King Rat

Max swiped at it savagely and missed. Another broom caught it a glancing blow, turning it on its back for an instant. But the rat whirled to its feet and ran back into the corner and turned, hissing and spitting and working its lips from its needle teeth.

“Jesus,” said the King. “Thought the bastard got away that time.”

The rat was nearly a hairy foot long. Its tail was another foot in length and as thick at the base as a man’s thumb and hairless. Small beady eyes darting left and right seeking escape. Brown and dirt-obscene. Head tapering to a sharp muzzle, mouth narrow, large—very large—incisor teeth. Total weight near two pounds. Vicious and very dangerous.

Max was breathing hard from the exertion and his eyes were on the rat. “Chrissake,” he spat, “I hate rats. I hate even looking at it. Let’s kill it. Ready?”

“Wait a second, Max,” the King said. “There’s no hurry. It can’t get away now. I want to see what it does.”

“It’ll make another break, that’s what,” Max said.

“So we’ll stop it. What’s the hurry?” The King looked back at the rat and grinned. “You’re clobbered, you son of a bitch. Dead.”

Almost as though the rat understood, it made a dart at the King, teeth bared. Only the wild flurry of blows and shouts drove it back again.

“That bastard’d tear you to pieces if it got its teeth in you,” the King said. “Never knew they’d be so fast.”

“Hey,” Tex said. “Maybe we should keep it.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“We could keep it. A mascot maybe. Or when we had nothing to do, we could let it out and chase it.”

“Hey, Tex,” said Dino. “Maybe you got something there. You mean like they did in the old days. With foxes?”

“That’s a lousy idea,” said the King. “It’s okay to kill the bastard. No need to torture it, even if it is a rat. It never did you any harm.”

“Maybe. But rats’re vermin. They got no right to be alive.”

“Sure they have,” said the King. “If it wasn’t for them, well, they’re scavengers, like microbes. Weren’t for rats, why the whole world’d be a stink-pile.”

“Hell,” Tex said. “Rats ruin the crops. Maybe this’s the bastard that ate the bottom out of the rice sack. Its belly’s big enough.”

“Yeah,” Max said malevolently. “They got away with near thirty pounds one night.”

Again the rat stabbed for freedom. It broke the circle and fled down the hut. Only through luck was it cornered again. Once more the men surrounded it.

“We’d better finish it off. Next time we mayn’t be so lucky,” wheezed the King. Then suddenly he had an inspiration. “Wait a minute,” he said as they all began to close on the corner.

“What?”

“I got an idea.” He whipped around to Tex. “Get a blanket. Quick.”

Tex jumped for his bed and ripped off the blanket.

“Now,” the King said, “you and Max get the blanket and trap the rat.”

“Huh?”

“I want it alive. Come on, get the lead out,” the King snapped.

“With my blanket? You crazy? It’s the only one I got!”

“I’ll get you another. Just catch the bastard.”

They all gawked at the King. Then Tex shrugged. He and Max took hold of the blanket, using it as a screen, and began to converge on the corner. The others held their brooms ready to make sure the rat would not escape around the edges. Then Tex and Max made a sudden dive and the rat was caught in the folds of the material. Its teeth and claws ripped for an escape, but in the uproar Max rolled the blanket up and the blanket became a squirming ball. The men were excited and shouting at the capture.

“Keep it quiet,” the King ordered. “Max, you hold it. And make sure it doesn’t get out. Tex, put on the Java. We’ll all have some coffee.”

“What’s this idea?” Peter Marlowe asked.

“It’s too good to let out, just like that. We’ll have the coffee first.”

While they were drinking their coffee, the King stood up. “All right, you guys. Now listen. We’ve got a rat, right?”

“So?” Miller was perplexed as they all were.

“We’ve no food, right?”

“Sure, but—”

“Oh my God,” Peter Marlowe said aghast. “You don’t mean you’re suggesting we eat it?”

“Of course not,” the King said. Then he beamed seraphically. “We’re not going to. But there’re plenty who’d like to buy some meat—”

“Rat meat?” Byron Jones III’s eye popped majestically.

“You’re outta your mind. You think someone’d buy rat meat? Course they wouldn’t,” Miller said impatiently.

“Of course no one’ll buy the meat if they know it’s rat. But say they don’t know, huh?” The King let the words settle, then continued benignly, “Say we don’t tell anyone. The meat’ll look like any other meat. We’ll say it’s rabbit—”

“There aren’t any rabbits in Malaya, old chap,” Peter Marlowe said.

“Well, think of an animal that is, about the same size.”

“I suppose,” Peter Marlowe said after a moment’s reflection, “that you could call it squirrel—or, I know,” he brightened. “Deer. That’s it, deer—”

“For Chrissake, a deer’s much bigger,” Max said, still holding the squirming blanket. “I shot one up in the Alleghenies—”