The Cat Who Went Underground

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  The photographer had his camera ready. “Don’t give up! We’re not halfway around the island yet.”

  “How can you tell?” Roger asked. “It feels like we’ve been around twice.”

  They trudged on. Soon they put on their sweaters, having reached the windward side of the island. The breeze was coming from Canada across a hundred miles of water.

  “Look! Did you see that?” Roger asked excitedly. “A water spout!”

  “Is that a freak of nature?” Qwilleran asked. “Or does it have something to do with plumbing?” Since arriving in Mooseville he had become uncomfortably aware of plumbing.

  “It’s the tail of a cloud spinning around and picking up water like a fountain.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  Bushy had to admit that the clouds were moving faster than he would like, and Qwilleran pointed out that the sky was an unusual color in the north.

  “I don’t like it,” said Bushy. “I think we should head back to the boat on the double and cut loose for the mainland. Storms come up fast on this lake. Let’s go!”

  They attempted the return trip at a trot, but the deep sand and the rising wind fought them every step of the way. The sky had changed to a yellow-gray, and the lake was whipping up a surf.

  Bushy shouted against the wind, “We may have to stay on the island overnight!”

  Qwilleran thought, The cats won’t get their dinner. They’ll be starved by morning, and they’re locked up in that small bunkroom. They’ll be furious.

  When they arrived within sight of the boat it was thrashing in the waves and crashing against the metal pier. Even as they watched helplessly, the lines snapped, and the Say Cheese shot into the air on the crest of a wave and capsized.

  “Oh, my God!” the skipper groaned.

  The wind caught it under the bow, and it rolled and tossed wildly like a dying shark. Bushy ran to the edge of the water and watched it go, until a giant wave caused him to dash back to safety.

  “Damn shame!” Qwilleran said.

  “Rotten luck!” said Roger.

  The dejected skipper said, “Let’s get out of this wind.”

  Heads down and caps jammed on, they forged up the slope to the fishing shack, a makeshift hut of wood and corrugated metal that rattled in the wind. There were two windows, but they had been boarded up for the winter and not yet uncovered. The men entered the shack and leaned against the door to close it, so strong was the force of the gale. There was no light, with the windows covered, and it was drafty. The fishy aroma was the least of their concerns. Qwilleran stumbled over a wooden crate.

  “There’s a wood-burning stove here somewhere,” Bushy said, groping around the interior, “but I don’t know if there’s any wood. Do we have matches?”

  The matches, unfortunately, were on the boat along with the portable cookstove and coffee pot and fishing rods and radio. And none of the three men was a smoker.

  “If I can fall over two more crates, we can all sit down,” said Qwilleran.

  Wooden boxes scraped on the uneven floor, and the three men sat down in the dark. They were silent for a few minutes, each with his thoughts.

  “Who brought the dominoes?” Qwilleran asked.

  Bushy laughed. “I loved that boat, but luckily it’s insured, so let’s get our chins up off the floor and figure out something to do for the next few hours. When I don’t show up by nightfall, my wife will call the sheriff, and they’ll come looking for us with the helicopter, but it could be a long wait.”

  “It’s four-thirty,” said Roger, whose watch glowed in the dark shack.

  “Time for the Happy Hour!” said Bushy. “I could use a double martini right about now.”

  “How long do these big blows usually last?” Qwilleran wanted to know.

  “Fifteen minutes or fifteen hours.”

  “If I have a choice, I’ll take the abbreviated version.”

  “I’m never going to eat fish again,” Roger said. “This place is putrid!”

  “Any guess about the wind velocity?”

  “I’d say fifty miles an hour.”

  “More like sixty, if you ask me.”

  “Listen! Did you hear something?” Bushy said with an anxious hitch in his voice. “It sounds like a splash right outside the shack!” He opened the door a crack and peered outside. “Hell! The lake’s rising!”

  Qwilleran wondered if the island had ever been entirely submerged. He wondered if the others were thinking the same thing. In the total darkness faces and emotions were invisible.

  In another half hour the spray was hitting the shack and water was running under the door. Waves began slamming against the building.

  No one was talking. They were all waiting—waiting for the next giant wave. The apprehension was palpable. Qwilleran had faced life-and-death situations before—with a dogged resolve to survive or a numb resignation. Only where Koko and Yum Yum were concerned did he ever succumb to gut-wrenching worry. Now, with mounting anxiety, he wondered what would happen to them. Would Mildred adopt them? Would they miss him? Koko would adjust, but Yum Yum would stop eating; she was emotionally dependent on Qwilleran, and she would pine away.

  Another wave pounded the building, and it tilted.

  “We’re moving!” Bushy yelled as the shack shuddered and creaked.

  “We’re going to be swept into the lake!” Roger screamed. It was the first vocal evidence of fear. “I’m getting out!”

  “Wait! Don’t panic!” Qwilleran shouted. “Let’s see what’s the best thing to do. Bushy, got any ideas?”

  “Which way are we moving?”

  “My guess is . . . toward the center of the island.”

  With another watery crash the cabin moved again.

  “Oh, God!” Roger said with a whimper.

  Qwilleran said, “If you’re praying, ask for suggestions.”

  There was another crash, followed by another shudder, and then the shack stopped with a bump.

  “What’s that?”

  “We hit something!”

  “I think we hit a tree!”

  The waves pounded and roared, and the building quaked, but its journey stopped. It was wedged between the three trees of Three Tree Island.

  “We’re stuck!” cried Bushy. “Now what?”

  A wave pushed the door open, and water gushed into the shack.

  “Get on the roof,” Qwilleran said. “We can’t sit here like trapped animals. The water can’t rise that high . . . Can it?” he asked when the other two were silent.

  “How do we get up there?”

  “Pile up the crates.”

  “Wait until after a big wave, and then act quick before the next one.”

  “Okay, here goes! Somebody give me a boost.”

  Qwilleran was the tallest and heftiest. Standing in ice water up to his knees, he boosted Bushy and then Roger. They reached down and gave him a hand just as the next surge of cold water soaked him to the armpits. The three sprawled on the roof like drowning sailors cast upon a reef. The shack was fast between the three trees and had tilted, so the flat roof had a precarious slant.

  “Make yourselves comfortable,” Bushy said.

  “It’s cold up here,” Roger whined.

  “It’s colder down there. Flap your arms. Flex your knees, kid, but don’t rock the boat.”

  The wind howled and whistled; the surf crashed. As time wore on, ominous clouds could be seen scudding toward the mainland.

  “It smells better up here, if anyone cares,” Roger said.

  “At least we can see what’s happening,” said Qwilleran. “The sensory deprivation in that dark shack was giving me the willies.” He had turned down the flaps of his hunting cap and was trying not to think about the cold. Compared to the frigid dunking he had suffered, the wind was not that chill, but he was soaked to the skin.

  “Six o’clock. We’ve been marooned over an hour.”

  “Feels like a week,” said Bushy. “I could use a shot of bran
dy.”

  “I’d settle for a cup of coffee,” Qwilleran said. “Even one from the Dimsdale Diner.”

  “If I hadn’t given up smoking, now is when I’d want a cigarette.”

  They clung to the roof, passing the time with meaningless chatter and attempts at brave humor.

  “Seven fifteen,” Roger announced.

  “Am I numb from exposure, or is the wind subsiding?”

  “It’s dropping a little, but it’s still cold.”

  “It’s going to get colder before it gets warmer, so keep moving, fellas.”

  Qwilleran pictured the Siamese clamoring for their supper. Or did they raise the roof only when they had an audience? What did they do when no one was around? . . . What else was happening on shore? Soon it would be dark. Bushy’s wife would notify the sheriff. Sharon would call her mother, and Mildred would call the sheriff, Mooseville police, and state troopers; she was a woman of driving action. Would it occur to her to drive to the cabin and feed the cats? She was thoughtful that way; she had even worried about Captain Phlogg’s unpopular dog. But how would she get into the cabin? There was an extra key, but it was hidden under the log rack on the porch. She might look under the doormat or over the door frame, but who would think of looking in a hollow log at the bottom of the log rack? . . . Qwilleran was getting hungry. He wished he’d had the deluxe half-pound cheeseburger with fries, instead of the quarter-pounder with salad.

  At eight-thirty the surf was less menacing, but the island was still flooded. An unhealthy yellow light illumined the sky, and gray funnel clouds could be seen over the mainland.

  Bushy said, “I should have paid some attention to my horoscope this morning. It told me to stay home and do chores that I’d been putting off.”

  Roger said, “My horoscope said I’d take a trip, and this is one trip I’ll never forget—that is, if I live. Something tells me I’m a candidate for pneumonia.”

  “Maybe I’d better start reading those things,” Qwilleran said grimly.

  “When I was born,” Bushy said, “my parents had a neighbor who could write horoscopes, and she was supposed to be quite good. My parents had her do one for me, and she said I’d live a long life, so there’s nothing for you guys to worry about tonight.”

  “That’s your horoscope, not mine,” said Roger. “I’m ready for an oxygen tent.”

  “This astrologer also said I’d be a portrait-painter (that’s not too far off-base) and I’d marry a Capricorn (that’s Vicki’s sign) and my weak point would be my head. It sounded like I wouldn’t have all my marbles, but I turned out to have a pretty good IQ and no hair!”

  Qwilleran asked, “How did you react to Mrs. Ascott’s session on Saturday night?”

  “How about that?” Bushy said belligerently. “Did you get what she said about a material loss? She knew I was going to lose my boat, so why didn’t she tell me to stay on dry land? I don’t pretend to know how these things work, but all three of us were at that meeting and planning to embark on this damned trip. Why didn’t she receive some kind of vibrations and tip us off?”

  Roger said, “The girls still think she’s wonderful, but I think she’s slowing down. She told Mildred emphatically to get a physical checkup, and Mildred had just had her annual physical last week—the whole works—and nothing was wrong except her weight. It makes you wonder about Mrs. Ascott’s other advice.”

  “She was off-the-track about Clem Cottle’s whereabouts,” Qwilleran said, “but that message from Joy rocked me back on my heels. We used to be very close.”

  “She said something about an excavation,” Roger said. “Do you suppose she meant old Mr. Klingenschoen’s buried treasure? Maybe she wants you to dig,”

  “You dig, Roger, and I’ll split it with you.”

  They had hours ahead of them, and they talked to keep their teeth from chattering. Roger talked about the crazy kids in his classes when he was teaching history. The photographer talked about his customers who wanted to look like cover girls when they really looked like prunes.

  Qwilleran talked about the Siamese: how they had taken an inordinate liking to Mildred’s homemade cereal . . . how Koko shredded newspaper, but only the Something . . . and how he had an obsession with the trap door. “He got down into the crawl space once when the plumber was working on the water heater. I don’t know what he finds so engrossing down there.”

  Roger said, “There could be mice or chipmunks. The chipmunks could tunnel under the foundation and come up in the crawl space and spend the winter there with a few bushels of acorns.”

  “For all you know,” said Bushy, “you’ve got the Chipmunk Hilton under your floor . . . Say, I read your story about the woman who heard her cat scratching under the door after it was dead. How do you explain that?”

  “I don’t try,” Qwilleran said, “and I’ll tell you something else I can’t explain. You know Russell Simms, who’s been renting the Dunfield cottage? She had an urge to visit my cabin yesterday, and she arrived just in time to rescue my cats. A bloody miracle! She also had bad vibrations about the Dunfield cottage.”

  “Did you tell her about the murder?”

  “Yes, but I should have kept my mouth shut. I had a phone call from Mildred this morning; Russell moved out of the cottage suddenly last night, forfeiting a whole summer’s rent.”

  “Strange girl,” said Roger. “Did you ever notice her eyes?”

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” said Bushy. “I’d hate to be marooned on this island with Russell Simms and Mrs. Ascott.”

  Roger started to giggle and laughed until he was on the verge of hysteria.

  “Cut it out,” Bushy ordered. “You’re shaking the shack.”

  “Let him laugh,” Qwilleran said. “It’ll warm him up.”

  “But the shack will cut loose from the trees and float away to Canada, and I don’t have my birth certificate!”

  At nine-thirty dusk was beginning to fall, and the wind dropped to a stiff breeze.

  “I could use a blanket,” Bushy said.

  “I could use a sleeping bag and hot-water bottle,” Roger said.

  Qwilleran said, “I could use the Komfort-Heet.”

  On the corrugated metal roof of the shack they did push-ups to keep warm and massaged their arms and legs. At ten-thirty they were still talking.

  Bushy said, “I’ll tell you a true story that’s kind of spooky. It happened to my aunt during the Depression. Her husband got a job in a steel mill Down Below, and they were living in a one-room furnished apartment. That’s all they could afford. Her husband worked hard, came home tired, went to bed, and snored. He snored so loud and so non-stop that it drove her crazy. She couldn’t sleep. It was torture! Cotton in her ears didn’t help, it was so loud. She felt like killing him! One night she dreamed she beat him to death with a table lamp, and she woke up in a cold sweat. Her husband was dead in the bed beside her. He’d had a coronary thrombosis.”

  In the thoughtful silence that followed Bushy’s story they heard the throb of the sheriff’s helicopter and saw the searchlight. The pilot dropped a ladder and picked them off the roof. “Blankets there! Hot drinks in the jug!” he shouted above the noise as the craft veered toward the mainland. “Taking you to Pickax! Landing on the hospital roof!”

  There was not a word from the passengers. Qwilleran felt he might never wish to talk again.

  “Tornado hit the shore!” the pilot shouted. “Lots of damage! I’ll buzz the beach!”

  They flew low over the dune, and the searchlight exposed the destruction: large trees uprooted and the condominium site reduced to splinters.

  “Down there!” the pilot shouted. His passengers looked down. The roof of the Dunfield cottage had been blown off, leaving the interior a maelstrom of rubble.

  Lucky girl, Qwilleran thought. She got out just in time.

  The helicopter followed the shoreline until it reached Seagull Point and the Klingenschoen property. Nestled in the trees, the cabin was not easy to spot, but he
could distinguish the brown roof, the huge chimney, the two porches—all as solid as a rock, as it had been for seventy-five years. But . . .

  “Where’s the new addition?” Qwilleran yelled. “It’s gone!”

  FIFTEEN

  The three men snatched from the flooded island were treated for exposure at Pickax Hospital, but Qwilleran refused even a thermometer until he had telephoned Mildred and arranged for her to pick up the key and feed the cats. When he was released on Thursday it was Mildred who drove him home through the torrential rain that was the aftermath of the windstorm.

  She said, “You and Bushy must be in excellent physical shape, or they wouldn’t have let you go home today. Roger has to stay in for further observation. What a horrible ordeal for you poor dears! Did you know it was in the out-of-town newspapers yesterday?”

  “I didn’t see a paper or use the phone after Dr. Halifax gave me his knockout drop.” Qwilleran spoke in a voice more subdued than usual.

  “The Morning Rampage had a story on page three, saying three boaters were missing, and in the afternoon the Daily Fluxion reported the rescue on page one: Former Flux Staffer Rescued from Lake.”

  “I hope they didn’t say we were looking for the site of a UFO landing. How did they get the news? Moose County hasn’t made headlines since the 1913 mine disaster.”

  Driving rain was beating against the windshield until the glass was virtually opaque, and Mildred pulled off the road to wait for some degree of visibility.

  She said, “This is very unusual weather for July. Of course, we all know what’s causing it.”

  “What’s causing it?” he asked in all innocence.

  “Why, the visitors from out there, of course!”

  “You’re not serious, Mildred.”