Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

I am not sure what I should expect besides dogs, horses, and. the serpent. I have never interrogated a zoo before. With horses I am on good, if somewhat distant, terms. I am a city lad and more inclined to hitching a ride on a passing pickup than on a horsehair hammock.

Dogs are always touchy. I have been chased for my very life too many times in my early days as a gentleman of the road. Although my species is adept at bullying the bully-boys, when we are young we are often not aware of our powers and may be intimidated. I am sorry to say that my forays with canines have left me with an understandable disdain for the breed. I will have to proceed delicately with the dogs, so as not to betray my natural dislike.

Luckily, the attraction—although I cannot see how a compound of animals not including any felines could possibly be termed an "attraction"—is not open for business yet.

I should have free run of the place.

I decide to hie up top to interview the noble equine first. I have never known a horse not to talk sense, and find it outrageous that such a mild and useful breed has been so badly misused by humans. Although I have been known to dream that I am the size and incisor-level of the awesome saber-tooth tiger so faint in my ancestry, I have never regretted being too small to ride or to bear or to drag burdens. It is one supreme advantage the domesticated branch of my species has.

The animals are kept, of course, in an outdoor park that I imagine evokes Graceland's rolling acres.

I find Rising Sun, a handsome honey-blond stallion of the type called palomino, munching oats at an outdoor drive-up stand. I hop atop the feeding station. Poor critters are cursed with these big, square teeth and hence are condemned to chew leaves of grass until their enamel turns green. I do not understand how they can keep those huge bodies going without any good red meat in their diet.

“You are new," the horse notes succinctly between mashing vegetation.

“But not green," I add quickly, just in case he mistakes me for a hank of rye grass or something. With their eyes on the sides of their heads, sometimes horses cannot see every little thing clearly. Like me.

I explain my mission, during which Sun nods and munches judiciously.

At least I assume it is judiciously. Horses have that considering air about them, like trial judges. They may be contemplating deep matters, or they may simply be chewing every bite one hundred times, as advised by the health books.

I look around the meadow. "I can see dogs racing over yonder hill, but I find it hard to picture an anaconda in these happy fields.”

The horse stops chewing to regard me with a brown eye as velvety as whipped chocolate. Miss Temple may be a wimp for brown-eyed blonds, but not me. There are no brown-eyed cats, obviously another clear sign of superiority.

I decide I need to shave off a little erudition. 'The snake," I repeat pointedly.

Sun whinnies and shakes his head until his platinum blond mane shimmies. I am beginning to think that in the brain department, he would be similar to an actor found on Baywatch. This boyo is all muscle and sun-bleached locks. And health food.

But he snuffles out a sigh and resumes our fitful conversation. "If you meant the snake, why did you not say so? When you said 'Anna Conda,' I thought you were referring to an attendant I do not know."

“I mean the snake."

“I am not much afraid of that snake," he boasts. "It is one of the biggest in the world."

“But it is not poisonous. I can take care of it with my hooves. No, the kind of snake I avoid like a briar patch is the small, poisonous sort that could strike my hock before I knew it. This Anna Conda snake is too big to miss, and no danger to me."

“You have any idea how it got out of this area into the pool?”

He shakes his glamour-boy mane again. You would think he was Fabio. "They kept the Conda under glass, in a special area with tropical vegetation. I assume the snake would have to wait for a keeper to come and free it."

“But you know nothing about yesterday aftemoon, when it would have been released?"

“I was off for a canter with Domino." He nods to the distant dark form of a horse, head bowed to the imported grasslands. "The tourists like to see us cavorting, you know."

“There are no tourists yet.”

'There will be.”

He retums to his feedbag.

That is the trouble with these ruminant animals; they think with their stomachs. And sometimes they have more than one.

So I hop down and go on the lookout for dogs.

This whole field setup reminds me of those cheap science fiction movies where the small set in front is supposed to fade into a painting at the back that is intended to depict the surrounding countryside. Only you can see the brushmarks even from the back row of the Lyceum.