Betty Blake’s “Mac The Pack” Has Write Stuff

Posted By Les Conklin on Feb 14, 2016

This article by Betty Blake was originally published in the September 2006 issue of A Peek at the Peak magazine.  It was published because judges selected it as the winner of The Peak’s 2006 Write Stuff contest. Of the five judges, I was the only one who knew that as an American Betty Blake had the “right stuff.” I have not seen her in several years and I just learned from Wikipedia that she died in 2015 at age 95. Be sure to read “An Interview with Betty Blake” to learn about this remarkable human being and excellent writer. 2/14/2016

Prologue

It’s unanimous. Betty Blake’s “Mac The Pack,” which appears below, is the first place winner in A Peek at the Peak’s (The Peak) recently concluded “The Write Stuff Challenge: The Critter” contest. As one of the judges of the contest, I was greatly relieved when the other four judges, none of whom knew Betty or recognized her as the subject to a previous Peak article, independently and unanimously selected her story as the first place winner. “An Interview with Betty Blake” from the January 2006 issue follows her winning story.

Betty’s award for 1st place is a two-night stay at the Four Seasons. She will enjoy luxurious casita guestroom accommodations and dinner for two in Crescent Moon, Four Seasons Scottsdale’s American “Sonoran” Kitchen featuring traditional foods influenced by the flavors of the Sonoran Desert. The resort features unparalleled views of the desert and the city below, an award-winning spa, lagoon-style pool with complimentary poolside cabanas, golf at Troon North, hiking at nearby Pinnacle Peak, and other amenities.

Entrants were required to write an original 500- to 1,500-word, fiction or non-fiction story/article about a local desert critter, such as a coyote, javelina, rattlesnake, pack rat, tarantula, scorpion, Harris hawk, etc. Entries had to be submitted by July 31, 2006.

Editor

 Mac The Pack

By Betty Blake

Flying over the Arizona desert at fifteen thousand feet does not prepare one for so much sand. I expected cactus, sagebrush, and palo verde when I was transplanted to Arizona, but it was quite a shock to find sand … sand EVERYWHERE! Had I landed on the moon by mistake? Having grown up in lush Hawaii surrounded by the bright colors and sweet perfume of ginger, plumeria, fields of pineapple, sugar cane, and coconuts, sand was only at the beach.

First Encounter

I’d needed a garden and patch of green grass to survive in this foreign land, so I began digging in the sand, pushing rocks around, adding top soil and bags of mulch to prepare a garden, and soon I realized I was not alone. Beside a small hole nearby, a large grey rat was quietly following my every move with his bright beady eyes. When I finished and stood up, he disappeared down his hole, and I brushed the dirt off my Levis and headed to the nursery to buy plants. I was excited!

Morning Surprise

Soon I was back with a pickup filled with bright pink petunias, masses of white daisies to plant under the palo verde, yellow gazania for the mesquite near the gate, and red geraniums for a Mexican pot at the front door. My curious new audience popped out of his hole again to observe the activity with intense interest. Guess that should have told me something.

The next morning when I headed out to admire my beautiful new garden in the morning sun, I couldn’t believe my eyes. This had to be a horrible dream. The ground was bare! Just sand and dirt. Not a plant anywhere! Not even a flower petal. I was devastated! Even the blossoms and leaves had been stripped from the potted geraniums. What monster had destroyed my dream?

It only took a few seconds to imagine what might have happened when I remembered my interested little observer from yesterday. But could one large fat pack rat have devoured an entire garden? In one night? Or had ravenous squirrels and cottontails chosen my garden for their late night feast?

Expert Advice

I went back to the nursery, this time to talk to an expert who could recommend plants that uninvited hungry night creatures wouldn’t find to their taste. He suggested flats of vinca. “Them critters won’t touch them ‘uns,” he assured me. “Them’s poison for sure. Kills ’em dead they’s will. No joke!”

I headed home confident the problem had been solved. Again, I carefully planted everything, but in the morning the joke was on me! Most of the vinca had been eaten down to the roots, but my little observer looked extremely healthy sitting calmly beside his hole watching me. Could he really be the culprit? Wouldn’t he be dead by now as the nurseryman had predicted? This time, though, I was really furious! Enough is enough, I muttered, adding a few choice words about experts.

An Understanding

To the nursery again! This time for a couple of gallon cans of petunias and daisies and a word or two for the “expert.” I had to find an answer. Later, with the plants settled in the ground, I said a silent prayer while Mac (I’d named him by now) watched. I really didn’t want him to be the bad guy, but, just in case … I scattered a few crusts of bread, some bird seed, and a couple of lettuce leaves nearby.

Half expecting that again the plants would be gone by morning, I was ecstatic to find they were all still there, intact. And the next day, and the next day, and after a week had passed and they were alive and growing, I began to have hope. Every night I left goodies for Mac, and apparently we had finally reached an understanding, for the flowers were never disturbed again. He had become my personal night watchman.

Gifts, Secret

Mac often left me special little gifts too. Sometimes only a dried dog turd, or a piece of aloe vera spike, a rusty nail, or shiny bottle cap, though one day he returned a brass door key lost the week before. Another time it was a silver teaspoon from his hidden collection and a scrap of red plaid quilting. I now had my very own scavenger to gather endless unusual goodies and questionable artifacts he’d stashed away in his secret tunnel hideaway.

We often ate supper on trays in the family room, and Mac would suddenly appear on the raised hearth to join the party, hopping down for a snack or a few crumbs then scampering back to disappear into the fireplace. Was he able to climb the steep chimney walls to make his getaway? That would always remain his special secret.

Special Bond

For the next two years, we had a truce, Mac and I. Actually, it seemed to be a kind of unspoken mutual respect. There were many times Mac showed his appreciation by hiding little presents of prickly cactus, small twigs, and turds under the hood of my truck, stashed neatly between the valves and hoses. Only once did he nibble on a water hose, resulting in a slight overheating problem and frantic call to AAA before the cause was discovered. On the whole, though, Mac was quite respectful. As I carefully picked his treasures out of the engine with my pinchers every morning, he would sit on top of the radiator fascinated, often chattering and squeaking with glee as I cleared out the crevices so he could fill them up again that night with more gifts. It was our special little game. We had bonded in some strange way. After all, this was his territory, but he had accepted me into it with grace, and I developed a real affection for this odd little fellow.

Mac’s Missing!

In the morning, Mac was always nearby when I opened the front door. He was either sunning himself on the banco in the patio or waiting patiently under the ironwood for me to scatter seed for the quail. So when he wasn’t there one morning, I was concerned. Had a white-tailed hawk surprised him before he could reach his hole? Not likely, Mac was too clever for that. Or maybe a hungry great horned owl or coyote had carried him off for a tasty high protein breakfast or … hopefully, his alarm clock had failed and he’d just overslept.

All morning I watched for him, but later that afternoon when I went out to irrigate a mesquite near the goose pond, there he was, lying on his side in the shade among his flowers. Mac’s sleek little body was still warm when I found him, but he was very dead. Had the vinca poison finally gotten him, or was it just old age? I’d never asked Mac any personal questions, so I’ll never know.

Sand, Memories

I only know that for me it was a very sad day. That evening, at sunset, I gently buried Mac in a small shoe box among his petunias with a piece of flagstone over his grave and a small wooden plaque on a stake that reads:

“Here Lies Mac the Pack

My Funny Faithful Friend.”

I hadn’t realized how much I would miss the furry little fellow with his bright little beady eyes until he was no longer there to greet me each morning. Without my “watch-rat,” my flower garden has reverted back to natural sandy desert. I MISS YOU, MAC! GODSPEED!

Postscript

Betty Blake was a resident of north Scottsdale. Blake served in the military as a pilot during World War II from October 1942 through December 1944. She was one of the first female military pilots and served as a ferry pilot with the Womens Air Force Service. Although female pilots were not allowed to fly combat missions, Blake and the other “gals” helped break down cultural barriers in the military and paved the way for today’s many female military pilots. Blake has lived in Arizona for many years, raised three sons, and at one point wrote the society column for a Paradise Valley newspaper.  Blake died in April 2015 at age 95.  Editor

Read “An Interview with Betty Blake”