to do around here I've got time to try my hand at something else artistic. A night class on drawing starts in Mora Bay at the end of this month."
Ben said, "I hope you draw better than you raise tomatoes."
