Puss 'N Cahoots

paw.
    “Mine, mine, mine!”
the brown creature triumphed.
    Carlos, furious, ran under the beam. “Diablo!”
    “Ha, ha.”

    “I hate that disgusting thing.”
Pewter curled her lip.
“So dirty.”
    Spike, wasting no words, climbed up the stall post and hurried across the wide beam toward the monkey.
“You’re on my turf, bitch. Get the hell out of my barn.”
    Benny, walking by the barn, heard the monkey’s shrieks. He stuck his head in.
    “I’ll shoot her,” Carlos threatened.
    “Don’t do that, Carlos.” Benny smiled. “Booty will shoot you. If you turn your back on her, she’ll be disappointed and eventually drop your hat.”
    “No, I won’t. I’ll tear it to shreds,”
Miss Nasty boasted as she kept one jaundiced eye on a puffed-up, approaching Spike.
    “You’ll pee on it, Miss Nasty.”
Mrs. Murphy hoped to distract her so Spike could knock her hard.
“We know you pee on things.”
    “And you don’t?”
Miss Nasty twirled the cap in her paws, then put it on her head, but it slipped over her eyes. She quickly pulled it off, then waved it at Spike.
    Carlos walked with Benny to the end of the barn toward the parking lot. “Not working.”
    “Give it time.” Benny took off his green ball cap with the white logo. “Use mine. Hate to see your bald spot.”
    “I don’t have a bald spot.”
    “If you tear your hair out over that goddamned monkey you will.” Benny laughed and headed toward the van.
    The old van would grumble, belch, smoke, start, then cut off. He didn’t know if it was the starter or the battery, and he’d attend to it later, but he wanted to get the motor turned over and let it run for a few minutes before putting the horses on.
    As Carlos returned to his duties, Miss Nasty, having lost her human audience, waved the cap at Spike.
“Cats are stupid. Humans are descended from me. That’s why I’m smart.”
    “You have a lot to answer for,”
Mrs. Murphy sarcastically said as she, too, climbed up on the opposite stall so the monkey would be between herself and Spike.
    Seeing this, Spike advanced slowly.
“I’m descended from a saber-toothed tiger. You’re lunch.”
    “Don’t forget to take off her ridiculous dress first,”
Mrs. Murphy reminded Spike.
    Miss Nasty stood up as tall as she could on her hind legs.
“I look good in orange.”
    “Dream on.”
Pewter laughed from down below as Tucker sat right underneath the chattering monkey.
    “Yeah, you’d have to shop in plus size,”
Miss Nasty called down just as Spike leapt toward her.
    The monkey emitted a shriek, jumped over the ginger cat, dropping the hat in the process. She ran hellbent for leather toward the other end of the barn. Spike gave chase.
    Tucker picked up the ball cap and waited for Carlos to come out of the stall, which he did since the monkey created havoc.
    “She keeps getting away from Booty.”
Pewter stated the obvious.
“And she steals things. Charly cussed a blue streak yesterday because she got into his barn and ran off with the colored brow bands he uses on his bridles.”
    Mrs. Murphy, running on the opposite beam parallel with the monkey, yelled down,
“That’s it!”
    “What?”
Pewter asked as she tracked their progress from down below.
    “She stole Joan’s pin!”
Mrs. Murphy hollered.
    Tucker, silent because she had Carlos’s hat in her mouth, dropped it.
“Miss Nasty, where’s the pin?”
    “You’ll never know!”
The monkey slid down the end stall pole and, tail out, ran as fast as she could away from the barn.
    Spike shimmied down and chased her to the end of the practice arena, then turned back just as Benny walked into the barn. The old van rumbled, warming up in the lot. Benny picked up Carlos’s hat as the head groom stepped out of the stall, too slow to swat the monkey with a broom.
    As the two men swapped hats, Spike, puffed up like a conquering hero, walked back into the barn.
“Showed her.”
    “She admitted it! She has the pin.”
Mrs. Murphy was beside herself.
“We have to get it from her.”
    An enormous explosion shook the rafters of the barn. Dust rose up, then fell below.
    The animals flattened on their bellies. The horses whinnied, terrified. Carlos and Benny rocked sideways. They regained their equilibrium as the animals crept toward the parking-lot end of the barn.
    Ward’s green and white van, front torn off, engine parts scattered over the lot, burned, thick black clouds rising upward.
    “Oh, my God.” Benny put his right hand over