By Gabiann Marin 2016

Annie looked into the cat’s huge obsidian eyes and saw her own old, tired face reflected back. The orange and white feline, bedraggled, drenched and traumatised was too tired to fight its way out of the arms that imprisoned it, hands that held it up to the photographer’s blinding gunpowder flashes.

Russell, Annie’s manager, held the cat towards her. “ Get a picture of them together!” he urged the photographer, who hastily tapped more powder on his flash and tried to position the large, awkward camera towards Annie.

“On the barrel!” Another man called out from the left. Annie turned and saw Russell grinning wildly and gesturing two burly river hands to roll a gigantic bespoke barrel towards her. Annie sighed as the cat was placed on the top of the barrel, but still Russell wasn’t satisfied.

“Turn it so you can see the lettering for Christ’s sake!” he called and the cat was scooped up and the barrel obediently turned so the words, expertly painted across the wooden barrel, could be seen. “Queen of the Mist” F.M Russell, Manager.

“Come on, Annie, get into the picture.” Russell yelled, giving her a slight nudge. She stepped up to the barrel. The cat, no more than a kitten really, meowed plaintively as she stretched her arm out to pet it. It was shivering, its fur still wet to the touch.

What a pair we make, Annie thought, as the flash exploded in front of her. An alley cat and an elderly school teacher, both plucked from an unremarkable existence, both caught up in events that they could no longer control.

Of course the kitten hadn’t chosen to get involved in this lunacy, whereas Annie had not just walked into it – she had created the madness to begin with.

Just yesterday it still seemed possible. Still seemed like a good idea. News of the latest daredevils in flying machines and other crazy contraptions of this new industrial age had reached her even in her backwater town, as did news of the huge amounts of money their fearlessness awarded them - the few that survived that is. Most would have seen these news stories and paused for only a moment; marvelling perhaps at the daring-do before going back to their regular lives. But Annie had seen an opportunity in the newsprint, a chance to change her life. Here, she determined, may be the answer to all her financial problems.

It had taken her months to convince the world she was serious. That she really was going to attempt the impossible. Despite her age and her poverty, 63 year old widow and mother of none, Annie Edson Taylor was going to throw herself over the Niagara Falls in a barrel.

For months there had been a strong and determined campaign by the Niagara authorities to get her to change her mind. No one had survived this before, and no woman had ever attempted it. She did not listen, could not. Her mind was made up.

It was her manager, F.W Russell, who had struck the deal. They would test the idea; throw the barrel over in a test run to see if it could survive. If it did then they had to let Annie try, and if not then she would abandon the idea and go back to her small town poverty, forget the limelight and the attention, with no promise of a brighter future. The authorities thought her mad but had reluctantly agreed. They didn’t understand why she had to do this, but then she couldn’t blame them, she wasn’t sure she understood herself.

And then someone got the cat. Annie hadn’t known anything about it at first, she never would have agreed to it if she had. But no one asked her. Russell was probably behind this too. Although she had fought hard to get him to represent her, Annie found she couldn’t really trust the moustached, suave manager who made sure his name or picture was in every part of the publicity. Anyone would think this fall idea was his, not hers.

So the cat was cornered and carted from some back street, completely unaware what was in store for it.

“You can’t survive it, Annie, you’ll see,” the man from the Niagara authority insisted as they watched the cat lowered into Annie’s specially designed barrel and thrown over the falls.

Annie watched in horror as the vessel slammed against rocks and hit the great white wall of water that fell like concrete into the unforgiving rocks beneath. The barrel, and the feline within, lost from sight in the rampaging mists of steam, slate and water.

Annie didn’t doubt the cat would die. She thought there was a good chance that she herself would die. And that was fine with her. Annie Edson Taylor had not had such a life that she had any great need to prolong it. Death may be a nice change now that every day began with a dull aching pain in her joints and ended in a scream of agony as she lowered her tired creaking bones into bed. Death was coming for her, she had no doubt about that. At least this way she wouldn’t have to end up dying and forgotten in some poorhouse.

All these thoughts were going through her head as she peered into the mists of Niagara, looking for that damn cat. Sure she would see, if anything, a tiny corpse washed up on the far bank. She spotted her barrel, wedged and lidless but seemingly intact, between two large jagged rocks. The tiny kitten couldn’t have survived.

And then there it was, a spot of golden fur, over on the rocks, struggling up onto a log. Bloodied, stunned, but alive. The spectators gasped in shock. Men ran towards the cat, grabbing it roughly. The animal too weak and injured to resist the manhandling.

Russell brought it up triumphantly, the photographers going crazy. The authorities looking grim and disappointed.

And Annie’s stomach turned. Real fear entered her body for the first time since she had hatched the idea of the falls trip. Death may not scare her, but what if she didn’t die?

What if she was just injured, badly injured? Incapacitated? Thrown from her barrel as swiftly and easily as that poor kitten. What was the future for her then?

These thoughts gnawed at her mind like hungry sewer rats as she petted the cat for the photographer, smiled through the anxiety and rowdy congratulations.

She was next. Less than two days later and she would be in that same barrel. Fitted out with a seat and some holding straps and a thick mattress padding to be sure, but just a wooden barrel all the same.

She thought of backing out then. Of just walking away, no statements, no apologies. But they had just proved it could be done. If she didn’t do the fall then someone else would. Someone else would steal her idea, her glory and her financial pay off. She couldn’t let that happen.

Two days later she walked up to the top of the falls, surrounded by well-wishers and the morbidly curious. Her manager helped her remove her coat, shoes and hat; she wasn’t wearing her corset and she heard the scandalised gasps from the other ladies on the viewing platform. What matter if she was indelicate in her clothing? Breathing was going to be hard enough in the wooden confines without further constricting her lungs in whalebone and linen.

She slid into position, pulling the straps across her shoulders. The claustrophobic darkness surrounded her. The crowds outside were muffled by the padding of wood and cotton. Suddenly she panicked. This was madness! What was she thinking? The poorhouse was a better option than this!

She started to struggle upwards, trying to push herself towards the top of the barrel, but the lid was already being fitted into place. The light disappearing.

“No, no, no!” she called as the lid closed her into inky blackness. Then a flash of light as the lid was momentarily lifted and a small ball of fur dropped into the gap. The kitten. Someone’s idea of a joke. Annie barely saw the pale orange of the cat’s fur and it’s accusing, luminous eyes before the lid of the barrel was slotted back into place and secured.

The cat hissed and positioned itself between her and the mattress. “I just hope you have a few of your nine lives left.” Annie said as the barrel rolled sickeningly across the river and towards the falls beyond. The cat didn’t see the humour in this and refused to respond.

The barrel was floating faster now, picked up by the currents, heading inevitably towards the watery descent. She felt it bump rocks, or logs or other debris, but nothing was strong enough to block its path for long.

Then suddenly it felt like they were suspended in space. Annie wondered if maybe they have been ensnared by a log or a rock after all. But before she could decide if she was relieved or disappointed by this, she was plummeting downwards, the compressed air in the barrel doing nothing to prevent her eardrums from exploding as gravity did its job and Annie Edson Taylor and a ginger kitten encased in a barrel of oak, tumbled, crashed and nose-dived over the great white wall.

Annie knew she was screaming because she could feel her lungs expanding, her throat raw and painful, but she couldn’t hear anything over the horrifying thunder of the water crashing onto the rocks. They bounced once, twice, three times, but the coopers had done their job well and the barrel withstood the impact. Annie’s head flew backwards, colliding with the mattress, wood and rock beyond, knocking her into blackness.

The cat was staring at her when her eyes fluttered open. Sunlight streamed into the barrel from the multiple breaches where jagged rock and slate had punched through the wooden slats. She looked around trying to make sense of her surroundings. The barrel was filled with water, she was soaked, blood was dripping from her forehead but she was, amazingly, alive and well; floating above the water, which was now calmer, though still moving her rapidly along its currents.

“We made it.” She said to the kitten and in response it nuzzled into her shoulder, purring, long and low; a comforting drone which filled the small space and drowned out the noise of the falls, the river and the crowds which lined its banks.

Annie closed her eyes, not opening them again until she was being pulled from the barrel on the far shore. Photographers, journalists and curious onlookers crowded around her.

“Annie! Annie what was it like?” the reporters shouted, their volume muted by her burst eardrums.

She clambered out of the barrel, awkwardly getting to her feet, imbalanced and dizzy. “I don’t recommend it. “ She said.

The reporter looked disappointed at such a non-descriptive response and didn't even bother recording it on his notepad. Annie grimaced and thought for a moment. 

“I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over that Fall.” She said.

The journalist grinned and wrote her words down. Annie turned and then stilled, unsure what she was seeing. Over in the crowd she caught a glimpse of orange and fur. Could it be? Yes, there, perched in a basket held by one of the spectators. She squinted, disbelieving at first, but there was no mistaking it. The orange and white kitten looked back at her, bone dry and comfortable, purring long and low.

The end