I'm a morning person. It's just as well that I work the day light shift, because I really enjoy getting up early to greet the dawn. Today was no exception.
By the time the first rays of the morning Sun began to dispel the lingering darkness of last night, I was already up and stirring about.
With my lunch packed and a steaming cup of hot cocoa in one hand and a doughnut in the other, I walked outside to wake up the sleeping monkey.
His name is "Butch." He has to be the lightest sleeper I've ever seen. The slightest noise will seemingly cause him to wake up from a sound sleep.
As I walked across the yard toward the big cage where Butch had spent the night, I noticed that my little buddy was at the other end of his cage staring intently toward the woods that are part of our five and one-half acre.
What did he see? What did he smell and what was he listening to, I wondered. This wasn't the first time I had caught him doing this. With the wind blowing in a certain direction, I guess Butch was picking up a scent he had never smelled before. What ever it was, it would certainly hold his attention for long periods at a time.
In case I haven't mentioned it, Butch is our pigtail monkey, a relative of the Rock Ape family. Like all Rock Apes, Butch had an exceptional nose and better than average hearing and eyesight.
I'm sure Butch smelled some wild creature in the wind which perhaps even now, was lurking about out there in the trees, but I couldn't see or hear it.
Well, as long as it stayed out there where it belonged, I wasn't going to tempt fate just to satisfy my curiosity about it.
I called softly to him, and he came to me from the other end of the cage. "Oohing" to me, he stuck out his hand for my doughnut.
"Good morning, son," I said as I placed the doughnut in his hand.
He grunted as he stuffed the whole doughnut in his mouth. The the greedy thing held out his hand for another one. Butch is a sweet-aholic.
"That's all you get," I said, as I showed him my empty hand. I could tell that he didn't like that one bit, but what could he do?
With a parting "Ooh", he made his way back to the other end of the cage where he began to sniff the wind again and listen intently to something only he could sense.
Before I left for work, I made sure he had plenty of water in his bucket and ample fruit to list him until I got back home.
As I began the long drive into Fort Worth, I paused just long enough to watch Butch one more time. He was still there at the end of his cage, cocking his head from side to side, staring off into the woods and listening and sniffing.
Something was definitely out there somewhere: of that, I have no doubt. Maybe it would be gone when I got back -- maybe not. I sure hoped so.
Pushing the thoughts about Butch into the back of my mind, I drove on to work. It was a beautiful morning and I was really looking forward to working with my buddies at the Crest Yard.
Less than two hours later, I received word to call home. That doesn't happen very often, and I feared the worst. My wife Pat answered the phone on its first ring.
"You'd better hurry back home," she said, "Butch is having a fit. He's screaming at the top of his lungs and trying to shake his cage apart."
I could sense that she was highly agitated, so as quickly as I could, I informed Paul Wicker, my car foreman and close friend, about the emergency at home. He gave me permission to leave. It was with a sense of foreboding I started back home. The drive seemed to take forever.
Why was Butch so upset, I wondered? What could possible cause him to go berserk like that? I was sure the answer was somewhere out there in the woods.
I was really surprised when I found out what it was.
Duce is the penname of Carman J.W. Vance at the Crest Yard in Fort Worth.
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