Creatures of the Kingdom: Stories of Animals and Nature

by James A. Michener

  It was midafternoon when we finished installing this fiendishly clever device and turned on the electricity. Each segment of the invention worked, and when I placed my finger on either side of the electrified areas, I received more shock than I expected. ‘It’s going to be difficult for him to defeat this one,’ I said approvingly, and Cobb snorted: ‘Impossible.’

  As the three of us gathered before the picture window for drinks deftly served by the colonel, he said: ‘I expect no wife to serve me except when she’s cooked the dinner,’ and we had a moment of sheer delight when birds of four different species came to the feeder, including the rare and beautiful evening grosbeak, who, the Cobbs explained, had previously been scared away by the squirrel. Then, as we were congratulating ourselves, through the high branches of one of the trees came Genghis Khan, stopping now and then like an experienced burglar casing the joint. He spotted the new device and must have understood at once that it was intended for him, because he ran swiftly through the branches to reach a spot from which he could study the pole.

  From that position he drafted his plan of battle, and he was a wily fellow, for he advanced cautiously to the point at which he usually made his leap into the upper part of the pole, a feat he accomplished easily. ‘So far so good, Brother Rat,’ Cobb said venomously. ‘But now, watch!’

  As he made his way down the pole he came upon the eighteen inches of highly polished steel, and before he could catch himself his feet slipped and he tumbled all the way to the ground. ‘Aha!’ Cobb cried. ‘Gotcha!’

  The squirrel was shaken but not abashed, for within minutes he was back at the leaping spot, onto the pole, and down to the steel-protected area. Again he fell to the ground, and again Cobb chortled.

  Three more times Genghis Khan took that plunge, and I was satisfied that the Cobbs had at last defeated their enemy, but suddenly, as we were enjoying our drinks, Julia uttered another of her patented screams: ‘Look at that!’ and I turned in time to see the squirrel solve the first of his problems. Coming down the pole cautiously, he reached the slippery steel and instead of trying to negotiate it with his feet, he flattened himself, kept his tail far back as a kind of brake, and slid down, head first, keeping himself against the polished steel and at the last moment digging in his front claws to get a hold on the wooden portion of the pole.

  ‘Damn him!’ Julia cried. ‘He must have radar.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ her husband gloated. ‘Watch what hits him now!’ and as we studied the squirrel’s triumphant descent his forefeet touched the electrified plate and with a screech he found himself flung clear of the pole and on another plunge to the ground.

  This was a new sensation for him, and he wandered in a daze to a nearby tree, from where he reconnoitered. Apparently the electricity had shocked him both physically and mentally, for it constituted a new adversary of serious dimensions. But if he was bewildered he was not defeated, for after a longer pause than before, he was once more high in the trees and descending to his jump-off for the pole. I was impressed by how easily he now traversed the polished steel and how gingerly he approached the electrified plate. Prudently he paused for several minutes, trying to fathom the secret of this obstacle, and apparently something that he saw satisfied him, for very slowly he ventured onto the plate, uttered his screech and fell to the ground. Twice more he made the attempt, twice more he screeched, and our party went to bed that night satisfied that as long as we had electricity we had beaten Genghis.

  On the next day, a choice Texas morning, we received two reassuring signals. A flock of birds, aware that they could now eat sunflower seeds rather than watch Genghis do so returned to the feeder and chirped merrily as they feasted, and several times during the afternoon we heard Genghis screeching as he hit the electricity. The expensive machine from New Hampshire was doing its work. Indeed, throughout that whole day the squirrel never once got near the feeder, and that night as we dined at the nearby golf club, Cobb was bold enough to inform two couples who had joined us at our table: ‘You may not believe it, but at last I’ve conquered those damned squirrels,’ and Julia said: ‘Especially that vicious little swine we call Genghis Khan.’

  At this a Dallas banker named Gregory who had a country place near Jefferson, burst into laughter: ‘Julia, never say you’ve outtricked a Texas squirrel, especially a gray one. I could tell you a hundred stories about my bird-loving friends who’ve tried to keep squirrels out of their feeders. Cannot be done.’ And another man, an engineer with Texas Instruments, contributed stories of having wrestled with the squirrels at his place: ‘I wonder that there’s any bird in Texas, the brazen way squirrels eat their food.’

  The banker said: ‘I’m told there’s a man at L. L. Bean’s up in Maine who’s perfected a gizmo that positively keeps squirrels out of feeders. Man who told me said it wasn’t cheap, something like seventy dollars, but he said it does work.’

  ‘Did he install one at his place?’ the engineer asked, and the banker said: ‘No, but the man at Bean’s assured him that it was foolproof,’ and the engineer said: ‘Maybe with Maine squirrels, but down here the damned things get advanced degrees at Squirrel University, a branch of S.M.U.’

  During the next two days I concluded that Cobb would not have to patronize L. L. Bean’s because Genghis Khan had figured out no way to circumvent that electric barrier. But as we breakfasted next morning I heard our Cassandra scream her communiqué in the great squirrel war: ‘My God! Look at that!’ and as Cobb and I stared in disbelief we saw that Genghis, as a result of much trial and error, had learned that if he allowed no part of his body to touch the plate except the nails on his four feet he could sort of ski to safety, throwing sparks but not harming himself. As I watched him doing it several times I got the feeling that he enjoyed it, like riding a sled down a steep, icy hill. I say I watched him several times because after he transited the electric plate he came upon the first metal cone, and then the inverted one, which repelled him, and he had to try again. I felt sure that given enough time he would solve that riddle, but I had the good sense not to predict that to the Cobbs. Let them dream, I told myself. My money’s on Genghis.

  That night as we dined we forgot the squirrel, for he had accomplished nothing of note in getting closer to the bird feeder, but as we talked he did enter the conversation because I started by saying: ‘Julia, I’ve regretted a hundred times having spread that story about the colonel’s battle patch in Korea, FOR GOD AND SANTA BARBARA. It did me no good and him a lot of harm.’

  She said: ‘For me it was disgusting. People stopping me on the street and either asking why my husband had been sent home in disgrace or assuring me that they too believed in God and that the only people persecuting him were Communists and atheists.’

  ‘But later we laughed,’ Cobb said. Then, as darkness fell and both the songbirds and the frustrated squirrel left the feeder, the colonel said: ‘I did what I thought was necessary to instill some character in the sorry lot I’d inherited. Gave them self-respect, self-confidence. And it worked.’

  Turning to his wife, he explained: ‘Shenstone didn’t write his story about the patch. He wrote it about the miracle of transformation I’d achieved. It was the Stateside papers that called for a photograph of the patch. Shenstone didn’t give it to them.’

  I nodded, for that was true. ‘However,’ I confessed, ‘when they radioed for more pictures, I sent them. Never occurred to me that I was putting your neck on the line.’

  ‘Did you ever write a follow-up?’ Julia asked. ‘Telling the world how Bedford’s unit fell apart when the new man took over and outlawed the patch?’

  ‘No. When a sensation dies, the public loses interest.’

  We contemplated this for some minutes and then Cobb said quietly but with the force of character and will he had shown in battle: ‘I’m a lot like Genghis. I see a job to be done. I barrel ahead, all guns blazing, and I don’t really give a hoot or a holler what happens.’ He hesitated: ‘What I mean is, I don’t care what h
appens to me.’ He paused again: ‘I’ve had the curious feeling, all through dinner, that Genghis is out there somewhere regrouping, trying to figure out what’s happened and how to overcome it.’

  Because we had eased into serious conversation, Julia was encouraged to reveal something she might not normally have liked to discuss: ‘I don’t think you men appreciate how hard a wife works to achieve a beautiful garden. I slaved to attract birds to our place—planted those shrubs that produce seeds, placed the new trees so that the birds would have a refuge when cats came prowling, and planted that telephone pole—or supervised the men who did plant it so that I could install the bird feeder, right by this window where the birds could entertain us as we dined. And what happens? All my handiwork shot to hell because of that damned squirrel.’ His wife’s strong language made Cobb wince, but it was nothing compared with his reaction to what she said next: ‘I’ve been so frustrated by that miserable creature that last week I drove down to Marshall and bought myself some of that new poison for vermin—that’s what squirrels are.’

  Cobb gasped: ‘Julia! You can’t do that to an animal. Besides, I believe poison has been outlawed in Texas.’

  ‘Not in my garden,’ she said, and the force of her antipathy to Genghis echoed in the room. She was not opposed to him merely because he had disrupted her garden and driven away her birds; she hated him for himself. I could see that his mere existence was an affront, and I also saw that her husband did not appreciate the depth of her antagonism.

  ‘To poison an animal in the wild!’

  ‘Don’t you want to get rid of the little tormentor?’ she asked, and he said: ‘I’d like to drive him off our feeder—out of your garden. But kill him? No, that wouldn’t be manly.’

  ‘Do you ever consider what might be womanly? She wants a lovely garden and birds and flowers?’ I’m not sure that either Cobb or I understood the passion that could motivate such desires.

  I shall never forget breakfast the next morning; the three of us were having toast and eggs by the big window. Cobb and I were in chairs right by the window, our faces close to the glass, while Julia sat between us so that she could see what was happening on the telephone pole while Cobb and I could see only a portion. Suddenly she gave an awed shout: ‘Watch out. Bedford, here he comes!’ and Cobb looked up just in time to see Genghis Khan flying through the air, aimed directly at his face. When the squirrel hit the glass with terrific force, considering his limited weight, he used all four feet to ricochet off, giving him a flight path that landed him right on the feeding platform. In a feat of extraordinary intelligence he had simply bypassed the impediments the New Hampshire genius had placed in his path.

  But although he had found a way to land on the feeder he did not on this first flight manage to remain there. Losing his footing, he plunged to the ground, but within minutes he was back up in the trees, on the pole and once more smack in Colonel Cobb’s face. Again he landed on the feeder, scattering seeds as he did, and again he fell to the ground. Twice more he smashed into Cobb’s face unsuccessfully, but the colonel had been studying the maneuver and had watched Genghis improve his position with each jump.

  ‘This time,’ he said with a mixture of admiration and resignation, ‘he’ll make it,’ and I found myself cheering for the squirrel. ‘Fifth time lucky,’ I said, a statement that irritated Julia, for she said bitterly: ‘That damned squirrel runs this place. He kills my black squirrels. He alienates my birds. I hope he breaks his neck.’

  He did not. With a mastery of engineering, flight and braking, the determined squirrel solved all his equations. He left the tree with maximum speed, bounded off the pole, ricocheted into Cobb’s face, and landed on the feeder with a speed precisely calculated to allow him to hold fast and resume his feast on sunflower seeds, whose husks he contemptuously spat on the ground below, the very ground onto which he had tumbled so many times.

  ‘Bravo!’ Cobb said. ‘The little bugger did it!’

  His wife’s response was quite the opposite, for as she watched the invader gorging on the seeds for which she had paid a fair amount of her own money, she felt the most intense hatred for this enemy.

  When the colonel was called to the phone, she made her move. Going to the paneled case in which he kept his five guns, one of them captured from the Chinese Communists at Hungnam, she selected a shotgun, loaded it, stalked out into the garden and fired at the feeding station. Genghis heard the noise but could not have known how close to death he had been.

  I had followed her into the garden and had seen that her hands trembled so much that she had no chance of hitting any target. She must have known about her inability, for she tried to hand me the rifle. ‘Here, it’s loaded. Shoot the little bastard!’

  Forcing the rifle into my hands, she commanded me to take aim and kill her enemy, but as I tentatively prepared to do so, Colonel Cobb, alerted by the first shot, dashed up behind me and pushed away my left arm, which was holding the gun. ‘Good God, Shenstone! You’re not going to shoot the little bugger?’

  I was in a difficult position. Relations between the Cobbs regarding the squirrel were already strained, and an accusation from me that she had instigated the shooting might do irreparable harm. ‘Yes, I had a mind to. I can see he’s a permanent nuisance, and I thought I might aid Julia’s birds.’

  He drew back and stared at us. There in the morning sunlight, as Genghis remained at the feeder, Cobb said: ‘A gentleman never scorns his enemy. That squirrel’s conducted an honorable war with us. Protecting his homeland—his turf.’ Taking the gun from me, he broke it down, ejected the shells and said quietly as he took his wife by the hand: ‘I understand, dear. He is a marauder, and I, too, miss the birds—your birds.’ He kissed her, then said to no one in particular: ‘One must never denigrate an enemy who conducts his battle in the great tradition.’

  When we returned to the house I was aware that I was no longer needed or wanted there, and as I waited at the door to say good-bye to the colonel I heard him on the phone: ‘Gregory? Cobb here, Jefferson, Texas. What was the name of that fellow in Maine? L. L. Bean’s man, I think you said. The one who had that foolproof device for defeating squirrels?’

  This anthology is dedicated

  to Theresa Potter,

  my longtime secretary,

  who conceived the idea

  and made the selections

  BY JAMES A. MICHENER

  Tales of the South Pacific

  The Fires of Spring

  Return to Paradise

  The Voice of Asia

  The Bridges at Toko-Ri

  Sayonara

  The Floating World

  The Bridge at Andau

  Hawaii

  Report of the Country Chairman

  Caravans

  The Source

  Iberia

  Presidential Lottery

  The Quality of Life

  Kent State: What Happened and Why

  The Drifters

  A Michener Miscellany: 1950–1970

  Centennial

  Sports in America

  Chesapeake

  The Covenant

  Space

  Poland

  Texas

  Legacy

  Alaska

  Journey

  Caribbean

  The Eagle and the Raven

  Pilgrimage

  The Novel

  James A. Michener’s Writer’s Handbook

  Mexico

  Creatures of the Kingdom

  Recessional

  Miracle in Seville

  This Noble Land: My Vision for America

  The World Is My Home

  with A. Grove Day

  Rascals in Paradise

  with John Kings

  Six Days in Havana

  About the Author

  JAMES A. MICHENER, one of the world’s most popular writers, was the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Tales of the South Pacific, the best-selling novels Hawaii, Texas, Chesapeake, The
Covenant, and Alaska, and the memoir The World Is My Home. Michener served on the advisory council to NASA and the International Broadcast Board, which oversees the Voice of America. Among dozens of awards and honors, he received America’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1977, and an award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 1983 for his commitment to art in America. Michener died in 1997 at the age of ninety.

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Centennial

  A Novel

  by James A. Michener

  Available from Dial Press Trade Paperbacks

  ONLY ANOTHER WRITER, SOMEONE WHO had worked his heart out on a good book which sold three thousand copies, could appreciate the thrill that overcame me one April morning in 1973 when Dean Rivers of our small college in Georgia appeared at my classroom door.

  ‘New York’s trying to get you,’ he said with some excitement. ‘If I got the name right, it’s one of the editors of US.’

  ‘The magazine?’

  ‘I could be wrong. They’re holding in my office.’

  As we hurried along the corridor he said, with obvious good will, ‘This could prove quite rewarding, Lewis.’

  ‘More likely they want to verify some fact in American history.’

  ‘You mean, they’d telephone from New York?’

  ‘They pride themselves on being accurate.’ I took perverse pleasure in posing as one familiar with publishing. After all, the editors of Time had called me once. Checking on the early settlements in Virginia.

  Any sophistication I might have felt deserted me when I reached the telephone. Indeed, my hands were starting to sweat. The years had been long and fruitless, and a telephone call from editors in New York was agitating.

  ‘This Dr. Lewis Vernor?’ a no-nonsense voice asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Author of Virginia Genesis?’