Cooky McClung

Farley was strictly a horse cat. As working felines go, he was no great shakes in the barn. He loved being there, but wasn't any too keen on joining in with the chores. Obviously, Farley's job description didn't include nabbing mice before they invaded the feed room or chewed on tack. It didn't cover chasing vermin out of the hayloft or preventing them from sneaking about the feed tubs to clean up leftovers.

Unlike his four aloof cohorts, this cat had formed an immediate and intense attachment to my bay hunting mare, MoAlla. She was an unlikely candidate for affection, a horse with a penchant for making terrifying faces at all creatures great and small who invaded her space uninvited, particularly at feeding time.

I'd never owned cats before I acquired a farm. Long-term country dwellers insisted if I was going to keep my very own horses in my very own barn, I'd need my very own cat. Cats, in fact, as one cat would be lonesome and need back-up for mouse invasions.

Obediently, I acquired a pair of kittens from the local animal shelter. They were tiny, fluffy and entirely too young and too cute to be thrust into a working barn. Thus they lived in the house, for a (very) long time. When given the choice, they'd made it crystal clear they preferred the comforts of a couch to a hay bale. If put outside, they simply became porch cats.

In frustration, I obtained two more cats, cats with experience on their resumes as "good mousers." Simultaneously, I discovered it is totally unnecessary to purchase a cat when you own a farm. Clearly, it is automatically assumed that anyone with a barn would welcome an extra cat. I ended up with six before discovering owning acreage and outbuildings didn't necessarily make you a cat depository and learned to say, "NO!"

My cats developed into more than adequate barn help until the weather turned bitterly cold. Then, no matter how hard I tried to convince them that the hayloft was cozy (even in the coldest weather,) they morphed into garage/part-time house cats till spring.

Then Farley appeared in our lives. He was mostly Siamese, with mostly Siamese markings and color and brilliant blue eyes. No doubt, "mostly" was why Farley was thoughtlessly dropped from a car that paused at a stop sign. Clearly, some Midnight Skulker had romanced a pure Siamese, with Farley the unwelcome result. Driving right behind the car that paused to deposit Farley, we hopped out to rescue him as he stood shaking on the shoulder of the road, confused and chagrined. Scooping him up while cars honked impatiently behind us, we brought the hapless cat home on the premise he would be strictly a barn cat.

As it turned out, he wouldn't have it any other way. Arriving home, I slid open the barn door and deposited Farley on the floor. Turning to look at me with those perfect azure eyes, he glared at each of the four curious barn cats in turn before hopping up on the door of MoAlla's stall. Gazing at her for a brief moment, he skittered along the boards and hopped straight onto her (thankfully) blanketed back.

I held my breath as I waited for my feisty mare to snatch the intruder and fling him against the wall.. Her stall was where she ate, and she harbored a great attachment to her hay rack, feed tub and water bucket. Should one of the dogs that often accompanied me to the barn unthinkingly and unwisely wander into her stall during feeding time, the mare would flatten her ears and make a dive for him. This behavior applied to cats as well, though they quickly learned to avoid her territory. Once she even attacked Pavarotti, our rooster, who, after foolishly bopping in to search for dropped bits of grain escaped with fewer tail feathers and a permanent limp.

Therefore, when Farley perched on her back my heart skipped a beat or two. Rousing MoAlla's ire could have made being dropped on the road the high point of Farley's day. Pausing in mid-mouthful, aghast at the cat's audacity, she swung her head around to stare at Farley. Whether she found she simply couldn't out-stare those incredible eyes, that he was no threat to her hay consumption, or whatever other equine reasoning prevailed, the mare allowed him to remain on her back.

When I fed the horses that evening, Farley was curled on MoAlla's rump, fast asleep. I fed the other cats first, scooping tasty fish parts in a large dish. Though Farley deigned to open one lovely eye, he decided he wasn't meant to eat from a communal dish. After the other cats finished supper, he stood on MoAlla's back, stretched elegantly and hopped down to finish up the delicacies, alone.

I finished dumping grain in the tubs, shaking out hay and filling water buckets when Farley took up his post once again, this time walking directly across MoAlla's hay. Leaping on the edge of her precious feed tub (unaware this could mean certain death) he confidently resumed his position on her rump. As the weeks and months went by, Farley roamed freely through MoAlla's habitat, often as she ate, fearlessly weaving through her legs and near her teeth without once considering the possibility of becoming "cat pudding."

When the weather turned warm, MoAlla shed her blanket, but she didn't shed Farley. He continued to curl up and sleep on her back, with the mutual understanding he'd keep his claws sheathed if she wouldn't roll over on him.

As the horses spent more and more time outside, so did Farley. He wasn't missed in the barn, having never worked an honest day in his life. Mice could, and did, scoot right beneath his whiskers, only to have Farley gaze haughtily at the ceiling, clearly if silently stating that he "didn't do mice."

He had hired himself out as MoAlla's companion. Period.

Farley could often be found lying parallel on the fence rails, just near where MoAlla grazed. As she moved along, cropping grass, his furry body inched along the rail, following like an overgrown caterpillar.

He heartily disapproved of my taking her off to ride or hunt, sometimes walking right on the trailer behind me, glaring nastily when I removed him and put him back in the barn with the door firmly shut. Once, when I left for a joint hunt meet in another state, Farley went on a weekend hunger strike refusing even the tastiest seafood delights until MoAlla returned to her stall.

One evening, Farley was nowhere to be found. He'd been on his post that morning, but by nightfall seemed to have disappeared from the farm. MoAlla fretted. She picked at her grain and wouldn't touch her hay. True love had surfaced in this grumpy old mare. She preferred her friend to her dish. We searched everywhere, calling neighbors and driving for miles through the countryside. We called the ASPCA, put an ad in the newspaper and bulletins up in the post office, general store and pharmacy.

MoAlla ate, but sparingly. She was disinterested and distracted, nickering day and night, running the fenced boundary of her field. Things were getting desperate, and just as we had given up hope, nearly six days later Farley appeared, walking slowly up the driveway.

A fierce thunderstorm had broken out, and I'd gone out to make sure the barn doors were latched tightly when I saw him, soaked to the skin, much thinner than the previous week, and with a long cut down his leg. He limped up the driveway, somehow managing to appear regal even in his bedraggled state. I scooped Farley up joyously and took him into the house to clean him up and tend to his damaged leg. I bedded him in a deep box with blankets, fed him warm milk and asked where on earth he'd been.

The feed truck had come the day he disappeared. Had he gotten into the back of it? Had someone picked him up on one of his brief constitutionals with MoAlla? It was impossible to tell, and Farley wasn't talking. He also wasn't staying in his comfortable box. Limping to the door, he stood yowling in that peculiar Siamese voice, unwilling to compromise and sleep indoors where it was warm and dry one minute longer.

I relented, picking him up and carrying him to the barn, where he was met with a rapturous whinny from his pal. His stiff, heavily bandaged leg, however, made it impossible for him to hop up on his familiar perch. Undaunted, Farley strolled into the mare's stall and curled up smack dab in the middle of her prize flake of alfalfa. MoAlla nuzzled him softly as he put his head between his paws to nap. Still wet, painfully thin and slightly damaged, blissfully unaware of anything except that he was back home where he belonged, Farley drifted off to sleep smack in the middle of MoAlla's dinner. And she didn't mind a bit.

Cooky McClung is an equestrian journalist who has covered the U.S.E.T.(United States Equestrian Team) at home and abroad. She is author of three books: Horsefolk Are Different, Horsefolk Are Still Different and Plugly, The Horse That Could Do Everything. Mother of seven, grandmother of 10, she has never lived without cats in her life.