“Yes,” Bonnie repeated.
“When they moved she took him with them, but he keeps running back here. Amanda and Jim, that’s her husband, must have fetched him at least a dozen times, but Oscar won’t stay in their new place.
“Jim has about had it. He says they have two babies to take care of, and he’s not catching Oscar one more time. Amanda’s to get the cat tonight and have him put down in the morning. I’ve been feeding him, but he won’t come to me.” Jackie rushed on. “I know it’s a bit much, but I’ve gotten fond of the little devil. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind dreadfully . . . keeping him?”
“I’ve never had a cat.”
“Oh,” Jackie’s voice dropped in defeat.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t.” Bonnie looked at Ron for help. Her husband shook his head. He was listening to a woman who, as a child, would pick up injured sparrows and take them to her mother crying, “Please do something.”
“I mean I can’t see putting down a perfectly healthy animal. Where is Oscar now?” Bonnie asked.
“In your garden. He’s somewhat wild, being outside the last six months,” Jackie warned, “but he waits for the food I leave.”
“I see. I guess I’d better go put some out, then.”
Evening shadows were just shrouding the frangipani tree when Bonnie and Ron caught their first sight of Oscar. The cat appeared suddenly, prowling openly on their lawn—a large, sleek black panther of a feline whose golden eyes glowed in the dusk.
“A veritable prince of a cat,” Ron declared and went to open a can of people tuna.
Every night Oscar would come to eat, eyes ever wary, ready to scoot at the slightest approach. As the evenings got colder—it could get down to fifty degrees at night—Bonnie provided a cardboard box and blankets for the cat to snuggle into.
As the weeks turned into months, Bonnie got closer to Oscar. Once he even allowed her to pet him, then turned and growled a warning. Walter always kept a respectful distance, perhaps in deference to the arched back and loud hiss if he should come within a foot of the intruder. When Walter slunk away dejected Ron would cradle his sheltie in his arms. “There, there,” he comforted. “You pay no mind to that bully.”
In spite of all that, the couple liked the cat, and Bonnie worried about his nocturnal wanderings. She tried to coax him inside, calling night after night without success. Meanwhile, she got quite friendly with her neighbor, Jackie.
“Amanda used to stand at the back door and hit his bowl with a spoon then call Oscarh! Oscarh! Dinnertime.”
“Really,” Bonnie said.
The next time Bonnie performed Amanda’s ritual. In passing imitation of Jackie’s proper Brit accent she called, “Oscarh! Oscarh! Dinnertime.” Something flashed by her legs, and the big black cat was inside her house before she could turn around.
“So that’s it,” she said, following him into the kitchen.
In short order Oscar was an inside/outside cat, courtesy of Walter’s doggie door, bestowing his greatest honor on his new persons by sleeping at the foot of their bed. During the day he would often rub against Bonnie’s ankles or curl up beside her on the couch. Soon the cat purred contentedly in her arms and she felt an extraordinary comfort in this foreign land from the heavy warmth of his body against hers.
Oscar was now indisputably part of the family. He even deigned to walk between Walter’s front legs from time to time, affectionately butting the sheltie’s chin with his head as if to tell him he was all right—even though he was a dog.
Bonnie was not prepared for the night Oscar came in matted and torn from what looked like a cat fight, and jumped on her bed. “Hi, Oscar,” she greeted, looking up from her book. “What’s the matter, baby?”
Like black lightning, Oscar pounced on the hand that fed him, sinking his teeth into the soft flesh between thumb and forefinger. In a second he had torn flesh from the bone. Bonnie screamed; Ron bolted awake from a light slumber. Oscar hissed at both of them, then was gone.
The wound was bad. Ron called an ambulance and Bonnie was rushed to the emergency room at the company’s hospital. “You have your choice,” the couple were told after she was shot with antibiotics and the gash dressed. “You can put the cat to sleep and we’ll take brain tissue to determine if he’s rabid. Or, you can quarantine him for ten days but we’ll still have to put him down.”
Oscar strolled into the duplex the next morning as if nothing had happened. A half-hour later he was in Saudi-Aramco’s veterinary clinic.
Dennis Perkins was a Baton Rouge, Louisiana man with small, delicate hands and brown hair cut in straight bangs across his forehead. The veterinarian knew how attached the Heginbothams were to their cat, but there was only one thing he could say to the distraught couple. “Mizz Bonnie, I don’t have to tell you, Oscar’s time here is over.”
“He’s had his shots. He’s not rabid. He was just disoriented, that’s all,” Bonnie protested.
Dr. Perkins shook his head. “There’s been a report filed. Oscar bit you,” he said gently.
Bonnie was inconsolable. Every day she’d go to jail, as she called quarantine, and cuddle Oscar. “Why did you do that?” she asked repeatedly.
One afternoon she walked in to hear Ron on the phone with Dennis Perkins. “He’s asking permission to put Oscar to sleep now, isn’t he?”
Ron looked miserable. “I said yes. We both don’t want you to go through this pain anymore,” her husband told her. Bonnie sank down on the couch and couldn’t stop crying. Ron sat beside his wife, at a loss how to comfort her. “Honey, let’s just make believe Oscar is still alive. There’s nothing you could do.”
Bonnie lifted her head. “I’d send him to Best Friends.” Her eyes widened with disbelief at her own words. “Why didn’t I think of that before?” she wailed.
Man and wife stared at each other, both thinking the same thing. Ron scooted to the end of the couch and reached for the phone. “Tell Dr. Perkins to wait. Don’t do anything to Oscar. We’ll be right over,” Bonnie said as she jumped up and ran to the kitchen for the car keys.
Dennis Perkins regarded the anxious couple before him. “I want to help,” he drawled soft and slow. “However, the only way I’ll sign a health certificate is if this Best Friends will promise me in writing that Oscar will be confined and never adopted out. Is that the kind of life you really want for him?”
Bonnie and Ron nodded in unison. “He doesn’t deserve to be killed. Something happened, that’s all,” Bonnie said.
The silence stretched across the miles as Mrs. Heginbotham finished her tale. Diana had heard similar stories before, but she was touched that this couple were willing to go to all the trouble and expense it would take to save the life of this cat.
Bonnie mistook the quiet. “If you’ll take him, we’ll pay for any expenses and his upkeep.”
“That is very much appreciated, but I’m curious about something. Why did you call Best Friends?”
For the first time in their conversation Bonnie laughed. It was a light, bubbly sound that made Diana smile. “I told you I’m a Delta Airlines flight attendant. My base was Salt Lake. I came off a flight in 1992 and one of your people was sitting at a table at the top of the escalator. He asked if I were an animal lover.” She laughed again. “I gave a donation and took the literature. Ron’s from back East, and before he went to Dhahran he wanted to see the Grand Canyon. We stopped to see your sanctuary on the way, but I don’t expect you to remember us.”
“I knew I’d heard your voice somewhere!” Diana exclaimed. She had a sudden vision of a smiling woman who looked to be in her late thirties sporting a chic Liza Minnelli cap of short brown hair shot with gray. She had liked Bonnie’s husband too: a solid, kind man with sailor blue eyes like John Fripp’s. “I remember you wore a wide-brimmed hat that totally shaded your face. I thought I should get myself one.” She paused, then continued briskly. “So what do we need to do to get your prince of a cat out of there?”
Diana Asher had no
illusions about what she would find when she picked up Oscar. The cat had been flown from Dhahran to Amsterdam, then transferred to a Delta Airlines flight for Los Angeles, where Bonnie’s friends would see him safely through American customs before his final journey to Salt Lake.
The morning of April 12, she loaded her Subaru with a clean carrier for the cat, thick padded gloves to protect her when handling Oscar, and sodas for the road. By 6:00 A.M. she was on the highway to Salt Lake City.
Diana was not surprised by the malodorous smell that emanated from the cat’s airline crate, or the coiled tension ready to explode from the animal that had been forcefully caged for so many hours. “Hang loose just a bit longer, and we’ll make this all better,” she assured as she took possession of the feline. Oscar’s answer was to fling his body against his prison with a bloodcurdling yowl.
Even after being moved to the relative comfort of a clean carrier with fresh water, he was in no mood to be placated. Oscar howled the entire journey home. Diana simply turned up the music and sped toward Best Friends as fast as the law allowed.
Diana had filled the shaded area next to the bunkhouse—where so many years before she and Faith had kept the cats from the old Arizona ranch—with toys, treats, and a kitty house for Oscar.
The first couple of days she watched the cat pace his new quarters in obvious agitation. Oscar resisted any overtures of friendship, snarling defiance when she talked to him. Every time she left, Diana could feel those accusing golden eyes at her back—no animal liked being in solitary. She was still fretting two weeks later when a tiny long-haired tabby was brought into the sanctuary.
A member had been feeding some other strays in a park near her house in Salt Lake City, but Heidi was too terrified of her fellow felines to get her share. “I don’t know how she survived,” the member said after she managed to trap the little scaredy-cat.
Judah saw that Heidi wouldn’t eat around the mellow kitties in Catland either, and he had no choice but to keep the scaredy-cat in a crate at feeding time. Even then she ate hardly enough for sustenance, staying hidden the rest of the time.
Diana went into Heidi’s room and found the frail tabby, as always, crouched in her kitty house. Diana stared into the darkened interior. “It’s worth a try,” she murmured. She scooped up Heidi and house and hurried toward the bunkhouse. A half-hour later, her hands and forearms swaddled in padded gloves, Diana sat quietly in Oscar’s quarters, ready to intervene if the black cat made one menacing move.
Oscar ignored her as she carefully positioned Heidi’s house a few feet away from his fleece bed. When she put down a large bowl of moist kitty food, Oscar devoured as much as his stomach could hold and then lay sated by his favorite toy. Heidi was as silent as a stone within her house.
Diana needed all her patience this afternoon. For two hours Oscar lay staring into the darkness of the tabby’s hiding place. Finally, he stretched to his feet and stalked to the food bowl. Damn, he’s going to eat it all.
Sure enough the big cat took a mouthful of food—but instead of swallowing it, he walked back and laid the morsel under the timid feline’s nose. His action reminded Diana of a suitor bringing a bouquet to his lady.
Oscar watched, satisfied as Heidi nibbled tentatively at his offering. He brought another mouthful and again poked it just inside her house, purring loudly. Soon the bowl was clean and Heidi had eaten her first good meal at Best Friends.
It was as if the tabby knew she had found a protector in this Saudi prince of a cat. Oscar, in turn, felt no threat from the timid little female and welcomed her companionship. As Diana watched, Heidi slowly emerged from her self-imposed prison and stared shyly at the proud black male. Oscar gently rubbed his nose against hers.
Chief Cat smiled. There would be no more solitary for these new sweethearts. It was another good day at Best Friends.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
All Are Beautiful
Amra hobbled forward to greet the afternoon tour. The magnificent malamute’s will was as staunch as ever, but the Sheriff no longer bounced forward like a teenager. No more did Amra surprise with a quick duck between unwary legs, and a heady flip from broad shoulders. Dogtown’s official greeter never shirked his duties, but now the thinner hips of age sashayed forward with effort, accompanied by a steady panting under the clear shafts of a late-summer sun.
Shy Rhonda, as always, watched and waited for her love a few yards away, anxious eyes never leaving his great frame. Faith could have adopted Amra out many times over the years, but nobody had ever offered Rhonda a home with the malamute.
As time went on, the bonds of attachment between the two canines had deepened into a love as strong and enduring as the Rock of Gibraltar. Ten years later Rhonda still cleaned the eyes and ears of the one that had lifted her out of her doggie depression, still bestowed tiny licks of affection on the great head. The delicate little terrier mutt still eschewed the limelight for herself, but she was never far from the Sheriff’s side.
Together plain Rhonda and the glorious malamute patrolled the perimeters of Dogtown, kept recalcitrant hounds in line, confiscated feeding bowls, and slept together, with Rhonda entwined in the protection of the bigger dog’s massive paws, her little head beneath his noble jaw. Faith thought it would be like dividing conjoined twins to separate the terrier mix from her beloved.
But life has its own passages, and on this day the Sheriff performed his duty as always, too slowly making his way back to the shade of his favorite juniper. Dr. Allen had diagnosed arthritis in the spring and prescribed pain medication to relieve the malamute’s stiffening gait. Best Friends made life as comfortable as possible for Amra over the next few months.
Not one of the Best Friends would inflict any undue suffering on an animal, and Faith, watching the heroic animal’s labored movements, sensed something more serious was manifesting itself. She looked into the bewildered golden eyes filled with a pain she had never seen before, and Faith knew Amra was ready to cross over the Rainbow Bridge.
In the cool of the evening, Tyson carried the great canine to the clinic. A subdued Rhonda trotted beside them to where Dr. Allen was waiting. The veterinarian was not his usual jocular self this night. He looked at the valiant shadow of the dog he had known and didn’t hesitate. Carefully he eased an injection into Amra’s flank to alleviate the distress before preparing the X rays. Dr. Allen needed no tests to know that he was looking at the last hours of a living legend, but there was always the faint chance he could be wrong. Rhonda perched on a chair and stared fixedly at her sedated mate.
“It’s bad, Faith,” Dr Allen pronounced, holding up the negatives so she could see for herself. “Amra has bone cancer. See these fuzzy areas? That’s the cancer eating away the hind legs. That’s why Amra’s in such pain when he walks. We’d be doing the Sheriff no favor by prolonging this.”
Faith turned away. “He’s not hurting now, is he?”
“No,” the veterinarian assured.
“Give me a few minutes.”
Faith walked the familiar lanes of Dogtown. The bustle of the day had given way to the sleepy peace of evening. The dogs still rushed their enclosures to greet Chief Dog, but with less rambunctious energy—their barking more form than content—then returned to their doggie dreams.
She passed over Victor’s line in the sand and remembered the respect Amra always accorded the grizzled veteran. Faith stood on the very spot where she, Tyson, Michael, and John had first seen the splendid red creature propel himself into Dogtown. She smiled sadly on Homer’s Hill, reminiscing how big and strong the malamute had been to upend the solid 220 pounds of Homer Harris. Most of all, Faith thought on the boundless love between Amra and his Rhonda, and with this thought came the inevitable question: What would happen to the terrier mix when her life’s partner was gone?
Faith retraced her steps to the clinic. Her face was clear of tears, stoic with acceptance as she faced Rich Allen. The vet didn’t need to ask; he just prepared the syringe. Faith lift
ed Rhonda onto the table next to her love. The little female whined and sniffed her sleeping spouse, then laid her head against the broad chest that had kept her warm for so many years. Faith cradled Amra in her arms and murmured words of comfort to the dog who couldn’t hear, as Dr. Allen sent the Sheriff on his painless journey.
Tyson and the veterinarian wrapped the malamute’s body in a white sheet, then lowered it to the floor beneath the table. Without a sound, Rhonda lay beside the inert form.
“Let her stay,” Faith decreed. “She needs to mourn, just as we do.”
David Maloney met his mother at the clinic the next morning. He and Faith buried Amra at Angels Rest under a juniper tree as the Sheriff would have wanted. Dr. Allen did not accompany them, feeling that he was perhaps too much a newcomer—Amra was part of the fabric of the Dogtown that Faith and David had helped to build from nothing. The vet was waiting outside the gate of the memorial park after their final good-byes. “Rhonda is hiding under the cabinets,” he said. “I can’t coax her out.”
Faith understood. “Leave her be. She’ll come to us in her own good time.”
For eight days, Rhonda hung around the clinic, meandering from room to room, looking for her mate. For eight days, Faith watched the widow’s snuffling and listened to the low, continuous whimpers that would go on for hours. To Faith, the extent of Rhonda’s grief was heartbreaking because there was nothing she could do for the bereft little terrier.
For eight days Rhonda broke everyone’s heart. Then, on a cool hint-of-fall evening, she dragged out of the clinic and made her way to the juniper that had been the Sheriff’s command post. “She’s finally figured out he’s not coming back,” Faith murmured.
Still, Rhonda did not run to greet Big Mama as of old. Rhonda no longer patrolled Dogtown, had no use for the habits of years. Instead she turned inward. Faith fretted. She had always had a soft spot for the loyal, loving mutt, and it was more than she could bear to see Rhonda’s heartache. But nothing Faith did could rouse the grieving animal.
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