Fond Memories: The Scream of a Woman!

It was in the middle of the night, and only Mom and I were home alone. I was only about 5 years old, and I don’t remember where my Dad was at the time. Perhaps he was out with some of his brothers coon huntin’ or otherwise.

“Well, it had pointy ears. Its whiskers jutted out into points on the sides of its cheeks. The body was sort of ‘speckled.’”

The house was tucked up for the night, and any animals we had were fast asleep as far as we knew, when suddenly, there was a woman’s scream coming from outside. Even at that age, I remember distinctly the sound that reverberated throughout the hollow and the house. 

Mom decided to go and have a look, even though she was sure she knew what was making such a horrific sound of a woman in excruciating pain. I was a curious child, and so I didn’t hesitate to follow my Mom outside.

Above us on the cliff, overlooking our house, the scream came again and again. In the faint light, I looked up and saw the face of a bobcat, its mouth open and its razor teeth bared. Evidently, it was extremely interested in some of the bird livestock we had around and was making its presence known.

For a 5-year-old, the sight and the sound frightened me, and I remember clinging tightly to my mother’s skirt as we watched. She led me back into the house. 

Within the next day or two, my Dad had gathered a team of his brothers, some cousins, and perhaps one of my brothers to hunt down the bobcat. They wanted to keep it from killing any livestock we had around. And within the day, they came back, successful . . . or so they said!

Life living with bobcats around is the norm, and never stopped even after the hunting incident. It is quite normal to see a bobcat crossing a creek or hear the scream reverberate throughout the hollow where I live.

It was quite a strange occurrence when I went outside one afternoon to look out back to make some distant plans I had in mind for a garden. I heard a sound of crinkling leaves come from a large branch overhead and looked up. There, on the limb of an old oak tree that stood at the edge of our cliff on the hill, was a “cat” of some sort, glaring down at me.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” I immediately said, thinking the “cat” was in some sort of straits and stranded on top of the branch. 

My empathy was ignored, and an ungrateful glare was thrown down at my precarious position beneath it. The “cat” actually seemed to frown at me, its pointy ears and sharp whiskered cheeks turned away in disdain.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” I said again. 

Although cats are really my least favorite of most animals, I didn’t mind showing some kindness and even comfort to a lost one in despair. But the “cat” did not in the least appreciate my compassion I was demonstrating toward it. 

The “cat” finally moved down the rest of the old oak tree limb, down the trunk, and disappeared over the edge of the cliff. 

I didn’t think much of it at the time, I guess. However, a few minutes later, I went inside and explained what happened to my Mom.

“What did the cat look like?” she inquired.

“Well, it had pointy ears. Its whiskers jutted out into points on the sides of its cheeks. The body was sort of ‘speckled.’”

“That was a bobcat!” Mom laughed at me. “You actually were calling ‘Here, kitty, kitty’ to a bobcat?”

Oh, great! Another story of mine is going to be told around the “campfire of phones” of a lot of my relatives, I thought to myself. Although we didn’t see as many relatives at this time in life as when I was younger, there was still the phone. I am sure it was invented solely for the gossip of family idiosyncrasies, without having to leave the living room. (smile)

When Mom was sick and we had many visiting nurses, several would tell me how they saw a bobcat crossing the road at the bottom of the hill or in the yard. Even Mom told me that she had seen one before I woke up one morning.

“Was it green or purple with red dots?” I teased. 

However, one hot summer afternoon, when Mom was ill, I was sitting in the living room while she slept in her chair across from me. I saw the infamous bobcat myself. It was crossing our yard casually.  It stopped where I had planted some mini-lilac bushes. It sniffed around a bit, then, looking at the window as if daringly, staring straight into my eyes, it … ur … did some business! 

Right in my yard! In front of my house! And knowing that people were watching. Part of me was a bit upset for it to be “fertilizing” my yard in such a way, but a part of me thought it was really funny. It was as if the stinkin’ bobcat knew that I could do nothing about it.

Oh, and to return to the hunters when I was a little girl …

I was so proud and happy that my Dad and his group had caught the screaming bobcat who had threatened our livestock. He was my great big Daddy and could always protect me.

When going back to school the next week, I was proud to tell the story of my Dad and how Mom cooked up some of the meat for us to eat.

Never, NEVER was I so reviled as when I told my classmates about that.

“You ate a cat?! Yuck!”

It never occurred to me that that was something so bad to eat. Why was I being tormented and teased for some simple thing such as that?

It wasn’t until years later that I found out the truth. 

The “great white hunters,” someone could call them, made up of family members, did, indeed, hunt the bobcat. I was never sure if they got the animal they were seeking, however, they did indeed catch a deer in their midst and brought it home. 

This was what Mom had so deliciously cooked, and we heartily ate. 

Why was I told it was a bobcat? Because my parents, knowing my relish for retelling events in my life, were afraid I would tell in school about the deer.

See, it was NOT deer season when the hunters caught the deer.

Oh, well, another adventure in my young life that I can look back and get a good giggle! (smile)