Cat Bearing Gifts

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Slipping in through the open window onto the short kitchen counter, he dropped as soundlessly as he could down to the grimy linoleum. The man lying in a sleeping bag didn’t stir. He lay curled up like a hurt animal. This was Birely, the same man as in Sammie’s grown-up photo of the two of them, still the same slanted forehead and fat cheeks as the tiny child he had known, same protruding lower lip caught in a permanent pout. His nose and face were a mess of blood and he was breathing through his mouth; he was doubled up in pain, he needed help, but apparently his tall friend didn’t think so. He looked to Misto like he wasn’t far from death. The old cat’s instinct was to find a phone and paw in 911, to alert the medics. Leaping to the sill again, he was out the window racing down through the tangled yard to Emmylou’s dark house, passing the shed where clicking sounds had begun again.

  The phone was in the kitchen. He was through the cat door and up onto the counter. He could do it without ever waking Emmylou, he had only to whisper into the speaker, he thought nervously, hoping the call couldn’t be traced, that the dispatcher wouldn’t pick up Emmylou’s number. Hoped Captain Harper and his detectives wouldn’t start looking at innocent Emmylou Warren for the identity of the phantom snitch, for the source of so many informative phone calls over the years when, in truth, Emmylou hadn’t a clue. The older woman had no notion about speaking cats or undercover cats who’d left their pawprints on so many village telephones.

  But did Emmylou even have ID blocking? Not likely—why would she? This woman lived the simplest life, she didn’t take a daily paper, didn’t have a TV, didn’t allow herself any amenities that he could see. Why would she pay for ID blocking? If her phone number were public knowledge, who did she have to fear? He had lifted a paw to the phone’s speaker when Emmylou’s bedroom light came on.

  He heard her moving about and in another minute she came into the kitchen, in her robe and slippers. She glanced at him where he sat innocently beside the phone, and then moved silently out the back door. Stood on the porch looking up at the stone shed, listening to the faint scraping noises from within, then she moved silently down her steps, pulling her robe tighter against the chill. Moved up the hill in her slippers, the hem of her robe catching on weeds and on the overgrown bushes, stood to the side of the closed shed door, listening.

  Two more taps, and then another long silence. When footsteps within approached the door, Emmylou ducked into the bushes, crouching comically, her tall form hunkered down among the tangled twigs, her long hair caught on the branches.

  The door didn’t open, the footsteps turned away again toward the back, and then again there was silence. So long a pause that Emmylou gave it up, just as Misto had done earlier. Rising, she looked up at the stone room above, stood listening, glanced back at the stone shed and then moved on up the hill as Misto had done, only pulling a small flashlight from her robe pocket and switching it on. The thin path of light picked out patches of wiry grass and the matted damp leaves trampled into a rough path. Twice she paused looking up at the house above her. The stone steps followed the ground only inches above it, and only near the top did she move from the yard up onto them, her damp slippers making no sound. On the little landing she switched the light off, and moved directly to the dirty window, again as Misto had done, and she peered in.

  Even in the near dark she must have seen the figure doubled up on the floor, or maybe she heard Birely moan. She looked back down the long empty flight, making sure the man hadn’t left the shed and was watching, then she shone her light in.

  She stiffened when she saw Birely. Even with his bloodied nose, she had to know him from Sammie’s pictures, and maybe she knew him, too, from when Sammie was alive? “Birely? Oh, my. What . . . ?” But even as she spoke, Misto saw the taller man slip out of the garage.

  The doors had made no sound, only when he closed them was there the faintest scrape—but enough to startle Emmylou. As she turned, he saw her. He froze, then ducked into the bushes and was gone. Misto could hear him moving away, bumbling in the darkness crackling the branches, but then, as if gathering his wits, he moved on nearly silent as a cat.

  Emmylou stood looking where he’d vanished, not where he was now. And then she ran, down the stairs and down the hill, up her own steps and into her cottage, and Misto heard the door lock behind her. Racing after her and in through the cat door, he watched her snatch up the phone and dial the three digits. He could hear the little canned voice at the other end, faint as a bee buzz, as the dispatcher questioned her.

  When she’d hung up the phone, she fetched the crowbar, stood hefting it, looking out the kitchen window at the back porch. Misto rubbed against her ankles, wondering how Birely had been hurt so bad, wondering whether Birely would die, wondering why he still cared so much. Wondering why those lives, long past, had returned to haunt him so sharply, or why he had returned to this particular place and time. To play a part in Birely’s sad life? Or, perhaps, so he could know the last, sad fate of his little Sammie?

  17

  HAVING LEFT PEDRIC’S room hidden in Clyde’s backpack curled up atop his spare sweatshirt, Kit lay now beneath Lucinda’s white covers pressed between the bars of the hospital bed and Lucinda’s warm, familiar side. Her housemate seemed frail and vulnerable in her heavy bandages and cast, and wearing only the flimsy hospital gown. Whenever Lucinda slept, Kit drifted off, too. She woke when Lucinda stirred sleepily and stroked her back and head. Wilma sat close beside the bed in a folding metal chair, her brocade carryall hanging on a knob of the bed where Kit could slip easily down into it. Three times within the last hour, the nurse had come in. Each time, Wilma had risen to distract her, asking needless questions, going into useless detail about Lucinda’s condition and care—maybe if she made a pest of herself the nurse would stay out of there for a while.

  But nurses weren’t easily distracted. This small, square Latina woman had answered Wilma’s questions briefly as she checked and replenished the IV bottle and went about tidying up, picking up discarded tissues and adhesive tape and paper wrappers from the metal table, and then bringing Lucinda a fresh pitcher of water. Clyde was down the hall with Pedric, but soon someone would come to relieve him and to pass Kit back to Pedric again—like a library book forever changing hands. The time, by the big round clock above Lucinda’s bed, was three A.M. and despite Kit’s satisfaction at being with Lucinda, the predawn hour made her incredibly lonely.

  This was the cats’ hour, the shank of the night, the time when, if she were at home, she would be bolting out her cat door and down her oak tree to hunt the hills with Pan. Or they’d be lounging in her tree house listening to little animal sounds bursting suddenly out in the silent dark. But tonight, here in this strange town and strange building, shut in this small unfamiliar room among unpleasant hospital smells, she felt edgy and dislocated.

  She knew that Lucinda and Pedric, lying bound to their beds, felt much worse, helpless and so far from home, felt far more displaced than she.

  There were no windows in the ER—when dawn did come Lucinda wouldn’t be able to look out at the sky, at the first hint of sun as she so liked to do. She always rose from bed when the sky was barely light, would put on the coffee and then, with the house smelling deliciously of that dark brew, she would sit at the dining table sipping her first cup, looking out through the big corner windows enjoying the sunrise, watching its blush brighten and then slowly fade again and daylight spill golden onto their little corner of the world, onto the round and friendly hills and the intricate tangle of rooftops spread out all below her.

  And Kit herself, if they were at home, as they should be, would soon return from hunting. Another two hours and she’d bolt into the house as dawn broke, Pedric and Lucinda up and showered and in the kitchen making breakfast. She’d sit on the windowsill cleaning up, washing off the blood of the hunt. She’d long for a nap but breakfast would win, the three of them would enjoy waffles and bacon and then head out for a wa
lk up the hills or through the nearly deserted village streets looking in the shop windows.

  Would they do that ever again? Would her housemates come home healthy and well, ready to enjoy their long, free rambles and simple adventures?

  But she knew in her little cat bones that they would, just as she knew the dawn was on its way, just as any cat at this hour would wake and begin to prowl restlessly—knowing something good was coming. Soon her housemates would be home again, as eager and hardy as ever; stubbornly Kit clung to that thought with a keen and sharp-clawed resolve.

  She could hear, up and down the ward, little clinking sounds as late-night medications were prepared or other mysterious routines attended to. The smells of alcohol and human bodily wastes were not Kit’s favorite scents; she longed for the smell of new grass and its sweet, cool taste. Around her the ER, though still shrouded in the hush of night, was slowly beginning to stir, the steps of the nurses quickening as they attended to late-night medications. Glass doors to several little rooms were slid open, curtains were drawn back. Whenever their night nurse left them alone, pulling the door closed as Wilma requested, the three of them talked in whispers. Lucinda sometimes slipped into sleep, but always when she woke she asked after Pedric.

  “He’s feeling better,” Wilma told her, “the concussion’s not a bad one. As soon as we get home, the knee will be repaired. Clyde’s with him now, to keep him awake.” And they talked again about that lost world where Kate had gone to learn about her forebears and had found only a dying civilization. All the anticipated magic was gone, only the cruelest creatures still blazing strong with their greedy hunger.

  Wilma, like the Greenlaws, was comfortable with Kate’s secrets. While Clyde, like Joe Grey, shied away from the tales. But, Kit wondered, what did Ryan think?

  Ryan had cleaved easily enough to the knowledge that Joe Grey could talk, she hadn’t been terribly shocked the first time the gray tomcat spoke to her—but still, Ryan had been raised in a hardheaded law enforcement family. Where were the limits of her sometimes willing imagination? What did she really think of a world teeming with remnants from the old Celtic tales that so embraced the cats’ own history?

  And what, Kit thought, will Pan think, when he learns where Kate has been?

  She could imagine Pan’s amber eyes blazing with a keen and hungry fascination, with a bold curiosity that would lead, where?

  Kit herself had long ago come to terms with her own dreams of such exotic ventures, she had turned resolutely away from her own longing to descend down into the darkest pockets of the earth. When she was very young, when she first came to Molena Point, she had been drawn to Hellhag Cave that cleaved the hills south of the village, to its mystery, had sensed that dark fissure leading down and down, and down again deeper than any cat she knew had ever gone, she had longed to wander there, to discover whatever she might confront that would surprise and amaze her. Only fear—or a touch of good sense—had held her back. Then later she had been drawn to the cellars and caverns beneath the ruined Pamillon mansion that rose in the east hills above the village, intrigued by those dark clefts beneath the fallen buildings. But again she was afraid, she sensed evil there and a destruction she wouldn’t dare to face.

  But Pan was bolder. What would he do with Kate’s secret? She thought Pan had never turned from danger. Her red tomcat had a hunger for adventure that had sent him traveling the coast of Oregon and half of California, one small cat alone never turning from a new and frightening adventure. Oh, she thought, when he hears Kate’s tale will he want to go there? Will he go away to follow the harpies and chimeras through that evil land, will he leave me for that adventure?

  Or would he want me to go with him down to that dying place that could destroy us both?

  VIC WATCHED EMMYLOU hurry down the hill tripping on the hem of her robe, watched her double-time up her own steps and inside. She was going to call an ambulance or call the cops, the damned old busybody. He should have done Birely while he had the chance, and now it was too late. Unless he could stop her, push on in and grab the phone from her. Had she even locked the door? He’d started down, two steps at a time, but then he thought about the car.

  He had to get the Lincoln out of there before the cops came swarming all over. Maybe he’d been foolish stashing the money there, but where else could he have hidden it? He thought about moving the money before the cops arrived because it was too late to move the car, but he didn’t have time for that. He was reaching to open the shed when the whoop of the ambulance nearly deafened him, its flashing lights stabbing between the trees, a white medic’s van pulling up into Emmylou’s dirt driveway.

  He eased back into the bushes as four medics in dark uniforms piled out and Emmylou came out her door onto the little porch and started down to them. He watched the shorter medic with the mustache follow her up the hill while the other three hauled out their trappings: stretcher, oxygen tank, black bags, and fancy stuff he couldn’t name. Sure as hell, there’d be a patrol car right behind them. What he couldn’t figure was, why would that old woman call the medics for a sick tramp? Why would she care?

  And where would they take Birely? Some fancy emergency room? What if he started talking, if they gave him drugs for the pain and he got blabby, talking about the money, got some cop curious enough to start asking questions. Emmylou paused up on the stone porch while the medics hurried inside. That yellow cat had followed her winding around her ankles, damn thing gave him the shivers, he could see it there in the bushes, it kept looking at him, its yellow tail twitching in a way that made him twitch.

  They took a long time in there. He grew cold in his light jacket. He crouched in the bushes hugging himself, antsy to get the car out. What had that old woman told the dispatcher? Had she said there’d been a break-in? Would she want them to search the whole damn property? Two medics came out of the stone house carrying Birely on a stretcher. Emmylou stood to the side, watching. Damned old do-gooder. A third medic, dark-skinned Latino, was asking her questions, writing down her answers on a clipboard. Vic watched her sign a paper when he passed the clipboard to her, and wondered what that was about.

  She couldn’t be making herself responsible for some tramp she didn’t know, she couldn’t be promising to pay his medical bill? Talk about a bleeding heart.

  Or did she know Birely? Maybe Sammie’d had pictures, family pictures. Maybe this old woman recognized him and had got all sentimental over Sammie’s little brother? Or maybe she knew Birely from when Sammie was alive? Birely had come here once in a while but Vic couldn’t remember if he said he’d ever saw anyone but Sammie.

  If this old woman had any sense, she’d let charity or the government pick up the bill. The medics had to take Birely to the emergency room, it was the law, and the hospital had to treat him, the law said they couldn’t refuse. So why pay for it? Hell of a waste of money. He watched the white van back around in the old woman’s driveway and move on down the hill again, heading for some ER. Watched Emmylou head back down to her house, her bathrobe pulled tight around her. The black-and-white never had showed up. What had she told the dispatcher? Just that there was a man sick up there, and nothing about a break-in? Maybe said he was renting the place—all to protect Sammie’s little brother? He waited a few minutes, was about to slip back down to the shed when she hurried out again, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and got in her old Chevy. Hell, she was going to follow the van to the hospital. What a patsy. When she started the car it belched out a puff of dark exhaust. Yellow cat crouched on the porch watching her back out and head away following the medics, and Vic thought uneasily about Birely there in the hospital blabbing about the money.

  He waited until the Chevy had disappeared, then headed for the shed, smiling. Maybe he could silence Birely right there in the ER, and wouldn’t that be a laugh. Shut him up before he spouted off about the money and the fancy Lincoln they’d stolen or, worse, about some of Vic’s own, earlier vent
ures. If Birely died in the ER before he started bragging about Vic’s successful robberies, and maybe about that store clerk he hadn’t meant to kill, if Birely died right there under the care of a doctor, how could he, Vic, be responsible?

  18

  HEADING FOR THE hospital following two blocks behind Emmylou, her old green Chevy nearly bumper to bumper with the ambulance, Vic spotted the turn-in to Emergency but went on by. He drove on half a mile farther, turning into a wooded neighborhood with big, expensive houses set back among the trees, their grounds softly lit by fancy lanterns but only a few windows showing lights, at this hour. Rolling his car window down, he heard no barking dog. There was no one on the street, no night joggers with their fancy, lighted shoes, no reflective gear of a cyclist who might prefer the empty streets of night, no late partiers headed home. Big houses, three- and four-car garages, but most of the driveways empty. He drove until he found a place with two cars parked in front, a Mercedes and a Jag, and a Toyota sitting on the street. Pulling over beside the Toyota and killing the engine, he got out, slipping a short, oversized Phillips screwdriver from his back pocket.

  In less time than it would take the householder to hear some tiny sound and turn on the lights, he was driving away again with his new license plates on the seat beside him. He stopped ten blocks away and switched the plates on the Lincoln, smearing on a little of the Lincoln’s damp mud to make them match the rest of the car. Then he headed back to the hospital, following the big red signs to the emergency entrance at the mouth of the underground parking garage, easing the muddy, dented Lincoln along the first level to the back row where cops coming into the ER might not notice it.