I saved a special name for a special cat for several years before the right one came along.

Her name was Zerelda.

She was gray with some white and showed up on the front porch weighing all of a few ounces, including the fleas.

She was feisty enough to make her way past a big German shepherd and more than a dozen equally unfriendly felines to establish residence at Campbell’s Swamp.

Feisty was the quality I was seeking, to go with the name, for the original Zerelda was the mother of Jesse and Frank James. I heard that she was feisty. And perhaps a bit bitter. So were her boys.

When the uncivil war erupted in Missouri, the state was one of the most divided — not along geographical lines but neighbor against neighbor, from east to west and south to north.

The Widow Zerelda, who had married a Dr. Samuels following the death of her first husband, was pro-Union as were her boys. But the Yankees burned her house and shot off her arm.

And Zerelda James Samuels changed her allegiance, as did her sons. The whole episode was a terrible mistake, one the North learned to regret after the James boys sought swift retribution.

My Zerelda was also unforgiving. She remembered the slights, the hisses and spitting and being slapped around and the really ugly snarls when she was the new cat in the yard.

The leader of the opposition was my Siamese, Varina Davis, who had little to do with common yard cats. At first she pretended Zerelda didn’t exist, ignoring her. Varina refused to sit with me in the swing, to come when called, or to be petted. She moved across the road to the barn, coming to the house only to eat, heading down the drive to the back porch with her head and tail held high, refusing to even acknowledge her old friend with so much as a nod or a meow.

After a few weeks, Varina decided that no Zerelda-come-lately would deprive her of her rightful privileges, and she reclaimed her place on the porch, in the kitchen and on my lap. Her language was still deplorable, and her claws were for keeps when she slapped the kitten.

Zerelda made some inroads among the cat population. A few actually tried to play with her, but she was too rough. She would arch her back, lay back her ears and, with hair bristled, prance sideways across the kitchen. Her markings included two white bands across her back legs, and from the rear she looked like a baby losing her diaper.

Cat nature and human nature are a lot alike. For several weeks I confined Zerelda to the bathroom, then to the kitchen and finally gave her the run of the house. She often sat in the window and howled to get out, while the other cats on the front porch were howling to get in. Finally the day came for her to go outside. She spent most of the time playing in the lariope, even enticing Richard and Baby Son to join in the romps and scamper up a tree or two. When it was time for bed, she would go to my room and settle in for the night on the side of my bed — except when she had insomnia. Then, wanting company, she would stick her nose in my ear and begin purring loudly, startling me awake with lurid scenes in my mind of old science fiction movies.

When Zerelda was older I planned to take her to the vet, to make sure she wouldn’t produce a new generation of James boys. Her visit to the doctor came a lot sooner than expected, however. The story began one night when the wind and rain were both cold — had been for several days when, just after dark, I heard a faint “meow” which is not unusual at my house. I had been worried, for Zerelda had been missing for a day or two, so I stepped outside to investigate.

There she was, near the end of the walk, literally dragging herself through the wet leaves, barely able to meow, too weak to climb the steps. Her long hair was matted, and she was soaking wet. She had probably been hit by a vehicle and appeared to be near death.

In the warmth and light of the kitchen, I examined her. One leg appeared to be broken, some blood was coming from her mouth, she had great difficulty breathing and, as I fixed her a bed near the fireplace, I predicted she wouldn’t last the night.

But she did, so off to Dr. James Valentine we went. I gently placed her on the examining table, and she showed some spunk, growling and hissing at the doctor. The situation didn’t look good, he said: broken leg, mangled foot, possible lung damage. Maybe it would be best to put her to sleep.

Yes, she could probably be saved — surgery, a cast, medication — but she might lose a foot or an entire leg.

It wouldn’t be easy. It would be expensive.

My brain told me it was hopeless and my thin wallet agreed. My head and heart reminded me of the kitten’s struggle to get home.

And then Zerelda looked up at me and stared purring.

“Let’s save her,” I said. The doctor went to work right away, later calling to tell me the things he had done, most of which I didn’t understand, but the bottom line was she came through with flying colors. A few days later, I took her home. She was thin and dragging around a heavy cast on her back right leg. But she was purring.

She took up residence in the house where there were no birds to chase, no chipmunks to catch, no cars to dodge.

She had a food bowl and a litter box, both usually full, though sometimes she missed the box — just couldn’t get that concrete leg over the side.

She liked to sleep upstairs on the landing, and in the middle of the night, needing a snack, she would come down, then go back up, dragging the leg in the cast, and things really did go bump in the night. Once she recovered she was allowed to go outside, but she would come to the door and howl to be let in — to use her litter box.

Zerelda was aggressive — pranced, then pounced, growled, then hissed. Her claws were long and she played for keeps. When less than a year old, she established herself as the dominant feline. She usually got her way, if not with a growl, then with a purr.

The purr had more power. She owed her life to it.

In her old age, Zerelda moved inside in the winter and slept near the fireplace. In the spring, she moved out, only to return to air conditioning when it got hot, then back outside for the early fall.

If the conditions were right, she would climb the plum tree at the end of the porch. Her early scamper had slowed to a slow ascent — and she would jump over onto the roof and sleep all day, just like the one Tennessee Williams wrote about, only she preferred the shade to hot tin.

She looked bedraggled, lost her appetite and her hearing, and some suggested I call Dr. Kevorkian. Last week, her back legs gave out and she lost all interest in living. She lay down on the kitchen floor, taking her final breath on Memorial Day.

Even in death, the other cats shied away from her. I remembered her purr. They remembered her claws.

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This story was taken from my collection of cat stories, “I Live In A Cat House,” which is available at the Old Court House Museum, The Cinnamon Tree and Peterson’s.

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Gordon Cotton is an author and historian who lives in Vicksburg.