Tiger, Tiger
by Meredith L. Patterson
Originally appeared in Ideomancer Unbound, 2002
And so it happened a very long time ago, though not so long that I remember unclearly, that the woman rode into our town on the back of a tiger. The little boys must have seen her first, out watching for riders on horseback, because I remember someone calling that the mail was on the way. But by the time everyone got outside and down the street to the posts at the edge of town, you could see that it wasn't a horse coming. The gait was all wrong--too long, and the legs reached too far forward--and while the orange could have just been the glare from the sun, no horse ever had a face that round or black stripes like that. No one could tell just what it was, though, not until it was just a few hundred feet away--and no one had time to say anything before it took another couple of strides, planted its broad back feet in the dust and leaped straight over the fenceposts, the woman riding it clutching the back of its neck with just one hand.
No reins, and no saddle either, as if anyone would make a saddle to fit a tiger. No, she rode just fine with one hand on its neck, and all it took was a "prrt! prrt!" from her to slow it to an easy walk and then a whoa. You could hear her, its paws were that quiet. The young women gasped, and the old women clucked their tongues; the young men all stared, and at least one of the old men grumbled something about back in his day. You could tell the rider was a woman from the hair, though I don't know if many people looked at that. My big brother surely did, though, standing between me and his best friend with his jaw hanging half-open. Most of the older women were whispering about her Levi's pants and her leather chaps and her bare feet, not to mention the rifle slung up behind her. I couldn't hear what any of the men were saying until Mr. Clifford stepped out of the crowd and spoke up.
"Can we help you with something, miss?" he asked her, in his preacher voice.
"Who would I talk to about finding a place to stay?" she said, still sitting bolt upright, neither her nor the tiger otherwise moving a hair.
Mr. Clifford looked around at the other men, and tipped his head at Mr. Weston. "Weston's Hotel's the place for passers-through. You are passing through, I expect?"
But the woman shook her head, the rest of her still as a statue. "Nosir. I've been living on my own a while, and it's about time I started living with people." No 'I figure' or 'I suppose'--just that it was time. I don't remember thinking that was strange then, but it does seem strange now.
"Well, then. How long d'you figure on staying? And d'you plan on keeping that--what is that?"
"Tiger, sir."
"Tiger, then. I don't figure there's a stable in the state that'd board it. Too risky."
"That won't matter," she answered, a shrug rippling through her and then through the tiger. "He can board with me."
I stepped forward to get a better look at them, just as my mother pushed her way through the crowd to us. I wanted to ask her if we couldn't offer them some hospitality and let them stay in the company room, if I dusted it and put out new linens. But she was busy, with a hand on my brother's shoulder, turning him away from the scene. Better not to ask, with her like that.
No one said anything for a minute or two, until the woman lifted her head to look into the crowd at Mr. Weston. "That all right with you, sir?"
Mr. Weston opened and closed his mouth a few times before he finally said, "So long as you can afford anything that thing wrecks..."
"That's an agreement, then." Another "prrt! prrt!" from her, and a little nudge with her knees, and the tiger padded forward again, right down the middle of the road and up the front steps to Weston's Hotel. They had to stop at the door, though; the tiger's shoulders were so big that she couldn't ride through on its back. So she put both hands on its shoulders, and helped herself off its back and onto the ground. Ever so carefully, she pulled her hands off of it--and either her knees buckled or her arms pinwheeled or both, and she staggered. Quick as any housecat, the tiger spun around, swung out with one of its forepaws and cuffed her right across the face.
It must have caught her a good one, because she flew straight backward and rolled down the steps in a heap, the tiger loping along behind her. Not a one of us could think to move, not even when it put its paws down in the dust by her shoulders and lowered its shaggy head--and then it started licking her face, just like a little girl's kitten right after she's finished a glass of new milk. The only human sound was her laughing, laughing as she reached up to the tiger's muzzle to kiss its flat broad black nose. I could see her face when she picked herself back up, one hand on the tiger's paw and another on its shoulder, and there wasn't a drop of blood anywhere on her.
This time, she walked up the stairs, shaky and slow, with one hand resting on the tiger the whole time, except for holding onto the doorframe while the tiger went through the door and the couple of baby steps she took to catch up to the tiger in the lobby before collapsing onto its back again. It didn't make sense, but there it was: the tiger lady just didn't walk like normal men and women.
Didn't, or couldn't. Too hard to tell.
After that, nobody saw the tiger lady for a while, excepting probably whoever at the hotel brought up her meals. Either she had the money to pay for her room somehow, or Mr. Weston was too speechless to argue; we'd all seen how tongue-tied even Mr. Clifford had gotten, and nobody wanted to be the first to repeat the experience all by themselves.
A couple of days later, though, after daring each other in turn to be the first one to venture upstairs, my brother and some of the other boys resolved to go up to her room all in a group and ask her about the tiger. I listened to them talking in his bedroom, and fell into step with them when they came out. At first he didn't want to let me come along, but when said I'd tell Mother if he didn't, he gave in.
We all filed into the lobby of the Weston and up the stairs, looking for something that might show where the tiger lady was staying. Edgar, the schoolteacher's youngest boy, spotted a few claw marks next to the baseboard outside room 3, and my brother knocked on the door.
"It's open," said the tiger lady from inside, and my brother turned the knob and swung the door open. She was lying on the double bed with a pillow at her back, both legs under the coverlet with the tiger's front paws stretched out across them. Her rifle leaned against the wall in the corner, with her satchel on the floor beside it.
"Evening, miss," my brother began, using the smile I used to see him practice in the mirror. "We were just wondering a couple of things about you and the tiger--and we thought maybe the best way to find the answers would be to ask you."
"Did you go on safari and find it deep in the jungles?" asked my brother's best friend Isaac, twisting a copy of the city newspaper in his hands.
"Did you buy it somewhere? In the city, from the Zoological Gardens?" asked my brother.
"Who taught you to ride it? A famous soldier? A mysterious sage?" asked Edgar, clutching the worn copy of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen that he'd been poring over all month. He edged up to the end of the bed and rested his satchel on the footboard, just inches away from the tiger's tail.
She reached a hand over the tiger's head to scratch it between its great golden eyes, and when she spoke her voice was warm. "It was a long time ago," she told us, over the rumble of the tiger's purr. "I couldn't have been much older than the little girl there, no more than twelve. I was living back East, then, in a city just on the edge of the mountains. There was a big square in the middle of town, where the house I lived in was.
"One morning I woke up before everyone else did, while it was only almost-light outside, and I opened my window to look out and see what the streets looked like with no one there. And when I looked down, I saw a tiger right in the middle of the square, pacing back and forth next to the well." She smiled at Edgar, who'd just taken a deep breath like he wanted to ask another question, and went on, "I'd seen them in picture books before.
"I put on my school dress and my knickers and my shoes, and went downstairs. Nobody in the house was awake yet, and I couldn't see anyone else outside yet either, except him." She ruffled the fur on the tiger's head again, like it was a joke between them. "I knew if he was still there when people started to get up, nobody would be able to go to the well for water, so someone would have to lure him away. So I went to the cellar and brought up a length of sausages.
"When I got out there, I stopped a ways back and flung one of those sausages as hard as I could, into the dust a little in front of him. But he didn't pay a lick of attention to it. He turned to look at me, instead, and glared at me.
"I stamped on the dirt and flailed the sausage links around, and he started to walk, but he didn't leave. He was circling me, round and round, and watching me every step.
"Part of me wanted to run, but I knew if I did, he'd just catch me anyway. So I stood there, with my hands on my hips, and I growled at him. He stopped, and he even took a little step back. So I moved forward and said, 'That's right, grrr!'
"He lowered his shoulders, then, and I thought it meant I'd scared him. So I walked even closer, pushing my hands at him to shoo him away. It was just barely starting to be dawn, but still no one was up yet, and if anyone had heard me shouting at him, they hadn't answered.
"I walked right up to him, and he still hadn't moved, so I shouted, 'Go on, get out!' and stuck my face right into his." Edgar and I gasped in admiration--how could she have had the nerve to do that, all alone? "He rared back, with his paws up, and I realized if I was anywhere in front of him he was going to claw me, and if I was behind him he could turn and do it too--so I jumped in at him, caught him right behind the shoulders with both hands, and hung on as hard as I could while he twisted and bucked. He crouched down like he was going to roll, and I swung my leg up over his back and gave his ribs a squeeze with my heels--and that's when I realized I was riding a tiger. I think that's when he realized it too, and he quieted down some, started walking around again with me on his back and my hands twisted into his fur.
"I looked down at the ground, then. I don't suppose it was any farther away than it was when I was standing... in fact, it was probably closer. But it looked like I was a thousand miles high, with nothing but empty space between my feet and the earth, and the earth just looked...different. And I started to wonder: did I really want to just walk around any more, now that I'd ridden on a tiger?
"By that time, he'd walked to the edge of the square and stopped, looking away down the street. I looked back, for a minute, at the dirt square and the well and the little frame house I used to live in...and it was thinking that, that did it. Used to live in. So I gave the tiger a little chuck in the ribs, and that was how we left. And that's how it's been, ever since." So calm, sitting there as if everyone in the world had a tiger to ride.
"Isn't it dangerous, though? Being out there all alone?" my brother put in.
She cocked her head toward the tiger and gave him a puzzled look. "But it's not dangerous. I suppose if I didn't know what I was doing, it would be. But I do. I mean, I know how to shoot, and I haven't been alone. And besides, he likes me." Her long, thin fingers twined through the fur on the tiger's chest, moving up and down with its breathing. She lowered her face and nuzzled the top of the tiger's nose. It lifted its head and washed its big pink tongue over her chin and lips. She pressed her cheek to the fur between its ears, smiling sweetly at my brother.
At that my brother frowned, and put a hand on my shoulder. "Well, thank you for your time, ma'am," he said, "and I'm sorry for imposing on you. We'd best be going, though. There'll be school in the morning." Looking disappointed, Isaac turned and shuffled for the door, his newspaper hanging loose from his hand. My brother guided me out in front of him, muttering something about rifles. I didn't see Edgar leave.
Once we got down the stairs, my brother stopped and fixed the desk clerk with a look. "She sits up there," he said, "while that animal lies there and drools on the bedsheets. Don't be surprised if that bed up there breaks under the strain."
"You forgot to ask her why her legs," I said.
"Does it matter why?" he asked, turning a finger round and round his ear. "She doesn't need legs--she's got guns. And tigers." He sniffed.
Isaac looked back up the staircase. "Edgar's still up there."
"Good," said my brother, and headed for the door. "Maybe it'll eat him." Then he stopped, just before stepping onto the porch, and glared at the desk clerk again. "Are you sure that thing should be up there? That really can't be healthy." He turned away and stalked off, tugging my hand.
"Shouldn't we at least check?" I asked, digging my heels into the floorboards. Maybe Edgar was a little strange, but I didn't feel comfortable leaving him, whether he was going to be eaten or not.
"Fine," said my brother, and let go. "Go do it yourself. I'm leaving." He kept on going, Isaac with him, disappearing into the blackness past the pool of light that was the porch.
I had to jog to keep up, but I followed him, wishing for nothing more than a tiger of my own--a tiger that would prowl, and shine, and get everyone's attention for me. It all seems so childish, now.
Whatever happened up there, the tiger didn't eat Edgar. He was in school the next day just like usual, satchel across his lap, scribbling in his notebook. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was gone, and I wondered if he was making up new adventures. Except I looked over his shoulder just before lunch, and he wasn't writing; he was drawing, what looked like giant housecats with tabby markings. I stopped him in the coatroom to find out what happened after Isaac and my brother and I left.
"She said it was nice to have visitors, and that she wished you all could have stayed longer." Edgar leaned against the wall, riffling through his notebook. A cartoon housecat near the edge of the pages waved its tail in a leisurely S.
I stepped behind him and looked over his shoulder, watching the pictures move back and forth. "My brother was really mad. He went straight home and ran upstairs and locked the door. Later on it sounded like he was talking to somebody, or like he'd hurt himself or something. I don't know." I breathed in, close to Edgar's hair. He smelled like last night, a wild, musky smell. "What else?"
"I asked her whether she was ever going to come downstairs again. She said she would, once she'd got comfortable enough with towns to want to look around one." Edgar was so absorbed in his pictures, I don't think he even realised how close I was standing.
"What would she go and see?"
"I don't know. I told her she could come by the schoolyard if she wanted a shady place to ride."
At that I just had to go and see. And what do you figure but, as we went outside into the yard, there she was sitting up against one of the shade trees, the tiger lying next to her with its paws in her lap again. And my brother was there too, his hands on his hips and his chin set firm.
"I don't believe you," he announced. "I could ride it as good as anyone. I'll prove it." And before she had time to say boo, he stepped over the tiger, whacked its right flank with the side of his boot to get its paws off her lap, and sat down hard on its back.
It took off at a dead run, my brother wobbling like a jack-in-the-box on top of it. It circled the schoolyard in a wide arc, then spun and charged straight at Edgar and me. My brother dropped his head, clinging to the tiger's neck as it raced closer.
"No!" shouted someone, and I felt hands on my arms--all from behind me. The tiger raised up on its hindlegs, chuffed, and swerved around me. I turned to follow where it had gone and saw Edgar, still next to me, eyes as round as saucers.
The tiger ran for the far end of the schoolyard. My brother managed to duck under the low branches it tried to scrape him off with, and even hung on when it jumped the woodpile--but then it ran straight for the fence around the yard, gathered its hindlegs and leaped. It landed forepaws-first in the dirt road, and my brother pitched forward, hit the ground and rolled to a stop.
I'd almost caught up to the fence when he grunted and heaved himself into a push-up. One foot, then both, flat on the ground, and he stood in a crouch with his fists before his face and growled.
The tiger growled back, and batted his hands away with a paw.
I didn't know boys screamed, before that.
I couldn't look at the blood and I couldn't look away, so I had to look at his eye--the one I could see. The other was drowning in blood from the gash on his forehead. I couldn't look at his mouth either; there was only half a mouth left for him to scream with. Only his eye, which wasn't looking at the tiger and wasn't looking at me. So it was because of that I turned to follow where he was staring.
Her.
"Look!" I screamed at him. "I'm here! Look at me!" But he didn't. He just stared on and on.
And then it was the entire crowd of children with the schoolteacher, crowding up to see, and he must have lost sight of her. I heard the teacher call for someone to run get the doctor, and someone else to fetch my mother. In the middle of it all, the tiger turned around and tiptoed its way back through the fence this time. No one said anything about the tiger lady at all.
To this day I don't know if anyone else ever noticed that Edgar stayed behind, standing beside her determined as death.
There were men and women all through our house that night, whispering and chattering about what to do, what to do. Some of the men were all for shooting the tiger, some for shooting the lady too. Mr. Clifford maintained that the tiger was one of the beasts of Revelation sent to plague us, and pointed out how it had marked my brother's forehead. Everything centered around my brother, sitting on the striped couch in the parlor with most of his head bound up in white cotton, and ringed out from there, a circle of menfolk clustered tight around him and the women in little knots of two and three just outside them, some with their children tight by their sides. And me on the outside of all.
Around eight o'clock nobody had left yet, and all I wanted to do was talk to him, not listen to everyone bicker. So I waited for all the mothers and wives not to be looking my direction, and pushed my way into the circle. "Listen," I told him. "There's something we can do. We--"
"Not now," he muttered out of the good side of his mouth, and turned away, his shoulders bunching up.
"But we--"
"I said not now!" he shouted, not turning around. Mr. Weston tried to smile, but it looked weak and helpless.
"--really should be able to give the boy what he wants," someone finished into the abrupt silence. No one else said anything. Even the women had quit talking. Too many people were looking at me. Edgar stood up, but his mother pushed him back down onto her lap. I crossed my arms, stepped out of the circle and walked back into the front hall. Even then, it was too quiet. So I pulled open the front door and went out onto the porch.
She was sitting there, just at the foot of the steps, on top of the tiger.
So I did the only thing that came to mind. I walked down the steps, right up to where she sat, and I slapped her.
Either her balance was bad or I'd hit her harder than I thought, because without any sound other than the falling, she toppled off its back and landed in a heap on the ground. She had one hand pressed to her face, and when she pulled it away, four streaks dripped red. Fingernails. But still no sound.
Except for the slap, which someone must have heard inside, because then the adults came crowding onto the porch, my mother leading the way. Everyone stood--or sat--there silent for a minute or two, before my mother walked down the stairs and reached down a hand to the tiger lady.
"Why don't you come on inside?" she asked, taking the tiger lady's hand. "We'll get you all cleaned up." The lady didn't really get up--she couldn't, no strength in her legs--but my mother clasped an arm around her, holding her to her chest, then brought her up the stairs, one at a time, and into the house.
Edgar stood there next to his mother, horrified, until the adults started filing back inside all silent and proper. He turned away, and when his mother laid a hand on his jacket to take him back in, he wriggled out of it and ran off, past the tiger, into the night.
There was still some talk of disposing of the tiger even after that, but nothing ever came of it. It didn't bother any people, and nobody had any hens or livestock go missing, so after a while people stopped crossing to the other side of the street when it came by. It lingered around our house for a few days, maybe trying to peek in the window of the front room, but the lady never looked out. She stayed in the company room. Sometimes my brother sat by her on the courting seat, face to face with a nice comfortable armrest in between them. My mother helped her practice getting around without the tiger--first little steps in the bedroom, then into the living room and the kitchen, then into the parlor, and finally with button-up shoes rather than boots. That was the day she came outside again, finally; it wasn't until then that I noticed we hadn't seen the tiger lately.
The lady and I asked around, but no one said they'd seen it. For all I knew, it had gone back out to the prairie to hunt deer or something, back wherever it had come from. No one really commented; and no one said much either when Edgar turned up missing about a week after that. There was a little to-do about how few things he'd taken with him, not even his shoes. The only things gone were his notebook, and some pens and ink-bottles from the schoolroom. That was all.
Of course, it didn't all end perfectly. I don't think the lady ever really got used to being around large groups of people, and my mother still had to reprimand her sometimes about keeping her shoes on and her skirts down below her ankles. We accepted her quite politely anyway, and even if she didn't say it, I think she was at least a little grateful. If nothing else, she never once complained.
I still don't know what possessed her to disappear the way she did, quick in the night with no trace in the morning except the dress and shoes we'd given her, and the ring that was my brother's present, arranged tidily on the bed. I expect she must have walked, since no horses went missing and there was no night coach in our town. No doubt a frightful distance to cover, wherever she went, and I have no idea whether she ever gave much thought to all we'd given her. But during the time that she was with us, she certainly learned something useful, for walking is something that everyone ought to know how to do as well as anyone else; and, after all, it is only proper that women should not ride upon tigers.
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