A modern reckless cowboy behind the wheel, driving too fast for a long turn in the road, veered—it seemed—and struck a cougar, well off the highway, a proud, erect puma standing on the shoulder. Maybe in the gloaming the slightly drunken driver did not see. Then again, the gleaming eyes ahead may have fixed and fascinated him rather than the headlights hypnotizing the lion, as happens famously to deer and elk. Or, never fully drunk, his mind not so dim, did the careening driver merely find enticing that intractable and noble cat, the regal hulk staring in the lowering dark, and did he drive at the eyes, aiming, not veering, in stark acceleration—a compulsion he neither fathomed nor resisted?
When he came to court, he asked, contrite, “Your Honor, what’ll I get for that?” standing before the bench, wondering about himself in the clear light of the next day, nervously rolling his Bailey hat.
The Judge said, “Nothing,” lightly scratching his furrowed brow. “We took the bounty off them varmints thirty years ago.”
Moral: If animals could plead and sue, we wouldn’t get away with what we do.
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