One day he was your simple, everyday housecat enjoying a quick tussle in the bushes. The next day, when he found himself not only thinking human thoughts but speaking them aloud, he was shaken right down to his claws. The shock that he was speaking a human language, and was thinking not with sensible feline instincts, but with human logic—with the very turn of mind that so often drove a cat crazy—that revelation nearly undid him. His first awakening to this new experience had scared the hell out of him.
But when at last his terror gave way to this new kind of reason, when he realized what he might do with his new talent, the excitement had lifted Joe to heights he’d never imagined. Somehow, he’d fallen into a new, vast, amazing world. Into a life so different from his old life, so much more detailed and fascinating, that he’d soon had trouble remembering the simple housecat he’d once been—when his greatest challenges were mice, food, and females, when his greatest creative endeavor was thinking up new ways to torment Clyde. And that had been a blast, when Clyde first learned that Joe could speak, when Joe made that first phone call to Clyde and was finally able to convince him it was really his gray tomcat calling. It had taken Clyde a lot of shouting, several violent bursts of temper, before he believed it was Joe at the other end of the line, before he accepted the facts.
Strange, Joe thought. Since Clyde and Ryan married, he never wanted to harass his female housemate the way he liked to torment Clyde. Maybe that was because Ryan didn’t get mad the way Clyde did. She didn’t swear at him; she refused to indulge in shouting matches. She’d smile at his goading, just as she laughed at his altercations with Clyde that were, after all, only bachelor camaraderie. Instead of arguing, she’d pet him and hug him with an almost embarrassing tenderness.
Now, crouched between the roof’s shingled slopes waiting for the fog to lift, for the rising sun to warm his chilly fur, Joe contemplated Ryan and Clyde’s new endeavor. The project was meant to be purely for fun, to mentor an occasional forlorn and neglected structure, to see what they could make of houses that would otherwise be torn down. The newlyweds, the tomcat thought, were into creative renovation the way a little kid tackled a new toy.
For this cottage, in its narrow yard, there would be new stone walks and low-maintenance landscaping. In the back, the beams would continue upward to allow for the new, story-and-a-half ceiling of the sunroom. In Joe’s opinion, despite his sarcasm regarding Clyde’s carpentry skills or lack thereof, the couple was going to make a bright new home of this tired little cabin—and they should make a nice profit, too. Houses along any greenbelt were at a premium; many folk treasured a home where wild land touched the tamed world, where they could watch from their windows an Eden yet untouched by human meddling. For some humans, this strip of wild land would be as close as they ever got to the basics of raw nature, to the tooth-and-claw life familiar to any outdoor feline.
A cat, perhaps more than any other beast, could live most equitably with a paw in each of the two worlds. Cushions and soft comforters by night, a warm fire and a dish of liver or fillet. And in the daytime, when his adversaries were more likely to be asleep—but not always—a spine-tingling foray among the larger predators, a hunt to stalk and kill his own victims, an adrenaline rush that, if a cat was quick and clever, would send him home unscathed, with a belly full of something wild and filling. Joe was watching the greenbelt with an eye for the occasional silent shadow, for, most likely, a silent and marauding coyote, when a harsh scrabble of claws directly above him made him leap aside.
5
A SOFT THUD HIT the shingles as Joe’s tabby lady dropped down to the roof beside him from the branches above, her green eyes laughing at his sudden alarm. She flashed him a good-morning smile and snuggled up, her dark, striped fur cold, and as damp as his own, in the chill morning. She smelled of pine where she’d brushed among bushy branches crossing the roofs of the village, leaving her own snug cottage. Her tail twitched against him as they watched Ryan and her two helpers laboring below. Down the street, Scott Flannery’s green pickup appeared, heading for Maudie’s house to get to work, his red hair and red beard as bright as new rust in the morning light.
Easing on past Maudie’s house and past Maudie’s black Lincoln that stood on the street, he parked beyond the drive, leaving it empty for deliveries of lumber and materials. A light burned in the kitchen, and the cats could smell fresh coffee brewing. Ever since Ryan started her construction firm, her uncle Scotty had been her foreman; it was Scotty who had taught her the skills of a good carpenter, long before she’d ever studied design. When Maudie had approached her about building the studio, she’d been pleased that the two small jobs were located so close together, shortening their work time and adding to the efficiency of both jobs. Maudie seemed quite content to live among the carpenters’ clutter and noise, and she always had coffee for the workers. She even welcomed the cats; Joe and Dulcie and Kit had been in and out of the house ever since Ryan began work, prowling as they pleased. While Joe Grey was curious about Maudie herself, Dulcie and Kit were fascinated with the new studio as it began to take shape. What would a quilter’s studio be like? How exactly did Maudie put her lovely quilts together? Ryan had shown them a whole magazine article that listed Maudie’s many exhibits, with pictures of Maudie’s quilts so bright and intricate that Dulcie had had to stroke them with a soft paw. The studio was dried in now, and Scotty was building cupboards and shelves and drawers, leaving one wall bare for Maudie’s big quilting table, with hanging quilts behind it; the two lady cats were fascinated with it all. The problem was, every time they became absorbed in what Scotty was building, they would feel Maudie watching them.
No cat likes to be intently watched, even if it is a friendly gaze. Dulcie grew so irritated that she said maybe Maudie needed a pet of her own. “Then she should go to the pound,” Joe snapped. “Get herself a house cat or one of those dinky designer dogs.” The tomcat smiled. “A little puff dog that would make one bite for a respectable cat.”
Below, Scotty stepped out of his truck and reached in the back for his toolbox. He was a tall man, well over six feet, large boned and broad shouldered, his red hair and beard clearly showing his solid Scots-Irish heritage. As he headed for the house, his long stride seemed better suited to tramping the rocky green hills of the old country. He was dressed this morning in the same faded jeans and dark jogging shoes that he usually wore, and a freshly pressed brown denim work shirt. His profile, against the dark wood of the front door, was craggy and lean, his red eyebrows shaggy, his short, neatly trimmed beard streaked with gray. Maudie opened the door before he rang the bell, her smile showing her delight at his presence—Scotty always seemed to make people feel happy. In the quiet lull from just below, as Ryan laid down her crowbar and hammer, Scotty’s and Maudie’s voices carried clearly up the hill.
“The windows’ll be here this morning,” Scotty said, “after all the delay. Then it’ll begin to look like home.”
“Like a real studio,” Maudie replied, a smile in her voice. “There’s coffee in the kitchen, and some sweet rolls.” As she and Scotty moved inside, up at the top of the hill, an ancient brown pickup came out of the side street and turned down Maudie’s street, slowing as it passed the house. The cats saw the driver looking, though the windows were so dirty he was little more than a dark smear, a pale face peering out through the murky glass.
“What’s so interesting?” Joe said, bristling. The truck eased past, down the hill, the driver gunned the engine, turned onto the side street, and was gone. A brown pickup, dented and muddy, dark mud spattered heavily on its back wheels, bumper, and license plate. The cats stared after it uneasily. The morning was silent again, and as the sun began to melt away the fog, a cacophony of birdsong made Dulcie look up and lick her whiskers. They heard the Skilsaw start down in the new studio as Scotty got to work. Dulcie yawned, and the two cats stretched out together in a patch of sun, waiting for it to warm them. Dulcie said, “Maudie and Benny will be all alone when David goes back to
Atlanta. It has to be hard, grieving for her son, leaving all her friends, and now to be alone, knowing no one in the village.”
“She knows Ryan and Clyde, and Scotty,” Joe said. “Anyway, she has family here.”
Dulcie sneezed with disgust. “Her sister? That prissy Carlene Colletto? And those two nephews? I don’t see them lending a lot of support, they didn’t even help her move in. Certainly the third one won’t be any help, he’s cooling his heels in prison.”
“The one nephew’s all right. Jared. It’s the other two you want to steer clear of,” Joe said. “The younger one, Kent. What a sleaze.” They watched Ryan start down the hill, tool belt slung around her waist and carrying her clipboard, where she always had a tangle of receipts and to-do lists.
Below, Maudie came out of the house and headed down the driveway toward the street where her car was parked. The little boy followed her out, but then sat down on the low front steps as if he was too tired to go farther. He was a frail child, maybe six, thin and pale with light brown hair tucked down over his ears reaching toward his collar. “His face is so drawn,” Dulcie said, feeling a deep pity for the little boy who had lost his father, who had seen his father shot and killed right before him.
Hurrying to the car, Maudie looked around with a quick intensity, despite her soft demeanor. She saw the street was empty, but glanced up once at Benny, seeming as wary as a matronly cottontail watching her vulnerable young. Turning to the car, she used her electronic key to pop the trunk open. Beneath the rising lid the cats could see a load of plastic bags stamped with the familiar names of local shops: Molena Point Gourmet Kitchen, Dolly’s Linen Den, The Village Christmas Boutique. Maudie didn’t yet have her moving boxes unpacked, but she wasn’t wasting any time preparing for the holidays. Why had she left all this in the car overnight? Maybe, Dulcie thought, knowing how her own housemate managed such matters, she’d wanted to clean and line cupboards before bringing in new kitchenware and linens. Looked as if she’d bought additional decorations, too, for the big tree that Joe had seen David carrying into the house.
Pulling out half a dozen bulky white bags, most with her right hand and favoring her left arm, she eased the trunk lid closed and turned back toward the house. Loaded with packages, she had paused to peer over them to find her footing on the curb when, up the hill, the same brown pickup appeared again suddenly, racing around the corner, barreling straight down at Maudie, its engine roaring, its sides rattling, the driver only a shadow behind the smeared window.
“Get back!” Ryan shouted as she dove for Maudie, grabbed her, jerked her from the truck’s path onto the curb, Maudie’s packages scattering around them, one bag hitting the curb with a crash of broken china. Inches from them, the truck veered out again to avoid the Lincoln, scraping down the car’s length as it passed, a violent wrenching of metal, then skidded into a sharp turn onto the side street and vanished.
The two women stood on the sidewalk, the Lincoln between them and the street. Behind them on the porch, little Benny stood frozen, white-faced and seemingly unable to move. The cats’ own involuntary cries of warning had been drowned in Ryan’s shout. They raced down across the roofs for Maudie’s roof as Ryan snatched her cell phone from her belt. She was pressing 911 when Maudie grabbed the phone and hit the end button.
“What are you doing?” Ryan snapped. “We need the police.”
Maudie shook her head. She was as pale as Benny.
“He could have killed you,” Ryan looked at her, incredulous. “Maybe they can catch him, you need to call in a report.”
Maudie looked back at her, shaking her head. Behind them the sound of the Skilsaw had ceased, and Scotty appeared in the open doorway. Benny turned and clung to him. The big, steady man put his arm around the little boy, drawing him close.
“Give me the phone,” Ryan said, biting back her temper. The cats expected her to force the phone from Maudie’s hand. She didn’t, but her voice was low with anger. “You have to report this, Maudie. If only for the insurance claim.”
Maudie put her hand on Ryan’s arm. “I wouldn’t file for insurance. My … my deductible’s too high.” She studied Ryan. “Let it go. Please, just let it be.”
Ryan stared at her then turned away and began picking up packages. Maudie took two white plastic bags from her and headed for the house. When the cats, peering over, got a good look at Maudie’s face, she looked far more excited than frightened. What was that about? As Maudie and Benny moved inside, the cats scrambled down an oak tree and followed them through the open door into the house where they could watch Maudie and listen.
6
AN HOUR BEFORE the truck came roaring down at Maudie, and a dozen blocks away, the tortoiseshell cat paced the early-morning rooftops looking down from between the peaks and chimneys at the village shops below. Kit’s black and brown coat shone dark within the fog, drops of fog clinging to the tips of her long fur like tiny jewels. Below her, the shop windows were bright with a dazzle of small, lavishly decorated Christmas trees, with silver and gold packages which, while only empty inside, were festive and enticing. Several windows featured carefully arranged crèche scenes, and these always drew Kit. In the small hours of the nights before Christmas, when the streets were at last deserted, she and Dulcie would prowl the dark, empty village, standing tall on their hind paws peering in at the baby Jesus and the wise men and the little miniature animals all snuggled in their beds of straw—but there was never a cat, the crèches never had cats. Dulcie said there were no cats in the Bible, but Kit wasn’t sure she believed that. Why would there be horses and cows and dogs, wild pigs and weasels, but no cats? Why, when everyone knew that a little cat would have to be God’s favorite?
She’d left home this morning before daylight while her human housemates still dozed. Though Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw, at eighty-some, liked to be up for an early breakfast and an early walk in the hills, they’d been out late last night. They’d been fast asleep as Kit bolted through the dining room, through her cat door that was cut into the window, trotted across the oak branch to her tree house, and took off to the next roof. And the next roof and the next, heading for the village, traveling high above the ground as handily as any squirrel among the leafy canopy.
Now in the center of the village, she listened to the rhythmic thudding as an early jogger fled past, and watched a gray-haired dog walker heading for the shore pulled along by an eager red setter. A young man in sport coat and chinos stepped out from a nearby motel and, two blocks down, turned in at the nearest bakery seeking his morning coffee and, most likely, some delectable and sugary confection. As he disappeared inside the steamy café, two runners came up the hill from the shore, breathing hard, looking smug with their efforts. Humans wore themselves out running from nothing, but too often had no clue when to run from danger. Kit watched the human scene with interest, but she watched the rooftops around her with sharper scrutiny. She was looking for the stranger, for the yellow tomcat.
She’d glimpsed him over the past days only briefly, had seen him watching her from among shadows, from leafy cover, but had never gotten a close look at him. He was a big cat, his fur as pale yellow as sunshine. He had watched Joe and Dulcie, too, but why was he so shy, why did he keep his distance so stubbornly as he followed them? She knew he was no ordinary cat, the way he watched them, she knew he could have spoken to them if he chose. What did he want, to follow them but then refuse to approach? What was he doing in the village? Where had he come from? The mystery of him sent her heart pounding with excitement and with challenge, sent her imagination rocketing as she searched for the elusive stranger.
A sound startled her. Did she hear a soft yowl, a tomcat’s yowl? She leaped to a high peak, listening. But no, what she heard was not a cat at all but the faintest screech of nails being pulled, and then the distant thunk of boards being tossed in a heap, and Kit smiled. That was only Ryan, pulling off the siding, at work renovating that little frame cottage—had to be Ryan, from the direction, and
the early hour. What other carpenter or contractor started work so early? Looking around at the empty and silent roofs, Kit licked her cold paws, and then headed across the roofs toward the residential hills where Ryan would be working. If she couldn’t find the mysterious tom, she would ease her restlessness among friends, and away she went, racing over the shingles and across the oaks’ spanning branches.
She stopped suddenly when three cop cars streamed past along the street below, moving without sirens and in a hell of a hurry. And here came an EMT right behind them, all as quiet as soaring hawks watching for prey. Spinning around, Kit followed them, praying this wasn’t another invasion but, racing over the rooftops, meaning to be there if it was, hoping to get a look at the invaders, this time.
She thought about the women who had been beaten and robbed: a lone woman in her garden picking roses, the front door left unlocked behind her and no one else at home. A lone woman opening her door at night to a stranger because he said his car wouldn’t start. He’d pulled her onto her darkened porch, where he’d already unscrewed the lightbulb, had knocked her around, trashed her house breaking furniture, taken a few small items, and left. The third woman was attacked in the dark stairway of her condo, again when the lightbulb had been unscrewed. Why had she gone in there when there was no light?
And the strangest thing was, none of the women had been raped. These men forced themselves into their homes, broke the furniture, stole money and jewelry, and fled. Sometimes two men, sometimes three, their faces covered with stockings in a trite but effective disguise. It was the very absence of further brutality that most puzzled the police, and puzzled the cats, as well. Could the perpetrators, if they got caught, not want to stand trial for the more serious offense of rape? That seemed to the cats the only possible explanation—brutal small-time thugs, wanting to have their fun but still save their own necks.
Cat Coming Home Page 3