Page 26 of Tiger Queen

Rachel

On the way to Caesar’s cage I passed the tiger enclosure with the six females. None of them were in sight, which was concerning until I saw why. They had been moved to the temporary holding pens adjacent to the main enclosure. Jake was inside the big area, using a shovel to scoop droppings into a wheelbarrow. He was shirtless, had a beanie on his head and white earphones dangling down to his pocket, and he wore sunglasses even though it was still twilight out. His muscles already bore a sheen of sweat, which glistened as he worked the shovel.

It is way too early in the morning for you to be looking like a snack, I thought to myself. I had to force myself to pay attention to where I was driving.

I parked the Mule and shouted, “Morning!”

He glanced in my direction, but didn’t say anything.

“Fine,” I muttered. “Be that way.”

Caesar was sitting up like a well-behaved dog. I prepped his food with vitamins as I had done yesterday and pushed it through the cage. Then I grabbed a handful of chicken necks—which had the shape and texture of flaccid penises—and tossed them into the cage.

As he had done yesterday, Caesar reared up on his hind legs and put his front paws through the cage like he was asking for a hug.

“You’re needy, aren’t you?” I said. “I promise I’ll give you some attention in a few days. After I’m certain you’re familiar with me.”

I started to walk away from the cage.

“You afraid?”

Jake was leaning on his shovel and staring at me through his sunglasses. The sun was peeking through the trees, casting a solitary beam of light across his six-pack abs.

“What?” I asked.

“You afraid?” he repeated. “Of Caesar.”

“No,” I said a little too defensively. “I’m just getting used to the animals.”

“He don’t bite.”

“I don’t know that.”

Jake barked a laugh and began shoveling again.

“What?” I demanded. “You got an opinion you want to share with me?”

“Nope. You’re the vet,” he said, twisting the word to make it sound like an insult.

He was judging me!

One of the first rules of handling big cats was that you always treated them like they were hostile. It was the same concept as always assuming that a gun was loaded. You never wanted to get complacent. In this line of business, one mistake was all it took to end your career—or life.

But I didn’t want Jake to think less of me. And Caesar was still standing against the bars of the cage, waiting for me.

I approached slowly. His blue eyes watched me with curiosity and intelligence. Tigers were incredibly smart. It was possible that he knew how to pretend to be docile to lure people closer to the cage. Put a big cat in a cage and allow it to be bored all day? You never knew what game it might come up with.

Caesar panted steadily. I was close enough to smell his breath. Big cats had terrible breath thanks to the meat particles that putrefied on their teeth. It stank like death.

Slowly, I reached forward toward the cage. My fingers slipped between the bars. Call Kenny Loggins because I was now in the danger zone. My fingers slipped into his fur and touched his chest. He remained stationary, front paws still through the bars on either side of my head.

Tigers couldn’t purr. They didn’t have the same larynx muscle as house cats or cheetahs. Instead, Caesar made a sound somewhere between a human moan and a low growl. It was the equivalent to a purr, and the sound instantly made me relax.

“Good boy,” I said soothingly. “You just wanted a little loving, didn’t you?”

He continued making his happy noise, and tried to lick me through the bars. I moved my hand up and scratched him underneath the jaw, which he absolutely loved, stretching his head out straight just like a smaller cat. I continued scratching and rubbing him along the side of his head, then behind the ears. My arm up to the elbow was inside the cage, now.

For a few seconds it was easy to forget what I was doing. I was back at my Florida State residency, where I knew the cats were docile and had been with them for months.