by David Balashinsky
Although the title of this story is The Horseshoe, it's really a story about cats. It's also a story about loss and consolation and about bad luck and good luck, which is why I call it The Horseshoe.
The horseshoe of the title is a rusty and corroded relic that I happened to dig up while preparing to lay some stones for a patio. It is so deeply pitted that it has to date from the nineteenth- or even the eighteenth century. Undoubtedly, it was once worn by a horse whose bones lay buried not far from the spot behind the barn where I found it.
I live in a rural part of Central New York, just beyond the city limits of Binghamton. Until a few decades ago, this property was a working farm, complete with a red wooden barn that stands just a few hundred feet up the hill from the main house. Although still impressive, with three stories, a hayloft on top and a porch in back, the barn is now decrepit. Its foundation walls are caving in and it is ready to collapse at any moment. The wood siding, consisting of vertically hung planks, is so weathered that the original red has turned several shades darker, in some sections blending imperceptibly into long black streaks of arrowhead-shaped drip patterns. All the knots in the siding have come out, providing easy access for squirrels, and the planks are all warped from long exposure to the constant dampness of this climate.
The barn can no longer be used for storage since it can't support any weight. It serves only two purposes now. One is as a monument to the agricultural history of this region and the other is as a shelter for wayfaring cats. Some of these cats stay for just a day or two but others have moved in with the obvious intention of staying permanently. When my wife and I bought the property, the deed included, at least informally, not just the house, the land and the barn but a reclusive black cat whom the previous owner had named Zorro and who made the barn his home. (I believe that adverse possession, or squatter's rights, would be the appropriate legal term to describe Zorro's status). It was partly our promise to provide Zorro with food and water every day that convinced the seller that we were worthy of becoming the new owners. Although we were true to our word, eventually Zorro got tired of living in the barn and decided to move into the main house with us. Still, since Zorro occupied it, the barn has seldom been without an occupant. During the ten years or so that we have lived here (after moving up from Brooklyn with several New York City cats), one cat after the other has taken Zorro's place. And, like Zorro, each cat in its turn, with one exception, has ended up living in the main house with us.
Our house, as I mentioned, is a few hundred feet down the hill from the barn. The main entrance is through a veranda. It is not a large veranda but it is large enough to accommodate a small round table for outdoor dining on those relatively rare occasions when the weather up here is pleasant. On one side of the veranda is the railing and opposite that is the exterior wall of the house. It was on this wall, just by the doorway through which one passes from the veranda into the kitchen, that I hung the horseshoe. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of hanging the horseshoe upside down. My error was pointed out to me by my now-late father-in-law, Joe. We were sitting at the table on the veranda drinking beers when Joe glanced up at the horseshoe. With a combination of disapproval and pity in his voice, and shaking his head from side to side, Joe made the following pronouncement: "All the good luck from that horseshoe is just running right into the ground." He explained to me that, by hanging the horseshoe with its prongs pointing down, all the good luck that might accrue to this household and its inhabitants was simply pouring out and that the horseshoe needed to be hung with its prongs pointing up. I had no idea about any of this. I had originally placed the horseshoe where it was simply because I thought it would be a quaint decoration: one in keeping with the rustic character of the property, not unlike the barn itself. I regarded both the barn and the horseshoe as belonging to the category of "things that were once functional but are now just ornamental." As for its orientation, the internal concavity of the horseshoe - the arch of its "U" - had merely suggested itself as the obvious means by which to hang it on a screw that, conveniently, was already sticking out of the wall. I was completely ignorant of the horseshoe's present-day function as an actual catcher and repository of good luck. When Joe informed me of my mistake, I did, of course, exactly what I always do: I put his recommendation on my mental to-do list and then forgot all about it.
From this same spot on the veranda, under the horseshoe, I could sit and look up the hill at the old red barn that had housed so many animals over the years and would house so many cats in the years to come. I was in this spot drinking my coffee early one August morning not long after my in-laws' visit when, looking in the direction of the barn, something caught my eye. It was hard to make out because it was partly obscured by the goldenrod that blooms here in August - a harbinger of summer's soon coming to an end - but its movements were unmistakably feline: the characteristic undulation of his head and sweeping of his paw as he cleaned just above his left ear could belong only to a cat. Sure enough, it was a little black cat sitting on the back porch of the barn, grooming himself. I went up to investigate but he ran down the hill, stopping so he could turn and watch me. I got some cat food from the house and brought it up in a small bowl which I placed on the porch where I had seen him sitting and grooming himself. Although the food did not immediately induce him to return to the spot where he seemed so much at home, I left it where it was in the hope that, eventually - after I was gone - he would return. Whether feral or stray, he was probably already well on the way toward making himself at home in the barn, just as Zorro had done. In fact, this cat seemed to me to be a Zorro, Jr., partly because of his coloring, which was so similar - jet black, from nose to tail.
Later that day, when I got home from work, the first thing I did, even before changing my clothes, was go up to the barn in order to see if the food that I left had been eaten. It had, but the little black cat was nowhere to be found. The next day, again following work, I changed my clothes and set about attending to the daily household chores that never seem to end. In addition to dealing with the kitty litter and feeding our Brooklyn cats (at the time, the only cats, besides Zorro, who were living with us), this included bringing our dogs up to a fenced-in dog-run that we created for them not far from the barn. It also included feeding Zorro, who always refused to eat with our Brooklyn cats. I should probably mention that Zorro was very standoffish with the others, and I could never decide whether this was because his ancestors came over on the Mayflower, in contrast to our own immigrant, Ellis Island cats - in which case Zorro might have harbored a sort of nativist contempt for them - or, quite the opposite, whether it was because Zorro considered himself "hardy country stock" in contrast to our Brooklyn cats whom he considered effete and pampered, and, thinking that it was they who looked down their noses on him, regarded them with churlish resentment. Then, again, I'm probably just projecting. Most likely, Zorro's aloofness was simply due to the fact that he was here first. I'm sure Zorro regarded our Brooklyn cats as interlopers.
Its being summer, my daily chores also included any of a variety of outdoor projects to which I devoted as much time and energy as remained after working all day. And so after attending to the dogs and cats, I gathered my tools and got to work. At the time, I was immersed in the project of creating a drainage system. This involved digging an extensive channel that ran about a hundred feet from the back of the house (where the water pooled and seeped into the basement) around to the side, which would lead the water away from the house, altogether. Like most of the projects that I have taken on since buying this house, this proved to be much more involved, much more difficult and much more time-consuming than I anticipated. Obviously, this was a project for which I ought to have rented a backhoe. However, by the time I could admit this to myself, my work had progressed so far that I felt that changing strategies would be tantamount to admitting defeat. By now, the ditch, near its origin at the house, was about six feet deep. The digging of it was brutal and miserable work, the land here consisting of what is known as hardpan, which is what it sounds like. Besides this, the area where I was digging that day also consisted of pools of mud and tons of rocks. That day's labors, therefore, being no exception to the normal torture of this project, I found myself growing more and more exasperated, even cursing aloud with every swing of my pick-axe as it struck either rock, which sent painful shock waves through my body, or mud, which erupted in torrents that unerringly found their way into my hair, eyes and mouth.
After not too much of this, as fatigue had already begun to set in, I paused to rest. I stood up to my full height for the first time in perhaps fifteen minutes (ditch-digging is such laborious work because one must spend so much time hunched over). I was within the trench so, although I was standing upright, my head and shoulders were just above ground level. Happening at that moment to turn my head slightly to the right, I noticed the little black cat, sitting on his haunches, just twenty feet or so away, with his head cocked to one side, watching me. I was both startled and touched that he took an interest in my work; he seemed to be wondering why I had been so angry about digging. I climbed out of the ditch so I could get some more food for him and, when I returned, found him sitting not far from where I had left him moments before. I tried to approach him with the food but he was not quite willing to take a chance on letting me get close. So I placed the food down at my feet and backed away, a gesture that was intended to convey to him that I acknowledged his apprehension. In order to earn his trust, I would have to give him his space while also remaining more or less present. Bit by bit, a few steps at a time, he cautiously approached the dish of food. Yet there was always a point beyond which he dared not go, and then I would have to reposition myself, by degrees, farther and farther away from the food as, by the same degrees, the little black cat moved closer and closer to it. Eventually he reached the food and, once he had, I sat myself down on the ground about ten or fifteen feet away and watched him eat. Altogether, this whole process - his inching toward the food as I inched away from it - took a half hour or more. I realized that I had developed a great affection for this cat and began to hope that we could formally adopt him and welcome him into our home, just as we had done with Zorro.
The little black cat became, if not an obsession, at least a preoccupation of mine. I found myself looking out of the window from my bedroom up toward the barn at every opportunity, awaiting his return. He was not only ever-present in my thoughts but became a frequent subject of conversation between my wife and me. It was during one such conversation that I saw him making his way down the hill above the barn, where he had just emerged from the woods. I ran downstairs to get him some food and offered it to him in the usual manner. Once again, I stayed and watched him eat. Throughout this process, my wife watched from the bedroom window. When he finished eating, the little black cat began to move in stages closer and closer to the house, stopping to sit for a few minutes at a time. By now, my wife - who has a way with animals that is positively preternatural (and in comparison to which mine is that of the bumbling amateur) - had decided that it was time for her to get involved. It was just a matter of minutes, therefore, before the little black cat was cradled in her arms.
We have a side porch - as dilapidated and rundown as the barn - that we seldom use. Its sole function is as a halfway house where we temporarily quarantine stray cats during their transition from feral cat to house cat. Although airy and cheerful in its way, the porch is entirely screened in, so that a cat might be confined there without risk of its getting loose. It was this porch that had served as Zorro's temporary quarters when he began the transition from barn cat to house cat. Our plan, then, was to shelter the little black cat here for the short period during which we could have him tested for FIV and FeLV and get him vaccinated. In order to access this porch, one has to walk through the house first, from one end to the other. Thus, as my wife carried him through the house and through a gauntlet of astonished dogs and cats, I prepared the way by opening doors before them as they approached and closing doors after them as they passed, and otherwise assisted by getting blankets and other necessities. But this cat was no Zorro, Jr. in one crucial respect. Unlike Zorro, who welcomed the change in his circumstances when we brought him indoors, the little black cat could not abide confinement, even in a fairly spacious, screened-in porch. He was truly feral. His sole preoccupation was to try every possible avenue of escape, including climbing the screens. He had not been in the porch ten minutes before he found a small opening in one of the segments of wire mesh that had been installed at some point to keep domestic animals in and raccoons out. He darted through the opening, then turned and paused for a few moments looking back at us, panting. He let out a long, mournful meow which cut me to the quick, sounding as it did like a reproach. I imagined that he was saying, "How could you betray my trust like that?" That was the only time he ever spoke to me - and off he ran.
We were heartbroken. We were worried, of course, for his safety, but also stung by the frustration of having had him slip through our fingers. All we could do was hope that he would return. We were afraid that he would no longer trust us enough to allow for any possibility of rescuing him. I did see him again the next evening, but it was much farther away from the house, toward the far end of our property, an area of woods, shrubs, and tall grass that I refer to as the Eastern Provinces because it is so remote; it is the part of our property that is farthest from our house and we never go there. It might be an encouraging sign that I spotted him at all, but his new avoidance of us was equally discouraging, for he now seemed to harbor a fear of us born of experience, rather than of an innate cautiousness, and this would be even harder to overcome.
It now became a race against time. We live on a busy road and, in spite of the fact that this area is rural - or because of it - people tend to speed on the two-lane artery that leads from the City of Binghamton to Pennsylvania and that passes right in front of our house. With every day that passed with this cat living on his own outdoors, the odds of his meeting an untimely and violent end would increase. We resigned ourselves to hoping for the best and, in the meantime, decided to name him Blackberry. Curiously, my wife and I had come up with that name independently of one another. The name did seem to fit him but we also foolishly indulged the notion that our both having thought of it augured well for Blackberry's eventual adoption into our family.
It was not to be. The very next morning, as my wife was driving to work, she found poor Blackberry dead in the road down by the Eastern Provinces. He had been run over the night before. Our grief was immense. We felt his loss and the tragedy of his death so much more keenly, having had him within our grasp for a few brief moments. I had been planning on doing some planting that day; I wanted to transplant a large shrub from one location on our property to another. It occurred to me that I could best honor Blackberry by giving him a proper burial and a decent final resting place on our property, so I dug a deep grave for him and buried him below the spot where I then planted the shrub. My wife observed that ever after we would refer to that shrub as our Blackberry Bush, and she later placed a single flower on his grave, resting it on the cedar mulch that I had scattered over the ground beneath which Blackberry lay.
We went about our daily routines that day but a pall had settled over our home. Our grief was not just immense - we staggered under its weight. And it was just then, when we were newly mourning the loss of that unhappy little black cat and when our grief was at its most acute because of its newness, that a strange thing happened. It was early the next morning - a Sunday. I was outside watering some grass that I had planted recently. I don't know why but I turned to look behind me. From where I was standing, I could see the rear wall of the garage. This wall has a door in it with windows in its upper half. The door opens onto a paved walkway which is bordered by a stone wall that is about three feet high. Above this wall, the land banks so sharply that the wall could not be seen from where I was standing but could be seen reflected in the windows of the garage door that faces it. Something concentrated my attention on those windows, and I realized then that I was seeing, ghostly and pale, the reflection of a little white cat, sitting on his haunches upon the stone wall, licking one of his paws. Not daring to approach him myself, I waved to my wife through the kitchen window, and, in pantomime, directed her attention to the little white cat, still sitting on the stone wall. She was with him in a moment and, as she took him in her arms, he welcomed her with overt signs of affection. He was, in every respect, Blackberry's opposite; above all, trusting and anxious to be taken in. It should be unnecessary to add that I patched the hole in the wire mesh on the side porch before we left him alone, but he only stayed there for a short time anyway. His tests were all negative, we quickly got him his vaccines, and he was so comfortable indoors and in our company that he rapidly made the transition to full-fledged house cat. We named him Vanilla Bean. My wife and I are not spiritual people, but it really did seem to us that Vanilla Bean had been sent to console us in our grief. A great void had opened in our hearts when we lost Blackberry, and Vanilla Bean came along almost exactly twenty-four hours later to fill it. I shudder to think what might have happened had we not rescued him but, of course, it was not we who rescued him but the other way around.
I mentioned just now that my wife and I are not spiritual people. Neither are we particularly superstitious. And yet there is a curious epilogue to this story, something that made me wonder whether Joe had been right, after all, about that horseshoe. It was just after I had finished burying poor Blackberry and honoring his short sojourn in our lives with the planting of the Blackberry Bush. As I trudged back toward the house, dejected and oppressed by grief, my gaze chanced to fall upon the horseshoe, pointing down. Now, instead of rustic charm, it bore a look of stern reproach. Instead of a quaint decoration, it seemed to be the gnarled hand of Death pointing triumphantly down to the ground where both good luck and Blackberry lay buried. My grief then melded with regret and guilt as I wondered whether, in failing to heed Joe's advice, I had inadvertently courted the misfortune that had befallen Blackberry. Though it was now too late to do Blackberry any good, I made a penance of correcting my mistake and immediately strung a wire from one prong of the horseshoe to the other and remounted it on the wall, correctly this time, with its prongs pointing up, so that our luck might not continue to run out into the ground. Within a few hours, Vanilla Bean had arrived.
The End
