LAST WINTER IN OUR ADOBE COTTAGE, I had a most
extraordinary experience.
I was working at my computer when I happened to glance over toward the far wall. There by the steps leading up to the bathroom, something definitely moved. I peered into the gloom, saw what it was, then sat there dumbstruck for several seconds until my brain caught up with my preconceptions: a rat! A great big motherfucking brown rat! Land of Enchantment, indeed.
A freaking rat, holy shit—I’d lived a lot of places, but never with a rat. There wasn’t any doubt about it, though: An actual r-a-t had just appeared and run into the back room. I reached for my trusty Crossman 760 Powermaster air rifle, slid a .177 pellet into the chamber, and pumped nine times. Then “click,” off with the safety, and into the darkness I went.
As soon as I flipped on the lights, I heard but did not see a skittering “whoosh”—damn, it must have run into the closet. I pulled back the curtain and eased the tip of the barrel behind a cardboard box. There he was, all right, just not enough of him to risk a shot. I shifted my position ever so slightly, and whoosh! Again, no rat. I swear I saw nothing move, but the rat was gone, just like that.
The next night at about the same time, he appeared again. I heard a scratching sound behind the piano, and sure enough, out came a surprisingly big rodent, not more than four feet from my chair. The rifle was leaning against the wall, but when I swiveled around to reach for it, the varmint disappeared. “Scritch, scritch...” Aha, the closet again. I decided to call in
reinforcements and threw Hobbes the Wonder Cat inside. Result? Nothing. But he figured out something was there and took up a watchful posture in the hallway. Later during my bath, I heard a crash and a scuffle. When I came out, the cat was sitting there looking stupid with no sign of a rat anywhere.
The next day I set out rat traps, one in the attic and one in the closet. The landlady said to use peanut butter, but guess what? Rats don’t like peanut butter, at least not served on traps. This one liked Burt’s Bees Bay Rum Shaving Soap though, as I found out the next morning. The following night made history. I was sitting at the computer again, this time with my rifle in my lap. All of a sudden I heard a frantic scrabbling in the corner behind me, off to the left. What the—there was nothing there but some houseplants and a pile of wood for the second stove, so why would anything—Whoa! Would you believe it, a geranium hopped over the woodpile and ran under the bed! I’m talking 15 inches worth of stem, leaves, and blossoms, folks, half a whole geranium (with a tail) under the bed where my wife lay sleeping. I grabbed the cat and tossed him in after: nothing! I walked to the other end of the bed and stamped my foot on the floor to frighten the thing back toward Hobbes. This naturally woke up my wife but accomplished little else, so after a long moment, I got down on the floor to peer under the bed with gun and flashlight: there was the Wonder Cat, staring blankly at half a geranium, sin raton—these suckers are fast, all right. I left the plant where it was and went to bed, leaving the worthless cat to stand guard. The covers were thick and heavy, and I pulled them way up.
The next morning I checked under the bed: the blasted geranium had moved all by itself another two feet toward the closet!Hobbes had nothing to report, so I re-baited the traps, with cheese this time, and that’s where matters stood for a while. Two nights later, I heard a loud “clack” in the attic. Oh, yeah.
Later that same day I deposited the carcass outside under a bush, and a mere six hours later Señor Raton disappeared for the last time down the gullet of a grateful coyote.
(Make a note, please: geraniums might work as well as cheese.)