Carnivorous Nights_ On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger - Margaret Mittelbach [88]
Knowing all this, we drew some satisfaction from the fact that both Ken and John were wearing Akubras—made from pure rabbit felt. The superabundance of rabbits was not lost on early Australian milliners, and rabbits are turned into one of the most iconic of all Australian clothing items.
We were scanning the ground beneath a line of wattle trees when we heard John yell from above. “Moggie!”
Ken stopped the pickup, and we felt a crackle of excitement. John was shining the spotlight into a tip, a pit filled with rubbish and farm debris, surrounded by brush. A Cyclopean figure glared back at us, its one eye glowing like a white-hot coal.
We weren't sure what a Moggie was, but it sounded sinister, and we were on the verge of asking just what we were facing when we recognized the animal pinned in John's spotlight. It was a small, striped quadruped: an orange tabby cat. It looked like it had just walked out of a pet shop.
“Moggie?”
Ken opened his door, picked up the rifle, and flipped down the stand onto the hood of the pickup. Then he leaned down and looked through the sight, his finger on the trigger.
“It's a nickname for a cat,” he said.
Ken, we knew, had shot foxes from 1,200 feet in Victoria. We were scarcely one hundred feet from the tabby. Moggie, we figured, didn't have much of a chance. Alexis began to look a little pale, and we felt a sudden chill.
We had known cats were on the menu for the evening. But when confronted with this imminent feline assassination, a new idea struggled to the surface of our consciousness: Were we crazy? What were we doing out hunting a kitty-cat?
We knew ridding the world of this fluffy beast was for the greater good … and yet, when it came down to it … shouldn't someone call the fire department and help Moggie get home? We had been culturally programmed to serve and protect Felis catus.
A debate began raging in our minds: It was being held on the stage of the Kaufman Theater at the American Museum of Natural History. Speaking against the cats was Mangy. He'd cleaned himself up and was dressed in a suit. A plastic name tag pinned to his jacket read “Director, Vroom Museum.” He was standing before a blackboard, using his tail as a pointer and going over the following list. “Repeat after me,” he lectured.
Cats are spree killers.
They kill for sport.
They shit on dead wallabies.
They make mincemeat out of cute little macropods.
On the opposite side of the stage was Beatrice. She was narrating a PowerPoint presentation. It was a personal appeal.
Since the time of the ancient Egyptians, cats have been partnered with the human race … An audience of house cats—Manx, Siamese, Persian, and Rex—murmured and nodded their heads in approval.
We braced for the blast. But Ken never got a chance to squeeze the trigger. Moggie darted off into a tangle of brush.
The rifle's stainless steel barrel glinted mutely in the moonlight. “He didn't go far,” Ken predicted. The spotlight darted through the dark-ness—as if it were chasing an escaped felon through a prison yard.
“So,” we asked nervously, “have you killed a lot of cats?”
“Yeah,” he said. “They're not very elusive.” He saw us eyeing the gun. “Have a look,” he offered.
We took turns peering through the rifle's telescopic sight. Moggie's lair leapt into the foreground. It seemed as if we could see a single blade of grass glowing in the spotlight from fifty feet away.
Ken continued. “What's happening down here is that we're getting sightings of things that