Who Wears The Tails Around Here?

 

*🍁🌲💙🌲🍁*

            “Ralph, baby?” said Ramona, who had been thinking that morning.
            Ralph, who had been thinking also, but about life, the universe, and everything, made a just barely less than gracious grunt. “What’s on your mind, Ramona?
            “Ever since that little hairless girl, Tilly, nearly drowned out here the other day, I have been thinking that Twigg ought to be waterproofed. Now, don’t make any grease jokes Ralph!  I’m serious.  He doesn’t know how to swim or even float yet.”
            Ralph could see the wisdom in this. Truly, it hadn’t occurred to him that Twigg would need help in becoming unsinkable. He didn’t remember learning to swim himself, it just was.
            Long before he had become the titular head of Snohomish county’s eastern half, or even met Millicent Price, or learned to speak with the smoother inhabitants of the world, he had been a serious river swimmer. Fish are pleasant to eat, and a challenge to catch with the hands. He remembered many an evening as the night came down in the mountains, lurking in the rivers, barely moving, like a big water predator himself, just waiting for the right drowsy fish to drift within his reach. Ah, it had been grand! What a life!
            As he thought back to the days of his youth, there were reasons to look back fondly. From his present vantage point it appeared a simpler, more authentic time. But he had to admit that the comforts of his present life were pretty darn good!
            “Okay, Mona! You’re right. I better catch that boy and take him to the river,” said Ralph agreeably, still full of his breakfast and very comfy. He had learned to love about a quart of oatmeal porridge with cinnamon and a lot of butter. These sorts of products were earned by Ramona doing wildcrafting, as some call it. IOW she traded mushrooms, berries, wild hazelnuts and such with Thaga for butter and things like oats, which don’t grow wild in the good old MtBSNF.
            Therefore, he arose from his fireside log where he had been musing, gave Ramona a little smooch, patted Cherry, who was floating around near her mother, and went searching for his boy. Ralph figured that he would see puma tails sticking out of the underbrush somewhere, and that would be where Twigg was also.  The tails were a good marker. Now, pumas don’t go around with their tails sticking straight up like your house lions do, but they are big tails, and they swoosh them around. They even make noise.
            He checked out by his log.  No tails, no boy. He went down the trail a bit past his log, to the little fort Twigg had made where a root ball was raised up out of the ground. Nope. Empty. So he decided to feel Twigg out wherever he was, and then was inclined to head down hill toward the river. Ralph sensed that the boy was where they were going anyhow. “Ah, perfect,” he thought to himself, wondering how Twigg would react to the idea of getting into the river. But, true to his word to Ramona, he meant to find out and settle the swimming issue.
            When he got to the river, Ralph stood, massive and serene, on the round pebbles of the riverbank, surveying the surface of the shining, swiftly moving band of water. He had to really look hard, but at last he saw something breaking the surface out in midstream. What he saw were two big puma tails rising up out the water, each attached to a powerfully swimming cat. Next, he noticed Twigg’s little brown head sticking out of the surface, and he seemed to be giggling, as he swam around with Berry and Bob, diving and coming up, and spitting water, as easily as an otter.
            So, Ralph took a seat on the riverbank, sitting on a larger boulder, and just waited for the swimmers to come out of the river. Time went on, but boys and cats, though young and strong eventually do get tired. Soon, the tails and the little brown head began to swim toward the side of the river which faced home. Ralph just waited.
            Twigg and the cats came up out of the water together, all on all fours. When Twigg cleared the water he stood up.  Ralph could see that his son had something in his hand.
            “Hi, dad, look what I have,” yelled Twigg. He had his right hand forefinger hooked through the gills of a nice big trout! All three of the simmers looked tired and proud.
            “Hey Twigg. How’s it going?” said Ralph, very relaxed and calm.
            “Okay, dad, why are you sitting here on the rocks,” said Twigg. He stood there grinning at his dad, dripping river water and hanging on to his fish.
            “Mama was worried about you not being able to swim, so I came down to teach you. So, um, how long have you been doing this?”
            “Oh, dad, Berry and Bob decided to teach me after they pulled Tilly out of the river, and they came to find me and Linnet to take care of her. It didn’t take too long.  They really like to fish! Now, I like to fish too!”
            The puma bros. looked from father to son and smiled secret cat smiles.
            “Well, we may as well have fish for dinner. You guys rest and I’ll catch a few more. Find me a blackberry vine to run through their gills, would you?” And he slipped into the river, just as he always had.