The cats and crows of the yard had mutual respect for one another. Not out of any great love, but out of a common necessity. Both wanted peace and quiet and both wanted a relatively easy life. Both loved cat food.
The cats agreed to leave some for the crows, and the crows agreed not to fight them for it. Each side was sure it would win a fight if it came down to that, but not so sure as to start anything.
Neither the cats nor the crows bothered much about the people of the house within the yard, except for the two who brought the cat food, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon. If one did not come at the expected time, like this morning, there was much speculation to distract from their empty stomachs.
"Maybe it has died and will not come," murmured a young cat whose litter mate, Baby, had died at the change of seasons.
"Nonsense." corrected her grandmother Tasha, "Humans never die. At least not in this house."
"She's right," cawed the old crow, Aswad. "I would have smelled it if it had." He knew he couldn't smell death from the outside the house and so did all of the adult cats.
"All I know is, it hasn't opened the window covers, I could tell from up top the gate arch," answered Blacqui, his mate.
"Probably it is only sick and we must wait for the other to come," mewed Scooter, son of Tasha.
This pronouncement ended the morning's speculation and began a debate over whether it was better to wait or to just look for food elsewhere. Most of the crows moved to fly down to the main street and see what was to be found, whereas most of the cats decided to simply go back to sleep.
"I will go next door. Sometimes they feed me there," purred Honey, who was part Persian.
"And I will go with you," added her sister with the golden eyes. She was called Sissy by one of the humans, but Edwina by Honey. No one knew why.
The two sisters went one way, and the crows the other.
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Two hours later the expected human brought the cat food. She found only Tasha, Scooter and his sister Scout, and Guy, the old black and white tom with the very low meow, who was probably the father of Scooter and Scout, though Tasha never said one way or the other.
The human had expected to find about ten cats as well as crows waiting above the gate arch, but was not very surprised. After all it was a legal holiday and she had slept rather late.
YOU ARE READING
A "Murder" of Crows & Other Stories
Short Story"If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows." -Henry Ward Beecher. These connected short stories are based on my observations of the crows which sometimes live in my yard, the outdoor cats which I fed t...
