Heart's Chalice

Moonlight's Gift

2008-02-11T19:46:00.003-05:00

(this story is a peek into the world of my novel-in-progress)

Hucklesby and I are out for our twilight walk up the mountain. Will I see Moonlight this time?

Today isn’t a good day for me. It’s Valentine’s Day, a day which brings, unbidden, images of what my life might have been, if only I’d made better decisions as a younger woman.

Regret, however, is a bitter companion. I prefer cats.

Like Hucklesby. A gray cat the color of twilight on a misty day. Though I might have been accompanied by other cats on my road not taken, none of them would have been my Hucklesby. He lives with me in my cabin in the woods but comes along on my twilight walks and never runs astray.

Up the trail, Hucklesby and I reach the little waterfall that I call Heart’s Chalice. It must be the most beautiful place on earth. It’s not well-known like the Blue Hole, down the creek a ways. The Blue Hole is a sweet spot – in pretty weather, lovers meet there to park, neck, and skinny-dip.

But it was at Heart’s Chalice where, on Valentine’s Day forty years ago, Robert proposed to me, and I’d split our paths in two, never to meet again. Why? Because Mom hadn’t liked him, thought his head was too far in the clouds to be "a good provider." At age twenty, I’d let her wrest my truest love from me and throw it away like a rock into the creek. The ripples still pummel me to this day.

On two of my last five twilight walks, I saw Moonlight. And on those nights, I dreamed of Robert and me: dreams so vivid – each more vivid than the last – that on the first blush of consciousness before dawn, I thought I was somewhere (somewhen) else: with Robert, young again, my life to live over, ripe with possibility.

The full light of day shone, instead, on the path I actually walk. But it isn’t bad. Not anymore. I have my Hucklesby.

And Heart’s Chalice.

I start, delighted and… expectant. There’s Moonlight, sniffing as he picks his way along the rocks on the opposite side of the bank near Heart’s Chalice. The fluffiest cat I’ve ever seen, he must feel like silk. I wouldn’t know – I’ve never touched him.

Moonlight looks well-cared for and wears a blue collar with a silver tag. He’s colored like moonlight transformed into fur, and his face, tail, ears, and paws are kissed with dark silver. Raising his head, his whiskers twitching, he watches me with sapphire eyes. Then he sniffs the rocks, moving nearer to where the water falls, froths, then flows. What’s he after?

Hucklesby plays in the fallen leaves on the trail. Odd that he pays no attention to Moonlight; usually, he hisses at other cats. Hucklesby has been an only cat for ten years, since my divorce. Harry wouldn’t tolerate cats in the house, so the first thing I did after removing our marriage from life support was go to the animal shelter and pick out Hucklesby.

Moonlight’s sniff quest takes him through the twisty laurel thickets to the giant tree above Heart’s Chalice where Robert carved our initials over forty years ago. Though the carving is faint, I can still see it: MLN + RMA, enclosed by a heart. Misty Laurel Nave plus Robert Michael Arrowood. Forever.

The tree’s still here, I’m still here, but Robert isn’t. Ten years ago, he died of drink and disappointment, far away from here.

Something has changed on the tree: an arrow now pierces the heart. Robert? My breath catches with anticipation, but I free it reluctantly. I’m not in my dream. Though this trail isn’t well-used, people hike here, and some of them probably like to carve on trees.

Years ago, I’d wanted to carve an arrow, but Robert stopped me. He thought the arrow would be tacky, given his last name. We’d both been poets, aware of words. I wonder if, deep in his heart, he’d seen what was headed his way: not the sweet sting of Cupid’s arrow but the anguish of mine.

Moonlight paws at the tree, gazing at the heart, the initials, the arrow. I study them more closely. They look fresher, like somebody spruced them up with his pocket knife.

No, not “his” anything. Only my imagination. A breeze carries away my sigh.

Moonlight disappears behind the giant tree. I watch, wait for him, but he doesn’t reappear. Where did he go?

I haven’t crossed the creek branch in a few years, but there are plenty of rocks, my legs are sturdy, and my balance is good. I have to see if Moonlight is curled up behind the tree, tucked in a hollow, or…

Or what? Where else would he be?

Holding my arms out for balance, I step, with a sneaker-clad foot, on the first rock. Pity I didn’t wear my waterproof boots, but I hadn’t planned on crossing the branch. Okay, here I go – don’t think too hard, just walk. Wobbling only a little, I make it to the opposite side of the bank, then I scramble up and round the tree.

There’s no hollow in the tree; Moonlight is gone. But he’s been here, all right. On a moss-covered rock gleams a silver tag identical to the one on his collar. The evening isn’t cold, but I shiver: the tag reads “Moonlight.” Underneath is an address I don’t recognize and “Robert and Laurel Arrowood.”

Laurel. I never could stand Misty. Harry had called me Misty.

The tree is no longer gigantic. It’s merely big, like it was forty years ago. And the carving on its trunk looks sharper. It could have been done yesterday.

Or today.

I hear a plaintive meow.

Across the creek branch, Hucklesby sits on his haunches. Come back to me, he seems to say, peering at me as if he can’t see me well. Perhaps, to him, I’m disappearing.

Could Moonlight live somewhere that Robert still lives and breathes; is Moonlight our cat? Is that how I know his name? Has Moonlight been looking for me, trying to bring me home, where I belong?

But I can’t leave Hucklesby. If I’m going to chase a phantom into a dream, I’ll take my boy with me.

My tremors have calmed, so I put the silver tag in my jeans pocket, cross back over the creek branch and pick up Hucklesby, cuddle him close. I look back; the tree is again gigantic, Robert’s long-ago carving looks faint. The arrow is gone.

Night has fallen – time to go home, time to dream. Perhaps time to travel. The full moon hangs in the sky, ripe with possibility.

New Year's Eve

2007-12-19T20:19:00.003-05:00

Tonight is New Year’s Eve. It’s time to change my ways.

Not that I’m a bad cat. Quite the opposite. I’m a well-behaved cat. Mom tells me so all the time. Marilyn, she likes to say, you’re such a good, good girl. The only thing I do, once in a while, that’s naughty is to shred the paper towels while Mom and Dad are sleeping.

And sometimes I’m crabby with my brothers and sister. But for an eleven-year-old kitty girl who spent the first ten years of her life as an only cat, I do remarkably well in the “other cats” department.

No, my New Year’s resolution is more subtle. I’ve lived with Mom and Dad for a year, but I’ve never slept in bed with them. Ten years of hearing “No” formed a habit that’s hard to break.

I want to break the habit.

But every time I find myself on the verge of taking the leap – pun intended – I hear Mabel, the lady with whom I lived for the first ten years of my life, saying, “No.”

Not that Mabel wasn't kind to me. She'd loved me, and I'd loved her. She had liked for me to snuggle with her. Only thing was, she never let me in bed with her while she was sleeping at night. She believed cats steal a human’s breath.

“Have you ever heard anything so silly?” I say to Brainball as I lie on the sewing machine table, waiting for Mom and Dad to come to bed. Brainball sprawls on the bed, washing one orange, floofy paw.

He twitches his whiskers. “What are you talking about?”

I’ve spoken out of my ruminations again. Brainball thinks I’m peculiar. His paws are firmly rooted on the ground. He and I get along if I don’t get too close to him. He’s so big that he makes me nervous, albeit irrationally so. He’s a benevolent big brother and Alpha Cat, a gentle giant.

“Have you heard of cats stealing a human’s breath?” I ask him.

“Why would we want to do that?” Brainball says. “If anything, it should be the other way around. Our breath smells better than theirs.”

I blink in agreement. Give me chicken-feast breath instead of broccoli breath any day. Still, I want to snuggle with Mom and Dad in bed. I wouldn’t care if they ate broccoli morning, noon, and night.

Brainball’s no-nonsense expression brooks no nonsense. “What’s eating you?”

“I want to snuggle with Mom and Dad at night,” I say.

“Well, do it then.” Brainball licks his paw again.

“But my former human told me not to get in bed with her while she was sleeping. And for ten years, I never did. Now that I’m free to do it, I keep hesitating.”

“Quit hesitating.” He begins to catnap as though the matter were solved.

He makes it sound easy. I cock an ear in the direction of the living room, listening. Mom and Dad won’t come to bed for a while yet: Mom is typing on her computer, Dad is getting a snack. That’s fine with me. I need to work up my nerve.

The breath-stealing thing is silly, an odd superstition held by some – thankfully, by no means all – humans. So why am I afraid?

I think I know why, but I don’t want to articulate it. Not even to myself.

My younger brother’s voice cuts into my thoughts. “Mao!” he says. “Mao, Mao!”

“Do you know how many times you’ve told me your name already?” I ask him. He’s a Snowshoe Siamese, a talkative little fellow. I like him – how could I not like him? He’s the friendliest cat I’ve ever met – but he’s loud.

MaoMao sits on the bed next to the napping Brainball. He’s the only one of my siblings in whom I’ve confided my wish to snooze with Mom and Dad.

“Are you gonna go for it tonight, Marilyn?” MaoMao asks. “Start the New Year out right?”

“I want to, but I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what? You need to be more like me. I’m not afraid of anything.”

It’s true. MaoMao’s not even afraid of thunderstorms. “You’re only a year-and-a-half,” I say. “Give it time. The whole world isn’t your kitty toy, you know.”

“You need to loosen up.” With that, MaoMao high-tails it away. He rushes into the living room, skidding around the corner and making Mom and Dad laugh. Then I hear a squeak followed by a hiss, and Dorydoo, my younger sister, comes in.

“That MaoMao,” she says. “He drives me crazy.”

“But you love to play with him,” I point out.

“Yeah, sometimes,” she admits grudgingly. Fixing me in her bright-topaz gaze, she asks, “What’s the matter? You look like you might never get stinky goodness again.”

I decide to share my New Year’s resolution with her. “I want to start the New Year off right and snuggle in bed with Mom and Dad.”

“So why don’t you?” Dorydoo says.

“Old habits are hard to break.”

“Well, good luck. But just remember, I get snuggle time with Mom, too.” Dorydoo and I are often in competition for Mom’s attentions.

I reply by licking a paw, and Dorydoo leaves, probably to go back to snoozing on the recliner in the living room. Or on Mom’s lap.

I snooze in Mom’s lap, too. A whole lot. But these last few days before New Year’s Eve, I’ve waited on the sewing machine table for Mom and Dad to come to bed. Each night, I’ve tried to psych myself up and overcome ten years of “No.”

And each night, I’ve been unable to do it.

Tonight, though, is New Year’s Eve. My will to overcome ten years of “no” will be extra-strong. I hope. All my siblings have encouraged me, too. Tonight is the night.

I wait. And wait some more. I doze. The sound of footsteps awaken me. Mom and Dad are coming to bed! They pet me, and Mom gives me a kiss.

“You know, Marilyn, you can snuggle with us anytime you like.” Each night, she has encouraged me. She can see my wish in my face. Oh, to act on that wish!

She and Dad lay down, and Brainball approaches Dad, anticipating his nightly kitty massage. Dad gives the best massages in the world.

Go on, I tell myself. Jump off the sewing machine table, then hop on the bed and curl up on Mom’s chest. I can do it. I know the breath-stealing nonsense is just that: nonsense.

Or do I? Had Mabel’s fears seeped into me? I wouldn’t steal my human parents’ breath on purpose, but do I, somewhere down deep, believe I’d do it accidentally? That if I lay on the bed with them while they slept, I’d cause their demise?

Digging under my fears, I find more deeply-rooted fears. I hadn’t wanted to face them… until now. Mabel had died while I was curled on her chest. Did I worry, down deep, that I’d unwittingly caused her death?

And after Mabel died, I was cast out as a stray cat by her nephew. Now I had a lovely home, with loving human parents. I didn’t want to lose them the way I’d lost Mabel.

I glance again at Mom’s face. She looks back, encouraging, beseeching. “You can do it, little girl. Come on. Let’s snuggle.”

New Year’s Eve. The perfect time for me to bid goodbye to foolish superstitions, habits based in fear. Now is the time. Now.

Dorydoo and MaoMao start playing chase in the hall, but I refuse to be distracted. Now. Jump now.

I leap off the sewing machine table. Mom says, “She’s going to do it this time…” and I’m further encouraged by the anticipation I hear in Mom’s voice. I climb over Dad – who is massaging a purring, grinning Brainball – then I climb gingerly onto Mom, curl up on her chest, and look deeply into her eyes, waiting for her pronouncement. I expect “Good girl” or something similar.

“Oh, Marilyn," she says. "Thank you so much, thank you!”

Wow, Mom wanted this as much as me! She’d been encouraging me not only for my good, but for hers.

I hadn’t caused Mabel to pass away by accidentally stealing her breath, and I don’t have to fear that with Mom. Mom will be fine. I must have faith, for only through faith will I conquer fears rooted in my past and truly embrace my future.

Happy New Year to me! Purr, purr, purr.

Bandit

2007-10-22T16:11:00.002-04:00

“C’mon, Bandit! Get it!” Mitchell cried.

The boy moved the drinking straw slowly over the carpet in his bedroom, and Bandit pounced on it, used his paws to flip it into his mouth, then he ran off down the hall and into the bathroom. Mitchell and Maggie laughed, and as they called him back, he heard them move a second straw across the carpet.

Oh boy, oh boy! Another straw. Bandit ran back into the bedroom and pounced on it. He loved playing with the kids. He was a kid himself. Well, a kitten. Five months old. Batting the straw in the air, he saw his Cat Momma curled on Mitchell’s bed. She smiled and twitched her whiskers as she watched him.

“Good job, son,” she said. “You’re a fine hunter.” Bandit knew she meant it. Though he had two brothers and a sister, he was her favorite. His brothers and sister didn’t live here anymore. They’d gone, as the Woman Person had said, to new homes.

The kids couldn’t understand much of what Momma Cat said. They didn’t speak Cat. They couldn’t understand much of what he, Bandit, said to them, either, even though he talked to them a lot, but some things they understood. They understood because they loved him. And he loved them. They were, all three, great buddies.

Mitchell and Maggie’s mother, the Woman Person, was a different flavor of kibble. Bandit didn’t hang around with her much. He preferred the kids, or his Cat Momma, who wrestled with him and still loved to groom him. His Cat Momma was gentle and sweet, unlike the Woman Person who was always getting mad about something. Bandit would be happy if the Woman Person didn’t live here at all, but he figured Mitchell and Maggie needed her, the way he’d needed his Cat Momma when he was little.

Kids seemed to grow up slower than kittens, Bandit thought.

The Woman Person was home today. She spent a lot of time out of the house, and the kids did, too. The Woman Person went to something called “work”; the kids went to something called “school.” But today was one of the days they were all home.

As Bandit flipped the second straw up into his mouth and bit it, he heard the Woman Person’s footsteps. Uh oh. He hoped she wouldn’t fuss at him. He decided he’d just keep playing. Playing was fun.

The Woman Person came in and sat down on Mitchell’s bed, next to Momma Cat. “I’ve got some bad news.”

Mitchell plucked the straw from Bandit’s paws as Maggie watched. “What?”

“We’ve got to get rid of Bandit.”

Mitchell dropped the straw. Feeling his shock, Bandit jumped on the straw with much less gusto than before. “No way.”

“Afraid so,” the Woman Person said. “I saw the landlord when I was out getting the mail. He told me he’s got a new policy for the trailer park. Only one cat or dog per trailer.”

“Bull crap.”

“Don’t say that, Mitchell.”

At the sound of Maggie’s wail, Bandit sat down on his haunches. “Momma,” Maggie cried, “We can’t get rid of Bandit. Why don’t we get rid of Sable instead? Bandit is me and Mitchell’s favorite.”

“Sable was here first,” the Woman Person said.

“Shut up, Maggie, I don’t want to get rid of Sable, either. I love her, too.” Mitchell scooped up Bandit’s Cat Momma and held her close as his eyes filled with tears. Bandit found himself picked up by Maggie, who was crying so hard she couldn’t talk. She held him up to her face and got his fur all wet. Bandit didn’t care. He wanted to cry, too, because his favorite little girl was sad.

“Sable stays, but Bandit has got to go,” the Woman Person said. “I called your Aunt Sadie, and she agreed to take him. So stop crying. You’ll be able to see him when we go visit.”

“But they have dogs,” Mitchell protested. Gently, he put Sable back on the bed.

“He’ll be fine,” the Woman Person said.

Mitchell and Maggie were both crying now, and Maggie held Bandit tightly enough to make him feel like squirming out of her arms, though he kept himself from doing it. Bandit didn’t understand what was going on – he didn’t know anything about landlords or one-pet policies, but he knew the kids were upset, and he hated for the kids to be upset.

“When is Aunt Sadie going to get Bandit?” Mitchell asked, moving toward Maggie.

“I’ve got to take him over there today, because I have to go back to work tomorrow. I won’t have time again until next weekend.”

Both kids tried to hold Bandit close at the same time, and Bandit, confused, found himself nearly smothered by two circles of arms, frantically stroking hands, and nearly soaked by their tears. He spoke to them, “MAO, MAO,” trying to tell them it would be okay, but they didn’t reply back to him the way they usually did. They only kept crying.

The Woman Person left the room, and Bandit started thinking it had just been another fuss, that the bad feeling he had in the pit of his tummy was for nothing, but then the Woman Person came back holding a cat carrier. He’d seen his Momma Cat go off somewhere in that carrier, but she’d come back. Was the Woman Person going to put him in that carrier and take him somewhere?

Then it stood to good reason he’d come back, too, didn’t it?

“Enough of your silliness,” the Woman Person said to Mitchell and Maggie, who were clinging to Bandit. “Give me that cat.” Bandit had never cared for the Woman Person’s rough hands, and he liked even less the way she seized him from the kids and pushed him into the cat carrier as though she were shoving a t-shirt into a drawer.

Maybe he was going wherever it was that his Momma Cat had been taken. She’d gone to someone – or something – called a VET when she got really sick. She’d told Bandit that she got shots and that a needle pumped her full of water. That had sounded strange to Bandit. He loved water, loved playing with it, but he sure as heck didn’t want to be pumped full of it.

But if it would bring him back to his kids, he’d let a VET pump a whole kitchen sink full of water into him.

He began to talk to the kids, to try and let them know he’d be back. He knew he would. Momma Cat had come back, after all. “MAO,” he said. “MAO, MAO, MAO!”

But they didn’t answer him. They only continued to cry.

The Woman Person cursed under her breath, picked up the carrier, and left the bedroom without another word to the kids. Then Bandit found himself in an odd enclosure – could it be a car? His Momma Cat had told him about “cars.” The Woman Person was sitting next to him in a seat, her hands on a circle, and soon Bandit felt as though he were moving yet not moving. He sniffed, taking in the strange smells.

Bandit enjoyed adventure, and if he weren’t so worried about Mitchell and Maggie, this might be fun. But the longer the Woman Person kept him in the car, the more worried Bandit got. Didn’t this mean they were traveling farther and farther away from home? “MAO,” Bandit said, trying to ask the woman where they were going. “MAO? MAO?”

She cast a sidelong glance at him and hissed, “Shush.”

When the car finally stopped, Bandit hoped they were back home, but no. The Woman Person took his kitty carrier out of the car, and Bandit was faced with a strange house. With Bandit’s carrier in hand, the woman went up to the door and knocked.

The door opened, and there stood another Woman Person – a short one, but she looked like Bandit’s Woman Person in the face. “So this is the cat, huh?” she said. “He looks kind of like his Momma. Well, except for those white socks and the white on his face.”

“Yeah, he’s a Snowshoe Siamese. Thanks for taking him.”

“You keeping his Momma, then?”

“I guess. At least until the landlord says we can’t have any cats at all.”

“Well, don’t bring the other one over here if you can’t keep it,” the Short Woman Person said. “I’m not even sure how this one is going to do with our dogs.”

“If there’s a problem with the dogs, just take the cat to the pound. But if you wind up having to do that, whatever you do, don’t let Mitchell and Maggie know about it.”

“They’re missing the cat?”

“Yeah. They were crying when I left, and they’ll probably be crying when I get back.” The Woman Person shuffled her feet, then she pushed the cat carrier at the Short Woman Person. “Just go on and take him, all right? I want to be done with this. I’ll have enough on my hands with those kids when I get home.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe things will work out with the dogs, and next time our kiddos all get together, Maggie and Mitchell will see…” She paused. “What was his name again?”

“Bandit.”

The Short Woman Person nodded. “Maybe they’ll see Bandit the next time they come up.”

“I hope so. I’ll get this cat carrier back later.” Bandit’s Woman Person handed the carrier over, then Bandit heard her walk back to the car and start up its roar again. Then the roar grew quieter and quieter until Bandit couldn’t hear it anymore.

***

“MAO,” he said to the Short Woman Person, hoping she’d talk to him like the kids did. “MAO.”

She didn’t say a word. She took him into the fenced-in back yard, opened the door of the carrier, then went back into the house. And to Bandit’s horror, three huge, fierce-looking creatures were sitting around the yard! Could they be dogs? His Momma Cat had told him about dogs, but Bandit had no idea they were this big. They were black and brown, had huge teeth, and from the very moment he came out of his cat carrier, they fixed their gazes on him.

Bandit wanted to go back into his cat carrier and hide, but he didn’t dare. He couldn’t let himself be trapped in there by those dogs. Working up every bit of his courage, he tried to talk to them, to reason with them. After all, Momma Cat had always called him a DiploCat. “MAO,” he said. “MAO!”

Either the dogs didn’t speak his language or they just didn’t want to talk to a cat, because they all stood up and growled at him. Uh oh. Out of his peripheral vision, Bandit saw, in the yard, several large bowls filled with food, huge pieces of kibble that he couldn’t begin to get into his mouth. Wasn’t the Short Woman Person going to put out food that he, a small cat, could eat, or did she expect him to try to eat the dogs’ food? And there was a huge bowl of water which he could drown in if he weren’t careful.

This was looking worse and worse.

Keeping an eye on the dogs, Bandit moved slowly toward the back porch, away from the dogs and away from their food. He sidled his way to the back door, then he reared up and scratched it with his front claws, hoping the Short Woman Person would come and rescue him, bring him inside, give him food he could eat. He scratched and scratched and scratched, wondering where the woman had gone, why she couldn’t hear him. He knew he must be making a racket. Why was she ignoring him?

He was about to give up when the door opened abruptly, and before he could say “MAO”, the Short Woman Person leaned over and whacked at him with a rolled up newspaper. “Stop that, now. You can eat the dogs’ food. It’s good enough for any cat. And I won’t have no cat ruining our door. If you keep it up, you’re going to the pound. We sure can’t afford to have your butt declawed.”

Bandit could see the inside of the house – he’d be safe there. He tried to shoot in while she had the door open, but she was quicker than he was: she blocked his path with her foot then slammed the door in his face.

The dogs were still growling, only now their growls sounded closer. When Bandit looked back, he saw the dogs had advanced – they stood a few feet away from the back porch. With only a few steps to go, they could get hold of Bandit, tear him up.

The heck with this. He wasn’t staying here. If he stayed here, he’d die, whether by the dogs or by starvation.

Bandit had never been so happy to be a cat. The dogs were confined by the fence, it was true, but he didn’t have to be. Quickly, Bandit took stock of his perimeter. The yard, though it was fenced in, wasn’t large, and though there weren’t many trees, a medium-sized sycamore tree stood near the right side of the fence. Better yet, a branch extended slightly over the fence to the yard on the other side. If Bandit could reach that sycamore tree, he could climb up, scale the branch, then jump to freedom.

And he hoped like heck there were no big, mean dogs in the other yard.

First things first. He had to reach the sycamore tree. And that meant passing by the dogs’ food bowls, which were in the yard between him and the tree. The dogs were sure to think he was going for their food and would try to attack him. Bandit would have to be fast, faster than he’d ever been in his short life, and though he was small and agile, he hadn’t exactly been running races in the Woman Person’s small trailer.

First, he’d try being slow. He’d only speed up if he had to. Conserve his strength and speed. And if he moved slowly, the dogs might be less likely to think he was going for their food.

Bandit stepped off the back porch. He angled slowly toward the fence on his way to the tree, but he couldn’t avoid coming closer to the dogs’ food. Their growling grew louder, and when he was as far away from the back porch as the dogs were, they lunged for him. Bandit took off, running as fast as he could in a zig-zag pattern, headed for the tree. His zig-zagging confused the dogs, and Bandit shifted deftly away each time one of them lunged for him. But when one of the dogs brushed his tail with a paw, he leapt, in a single bound of six feet, onto the tree then scrambled to the highest limb that would hold him. He paused to catch his breath, and the dogs barked loud, fearsome barks that shook the tree he perched in. Whew, that had been close... too close!

The door opened and there, on the back porch, stood the Short Woman Person. “Shut up, Morgan, Jason, and Butch, and stop messing with that cat!” she hollered. Then she said, in a quieter voice, “This will never work. They’ll eat that cat up. Tomorrow, I’m taking it to the pound.”

As the woman watched, Bandit climbed down the tree to the limb which overhung the fence. Carefully, he scaled the limb far enough out to where he could see what was on the other side of the fence. A small, run-down house. A grown-up lawn. Weeds and woods behind. Freedom. And mice to eat. Momma Cat had told him about mice.

The woman screeched, “Don’t you run off, don’t you dare! What’ll I tell Pam?”

Bandit couldn’t care less. He scaled the limb farther out, to where he could more easily get down to the ground – it was kind of a long drop, about eight feet. But he would land on earth and grass, and he was a small, light cat. He got to the lowest point he could on the limb while still hanging on, then he let go.

Oof!

He landed pretty well, all things considered. He was a little winded, but he was free. Free to try to find the Woman Person’s trailer and be with Mitchell, Maggie, and Momma Cat again. He scampered away, wanting to get as far from that Short Woman Person and her dogs as he could.

***

Except Bandit couldn’t find his Woman Person’s trailer. There was no scent trail home because the Woman Person had taken him in her car, far away, and he had no idea which direction to go. He’d worked his way deeper into the woods, and he’d been living there for quite a while. He didn’t know exactly how long, but when the Woman Person had taken him away, the weather was hot. Now it was getting cooler. There were mice to eat in the woods, but Bandit didn’t want just food. He wanted company: people. Other cats.

Mice weren’t company. They were meals. And the cooler it got, the harder it was to find them.

You’d think in such a big, big world, there’d be more good food to find. Mice, birds, and bugs tasted all right, but dang it, he missed the food he got when he’d lived in the trailer! Why couldn’t he find any of that? he wondered. There had to be some out there, somewhere!

To find that good food – and to find company – he’d have to leave the woods.

After following the creek branch out of the woods, Bandit found himself in a field. In the distance, he saw a fence. This one was made of wooden slats. Could there be mean dogs behind it, like those others? That was a terrible thought, and he started to turn away, but then, between the slats, he saw a cat’s paws. Finally, another cat! He moved closer to the fence and meowed his loud ringing meow, which Maggie and Mitchell had loved. “MAO!”

He missed Maggie and Mitchell. He missed them so much that sometimes he wanted to cry. But he tried to keep himself from feeling sad. If he got too sad, he might not want to go on, to survive. And he didn’t want to give up. He wanted to live.

Besides, even if he managed to find Maggie and Mitchell and Momma Cat again, the Woman Person wouldn’t let him stay. She’d probably try to give him back to the Short Woman Person with those awful dogs. And there was no way he’d let himself become a dog munchie. He had to be open to the possibility of a new life, with new people

At the sound of Bandit’s MAO, the paws moved, then a gray head poked around the edge of the fence: a gray tabby tomcat with a long nose and almond-shaped eyes. A buddy!

Bandit bounded over to greet him, and the cat backed away. But Bandit, undaunted, ran right up to him and touched the gray cat’s nose with his own. “Friend!” Bandit exclaimed.

The gray cat sat down, cocked his head, and studied Bandit. “You sure are a friendly little fellow. I don’t think I’ve met a friendlier cat than you.”

“I’m just so happy to see you,” Bandit said. “I haven’t seen anybody but mice and bugs and birds in I don’t know how long. And I don’t talk to them. I eat them.”

The big gray tabby chuckled. “You’re very young, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t had my first birthday yet. I was born in April.”

“Seven months old,” the gray tomcat said. “About what I would have thought. So you live in the woods?”

“I have for a while. I used to live with people. But my Woman Person took me to another People House, and I hated it because she had big, mean dogs who wanted to eat me up. So I ran away.”

The gray tabby twitched his whiskers in sympathy. “Poor kid. But I understand. I have a People House that serves as a home base for my patrols, but the people aren’t that great. They don’t pay too much attention to me. And sometimes they forget to feed me. So I wander all around this area, getting to know the area cats and other people. Some of them are nice.”

“Really?” Bandit was getting excited. “Do you know any people around here who feed kitties good food, who don’t have big mean dogs?”

“Sure do,” the gray tabby said. “There are some right on the other side of this fence.”

And Bandit was scarcely able to believe his good fortune. “What’s your name?” He wanted to thank the other cat.

“Josey Wales. At least that’s what the people on the other side of that fence call me. I visit them every day. The people at my home base just call me ‘Cat’ or ‘Kitty’, and that’s boring. Insulting, really.” He licked one of his paws regally.

“My name’s Bandit. Thank you for your help, Josey.”

“Bandit’s a much better name than ‘Cat’ or ‘Kitty.’ And you’re welcome.”

It had been Mitchell, not the Woman Person, who had named him Bandit, but Bandit didn’t want to talk about his kids and start feeling sad. “I’d really like to meet those people on the other side of that fence,” he said.

“Well, they aren’t there right now, but there’s food on their back porch. Come on, I’ll show you. You can meet them this evening. They check on all us kitties in the evenings, us community cats and the ferals.” He paused. “Have you met any of the ferals yet?”

“Heck no,” Bandit said. “Like I said, you’re the first cat I’ve seen in–”

“A long time,” Josey Wales finished for him. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I forgot. And you do look kind of scruffy.”

“I know I must,” Bandit said. “I’ve been living off critters in the woods, but they’re getting harder to find as the weather gets cooler.”

“Well, you showed up just in time,” Josey Wales said. “Come with me.”

***

Bandit went to the fence, peeked around at the other side, and there he saw a white-shingled house with a back porch, a separate garage building close by, and several cats playing – and lying about – in the back yard. He turned to Josey. “Are those the ferals you talked about?”

“Yeah.”

“So they basically live at that house?”

“Well, they live close by, in the weeds and around the creek branch. Those people are really nice about looking after them. The people have two indoor cats. A big orange male and a little black female. They watch us from the windows sometimes.”

“Wow, this must be a very cat-friendly house, so I bet they have great food.” Bandit started around the fence, but Josey called him back.

“Hey – hold up,” he said. “I need to introduce you. Preacher might not like you barging in.”

“Who’s Preacher?”

“The Alpha Cat of this little area. She’s the feral mother cat, and even though she’s little, she’s tough. She’s had to be, raising her kittens wild and teaching them to survive.”

“Hmmm.” Then Bandit asked, “How old are her kittens?”

Josey looked at Bandit thoughtfully. “Right around your age.”

“Well, maybe she’d like to adopt a new kitten,” Bandit said. “I miss my Momma Cat. And I’ve been so lonely.”

Josey gave Bandit a friendly headbonk. “Hey, you’re all right, kid. Maybe, just maybe, Preacher will like you. If she’d like anybody besides her kittens, it would be you. You’re a charmer.”

And Bandit thought of something. “Are you her kittens’ daddy?”

“Nah. That’s Bukowski, a big rough and tough tomcat who comes around here every once in a while. He patrols an enormous territory, so nobody sees him much. If you see him, you’ll recognize him by his Thousand Yard Stare and his raggedy ears. He’s been in a lot of fights. But he has a thing for Preacher, and she has a thing for him.”

Together they headed into the yard, and Josey meowed loudly. One of the cats who’d been sprawled in the yard came running to meet him: a slender silver tabby with emerald eyes and a fierce expression. “Who’ve you got, Josey?”

“A foundling,” Josey said. “A young fellow who’s been surviving in the woods for a long time. See how skinny and scrawny he is?”

“I don’t need any foundlings,” the female tabby scoffed. “I’ve got enough with my own kids to worry about.”

Bandit moved toward Preacher and gave her a nose kiss before she knew what had hit her. She stared at him, stunned, and Bandit thought he saw a smile before she covered it with her former fierce expression. “And what was the meaning of that?” she demanded.

“You’re Preacher, aren’t you?” Bandit asked.

“Yes, well?”

“Josey told me you’re a Momcat. Will you be my Momma now? I miss mine so much.” Bandit lay down on the grass and looked up at her beseechingly. In his mind, he saw the image of his Momma Cat, and sadness overcame him.

Preacher touched her nose to his, gently but briefly. “Well, come on over to the porch, then, and meet my kids.”

Taking that as a yes, Bandit leapt to his feet and followed her. Josey walked close behind them.

***

By the end of the day, Bandit was friends not only with Josey and Preacher, but also with Abe, Ligette and Moonlight, Preacher’s three kittens who were right around Bandit’s age. And though Preacher stopped short of saying she’d adopted Bandit, she’d made it clear that she didn’t mind him hanging around. And according to Josey, that was amazing. Even Josey had to steer clear of Preacher much of the time. She didn’t like it when he ate food that she thought ought to go to her kittens.

Bandit was impressed by how closely she looked after her kittens, even though they were older and self-reliant. Though her fiery personality was different from that of his laid-back Momma Cat, Preacher reminded Bandit of Momma Cat in her protectiveness, tenacity, and loyalty. She, like Momma Cat, was a friend for life once her trust was earned.

Bandit could already tell that Abe, Ligette, and Moonlight were willing to regard him as a brother. The sun would be setting soon. He’d had a great day and was thinking it couldn’t possibly get any better when Moonlight came up to him.

Of all the ferals, Bandit liked Moonlight best. Moonie, as he liked to be called, had color points and blue eyes like Bandit, though Moonie wasn’t a Siamese. He was super fluffy – probably the fluffiest cat Bandit had ever seen. And though Moonie was a boy cat, he was a different sort of boy cat. Moonie had tried to explain it to Bandit, but since Moonie really didn’t understand it himself, Bandit had only got confused listening. But it explained why Moonie smelled different from his brother, Abe.

“The people who live here are bringing a new kitty into their house today,” Moonie told Bandit. “I know her as Lulabelle, but they call her Marilyn MonREOW. They took her somewhere, but they’re bringing her back, then she’ll live with that big orange cat and little black cat indoors.”

“Wow,” Bandit said. “That Marilyn MonREOW sounds like a lucky kitty girl.”

“I think maybe you could be lucky, too,” Moonie said.

“Me? Lucky?” Bandit thought about it. Even though he’d been forced away from his home, he supposed he had been lucky. Those dogs might have killed him. And he’d been lucky to happen on the patch of woods where he’d found enough to eat – not a whole lot, but enough to survive.

“I mean, if you make friends with those people, they might bring you into their house to live, too,” Moonie said.

“How do you figure that? Don’t you want to go in there? You or your brother, sister, or Momma Cat?”

Moonie sighed. “Not really. We’re feral. Wild. The idea of living in a human house scares us. But you’ve lived with people before. I can tell you miss it, like Lulabelle – I mean, Marilyn – did. And I think with these people, you might have the chance to live in a house again.”

“Okay. What do I have to do?”

Moonie thought a moment then smiled. “Well, I know their routine pretty well.” He pointed a fluffy paw at the garage. “The man works out there a lot, and he was doing some work out there this morning before you showed up. After they get home with Marilyn, they’ll have to come out here in a bit and close up the garage. They’ll go in by the main front door, but they leave by the side door here and go into the house from the back. So what you need to do is wait right outside the side door so you can tell them ‘Hello’ as they come out of the garage to head back to the house.”

“You mean talk to them? MAO at them?” Bandit asked.

“Yes. You have such a cute MAO. You’re a handsome fellow as it is, and once you start talking to them, I don’t see how they could possibly resist you.”

“Wow, thanks Moonie! You’re a great friend.”

Moonie smiled and twitched his whiskers. “I like other cats to be happy. The life of a kitty should be happy. And nice people should be happy, too. Even though I’m a feral and shy with humans, those people in that house are very nice, so I like to try and make them happy. And if I can make other cats happy and the people happy at the same time, then that just makes my day.”

Bandit gave Moonie a nose kiss and the two of them walked, side by side, mutually rubbing one another’s flanks in friendship – it was how Moonie walked with his brother and sister, and it was how Bandit had walked with his littermates before they had been sent away.

He hoped the Woman Person had picked better homes for his littermates than she’d picked for him. He thought again of the big dogs and shivered, but Moonie rubbed against him again, comforting him.

Bandit heard the roar of an engine – it came closer, then it shut off. Then he heard car doors closing. He and Moonie listened as a man and a woman, talking, went into the house. Bandit also heard the high-pitched voice of a female cat: “MwraaAAH!”

“That’s Lula – um, Marilyn,” Moonie said. “Don’t misunderstand her hollering. She’s very happy to be going inside with them. She talks loudly to everybody. She said it’s because the first human she lived with was hard of hearing.”

Bandit laughed and laughed.

“Now get yourself ready,” Moonie said. “I’ll be near the creek branch with Mom, Abe, and Ligette. After you meet the people, come find us and tell us how things went.”

“I sure will.”

Moonie headed for the brush, and Bandit stationed himself by the side door of the garage. He heard the two people as they went in the garage’s front door. Then he heard them inside the garage, talking. He saw the garage light, through its window, go off.

And then… and then…

The side door opened, and out they came. As soon as Bandit saw them, he looked up, fixing them in his blue-eyed gaze. “MAO!” he said.

The woman stopped short. He could feel her surprise. “Well,” she said. “And just who are you?”

“MAO!” he said. “MAO!”

“MAO?” the woman said.

And Bandit’s heart filled with joy. The woman was talking to him in his language, just as Maggie and Mitchell used to do! The man and the woman were like his kids, Mitchell and Maggie, only all grown up. Surely Moonie was right – with these people, he would find a new home.

“MAO!” Bandit said. He stood up and went to the woman’s legs to rub against her and purr, purr, purr.

“Look,” the woman said to the man. “He just… showed up. Isn’t he just a doll?”

Smiling, the man looked at Bandit. “What a cute little fellow.”

“MAO!” Bandit said, going to the man to rub and purr on him, too. He’d not been around many men – only a few who’d been relatives of his former Woman Person – and he hadn’t liked any of them much. But he loved this man already. Bandit felt a kinship to him. A likeness of spirit.

The man stroked Bandit from his head to the tip of his tail. “Hey, I really like this little guy. MAO!”

“MAO,” Bandit replied, then he rolled over onto his back and purred.

“I like him, too,” the woman said.

“I wonder if he belongs to anybody around here? Maybe he’s just passing through, like Josey Wales does.”

“Honestly, I doubt it. Look at how skinny and scruffy he is. He looks like he’s been roughing it for a long time. I’ll get him some wet food.”

“Good idea,” the man said.

“If we see him tomorrow, we have to give him a name.”

“Yes,” said the man, “but what?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” The woman grinned. “Chairman MAO!”

And the newly-named Chairman Mao romped around the man’s and the woman’s feet, so delighted he couldn’t contain himself. He knew he’d have a home with them soon – he knew it, he just knew it! And he would have sisters and a brother, too: the cats inside, and the cats outside, too.

He’d be part of a family again – he’d love and be loved. There was nothing better in the world.

The woman – not just a Woman Person, but his soon-to-be human Mom – went inside, then she brought out some of the best wet food – stinky goodness – Chairman Mao ever had. His former Woman Person had fed him stinky goodness, but it hadn’t been as good as this stinky goodness. He ate and ate and ate until every morsel in the bowl was gone.

“MAO!” he said triumphantly.

And the man whom Chairman Mao would soon think of as “Daddy” said, “Unless somebody else claims him, I think we have ourselves a fourth cat.”

THE END

Twice-Blessed

2007-10-04T14:22:00.001-04:00

On her way to the couch, Lulabelle’s longtime friend wobbled. “I’m dizzy,” she said, her voice breathless. “I need to lie down for a while. I’m glad I’m going to the doctor next week.”

Lula twitched her whiskers as Mabel lay down on the couch, covered herself with a quilt, and went quickly to sleep. Mabel had been getting dizzy more and more often, and she’d been especially dizzy today. Beside herself with worry, Lula jumped onto the couch, curled herself up on Mabel’s chest – it felt so frighteningly frail – then she tucked her head under Mabel’s chin and purred, hoping her purrs would help Mabel feel better.

Mabel shifted slightly in her sleep and put her thin arms around Lula. Lula loved it when she did this. Lula and Mabel had been together a long time, over ten years. Mabel called herself an old lady, though Lula didn’t know what an old lady was. Mabel was all Lula had ever known – well, Mabel and her friends. Florence and Angela called themselves old ladies, too. And if all old ladies were like Mabel, Florence, and Angela, then Lula loved old ladies. They had warm hearts and gentle hands.

But Mabel had a nephew, too – his name was Fred – and whatever nephews were, if they were all like Fred, then Lula didn’t like them one bit. Whenever Fred came over, he treated Lula as if she were a pest, and he tried to convince Mabel to move away into a “nursing home”, whatever that was. Lula did know that Mabel didn’t want to go to one, and Mabel had also told Lula that the biggest reason she didn’t want to go to a nursing home was because she wouldn’t be able to bring Lula with her.

What a terrible thought. Lula couldn’t imagine life without Mabel. And she didn’t want to.

To Lula’s relief, Mabel woke up. Perhaps she felt good enough to get up again. But no. Mabel stroked Lula’s head and whispered, “I love you, sweet Lulabelle. You’ve made me so happy.” Mabel’s words and her intonation warmed Lula, as did her gentle touch. They’d lived together so long that Lula could understand most of what Mabel said, if not the actual words themselves, then the meaning conveyed by her vocal inflections and her facial expressions.

Mabel was hard of hearing, and Lula had developed a very loud meow to use sparingly when she needed to get her attention. Lula loosed that meow, but it didn’t matter – she didn’t think Mabel heard her, even though she practically shrieked. Mabel had an odd look in her eyes, as though she weren’t looking at Lula or at anything else – like she was looking at nothing at all. Mabel had never looked like that before. Lulabelle meowed again, but when Mabel didn’t answer, Lula curled again on Mabel’s chest and purred as hard as she could, drawing on purr reserves she never knew she had. But Mabel didn’t speak again. Her breathing grew shallow. The rise and fall of her chest slowed, slowed, then after a last, soft whoosh of breath, there was no more rise.

Maybe if Lula could get Mabel warm, Mabel would come out of this. Lula snuggled as close to Mabel as she could and fell asleep, hoping that when she awoke, her friend would be okay.

A knock on the door woke Lula up. Usually, visitors didn’t scare her – she loved people. But this knock sounded like Fred’s. He had a loud, demanding knock; Florence and Angela’s knocks sounded polite, considerate.

But today, Lula decided she was glad Fred had come. He might be able to help Mabel.

The door opened – Mabel never locked it – and Fred came in. He leaned over Mabel and Lula, and Lula forced herself not to run. But he brushed Lula to the floor with his hand as if she were a spider, not a cat.

“Oh you,” he said disgustedly. “Go catch a rat or something.”

Lula did no such thing. She sat on her haunches near the couch and watched as Fred put his hand above Mabel’s nose and mouth, then he held her wrist in his hand. Then, shaking his head, he went to the telephone. He told somebody, “Mabel Ritchie’s dead… I’m her next of kin, her nephew. Yeah, I’m all she’s got… She died in her sleep... She was eighty-five years old.” He gave the address.

He hung up the phone and scowled at Lula. “Thank goodness Aunt Mabel didn’t have a dog. At least a cat can fend for itself.”

What was he talking about, Lula wondered, “fend for itself?” Could he mean her? But Lula wasn’t an it; she was a cat.

No matter. She would pay as little attention to him as he paid to her. Less, if possible. She turned tail and went into the kitchen, where she stayed until she heard Fred leave.

Lula returned to the living room and jumped up on Mabel. She simply had to wake Mabel up! She rubbed her furry face against Mabel’s cool, still one. No response. How could this be? Mabel was a powerful being. She took good care of Lula; she loved Lula well. Mabel was only sleeping deeply. Dead couldn’t mean that a person would stay asleep forever.

Could it?

Lula must have dozed off again, because the next thing she knew, a group of humans was bustling around the living room. They pushed Lula off Mabel then lifted Mabel off the couch. Lula meowed in protest: “Don’t touch my friend!” Then – horror of horrors – they put Mabel into a black bag and zipped it up! Oh, how could they do this? Mabel could wake up at any time; how frightened she would be to wake up in that terrible bag! Lula screamed as loudly as she could, but the people didn’t unzip the bag and take Mabel out.

One of the people, a man, glanced at Lula. “What a pretty cat.”

“Poor thing,” said another of them, a woman. “I used to have a cat who looked like her. Pure white. Only not so exotic-looking in the face.”

“Check out those eyes – one blue, one gold. I’ve never seen a cat like that. Hey, I wonder if my kids would like a cat?”

“Don’t mess with it, Dave. It belonged to the old lady. I mean, she’s got a nephew, you know. Her relatives will do something with the cat. You can’t just take it.”

“Shame. That’s a really beautiful cat.”

The people finished their business and took Mabel away, zipped up in the terrible black bag. None of them glanced at Lula again, though she didn’t stop screaming at them until they left: “Don’t take my friend away, I love her, I need her. She loves and needs me. She might wake up, you know. Sleepers always wake up.”

But none of them understood a word she said, and Lula was left alone in the house.

***

She wasn’t alone for long. Fred came back, with his wife, Donna. Lula didn’t like Donna any better than she liked Fred. Donna was actually worse than Fred. Years ago, Lula had jumped into Donna’s lap, eager to make friends, but Donna had hollered, cursed, her face dark with unreasoning rage. She’d pushed Lula down, then brushed madly at her clothes to rid them of Lula’s white fur.

Lula had never gone near Donna again after that.

Fred and Donna set about going through Mabel’s belongings. They took her plants, which she’d lovingly cared for and watered, and threw them in the kitchen garbage. Lula yelled, “No!” She yelled again when they tossed Mabel’s beautiful collection of ceramic cats into a box – she heard them breaking and chipping against one another. “No!” she screamed. To them, it came out, “MwraaAAH!”

“Why don’t you do something about that cat?” Donna said. “It’s starting to get on my nerves.”

Lula was sick of being called an “it.” She screamed again: “MwraaAAH!”

“Take it outside and run it off,” Fred said. “We can’t fool with a cat. We’ve got too much to deal with already. We’ve got to get this house ready to sell and get all this junk hauled to the dump.”

And before Lula could blink, she was seized by rough hands and carried outside, held out from Donna as if she had a contagious disease. Donna tossed Lula into the yard. Lula had never been in the yard; she’d only seen it from within her kitty carrier on the way to the vet for checkups. The grass felt peculiar to her paws – she couldn’t remember ever feeling grass. It was fresh-feeling, had a springy texture, and would probably feel nice if she weren’t scared out of her wits.

Donna turned on the outdoor spigot and uncoiled the water hose, which had a sprayer attachment. As Lula cowered in the yard, not knowing what to expect, Donna sprayed her with a high-pressure stream of water.

“Scat!” Donna yelled. “You don’t live here anymore. The old woman’s dead. Go somewhere else.”

Lula didn’t like water at the best of times, but this water wasn’t only unpleasant, it hurt! She screamed and scurried under a nearby bush. Donna followed her with the hose and turned another stream of water on her. This was intolerable, Lula thought. She ran out of Mabel’s yard and into a field. Disoriented, she hid in a patch of weeds. Would Donna follow her? She didn’t. Listening, Lula heard her go back into Mabel’s house and shut the door.

Should she stick around and see if Mabel came back, Lula wondered. Perhaps Mabel would wake up, get herself out of that terrible bag, and come back home. But no, that probably wouldn’t happen. Everything had changed. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Curled up in the weeds, Lula cried. She was frightened. And hungry. And oh, how she missed Mabel.

***

Late that night, she awakened to hunger so gnawing it was painful. What would she do? She had to find something to eat, but where? Ten years as a house cat hadn’t prepared her for this.

Cautiously, she left the patch of weeds and crossed the field back to Mabel’s yard. Fred and Donna’s car was gone. The house was dark; everything was quiet. Had Mabel come back? Lula stood at the front door, reared up on her hind legs, and scratched and scratched and scratched.

No response.

Heavy-hearted, Lula left the house and crossed the field again, heading away from the road. The road was where cars were, and cars were big and scary. They swallowed humans whole, but somehow humans survived being eaten. Lula had been in cars for trips to the vet, but she’d always been with a human. She had the feeling that as long as she was on her own, she couldn’t survive an encounter with a car.

How she wished she knew where Florence or Angela, Mabel’s friends, lived! Florence or Angela would feed her, give her water, take her in. But Lula had no idea how to find them. The human world was huge, bewildering. How was she to make sense of it, survive in it?

Lula had faded, whispery memories of having known other cats long ago, her mother and her littermates, when she was a kitten. She remembered her mother, a white cat with a fluffy belly, but her memories of her brother and sister were much more dim. She supposed she must have played with her siblings, that they’d talked together. After ten years of being Mabel’s only kitty, Lula was for more comfortable communicating with humans than with cats.

Once in a while, as a house cat, Lula had seen wild cats when she’d watched out her window. Mabel had called them strays or indoor-outdoor cats, but to Lula, they were all feral cats, wild cats. They were frightening but exotic. They’d saunter across Mabel’s back yard as though they had all the confidence in the world, which they probably did. Sometimes they’d see Lula in the window and come closer to investigate. Lula never knew what to say to them, and because she was unsure of herself, she hissed, to her shame. The cats would look at her as though to reprimand her for being so rude. Lula would feel bad; she wasn’t a rude kitty by nature. The hissing just happened, when she was scared. She couldn’t help it.

She hoped she could connect with Florence or Angela before she ran into any other cats. Surely Mabel’s friends would come by soon to visit. How could they know Mabel had gone to sleep forever? All Lula had to do was to find a safe place nearby to hide and keep watch, and to find food and water in the meantime.

But finding food and water would be hard. So many things she’d taken for granted, like Mabel’s care. Sometimes Lula had watched the wild cats outside hunting mice and birds and eating them. Part of her had said, “Ewww,” but another, deeper part of her was intrigued and wondered how the little creatures might taste. She was excellent at catching bugs – Mabel had been afraid of bugs, so Lula had happily caught and eaten them, and Mabel had praised her. But bugs weren’t big enough to keep hunger at bay.

The field was to the back of Mabel’s house, and there were houses to either side. Maybe the people who lived in them were as nice as Mabel. Perhaps Lula could get help from somebody in one of those houses – if so, that would work well. She would be close enough to Mabel’s house to watch for the arrival of Florence or Angela, and then she would have a new home.

***

Three days later, though, Lula gave up on getting any food or water from the people who lived in either of those houses. The family who lived to the left of Mabel's house seemed to be on vacation, and the people who lived to the right were seldom around. They came and went in a frenzy, and though Lula came up to them when she saw them and meowed, the most they’d done was to stop and offer her a hurried pat on the head.

At least the people who lived to the left – the family on vacation – had a shallow kiddie pool, and Lula drank from it late at night, when nobody would see her. The water was yucky, filled with grass and dirt from where other animals had drank, gotten in, washed. Perhaps even a raccoon had washed his hands in that pool.

Lula didn’t want to run into a raccoon. She’d seen them from inside Mabel’s house, watching out the window. They were huge, terrifying.

She was terribly hungry now. Since Mabel had fallen asleep forever, all Lula had eaten was bugs. Twice she’d tried to catch a mouse in the field but had failed. What was she to do? She was having to learn as she went along. She’d never caught a mouse in her life.

She’d have to try for a mouse again, though, to keep up her strength. She’d been spending nights in the bushes behind Mabel’s house, but if she caught a mouse and re-energized herself, she’d have to go farther away, in search of a new home and a new life. Florence and Angela hadn’t come, and now, Lula didn’t think they would.

It seemed that every day broke her heart a little more, and she wondered how much more she could stand.

But then Lula remembered Mabel telling her she wanted Lula to live as long as the kitty in the Book of World Records who’d made it to the grand old age of thirty-five. Lula didn’t know if she could make it to thirty-five or not, but all her life, what Mabel had wanted had been what Lula had wanted, too, because she loved Mabel so much. And since Mabel would want Lula to live, Lula would try her best to live.

At least it was summertime. She crept to the field and found a bunch of weeds in which to hide. She was learning that stealth was the key to capturing warm-blooded prey: hide, stalk, then pounce. She didn’t have to wait long until she saw movement in a weed patch not far from hers. Then she saw it: a gray mouse. She had no idea what mouse meat would taste like, but she knew she was past the point of comparing it to the tuna Mabel had given her every day. Lula was hungry. And determined.

She watched the blades of grass rustle with the mouse’s passing. Then she crept forward, stopped, then crept forward again. And just as she’d done when she and Mabel had played with her feather toy, she prepared to spring, only this wasn’t a game, this was life or death. Mabel had told Lula she was quick, that she had the sharp instincts of a huntress. Remembering Mabel’s words, Lula felt a rush of pride and pounced, and lo and behold she seized the mouse with her claws. It was hers.

It wasn't tuna, no, but it was her first decent meal in three days.

The mouse helped quench her thirst, too, and after another nap under the bushes, Lula would be ready to light out, see what she could see, find what she could find.

She only wished she weren’t so scared.

***

The next day, Lula caught another mouse, and she was feeling better than she had since the day Mabel had gone to sleep, never to wake again. Every time Lula prepared to sleep, she worried that the same thing would happen to her, that she’d never wake up again. And sometimes she had nightmares. She dreamed of the big, black bag with the zipper, of being zipped up in the bag while awake. Lula would awaken screaming, and once she was fully awake, she’d look around and see the branches of the bush, the grassy field, and remember her situation.

Her situation wasn’t good, no. But it was better than being zipped up in a bag, awake or asleep.

Time to light out. Lula crossed the field and came to another yard. Stopping behind a garbage can, she peered around it and saw another road. The field she’d crossed separated two roads which were lined with houses. Thank goodness she hadn’t had to cross a road. She hoped she wouldn’t have to.

In the yard was a group of little humans. In all her years, Lula had never seen humans so small. Could they be human kittens? How peculiar they were, how wild and energetic. Two human kittens were jumping up and down on an odd, circular object. Lula hadn’t known humans could jump that high. Perhaps humans only had that ability when they were very young. But two more human kittens stood nearby on the ground. They weren’t jumping. They were only fussing.

“That’s our trampoline, and y’all are hogging it.”

“Yeah, get off and let us have a turn.”

Might these human kittens be as nice, in their own way, as Mabel had been? Lula trotted closer. She was as starved for company as she had been, before the mice, for food.

“We aren’t done yet!” one of the bouncing human kittens hollered.

Lula came still closer, and one of the human kittens on the ground – a girl – pointed. “Look at that white cat over there!”

The other human kitten on the ground – a boy – looked at Lula. “Let’s get it!”

There was that “it” again, Lula thought. What was this “it?”

The human kittens who’d been bouncing jumped to the ground and screamed, “Cat! Cat! Get it!”

The boy who’d spoken earlier said, “Let’s throw it in the creek!”

Lula couldn’t understand the human kittens’ words the way she had understood Mabel’s. Something about their speech, their high-pitched voices, threw her off. But alarm bells went off in her mind, and she tried to run. It was too late. The boy grabbed her, held her under her armpits while the rest of her dangled free. How uncomfortable, she thought, and how undignified! She meowed loudly to show her displeasure.

The girl touched the boy’s arm. “Leave the kitty alone. She isn’t hurting anybody. Let her be.”

But the boy scowled. “Cats are stupid.” He carried Lula away from the girl, and Lula tried to claw him, but he broke into a run. And right after Lula spat and managed a good swipe on his forearm with her claws, he tossed her into cool water, and she yelled at the top of her lungs. First Donna with the hose, and now this! She scrambled up onto a rock in the creek and tried to shake the water out of her fur, but the boy started into the creek after her. Lula spat at him again, then turned tail and scampered across the rocks in the creek to its other side.

Thank goodness it was a rocky creek. She might have drowned. So much for human kittens; that boy had been awful. Were most of them like that?

Lula looked back. Had the boy crossed the creek, too; was he still chasing her? She didn’t see him; nonetheless, she kept running and running until she reached a patch of woods and weeds, and there she paused to catch her breath.

And there, standing before her on a mound of dirt in the weeds, was the strangest, most beautiful kitty Lula had ever seen. The kitty looked at her kindly, as though he or she were thinking the same thing.

With her acute sense of smell, Lula was able to tell by scent whether the wild cats who came into Mabel’s yard had been male or female. Cats could tell such things about one another by smell – who was male, who was female, who was younger or older, who was spayed or queen, tom or neutered. But this kitty? He or she was young, that much Lula could tell. Six, maybe seven months old. He or she hadn’t been spayed or neutered. But Lula couldn’t tell whether the kitty was a boy or a girl!

The strange and beautiful kitty spoke first. Because cat communication felt so strange to Lula, she fuzzed up and hissed, then she felt bad for doing so. This kitty was the first creature to show Lula kindness in days. She sat on her haunches, trying to calm herself.

The strange kitty spoke, undaunted by Lula’s hiss. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” She hoped that had come out right. How sad, that she’d been away from other cats for so long that she was uncomfortable even communicating “yes.” But she thought she would live her life with Mabel, that having to talk with other cats would be a non-issue.

“My name’s Moonlight.” The name suited the kitty: he or she had the longest fur Lula had ever seen, like a silky fuzz explosion, with cream-colored fur and darker color on his ears, tail, and legs, and sapphire blue eyes which were slightly crossed.

“My name’s Lulabelle.” She wanted to ask if Moonlight was a boy or a girl, but she thought that would probably be a very rude question. So instead, she said, “You have a nice name.”

“Thank you.” Moonlight came closer, and Lula steeled herself. She despised her irrational fear, but she was still having trouble reigning it in. “Are you afraid of me?’ Moonlight said. “I know I smell different from other cats, but you don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid,” Lula said. “I just don’t know what… I mean, who… Oh, dear.”

Moonlight smiled. “You just don’t know what I am. Don’t worry, it’s okay. No cat does when they first meet me. I’m a boy, but I’m not a boy like my brother Abe. Abe is a regular kind of boy cat, he smells like other boys. He’ll be a regular tomcat someday, but I won’t, at least not one like him. I don’t really know how or why, but I’m different.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Lula was growing more comfortable with inter-cat communication, at least with Moonlight. “You’re very nice. And I’m sorry I hissed at you. I just haven’t talked to other cats in such a long time. I’ve been a house cat for ten years.”

“You lived in a house, with humans? You must be very brave. They’re so… huge!”

“Huh? Do you mean humans or houses?” Lula asked, confused.

“Both,” Moonlight said. Then he smiled again. “Call me Moonie. You look hungry. There’s a place near here, where my brother and sister and Mom and I get food.”

And Lula wanted to cry for joy. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“No problem. Follow me.” But he stayed put instead and looked at Lula a moment more. “You’re the most beautiful kitty I’ve ever seen.”

“Funny. I was thinking the same about you.” Moonie made Lula happy, buoyed her spirits. Lula had been spayed when she was around Moonie’s age, so she’d never been a mother cat. But if she had, she would have wanted a kitten just like him.

Lula followed her new friend – bushy plume of a tail and all – out of the weeds and into a yard, and nearby was the back porch of a white-shingled house which didn’t look much different from the one she’d lived in with Mabel. And were those bowls on the porch filled with food? They were! She could smell it.

But there were three big problems: three cats, eating out of the bowls. Lula froze, terrified.

Moonie sensed her hesitation and turned back around. “That’s just my family there. My brother, Abe. My sister, Ligette, and my mom, Preacher.” He glanced at the porch again, nervously, Lula thought. Then he added, “Mom’s kind of crabby, but don’t worry. Stand your ground with her, and you’ll be fine.”

“Do you all live at that house?” Lula asked.

“Oh my goodness, no. We’re feral, and Mom had us in those weeds over there. But the people who live in that house put food out for us, look after us.”

“So you’ve made friends with them? They pet you and cuddle you?”

Moonie looked sad. “Part of us would love that, but no petting or cuddling. Not yet. We’re more comfortable with them than we used to be, they’re so nice, but we’re still skittish. We want to trust, but the way we live, the way we were raised, it’s hard. Mom raised us not to trust anybody but her and one another. It was the only way she had to keep us safe.”

Poor Moonie, Lula thought, never to have experienced snuggling with a person. And though she’d spent ten years as a house cat, Lula wondered if this was now to be her fate, living in the woods and sleeping in the weeds, catching mice and eating food which people set out on back porches.

But things were looking better today than they had yesterday, so she had no reason to complain.

“Come on,” Moonie urged. “There’s enough for all of us.”

Lula followed him onto the back porch, and Moonie introduced her to Abe, his ginger tabby brother, and Ligette, his silver tabby sister. Both were guarded, cool, but at least they weren’t hostile, and Lula managed to repress the nervous hiss which wanted to escape her.

“And this,” Moonie said, “is my mom. Her name’s Preacher.”

Preacher, a stunning and delicate silver tabby with emerald green eyes, turned away from her bowl and growled at Lula.

“Momma, please calm down,” Moonie said. “There’s no reason to be upset. This is my new friend. Her name’s Lulabelle.”

“Well, tell her to go elsewhere. This food is for us, Moonlight. Not for outsiders.”

“But Mom, how can you–”

“Tell her, or I’ll run her off myself.”

‘I just wanted to help–”

“We can’t be always helping, helping, helping if we’re to survive.” Preacher glared at Lula through narrowed eyelids.

Abe and Ligette said nothing, only watched and listened.

Moonie sighed then said to Lula. “Mom’s sweet, but she’s hard-nosed and tough-minded. She acts like she does in order to take care of us. We’re still her kittens, even if we’re older. We’re a clan, and she’s our Alpha.”

Alpha? Oh no, Lula thought. She hadn’t thought of having to battle an Alpha Cat for food and simply didn’t feel up to the task. Perhaps she should go back to the field behind Mabel’s house and keep vigil for Angela or Florence. Maybe they’d show up, and maybe those bouncing and non-bouncing human kittens would be gone by now.

Preacher glared at Lula again, warning her off with another growl. Hanging her head, Lula readied herself to leave, but as she started to turn, the back door of the house opened, and a woman came onto the back porch.

And looking up, Lula recognized the can of food the woman held. It was a can of the same kind of food Mabel had fed her every day – that delicious food in the brown-striped can, tuna-flavored, and sometimes salmon or turkey! Thoughts of Preacher disappeared, and Lula hollered as loudly as she could, in case the woman was hard of hearing like Mabel. True, this woman was much younger than Mabel had been, but a cat never knew. And Lula wanted to be understood beyond any shadow of a doubt. Arias! Lula would sing arias!

The woman looked at Lula, surprised. “Well hello, beautiful kitty! I’ve never seen you here before.”

The woman had the same tone to her voice speaking to Lula that Mabel had used: gentle, tender, encouraging. Lula could tell this woman adored kitties.

The woman squatted down and held out her fingers, and Lula went forward without hesitation, rubbing her cheeks on the woman’s hand and purring, purring, purring. Abe, Ligette, and Moonie watched, amazed, and Preacher glowered. Moving slowly, the woman extended her hand to them, but they moved to the rear of the porch.

Lula tried to imagine what it would have been like, to have never been around humans. What would humans seem like if a cat had never seen them, smelled them, heard them? Why, they would seem monstrous! But not to Lula. She hollered, “MwraaAAH," wanting to be rubbed, stroked. She wanted some of that good food.

But most of all, she wanted a new home.

The woman laughed. “What a meow you’ve got for such a glamorous, proper-looking little girl! Are you hungry?” She opened the can and dished wet food into all the bowls, and all the kitties, pushing their wariness aside, went to the bowls and began eating. Tentatively, Lula went to the bowl on the rightmost side, the one farthest from Preacher and the one from which Moonie was eating. Lula nibbled on the edges of the food, and Moonie accommodated her readily. But the woman quickly spooned more food into the bowl, giving enough for both Moonie and Lula. Lula ate voraciously; the food tasted so good she wanted to cry. It reminded her of Mabel. It brought to the fore of her mind how desperately she missed her friend.

But oh, what a wonderful thing it would be, Lula thought, if the nice woman would bring her inside to be a house cat again. So thinking, she glanced up at the window which faced onto the back porch. And she started in surprise and disappointment when she saw not one but two whiskered, feline faces staring back out at her.

***

Lula was elated and terrified at the same time. The woman and the man were bringing her into their house. She would no longer have to scrap with Preacher, thank goodness, but she would miss Moonlight. She’d be able to talk with him through the windows. He’d promised to stay friends with her, and she was glad.

Lula wished Moonie and his family could come inside the house to live, too. Even Preacher, as nervous as Preacher made her. But Moonie had told Lula that he and his family simply weren’t ready for something like that and he didn't know when or if they'd ever be.

The man and the woman had taken Lula to the vet for a checkup – she’d had her last checkup about eight months ago, so this new checkup was pretty well-timed. And her name wasn’t Lulabelle anymore. She’d have to remember that. Her new name was Marilyn MonREOW. She liked the name. Mabel had liked to watch what she called “classic films” on television, and even though Lula – oops, Marilyn – couldn’t watch television the way Mabel did, Mabel had commented on the films and actors she liked, and Marilyn Monroe had been Mabel’s favorite actress.

It was as though, Marilyn thought, her new human mom had known Mabel somehow. Or could feel her in some way. It made Marilyn feel more at home with her and with her new dad.

But when her new human parents got her back to their house and brought her inside, the first thing that hit Marilyn – broadsided her while she was still in her kitty carrier – was the strong smell of the two resident cats. She knew what the two cats looked like – a big, orange fluffy male and a small, sleek black female. Where were they, Marilyn agonized. Were they hiding somewhere, ready to pounce on her when Mom and Dad weren’t looking, to tear her apart? What would they think of her? Marilyn wanted so badly for them to like her – after all, she’d be living with them.

Oh dear. Could she really live, every single day, with two other cats?

At the thought, she almost wished she were back in the field behind Mabel’s house.

Almost.

But not quite.

Marilyn was put in a room all to herself, where she stayed for several days. Mom and Dad let her out to explore, but she didn’t see the two resident cats. She quickly learned, however, that Mom and Dad kept them in the bedroom whenever she, Marilyn, was given the run of the house. Marilyn saw their paws under the door, reaching out to her, curious. She became so nervous that she hissed. But Mom and Dad told her it was okay; they seemed to understand, to intuit, that she’d never lived with other cats. They wouldn’t expect miracles.

Perhaps things would be all right.

One day when Marilyn was out and the resident cats were in the bedroom, she jumped on top of Mom’s piano and looked out the window. And who did she see but Moonlight! He smiled at her and turned his whiskers toward her encouragingly. Then he spoke. Marilyn couldn’t hear him well, but the gist of what he was saying seemed to be, “Hang in there. It’ll work out. You’re a nice kitty, a sweet kitty, and they will like you.”

And soon came the day which Marilyn had both dreaded and anticipated: introduction to the resident cats. Mom opened the door to Marilyn’s sanctuary room and let her come into the hall, then into the living room. And there, Marilyn saw them. The big orange one was lying on Mom’s desk; the sleek black one was lying on the recliner. The orange one took Marilyn in with a level, no-nonsense gaze; clearly, this kitty was the Alpha. He was huge! And the golden eyes of the black cat narrowed into slits.

“Marilyn,” Mom said, “here are your brother and your sister.” She touched the big orange one. “This is Calamity Jim, but we call him C.J. or Brainball. And this…” she touched the little black one, “is Dora the Explorer. We call her Dorydoo. Dorydoo and Brainball, this is your new sister, Marilyn.”

Marilyn crouched on the floor and looked up at her new siblings. She didn’t feel sisterly. She felt frightened.

“A new sister,” Brainball said. “Indeed.” He didn’t say anything else; he only studied Marilyn. He didn’t seem angry, as Preacher often had. Perhaps Brainball was a more easy-going Alpha Cat than Preacher was.

“Yes,” Marilyn squeaked. “I hope you don’t mind.”

The little black kitty, Dorydoo, began climbing ever-so-slowly down from the recliner. She reached the floor, stared at Marilyn, then made a long, squeaky noise. “Why do we need a new sister?” Dorydoo said, via her squeaks. “Can you tell me that, Brainball?”

And Marilyn, not knowing what to say but feeling she ought to say something, was saved from having to do so by a loud laugh from Mom. Mom must be amused by Dorydoo’s squeaks. What a laugh Mom had! By comparison, Mabel had only giggled.

“Well,” Brainball said to Dorydoo, “I don’t suppose we have much choice in the matter. I figured out what was up the day Mom and Dad brought her in here. At least she isn’t a tomcat to spray all over the place. I could never tolerate that, you know. If anybody sprays in this house, it will be me... but of course, I'm too much of a gentlecat to do that. Most of the time, anyway.”

“So we have to put up with her?” Dorydoo asked, clearly disappointed.

Brainball, who still hadn’t moved from his position on Mom’s desk, fixed Dorydoo with the same no-nonsense look he’d given Marilyn. “Yes. We do. Mom and Dad say so. And I am Alpha Cat, and I will have peace in this house.”

Dorydoo climbed obediently back onto the recliner and lay down.

Looking from Brainball to Dorydoo, Marilyn heard Dad say, “I think they’re going to be okay.”

“Well, they’ve smelled each other plenty these last few days,” Mom said. “Want me to put Marilyn back into the sanctuary room for a while?”

“No, let’s leave her out and see what happens,” Dad said. “They seem to be doing fine.”

Darn it, Marilyn thought. She’d wanted to go back into the sanctuary room. Oh well. She looked again at Dorydoo, then at Brainball who, to her horror, had jumped off the desk and was moving closer. Still, Brainball didn’t seem angry, but his large size terrified Marilyn, and she did what she hadn’t wanted to do: she hissed.

“Okay,” Brainball said, jumping back on Mom’s desk and sprawling across its side. “Have it your way. Be as crabby as you like; I’ll keep my distance. Just remember that I am in charge here, and don’t challenge that.”

And Marilyn looked away, unable to think of anything to say. Making friends would take time. But at least their relationship wasn’t being founded on overt hostilities. And though Brainball was a large, strong Alpha Cat, bigger than any cat Marilyn had ever seen, he was indeed mellower than Preacher. Though he left no doubt in anycat’s mind who was boss, he struck Marilyn as a gentle giant. Marilyn didn’t think Brainball would try to hurt her, though Brainball was easily twice Marilyn’s size.

And Dorydoo? What an intense little cat. A youngster, full of energy. She and Brainball were close, Marilyn could tell. Marilyn came to find out that Dorydoo had come to the household as a kitten and that Brainball was like a father to her.

To a degree, Marilyn was the odd kitty out, but it was okay: she had a new home, and she adored her new Mom and Dad. She was a lucky kitty to have been twice-blessed with two wonderful homes, even if they were very different from each other.

There were plenty of things the two homes had in common, though. In both, Marilyn could be a lap cat. She loved nothing better than to snuggle in Mom’s or Dad’s lap, getting rubs and scritches, purring and cuddling and dreaming. When Mom or Dad smiled at Marilyn, she smiled back, which delighted them.

Marilyn’s smiles had delighted Mabel, too.

Most of Marilyn’s dreams were happy, but not always. When she woke up screaming from nightmares of black bags and water, Mom and Dad were there to comfort her.

But the household wasn’t complete until Mom and Dad brought in another new kitty, Chairman Mao: a sizzling-with-energy charmer of a Siamese kitty boy who, like Marilyn, showed up as a stray kitty, hungry for food and affection, on their back porch. MaoMao had known Moonie, Abe, Ligette, and Preacher and had become close friends not only with Moonie but with all of them. Even Preacher.

And with MaoMao’s arrival, Marilyn was no longer the odd kitty out.

But MaoMao’s arrival would be his story to tell, so he should tell it.

THE END

The Saddle of Private Lucius Gray

2007-10-03T23:13:00.001-04:00

Harley Richardson was more at ease scouring the woods near the creek for arrowheads than he was at any other time, whether working in Grump's garage, looking after his sister, or listening to his girlfriend run on about their future together. Not girlfriend, he reminded himself. Fiancee. He and Tina would marry in less than a month.

Funny thing, though, he'd never actually proposed. They dated for three years in high school, and last year, after graduation, she'd said, "When we get married next year..."

And he'd gone right along.

But that was okay. Harley was a go-along sort of guy.

Speaking of going along, Grump might live up to his nickname if Harley took too long on his break, but he thought he'd only taken fifteen minutes so far. He hadn't found any arrowheads, but the spring afternoon cried out for lollygagging, and what better place to lollygag than the site of his and Tina's future home? Grump seldom got grumpy, anyway. His nickname came from Harley's attempts to say "Grandpa" as a toddler. And even when Grump got grumpy, he never got mean.

Near Pebble Creek, Harley came upon an area cleared of trees - a square plot with a ditch freshly dug for the water line that would go to the trailer when it arrived. The ditch hadn't been there two days ago. Things were moving along nicely. He wondered if they'd dug the hole for the septic tank.

The German Shepherd that had been capering at Harley's side ran on ahead, following the path made by the ditch.

"What do you see, Wolf?" Harley asked. "You going after a squirrel? I'll take him home to Mom to make a stew." Harley liked eating squirrel, and rattlesnake, too. He'd got a few rattlesnakes in his time, but he never messed with them without snake boots and his .410 shotgun, and unless he planned to eat them, he left them alone. Black snakes made good pets, though - good temporary pets. Harley always set them free after a day or so. For an East Tennessee boy named after a motorcycle, he wasn't half-bad at catching snakes, and he was downright masterful at making engines run. "Best damn employee I ever had, and he's my grandson, too," Grump always said.

Ten yards ahead, Wolf startled a crow that had been preening on a mound of dirt. It flapped up, a cawing black blur, and flew away.

The mound was right on the water line. It couldn't be the hole for the septic tank.

Harley caught up with Wolf. Beside the mound of dirt was a rectangular hole about six feet long and three feet wide. It looked like a grave that had been dug up.

In digging the ditch for the water line, could a body have been discovered? But who would have been buried there?

Harley ran his fingers through the loose dirt at the bottom of the hole and asked, "Why have I felt, most of my life, like folks know things they ain't tellin' me?"

The dog didn't reply, save a lick on Harley's nose.

Harley turned and whistled at Wolf, and together they headed back to Grump's garage.

***

"I'm tellin' you, there's something strange out there," Harley said as he and Tina sat on her parents' porch swing after work. "Don't you want to go see?"

"No, I don't want to go see. I don't want to look 'til they got our trailer there, all ready for us to move into. And you changed the subject. We was talking about what we're going to name our first born son."

Why in hell did she have to talk about what they were going to name their babies? Why in hell did she think he wanted any babies at all before the age of, say, one hundred? He'd had enough of babies, having changed his sister's diaper most nights for the past ten years. "I wasn't talking about any such thing. You was."

Tina was nineteen like Harley, but she could pass for fifteen. Everything about her was thin, from her body to her hair. Harley thought about how her teeth looked like Bugs Bunny's, then he focused on her emerald green eyes.

Harley was no prize himself in his opinion, though people often told him that he was a nice-looking boy. All he cared about was that he was large-boned and strong, but those big-ass shoulders of his made mechanic work a real bitch when he had to wedge them into tight spots.

"Well, when I told Grump about that hole, he looked at me real funny," Harley said. "Told me he didn't know a thing about it, but the rest of the time we worked, he acted like something crawled up his butt and died. I don't know what to do about you folks. Either you act scared to death about something or you just don't give a hang."

Tina shrugged. "Did you and Grump get that engine rebuilt? It's for that '65 Chevy Impala that Momma and Daddy are giving us for a wedding present."

"We're workin' on it," Harley said.

"Is Grump mad at you? I hope he ain't. Might mean we don't get that car on time, and then we won't be able to go on our honeymoon and get started on them babies." She squeezed his thigh.

Harley rolled his eyes heavenward and sighed.

***

Later that evening, Laura Richardson sat on the sofa in the living room with her hair freshly curled and her lips white and pinched. Her eyes, the color of ginseng, were leveled on Harley as he spoke.

"...and it looked to me like somebody dug up a grave. You ever been out there and seen such a thing? And what's the matter with you, Momma? You look like you seen a ghost. Anyhow, I asked Grump about the hole, but he..."

"Dog! Dog! Dog!" hollered Doreen, wallowing on the carpet as Wolf set upon her with a shower of face-licking.

"Lord God, would you make her hush?" Harley said. "I'm tryin' to talk."

"Dodie, be quiet." His mother didn't even glance at the girl.

Doreen waved her hands in front of her face to fend off the dog. "DOGGA DOGGA DOG-DOG!" she screeched.

Harley slapped his thigh. "Wolf, get over here."

The dog jaunted over to Harley, sat on his foot, and grinned.

"As I was sayin', Grump acted weird when I told him about the hole. And when he got back to work, he started muttering about the family curse. I bet he didn't think I could hear him over the noise of the air compressor, but I heard him sure enough."

Harley's mother drummed her fingers on the purse she clutched to her stomach. "I don't want you thinkin' about morbid stuff. This family don't need to tempt fate."

"Momma, plenty of families have bad things happen. It don't mean--"

"Harley, you got to face the truth. Look at your sister." Laura pointed to Doreen, who lay on the floor humming tonelessly. "She ain't never been right. Fourteen-and-a-half years old, and she ain't toilet trained. I just give up. And look at your Uncle Martin. An ornery drunk in jail,and Lord knows when he'll ever get out. Then there's poor old Momma, stuck in the nuthouse. She don't know any of us, not even Grump. And poor Granny had four kids, but only two of 'em lived, Momma and Aunt Sarah. Never knowed what killed the other two. Died when they was babies."

Harley had heard the litany countless times. "Nevermind that old junk. I just want to know who was buried there. You know. I can tell you do."

"Just some bones. I don't know, and I don't care. You shouldn't, either." Laura stood and slung her purse over her shoulder.

"Well, go on to Bingo, and I'll look after Dodie."

Laura left, and Harley studied his sister, who was picking her nose as though it were the nexus of cosmic wisdom from which she was trying to mine answers to questions about eternity. Then he focused on the TV, which was showing a rerun of the Andy Griffith Show.

Three years ago during Apollo 17 - the most recent mission to the moon - Harley had dreamed of working on a mission someday. He knew that he'd have no problem learning to make rockets go. He could build a car engine almost from scratch, and he'd read a lot about airplane engines, too.

So why was it that, the older he got, the further away his dreams seemed to recede?

***

Before work, Harley checked the newspaper. It didn't take him long to find the story, squarely in the middle of page three. "Bones of Confederate Soldier Found Buried in Pebble Creek Community," the headline said. "Dr. H. Frank Ellison, Archaeologist from Southern Mountain State University, Collects Bones and Artifacts for Analysis." The story said that a .58 caliber minie ball, from a Civil War-era muzzleloader, had been excavated with the soldier's bones along with brass buttons off a uniform, scraps of cowhide boots, a pocket watch, a gold wedding band, the rusted remnants of a knife, and a belt buckle enraved with C. S., for Confederate States. A name was engraved on the watch: Lucius Gray.

After reading the story, Harley remembered another discovery he'd made, this one twelve years ago. He'd been messing around in an abandoned log cabin a half-mile from home, near the lot where his and Tina's trailer would be placed. The cabin's floor was shrouded with wood dust and its walls were alive with mice, but when Harley explored the crawl space below, he'd found a leather saddle, dark and cracked. He'd dragged the saddle outside in the sun, where he saw letters on the pommel's tarnished brass shield: C. S.

The seven-year-old Harley hadn't known what C. S. stood for. He'd wondered if the saddle belonged to a boy named Charlie Stanley. Or to a gunslinger named Cowboy Smith.

He'd run all the way home, and when he told his mother and Grump about the saddle, they'd both turned pale. Laura had sent Harley to his room, and when he'd gone back to the cabin the next day after school, the saddle was gone, and nobody would answer his questions. He eventually stopped talking about it, then he'd forgotten about it.

He wondered what his mother and Grump had done with the saddle. It belonged in a museum, but as weird as they were about messing with strangers, they'd probably taken it to the dump.

It wasn't strange that a Confederate soldier had been killed in Pebble Creek. The community, like much of East Tennessee, had been largely pro-Union during the Civil War. But had the person who killed the soldier been the same person who had lived in the log cabin and stuffed the saddle into the crawl space? Nobody as far back as anyone could remember had knowledge of that land ever belonging to anybody other than family, or so Grump claimed. But if Grump knew who had lived in the cabin, he wasn't talking. Harley had studied Newton's laws of motion in high school, but his family was ruled by the Pebble Creek Law of Tied Tongues.

One family member was an exception.

Harley decided to go to the prison after work and see Uncle Martin. Martin's speech was never bound by Laws of Tied Tongues, Pebble Creek Community's or anybody else's.

***

"Somebody dug up some old bones, huh?" Uncle Martin said. "Can't say I'm surprised somebody found somethin'."

Harley and Martin sat across from each other at a pockmarked wooden table in Roan Mountain State Prison's visitation area, which reminded Harley of a school with its cinderblock walls and smell of disinfectant, a smell he thought of as "institutional stink." He thanked God he was out of high school. Why, he wondered, were institutions so smelly and bland? Even Uncle Martin, vigorous and ruddy-faced in Harley's childhood memories, seemed leached of color in his faded denim uniform to the point of blending in with his disappearing freckles.

"You mean that's where you stuck Dave after you clobbered him?" Harley ribbed.

"Aw, quit giving me a hard time." Uncle Martin popped the knuckles on his left hand. "All my life, Momma babbled to Grump about secrets and curses until they finally hauled her off. I always figured there was a body to be found somewhere."

"My momma talks to Grump about that old stuff, too, and it pretty much drove my daddy to drink. What the blazes is wrong with our family, anyways?"

"Ain't nothin' wrong with 'em except foolishness," Martin said. "Trouble is, I let myself get sucked in by their foolishness when I was young. Don't let it happen to you. You ain't like the rest of 'em."

"You ain't like 'em either, Uncle Martin."

"I reckon not, but it doesn't matter 'cause of staying drunk off my ass when I wasn't much older than you. I'll say until the day I die that Dave Potter deserved a whuppin', but he didn't deserve killin'. But when I'm drunk, I don't know my own strength. And now I've wasted eleven years of my life, and I've got four more to flush down the crapper, and that's if I make my parole."

"At least you got sent over here. This place is better than Mountain City, I bet."

Martin snorted. "Well, at least it ain't maximum security. Now, listen to me kid. Get out of that mess while you still can. Then you might have some kind of chance to do somethin'. Okay?"

"Sure," Harley said. "But I'm curious about them bones. It's mighty interesting that they belonged to a soldier in the Confederate Army. Remember when I was a kid and found a Confederate saddle in that old log cabin?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"Do you know who lived in that cabin?"

"Supposed to have been a great uncle of mine. Alvin something. His name used to come up when Momma got to ravin'. I don't know much about him, though."

Harley held out his hand, and Uncle Martin shook it. "I'll be thinking about you on your wedding day. I hope that little ol' girl will be good to you."

"Yeah, me too."

"Give some thought to what I said."

"What you said when?"

"You remember, Harley. You remember."

***

After dropping off Grump's truck, a '69 Ford he'd borrowed to drive to the prison, Harley was tired. He'd done both engine and body work that day, and he felt as if he'd been grinding Bondo and banging sheet metal for the last hundred years. He was about Bondoed and banged out.

When he was in sight of his front yard, Wolf ran to meet him. Coming up the gravel driveway to the white frame house, Harley heard his mother's voice.

"Daddy, what are we going to do?"

Laura never called Grump "Daddy" unless she was upset. Even to his kids, Laura and Martin, Grump had been Grump ever since Harley had deemed it so.

Grump's voice followed Laura's. "I don't know. That paper's always wantin' to stir up trouble. I don't know what we can do."

"But what if the truth gets out about what happened? Oh, the things people would say! Please, Daddy, go talk to the editor of the paper and tell him not to print anything else about it. Or go to the college and tell that H. Fred or whatever his name is to stop messing in our business and leave us alone."

"Laura, that editor don't know me. Nobody gives a hoot about nobody these days. He'd blow me off sure as shootin', and the professor from that college would just call me a crazy old coot."

Harley stepped onto the porch and heard his mother's voice again.

"Hush now. Here comes Harley."

Harley and Wolf entered the house. Laura was pacing the living room, her cheeks wet with tears. Dodie sat on the floor watching a cartoon on TV. Grump squatted red-faced on the sofa, clutching his broken glasses in his big-knuckled hands. He'd broken his glasses for what must be the fourth time that year. If he kept up with his tools the way he kept up with his glasses, Harley thought, they'd wind up without so much as a wrench to turn.

"Why are you so late?" Laura stopped pacing and glared at Harley. "Please stay home tonight. I need you to stay here."

"Where would I go? Tina's at a friend's house, and Jim and Lewis done gone to the races in Bristol. You know, the races you begged me not to go to."

"Well, I'm glad you ain't like your Daddy, runnin' hither and yonder and treatin' this place like a hotel." Laura wiped her eyes with her blouse sleeve. "Come on and eat. Dodie's done ate, but me and Grump's been waitin' on you. We got meatloaf and mashed taters. And you ain't told me where you been."

Harley sat at the kitchen table. "I've been to see Uncle Martin. He's doing fine. He's over that cold he had a few weeks ago."

"I seen him last week," Grump said, sitting beside Harley. "I thought he acted pretty crotchety. That prison's making him mean."

Harley frowned at his mother. "You ought to visit him sometime. I bet he'd like to see his sister."

He ate his fill and slipped tidbits of meat to Wolf, whose muzzle wet his jeans. Laura picked at her food, and Grump did little better. Then Grump lit his after-supper cigar, took a draw, and blew a smoke cloud at the ceiling.

Should he, or shouldn't he? All his life, Harley had been keeping his thoughts to himself, but this was different. This seemed to hold some sort of key. A key to what? He didn't know. But he knew the key wouldn't work if he kept quiet.

"Momma, I saw an article in the morning paper about them bones that was dug up. Bones from a Confederate soldier. That got me thinkin' about the saddle I found in that cabin when I was a kid."

Her eyes widened, but he continued.

"I asked Uncle Martin who lived in that cabin during the time of the Civil War, and he told me he thought it was a great-uncle of his, Alvin something. And the paper told the name of that soldier whose bones was found. Lucius Gray."

Her lips turned white.

"Lucius Gray," Harley repeated.

"Don't say that no more!" She squeezed her eyes shut.

And Harley's dam broke. "What do you think, that he's a vampire out to suck the blood from this family and that he can be raised up from the dead just by sayin' his name?" He looked at Grump, who goggled back through his broken glasses. "And you - what's eatin' you? What is there about bones from some old soldier that's got you so scared? You fought in World War Two, for God's sakes, against Nazis. And I heard y'all talkin' as I was comin' in. What did Momma mean when she said that about the truth comin' out? What truth? for the first time in my life, tell me something and quit pussyfooting around."

Grump took off his glasses and gazed down at his plate. "I don't know if you and Tina will want to live on that land after you know this, but here it is. Alvin McPherson was your great-great uncle. He lived in that cabin during the Civil War, and he killed a rebel soldier named Lucius Gray and buried him. After that, his wife died in childbirth, and then his other two young'uns died. His sister was your great granny Pearl's momma. And it's nothin' but bad luck our family's had ever since. No, I never was afraid of no Nazis, but a man sure don't want to trifle with something that would mess up his family like that curse has done."

"Are you really that afraid of absolutely nothing?" Harley said. "Hell, Uncle Alvin probably thought he was protecting his family. It was war time back then, you know. You've been in a war, Grump."

Laura tightened her jaw. "It don't matter. We don't know God's ways. What matters is that God cursed Uncle Alvin on that day, and that curse is the whole family's. And you better watch how you talk to me and your grandpa. You ain't too old for me to turn over my knee."

"I ain't going to be turned over nobody's knee," Harley said. "Just try it, and I'm out that door. And speaking of God's ways, do you remember that sermon Preacher Fritts preached a couple of Sundays ago about the old man and the new man?"

"What are you talkin' about?" Laura asked.

"Preacher Fritts preached about how the old man is the man of the past, driven by his base nature and by old habits. The old man represents man's evil nature. Well, this whole family is the old man. Not because this family is evil, but because it thinks it's evil. It clings to evil, which is just as bad. And the new man is the part that wants to do God's will. The new man doesn't cut his connection to God and to goodness. Well, from now on, I'm going to be the new man. I'm going to look for the goodness in life and not hang onto old stuff that gets all twisted up in my mind. I ain't spendin' my whole life worrying about junk that don't matter no more to nobody except some college professor who only sees Lucius Gray as musty old bones to study and then store away."

Laura couldn't have looked more confused had she discovered that Harley was a species other than human. "Sometimes I can't believe you came from my womb."

"I don't care what you believe," Harley said. "Not anymore. I care what I believe. And I hope I can hang onto that. Maybe I can."

"Maybe you can, at that." Grump looked at Harley as though he'd never seen his grandson before.

***

Harley spent that night with Wolf in a tent in the back yard, and he couldn't sleep. He couldn't stop thinking. He wasn't sure if he wanted to marry Tina. He wasn't sure if he wanted anything that marrying her would mean. If he decided to do something else, something like joining the military to work on airplanes or maybe even to fly them, he'd always help Momma, Dodie, and Grump as much as he could. They were family, after all.

But things would have to change.

Maybe he'd go see Uncle Martin again tomorrow, to see what he thought.

Before the coming of dawn, Wolf's ears pricked as Harley spoke. "This whole family's been sitting in Lucius Gray's moldering saddle ever since Uncle Alvin killed him. But you and me, Wolf, we're climbing off.

"God help me to climb off."

THE END