THE CAT - A Night in the Tropics

Everyone wanted to go into town that night. I didn't. So, the teacher driving let me out of the van at the fork. Like me: always the one to walk a different path. Although this night, I strode along a dirt, two-lane road back to my cabana. The crescent moon, close enough to catch but not bright enough to light my way, and a narrow-beamed flashlight didn't provide much assurance. Still I persevered, though that familiar tingling sensation--as a character in a horror film feels when she or he knows danger lurks but pushes on, danced on the nape of my neck. Soft beads trickled underneath my ponytail. The tropical heat hadn't abated at nighttime. Dampness filled the air so much that when I thrust my arms forward I felt I was pushing through a moistened sheet. I ignored the stickiness. Bits of dirt sprayed my legs. Yet, I continued. My heartbeat raced faster than my stride. For I knew on my left among the tall grasses abutting the jungle could be: THE CAT.

I've always revered, admired and studied the jaguar. Somehow, with all the large cats around the world, the muscular feline is my favorite. Yes, I also love the class car of the same name with its hood ornament now sadly extinct, and I have a preference for forest green chassis with tan interior. Which came first? I don't recall. As I walked along this simple, singular road between Placencia, the town (farther down the peninsula of the same name) and our accommodations, I reminded myself I'd always loved that cat and the eponymous car.

The green grass, jungle forest, beige dirt road all mixed to inspire the car, in my mind at least; anything to maintain courage. For having read about the jaguar, I knew it wouldn't hesitate to leap on me, take me down by the neck, strangling, cutting my aorta with its powerful teeth and then. . .No! You won't hurt me. My spirit is strong! Okay, that didn't work very well. Until, I recalled the one attribute about the beautiful cat with its pronounced head, proportionate to that long body, and muscled-tail: the jaguar is elusive. It avoids people, not because we aren't delectable prey, but it has a natural distrust. An instinct that has spared the jaguar from complete eradication, though not from being endangered, for the cat is an opportunist.

When it sees cattle, like many fellow human carnivores, the jaguar knows dinner awaits. Rangers, on the other hand, will shoot a jaguar without hesitation, as they would any predator trying to get their fill. Fortunately, there are animal activists, including an American businessman turned cowboy who bought a ranch in South America, who are providing alternatives to killing the magnificent feline.

That information I learned much later. However, if I'd known the above fourteen years ago, as I moved closer, walked faster toward my destination, knowing the jaguar had its human enemies wouldn't have helped. As much as I rationalized the cat's existence, the thought that the natural predator might be out there lying low in that familiar posture entered my mind more often than not. And of course a fellow teacher telling me the manager of our cabanas had heard a jaguar had been spotted in the area awakened my overactive imagination.

I could feel myself breathing harder, not because of the walk, no more than a mile, but the trees had begun to rustle. I was down wind. Then, I saw the lights of a restaurant on the roadside, connected to another resort only an eighth of a mile from our hotel. At least if I were attacked, someone would hear my screams. You're being irrational, Wendy. Maybe that last reassurance kicked out any more thoughts of danger from my mind, for the rest of the way I walked purposefully. I'd made it. No worries and what had I'd been thinking? Silly me.

When I arrived at our temporary dwelling, to call the place where we stayed a "hotel," or a "resort," would be to lessen the beauty, simplicity of the place, I sighed: happy and relieved.

I slept soundly that night. I'd overcome fear and outsmarted that marauder.
Until. . .

KNOCK! KNOCK! "Ms. Shreve, there's a scorpion in our room." I reasoned the boys, all seniors, had the physical strength and smarts to kill the bug (and I wasn't an official chaperone), but I threw on a robe, opened the door, and suggested they get the manager.

KNOCK! KNOCK! "Ms. Shreve, he won't do anything." "I have faith you'll take care of it," I hollered through the closed door.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! "Ms. Shreve, we killed it." "Great! Go back to sleep!" This time I yelled from my bed to the once again, closed door. I laughed with relief. I was and still am terrified of scorpions. I couldn't sleep the rest of the night worried that the creepy crawlies would scamper across my chest.

Copyright 2014 Wendy Shreve

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