The Big Cat Nap

one to fret over calories, Harry ate the mound of whipped cream before sipping through the straw.
    “At least the woman behind the counter didn’t call me ‘Sir,’ ” Harry mentioned.
    Susan laughed. “People don’t pay attention if you come in wearing overalls with mud on them, a baseball cap, no earrings, and a bandanna around your neck. They can’t imagine a woman farming, I guess.”
    “Remind me to wear my tiara next time I drive the tractor.” Harry took a long pull on the straw.
    “Great idea. You could make the cover of
The Progressive Farmer
.” Susan named a farm periodical they both read.
    “Better wear my evening gown, too.” Harry smiled, then leaned toward her friend. “It would be easy to ship drugs in the boxes of auto parts, the hoses, headlights. Easy.”
    “What?”
    “Drugs and porn are the two richest industries in the world. Betcha.”
    “I wouldn’t know.” Susan considered that information. “But I know you need to kill this obsession right now.”
    “Umm …”
    “Just forget it, Harry.”
    “Okay. Should we talk about boobs some more?”
    Susan put down her large cup and laughed until the tears filled her eyes. “Drugs and boobs. Has a ring to it? What’s in your Frappuccino?”
    Harry laughed, too. “Well, you don’t want to talk about the murder, so boobs. Okay, Susan, what do you think when you see a woman with a great set?”
    “Nothing. Why?”
    “Me, neither. So please explain to me why, if a woman is well built and reasonably attractive, men have to be put on a respirator.”
    “Does Fair?” Susan asked.
    “He forgets to breathe.”
    They got sillier and sillier.
    Finally able to control her giggling, Susan replied, “I don’t know about this boob stuff, but it never hurt us. Our parts are useful.”
    “I will never, ever figure out why men lose their reason over cleavage, but I will figure out the murder. It might take me a long time, but I can’t walk away from it.”
    “Girl, if you don’t walk away from it, you’ll wind up running away from it. Mark my words.”

M rs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker sprawled under the shade of the walnut tree in the backyard of the old white clapboard farmhouse. The front entrance, simple and gracious, was rarely used. Just about everyone came to the back door, including the dogs of friends.
    Asleep in the hayloft, Simon snored. Flatface, the great horned owl, also slept, in the cupola with vents. Matilda’s nest was in the hayloft, but she was anything but asleep. She was in the walnut tree and didn’t miss her loftmates for a minute.
    Like all animals, she kept a hunting radius and defended it. Any other blacksnake found herself at the end of a hiss and big fangs. Matilda did allow a male to visit during mating season, but her interest in the opposite sex faded rapidly soon after. Some years she laid eggs, others she did not. As for most females of any species, motherhood could pluck one’s last nerve. Then again, you had to love those little things as they wriggled around.
    Hanging from a branch in the walnut, Matilda focused intently on Pewter, who had been insulting her for years. All the large snake had to do was wait. Scaring the cat the other day made her very happy. Not that she’d bite Pewter. The fat gray cannonball deserved a big fright, not a fearsome bite.
    Matilda’s glittering eyes missed nothing, and her sense of smellwas far better than humans could imagine. As for flicking her forked tongue, she gathered information that way, but, again, humans didn’t get that, nor did Pewter, who complained that Matilda lacked respect because she’d stick out her tongue. Matilda could gauge temperature and the oncoming weather, and her taste buds worked just fine, too.
    She arced up halfway as Harry, who’d been on her eighty-horsepower John Deere, walked back to the barn. The attractive human wasn’t happy. Matilda observed it in her demeanor, but she could smell the frustration, too. Humans stank. Their unmistakable scent could be mollified by cleanliness and even perfume, which Matilda didn’t like much. But when a human was angry, frightened, or getting peevish, they stank. The funny thing was, they couldn’t smell it.
    Matilda watched as Harry, hands in pockets, stomped into the barn. The human had come home from her checkup in such a good mood. Obviously, it had evaporated. Then the snake, muscles so powerful, formed a big “U,” wrapped her upper body around the branch, dropped her