The Slice: Wild kingdom minus the enforcer

When my neighbor’s cat was in her prime, we had law and order in my backyard.

Or perhaps a better way to describe it would be to call it frontier justice.

In any event, I don’t remember squirrels and robins openly mocking me. They were too busy looking over their shoulders, in case a gray blur named Chloe had them in her sights.

OK, I am well acquainted with the statistics about the devastating impact house cats have on wildlife populations. That is no joke. And it would be fine with me if all cats spent much more time indoors.

But the other night this squirrel was eating a little green apple on our garage roof. It was making a heck of a mess.

That rodent fixed its gaze on me and seemed to say, “What? I’m eatin’ here.”

Big as you please.

The thought occurred to me that things sure are different since Chloe is gone.

In the classic Western, “Shane,” there’s a reference to this one hired gun employed by anti-farmer ranching interests and how he “put the run on some sodbusters.”

I’d sometimes think of that when I saw Chloe chase a squirrel, another cat or whatever. I would then go in the house and report that she had just put the run on some sodbuster.

Now don’t get me wrong. I do not believe the appropriate penalty for leaving apple crumbs on the garage roof is death.

I’m just saying I didn’t mind when the old sheriff was still on duty and critters visiting the yard, well, stepped lightly.

The other day, a robin poking around for worms shot me a glance that seemed to say, “What are you lookin’ at, chief?”

In the old days, I might have silently answered, “I’m looking at a robin a few seconds from an unscheduled flight to bird heaven.”

(The truth is I don’t think my neighbor’s cat really amassed much of a body count. Maybe one bird in almost 20 years. Still, the critters didn’t know that.)

But now Chloe is gone and the remaining animals feel like they can diss me whenever they feel like it.

Oh, well. It’s no big deal. They are welcome to spend all the time they want at our place. I’m always glad to see them.

But I sure do miss that cat.

Today’s Slice question: Aren’t you proud to live in a part of the country settled by people who all more or less decided that wherever they were before wasn’t good enough for one reason or another?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. If you had a dollar for every time you cut yourself shaving …