Cat Spitting Mad (22 page)

I
t was
late that afternoon that the cougar returned to the Pamillon mansion, prowling among the broken furniture and rampant vines, flehmening at the smell of dried human blood. Investigating where he had downed and bitten the two-legs and where the loud noises had chased him away, he watched down the hill, too, where a small cat crouched, looking up at him, thinking she was hidden among the bushes. It was not magnanimity that kept him from dropping down the hill in one long leap and snatching the kit and crunching her. He was sated with deer meat; he had killed and gorged, and buried the carcass under the moldering sofa. At the moment, his thoughts were on a light nap on the sun-warmed tiles of the patio.

Earlier, before he hunted, prowling farther down the hills, he had sat for some time watching the gathering of two-legs around the fences and buildings of the ranch yard, fascinated by their strange behavior. The sounds they made were different than he had heard before from the two-legs, noises that hurt his ears. He
had watched the gathering until he grew hungry. He had studied the horses in the pasture, but they would give him a hard battle, and the two-legs were too close. Trotting away higher into the hills where the deer were easy takings, he had killed and fed.

Now, leaving the carcass buried in the parlor, and glancing a last time where the small cat thought itself invisible, he strolled onto the Pamillon patio and stretched out in the sun.

 

The kit watched the cougar as he arrogantly put his head down and closed his eyes. She watched until he seemed to sleep deeply. When she was certain his breathing had slowed, she crept up the hill, closer.

Peering out from the tall grass, she wondered.

Could she touch the golden beast? Could she reach out a paw and touch him, and reach out her nose to sniff his sleek fur?

But no, she wouldn't be so foolish. No sensible cat would approach a sleeping cougar.

And yet she was drawn closer, and closer still, was drawn right up the hill to the boulders that edged the patio.

From behind a boulder she looked at him for a long time.

And she stepped out on the tiles.

She lifted her paw. The cougar seemed deeply asleep. Dare she approach closer? Hunching down as if stalking a bird, making herself small and invisible, she crept forward step by silent step.

Claws grabbed her from behind and jerked her
around, deep and painful in her tender skin. A pair of blazing amber eyes met her eyes—and a terrible fear filled the kit.

“Go down, Kit! Go down now, away from here! Away from the lion! Down the hills at once!” Joe hissed. He belted her hard, boxed her little ears. “Go away through the bushes. Stay in the bushes.
Don't run
—sneak away slowly.”

The kit slipped away without a word, Joe Grey behind her, the cats keeping to the heavy growth, listening for the lion—and knowing he would make no sound. Sensible fear drove Joe Grey. Terror and guilt drove the kit.

When they were far away, they ran. Down and down the hills they flew, and under the pasture fence, which the cougar could leap like a twig. And across the pasture into the hay shed, two streaks flying up the piled bales.

High up, beneath the tin roof, they looked back across the pasture.

Just beyond the fence, the cougar stood on a boulder looking across the green expanse straight up into the hay shed, staring straight at them.

The kit began to shiver.

The cougar started down along the fence, watching and watching them.

But the cats and cougar were not alone. Jazz music started up again, from the party in the ranch yard. The lion stopped, watching the crowd. The cats saw him flehmen, tasting the strange smells. He laid back his ears at the smells and the loud talk and laughing and the jazz music; he stood only a moment, puzzled and
uneasy. Then he wheeled and was gone again, up the hills into the forest.

He left behind a strange emptiness. One moment he had glowed against the hill huge and golden. The next moment, nothing was there.

The kit looked and looked, unblinking.

Joe Grey nudged her. “Did you want to be eaten?”

“I didn't. He is the king, he wouldn't eat me.”

“He would eat you in one bite. Crunch and swallow you whole. First course in a nice supper.”

“The first course,” Dulcie said, leaping up the hay bales. “And all your roaming ways and yearning for another world would end. You and your dreams would be gone, Kit. Swallowed up the way you swallow a butterfly.”

The kit sat down on the hay, looking at the two older cats. She was indeed very quiet. She looked at Joe's sleek, pewter-colored face, at the white strip down his face, wrinkled now into an angry frown. She looked into Dulcie's blazing green eyes, and she lifted a paw to pat Dulcie's striped face and peach-tinted nose.

The bigger cats were silent.

She turned away to look down at the stableyard, at the tables and chairs all set about, at the long table covered with food and wonderful smells rising up, at all the people gathered talking and laughing and at the banners whipping in the breeze.

 

WELCOME HOME
,
MAX

HAIL TO THE CHIEF
,
MAY HE REIGN FOREVER

THE FORCE IS WITH YOU

 

Everyone looked so happy and sounded happy. Someone shouted, “Open another keg,” and the kit watched it all, forgetting her fear and shame, and filling up with delight. What a fine thing was this human world, what a fine thing to be part of human life. She wanted to be a part of everything. She wanted to be down there. She wanted to try all the exciting food. She wanted to be petted and admired. She licked Dulcie's ear, forgetting that she was in trouble, and leaped away down the hay and into the middle of the celebration.

Joe and Dulcie looked at each other and shook their heads, and followed her, launching themselves into the party, begging handouts as shamelessly as the kit and the two big hounds. The kit moved among the crowd like a little dancer, galloping, leaping, accepting a morsel here, cadging a bite there until she spotted Dillon.

She went to the child at once, leaped to the bench beside her, patted at Dillon's red hair, then settled down in her lap, purring. Dillon stroked and cuddled her, sharing a closeness that thrilled the child. Dillon had never had a pet. She loved the kit; she had no notion that the kit was far more than anyone's pet.

These two, child and kit, had slept through all the excitement at the Pamillon house, slept curled together on the musty bunk in the cellar, so exhausted that even Harper's three shots to scare away the cougar had hardly waked them—only enough to sigh and roll over. Now Joe and Dulcie watched them tenderly.

But it was not until hours later, as evening fell and
Harper's officers and most of his friends drifted away, that there was a truly quiet time again, for the cats and those they held dear.

As the line of cars wound away down the hills, Harper and Clyde and Charlie and Wilma moved inside to Harper's big kitchen table, to drink leftover coffee and to unwind. In the kitchen's bay window, the three cats snuggled together among the cushions, purring so loudly that Harper glanced at them, amused.

“Never heard them purr like that. They sound like a747.”

“Full of shrimp,” Clyde said, “and crab salad and cold cuts.”

To emphasize the truth of Clyde's remark, Joe belched loudly.

Harper stared at him and burst out laughing—the captain laughed until he had tears. Charlie began to laugh. Clyde and Wilma doubled over, convulsed with merriment. Joe had had no idea he was such a comedian.

“Nerves,” Dulcie whispered, pretending to lick his ear. “Crazy with nerves, all four of them.”

“Nerves? Or too much beer?”

The kit looked from one cat to the other, her eyes huge. Sometimes she didn't know what to make of humans.

“So,” Charlie said to her aunt when they'd calmed, “are you going to tell me why you didn't answer your phone? Where were you the night Dillon and I sat out there in the van, with the phone ringing and ringing,
and that thug firing at us?”

“I'm truly sorry. I wonder how it would have turned out if I'd been there?”

“Where were you?”

Wilma smoothed her gray hair, which she had wound into a chignon for the occasion of Harper's party. She was wearing a long flowered dress and sandals, one of the few times the cats had ever seen her in a dress. “That night—would you believe I'd unplugged the phone to get a good night's sleep?”

“No,” Charlie said. “You only do that when Dulcie is safe in the house, when she's not out running the streets.”

Dulcie gawked, but Joe nudged her.

Wilma shrugged. “I had dinner with Susan Brittain, at The Patio. During dessert, she felt faint. We thought I'd better drive her home. She refused to go to the hospital, said it was her medication, that she got like that sometimes. I spent the night on her couch, checking on her every little while—her daughter's out of town.”

Joe and Dulcie looked at each other.

Charlie raised an eyebrow.

“It's the truth. You think, at my age, I'm off on some hot affair?”

“Why not? I wouldn't put it past you.”

“Speaking of affairs…” Clyde said, looking at Charlie and Harper.

The cats came to sharp attention. Charlie blushed pink beneath her freckles. Harper looked embarrassed.

Clyde grinned. “Could I use your phone?”

Harper nodded uncomfortably. “You know where
they are, take your choice.”

Clyde moved down the hall and into Harper's study, unaware of Joe trotting along behind him; didn't see the tomcat slip under the desk, he was too busy dialing.

 

In the kitchen, Wilma rose to clean up the paper plates and rinse the silverware, leaving Harper and Charlie alone at the table. They hardly knew she'd left, there might be no one else in the room; they were completely engrossed in each other, their conversation ordinary but their looks so intimate that Dulcie turned her gaze away.

“What about this William Green?” Charlie was saying, looking deeply at Harper. “This witness who said—who lied that he saw you following the Marners?”

“He's in custody.” Harper's hand on the table eased against hers. “He'll have to testify for the prosecution.” His words were totally removed from the way he was looking at her.

“Green's testimony will be another nail in Crystal's coffin,” Harper said, leaning closer. “If he cooperates with Gedding, he might get off with a fine for perjury and no time served.”

Dulcie lay pretending sleep as Charlie and Harper discussed Baker's land scam, accomplished with Baker's carefully forged documents—and discussed Baker's victims, who were hot to prosecute and to get their money back. Soon Harper and Charlie moved out to the yard to pick up the last few paper plates, and fold
up the tables and chairs. Clyde began to help Wilma, drying the silver and platters. He didn't mention his phone call. The cats moved to the back porch to wash their paws and enjoy the cool evening.

“Clyde spotted me under the desk,” Joe said. “Told me to get lost. He can be so touchy. He and Kate seem to be an item.”

“And Harper and Charlie, too.” Dulcie glanced up as Wilma came out to sit on the steps beside them.

“I think both couples are cozy,” Wilma said softly. “This might be promising, all around.”

“Maybe,” said Joe Grey, knowing how fickle Clyde could be.

“Maybe,” said Dulcie uncertainly. Things had moved a bit fast, for her taste.

The kit, waking alone in the kitchen, leaped from the window seat and pushed out through the screen door, her yellow eyes so dreamy that Dulcie fixed on her uneasily. That faraway look meant trouble. “What are you thinking, now, Kit? Not of dark far places?”

“And not,” Joe Grey said, “of petting lions!”

“Maybe not,” said the kit, still half asleep. “Maybe I'm thinking of just
being
.” She looked up innocently at them. “Don't humans know that? That no matter how ugly things get, it's lovely just to
be
?”

Wilma grinned and took the kit into her lap. “Sometimes humans don't remember that, Kit. Sometimes it takes a little cat to tell them.”