The cat arrived at approximately 5:07 that Tuesday evening. Stalks of wheat, normally static or singing softly in the breeze, parted and revealed two green, dinnerplate-sized eyes. The aging farmer leaned forward in his rocking chair. The gnarled wood pressed against his iron hands. The farmer had never seen bears come through his field so directly. Bears came and went in these parts, but never caused trouble. A white paw with black splotches stepped from the field into the patch of potatoes.
            Bears he knew how to handle. But bear-sized cats? He was too old for this.
The farmer rose from his chair as the polar bear feline arrived at his feet. He had no qualms with dying, but if he’d had a choice in the matter he would’ve preferred the scythe to come before the day’s work, not after twelve hours of tilling the damn fields.
            The cat slow blinked at him, mere feet away. Its luxurious long hair stood without a single blemish. Neither of them moved.
            The farmer coughed into his fist. “You prolly think I’mma mouse.”
            Another slow blink.
            More than a handful of years ago, he seemed to remember his barn cats doing the same blinking when he’d stumble across their fragile little dens by the haybales. Maybe he wasn’t destined for eternity this night.
            “Well, you must be lost.” He shifted to his side for any semblance of a collar beneath the cat’s tufts of hair.
            The cat rested on its haunches between the field and the house, its human eyes shining a spotlight directly into his pupils. The farmer didn’t know much about suspiciously sized cats, but he imagined the poor thing was lost, and probably hungry too based on the lack of pig-sized rats running around.
            “I’ll be right back.” He returned with an ordinary bowl of milk for the extraordinary feline, and placed gently on the last step of his porch.
            The cat’s gaze slunk off him for the first time since it appeared, fixating instead on the bowl. A tongue the size of his good blanket unfurled and summoned every last drop of milk as well as the bowl into its mouth.
            Well, that was one less bowl he had to clean. “Hope that’s enough for ya,” said the farmer, crossing his arms over his nightgown. “Now if you don’t mind, I was busy relaxing.”
            The cat watched his lips as he spoke. Not a single muscle fiber tensed, as though it had never been capable of movement. This was a good a sign as any that he should go to bed. He turned his back to the cat, the open door to his house a welcoming sanctuary.
            A deep whine pierced the air from the cat’s closed mouth.
            “I’m not losing my last bowl to you.” The farmer stopped with one foot in the house. “Make yourself useful and check the property for rats and weasels. If you see the possum, leave her. That’s Hazel and she won’t give you trouble.”
            Shards of ceramic soaked in saliva plopped onto the porch. A deep meow escaped the beast as it again focused on his face. Whatever it wanted, he didn’t have. His other foot entered the house and he shut the door behind him. He waited a minute and crept it back open and watched as the cat departed back through fields of wheat back into the forest.
            A dreary, dew-covered morning greeted the old farmer out his second-floor window, and no signs of a supernaturally-sized cat. The old farmer dawned his work clothes: worn out overalls with his trusty old leather boots. He stepped outside and tripped over a mauled deer splayed across his porch.
            “What in almighty…” His body shot to stone. What kind of psychopath was threatening him?
            The culprit sat at the edge of the forest, slow blinking at him.
            “You can’t be doin’ that!” The farmer shouted. Skinning and preparing venison was something he hadn’t done in decades, not since he’d gone hunting with his father. And that was assuming this mangled piece of animal was even salvageable. No, he’d bury it, if nothing else than as fertilizer. But before he did any of that, the farmer went to fetch some milk.
            A deep, reverberating meow tickled his ribs when he reappeared with the bowl. The cat cantered toward him. This time in broad daylight, the farmer could appreciate the small intricacies in its black and white hair. A white diamond pattern lay between its eyes, and its underbelly was white as well.
            Liquid leverage in hand, the farmer pointed at the troublesome beast. “Not a drop until you move this mess from my doorstep.”
            He was scolding a child; one that had done wrong and didn’t understand why. Its ears went back, staring at the sloshing milk.
            The cat stepped onto the deer and stuck its face inches from the farmer’s face, its tongue reaching out for the contents eluding its grasp.
            The farmer protested, but relented when the cat wasn’t going anywhere. “Fine. Just don’t take the bowl with you, I don’t got no more.”
            One lick and the bowl was bone dry.
            The cat appeared on his property more days than not. Although he had to take care of the deer carcass that first day, it no longer brought him gifts. People, few as they were in that part of country, took notice, and the farmer could feel the word spread about the bear-cat from the woods.
            Curious onlookers approached when his fields were empty, hoping to gather gossip. They were all the same, none of them cared about him or the cat. So the farmer always chased them away, not wanting more distractions from his ceaseless work. Beyond his kids, not a single person existed on this earth that he wanted to talk to. He reached an understanding with the cat. It kept the onlookers away from fear of attack, and he’d feed it whenever it came by.
            “What’d you name it?” One unwanted visitor asked him. The farmer took a break from ploughing and picked at the crevices of his face accruing with itchy sweat. He heaved a heavy sigh.
            “How the hell did you get here without me seeing you?”
            “What’s the name? Sorry?”
            The farmer grunted. “Not my cat, not mine to name.”
            On good days, he’d answer their questions. Once one visitor became two, and two became three, the farmer realized he found himself longing for the cat’s return. Its arrival frightened the others away, and it wasn’t for no reason. A few visitors had mentioned in their attempt to win the farmer over that there’d been bear attacks in the area, and he guessed the cat’s size made people suspicious.
            For a creature of its size, the farmer had to watch the line of trees to tell it was coming. It made little noise, even when running, and would take unwanted guests by surprise, scattering them like flocks of geese. At this, the old farmer would laugh and holler, clapping at the cat bursting forth through the wheat fields.
Though the animal had been the root cause of this new plague of people, it was also the antidote, and for that the farmer began to see his friend as a welcome addition to his family of crops and cattle.
            “We gotta set some ground rules if you’re gonna be keep coming here,” the farmer said one evening. He rocked in his chair on the porch, a bowl of milk by his side. His old heart jumped when he saw the wheat stalks part.
            “I can keep fixin’ your milk. But no goin’ near my cows. I saw you sniffing them the other day and I don’t want it going further than that. If we get a repeat of the deer, you’re gone. No more milk. We clear?”
            The cat slowly blinked its eyes. The milk was then delivered, as promised.
            The next day a man in a white lab coat appeared on the farmer’s property. A nipping breeze cut through his overalls, but was tolerable as he harvested his wheat. The stranger waited politely by the house, drawing the farmer’s attention sooner than if he had directly approached.
            Up close, he could smell the alcohol in his finely groomed hair, slicked back and blonde. He had a pen and notepad in his deep coat pockets, and his black leather boots were slightly scuffed on the long walk to his property. He was shaven, but had missed a few patches of rebellious hair. The way the man dressed, the way he stood patiently but impatiently, even the way the air felt around him, all of it screamed city-dweller. He feared this day, when people from the city started showing up.
            “You’re the only one who’s ever waited before telling me what you want.”
A clearly forced smile flashed on the man’s face. “Hello sir. I’ve come here all the way from the city because of the extraordinary news of what’s been happening on your farm.”
            The farmer leaned on his scythe. “You and everyone else.”
            “You see, sir, I am a biologist. I would very much like to see this cat. I was skeptical when I first heard the news, but then the stories kept coming and coming, and I thought I would come out here on my own accord.”
            The farmer grunted. “It comes around every now and then. I have a chair right up there. One of my kids made it when they were younger. You can wait there. I have work to do.”
            He ignored the biologist while he finished his days’ worth of work. No sign of the cat came, and when he retired his scythe inside the barn with his three cows, the biologist trudged over to him.
            “I was under the impression the creature would be here by now.”
Impatience reminded him of his kids before they left for the city. “It comes by when it wants. I don’t control it. Sometimes it comes two or three days in a row, sometimes it doesn’t come back for weeks.”
            “My time is very valuable. There isn’t any way you could summon it?”
            Time moved differently in the city, and that wasn’t his problem. The farmer sighed, filling his old lungs with chilled air, an uncomfortable comfort. He inspected the biologist’s pristine white coat, and felt an unexpected tether. “You know, you’re the first person from the city I’ve met. My kids up and went that way some years ago.”
            “Sir, please.”
            The farmer tensed his lips. “There’s this bowl of milk I give it when it comes by. I could tap the side of it and see if that brings it.”
            The biologist’s face lit up. “Excellent. Please, hurry.”
            The farmer retrieved the milk dish and tapped it with a spoon, the hollowed rings clapped through the partially cleared field and broke upon the tree line beyond it. They waited together in silence, the distant trees rustling in the gusts of wind.
            “Doesn’t look like it wants to come tonight. Sorry, mister.”
            “Please. I’ve come all this way.”
            No one asked him to.
            The cat burst through the tree line and bolted through the field and sat before the porch.
            A crooked smile. “There you go. Now, have a good night.”
            The biologist shrieked in presumed delight, his hands lightly shaking as he held his pencil and clipboard.
            “I’ll fix you your milk. As for you, mister, be respectful. You’re both my guests.” The farmer left for inside, hearing the biologist scurry onto the porch behind him.
            “Astounding,” the biologist said, his arms wrapped around a load-bearing beam.
            The farmer placed the bowl beside the patient cat, loafing beside the porch.
            “I’ve never seen a feline of this size. It’s larger than a jaguar, a lion, a tiger even! It hasn’t attacked you once? A creature of this size could be a maneater!”
            “Hasn’t tried to touch me once. I think it’s lost its owner, least I can do is give it a little treat now and then.”
            “I wonder if this is the cause for all those mysterious bear attacks lately,” the biologist whispered. He peeled himself from the beam and turned to the farmer. “Sir, I would love to conduct research on this magnificent specimen. I want to know where it came from, where it goes, how it sustains itself. I want to know if there are others. It could be a public safety risk.”
            The farmer shook his head. “Not mine to give.”
            “It looks to me you feed it, so I consider it yours. I could arrange so you’re well compensated. Perhaps if you had more land you would be better disposed to say yes?”
            The farmer said nothing, standing fixed between the two. A deep purring vibrated his back.
            “I see, you’re not interested in more land. What about a large cash payment as a generous thank you for furthering public research? You could afford to live comfortably, and all you would have to do is express verbal consent.”
            Again, the farmer said nothing. These people.
            “Not interested in money? Admirable.” Frustration singed the edges of the biologist’s words. “Alright, what if I arrange for you to have help on your farm? You do all this work here by yourself, and you aren’t getting any younger. I could have one or two workers come out and help you whenever you need it, and you won’t have to pay anything.”
            “Mister, I haven’t had help in a long time, and I don’t want any now. When I can’t do what I have to do no more, that’s when it’ll be my time. No shame in it. I couldn’t go on living knowing I’m useless. The answer is no.”
            A long silence passed. The cat waited with its tongue partially out like it was waiting for the two men to part.
            “You shouldn’t turn your back on a big cat. I wonder why it hasn’t attacked you.”
            The farmer smiled. “If it attacked me, it wouldn’t get no more milk. Simple as that.”
            He never saw the biologist again. Crowds kept coming in the following days, and a group of disgruntled men and women in suits appeared after; blocking anyone else from gathering on the farm and demanding to know where the cat was. They wanted to take it away and do testing on it, regardless if the farmer consented.
            The farmer, for the first time in his life, felt his age. No one respected what he said. Not his children, not the crowds, not the biologist. The cat was the only one who respected him. Now, he had to save it from whatever those city people planned on doing to it.
            “I don’t know where it is, and I don’t know when it’ll be back,” he said to the collectors, longing for the biologist’s façade of kindness.
            “We aren’t leaving until it does. It’s a threat to the public.”
            The man who spoke sounded as though boiling anger was his baseline, and the farmer wanted nothing else than to be rid of all these people and be alone again.
            “Well, I’ve never seen it act anything but a peach, but if what you say is true, I’ll show you where I hide it when people come poking about.”
            The farmer led the gray-suited group of five over to the barn behind his house. He kept his eye on the line of trees in the distance, and there he found the cat sitting; its green eyes unblinking. The farmer finished leading the band of legal pirates. Built decades ago, the barn had for now stood fast against the onslaught of time.
            “I throw a spotted tarp over it so it looks like one of my cows. It’ll be near the back, the one that doesn’t move like the others.”
            “I’m sure we wouldn’t have been able to pick out a giant cat from a group of cows. Thanks,” one said in a tone similar to the one the farmer’s children had used on him.
            The farmer swung open the door and stood aside to let the group investigate his cows. One cow had been sickly lately, only standing to follow its herd, and this was the cow the group of snatchers focused on. They crept further into the barn, and the farmer waited until the last of them had stepped onto the sawdust and hay flooring before he flung the door shut and locked it tight. Threats of death were lobbed against the barn door bearing his name while he ran for the woods. The cat burst from its lookout post and met the aged man in his harvested field.
            “You gotta get. For real this time. They’re gonna take you away and do horrible things to you.”
            The cat purred and swatted gently at him, knocking the wind out of him.
            “No. No. Get out of here. Get!”
            He had never yelled at the cat before. Raised his voice, sure, but never yelled. The cat’s ears fell back and it retracted its paw. The two stared in silence at each other like the first time they’d met.
            The farmer wanted to hang his head, but he fought it and looked the feline right in the eyes. Somehow, someway, he knew it would understand. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to leave. But you have to. There’s no other way.”
            Muffled screams reached the farmer’s ears. Those people won’t stay in his barn forever. The cat groaned, standing with its tail lowered until it passed in front of its back legs. Slowly, it turned and walked back into the night for the last time. When it was finally gone and he couldn’t see anything anymore, he went to pour himself a glass of milk. The people in his barn were going to be angry anyways. Might as well take his time.

Trevor Gay is from New Hampshire but moved out to Chicago for the museums and deep dish pizza. He studied and is in love with History.