The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Becky hoped it wasn’t forever, hoped her mother was right. “No one could have had a better childhood,” she said, “or a closer, stronger family.”

  Watching Sammie out the window, where she was petting the neighbors’ collie, Becky smiled as Sammie tried to push the dog into the bushes as if in some new game. When he wouldn’t go, and Sammie herself crept in beneath the shrubs, a chill touched Becky.

  Rising, she moved quickly to the window. Sammie was out of sight. A sleek black convertible came slowly down the street, the top up. As Falon’s Ford coupe eased to a crawl they raced for the front door. As they crossed the glassed porch, Falon was in the yard. Behind him the driver’s door stood open, they could hear the engine running. They lost sight of him beyond the porch blinds. When they burst out to the walk the car door slammed and the car sped away.

  The yard was empty. They couldn’t see Sammie, and couldn’t see if she was in the car. Becky parted the bushes, peering in, but saw only shadows. The dog had disappeared, too. She screamed for Sammie, then ran, chasing the car, ran until she heard Caroline shout.

  “She’s here—she’s all right.”

  Becky turned, saw Caroline kneeling, hugging Sammie. The dog was there, too, pressing against them. Becky knelt beside them, holding Sammie close, the dog licking their faces. Picking Sammie up, Becky carried her in the house like a very small child. They locked the door, and as Caroline checked the back door, Becky sat at the table holding Sammie. “What did he say? What did he do, what did he say to you?”

  “He came to the bushes and looked in. We were down at the end. When Brownie growled, Falon backed away. But he kept looking.” She shivered against Becky. “He told me to come out. Brownie growled again and he turned away. I heard his door slam, heard him drive away.”

  Caroline had picked up the phone to call the police. At Becky’s look she put the receiver down.

  “What good,” Becky said, “after the way we were treated in court? The Rome cops don’t like us. They’ll write it up as grandstanding, trying to get attention. Who knows what the report would say?” She stared over Sammie’s head at Caroline. Could Falon have come in retaliation because she’d talked to Natalie? She should have left the woman alone. She cuddled Sammie, kissing her, terrified for her.

  Caroline sat down at the table. “I think you can’t stay in Rome. You’ll have to get out, move where he won’t find you.”

  “Where, Mama? I can’t afford to rent somewhere. And my work, my bookkeeping accounts are all here.”

  Caroline’s look was conflicted. “There’s my sister, Anne. I doubt many people know where she is or even know I have a sister. I never talk about her, she never comes to see us.”

  “I couldn’t go there. I haven’t seen her since I was in high school. She wouldn’t want me and Sammie, she doesn’t even like children.” The only time they heard from Anne was an occasional phone call, a familiar duty in which she’d ask after everyone’s health but didn’t seem to really care. She would send a stiff little card at Christmas, cool and impersonal.

  Caroline and Anne, even when they were young children, had been at odds, Anne an austere and withdrawn little girl, disdaining the small pleasures that brought joy to Caroline and her friends. She didn’t care to climb trees, play ball, compose and act out complicated stage plays with wildly fancy costumes. Aloof and judgmental, Anne had seemed caught in her own solemn world. As if, Caroline said, Anne had never been a child, not in the normal sense. Over the years, after Becky’s father died, their family had visited Anne twice in Atlanta. They weren’t comfortable in her big, elegant home, with her formal ways. She had never come up to Rome, though Caroline had invited her many times.

  Anne had left Rome very young to work as a secretary in Atlanta. She had married young, and some years later was divorced. She had remained in Atlanta in her Morningside home, comfortable with the money her philandering husband had settled on her. Becky thought that asking to move in with Anne, begging to be taken in like a charity case, was not something she could handle.

  But she had to get away from Falon, she had to get Sammie away.

  “I’ll call her,” Caroline said. “Let me see what I can do.”

  “Mama, she won’t want us. She certainly won’t want a little girl in the house. And to know she’d be harboring a convict’s family . . . No, I don’t want to go there.”

  “We have to try. Sammie can’t stay here, it’s too dangerous.” She put her hand over Becky’s. “Only a few people in town would remember Anne. I doubt they’d know where she went or that she married and later divorced. I doubt anyone would know what her name is now.”

  Becky wasn’t so sure. In a small town, everyone knew your business. And this small town had turned vicious; people might dredge up anything they could find.

  “You have to get Sammie out of Rome, she’s the one vulnerable weapon Falon has. He’ll use her if he can, to make you stop going for an appeal. He has to be terrified of an appeal, of a new trial.”

  Becky watched her mother. “I’ll look for a room in Atlanta, I can find a job there. You can keep Sammie close for a few days, keep her inside with you. Once we’re settled she’ll be in school. Maybe I can get a job with short hours, or take work home as I do here.”

  “If Anne will invite you, she won’t want rent. Let me try. You’d be better off there, among other people, if you mean to keep Sammie safe.”

  IT WAS LATE that night, Becky and Sammie asleep tucked up in Caroline’s guest bed, when Sammie woke shivering, clinging to Becky, her body sticky with sweat. When Becky gathered her up, holding her tight, the child said nothing, but lay against Becky in silence. Becky would never force Sammie to tell a dream, that could make her reluctant to reveal any others in the future. Silently she held Sammie until at last the child dozed again, but restlessly, as if still trying to drive away whatever vision haunted her. Only in the small hours did Sammie sleep soundly. Becky slept then, exhausted, holding Sammie close.

  IN SAMMIE’S DREAM Daddy was inside the bars and the man with the cold eyes and the narrow head was looking in at him but then he turned and looked hard at her, too. When he reached out for her she woke up. In the dark room she could hear her own heart pounding. Mama held her and kissed her, she clung to Mama for a long time but she was still afraid.

  But then when she slept again her dream was nice. She was with the old man, the cowboy, his thin, tanned face, his gray eyes that seemed to see everything. He was in a big airplane looking out the window down at the world laid out below him, the green hills, the tall mountains. Then he was in a big black car with two men in uniform. He was coming now. Soon he would be with Daddy. And in sleep Sammie smiled, snuggling easier against Mama.

  BECKY WOKE AT dawn, her eyes dry and grainy, her body aching. Whatever Sammie had experienced last night had left Becky herself uncertain and distraught. She rose, pulled on her robe, stood looking down at the sleeping child, wanting to touch her soft, innocent cheek but not wanting to wake her.

  But when Becky left the room, Misto did wake Sammie. His purr rumbled, his fur was thick and warm, his whiskers tickled her face. In the dim, early light, as she recalled her dream of the cowboy she hugged Misto so tight he wriggled. The cowboy was coming now, and she didn’t feel afraid anymore. When she slept again, cocooned with the invisible tomcat, it was a sleep filled with hope that her daddy would come home. That he would come home again, safe.

  7

  WITH THE SUMMER heat soaking into Lee’s bones, with plenty of good food and rest and with the help of the prison doc, Lee’s condition slowly improved. As he grew stronger and wanted something to do, he was assigned light work on the prison farm. Feeding and caring for the four plow horses suited him just fine; they were placid, loving animals and he liked to baby them, to groom them, bring them carrots from the kitchen, trim their hooves when they grew too long. As fall approached, Lee settled comfortably into the pleasant routine of morning work in the stable, then breathing and gym exercises, and
late afternoons on his cot with a stack of library books. He was in Dr. Donovan’s examining room when the blow struck, when his cozy life changed abruptly and not for the better.

  Donovan, finished examining him, paused beside the table, his look solemn, his eyes way too serious. Lee waited uneasily. Were his lungs worse, even though he felt better? But then Donovan smiled, running a hand through his short, pale hair.

  “I know you like it here, Lee. I hate to tell you this, but it looks like you’re being transferred.”

  “What the hell? I’m just starting to get better. Transferred where? Why would—”

  “Down to Atlanta,” Donovan said. “We’re receiving two dozen incoming patients, men from a number of states. They’re all pretty sick, we need every space we can muster.”

  No one had asked what Lee wanted. His choices weren’t a concern of the U.S. prison system. Scowling at Donovan, he finished buttoning his shirt.

  “You’re fit enough to move on, Lee. It’ll be cold here pretty soon, but should still be warm down south. Atlanta will be good for you.”

  “Sure it will,” Lee said. “Thrown in a cage of felons again where every minute I have to watch my back.”

  Donovan looked apologetic. Lee knew there was nothing the man could do. They said their good-byes, and early the next morning Lee was out of there, handcuffed, belly-chained, and shoved in the back of another big limo by two surly deputy marshals.

  The deputy in the backseat took up most of the space and stunk of cigar smoke. The early morning road was empty, the yellow wheat towering tall on both sides of the two-lane. In the distance Lee could see a row of combines working, cutting wheat just as they would soon be doing outside the prison walls. Crowded into the small space, he couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t move his arms much, and the belly chain was already digging in. Did they have to leave him chained like a mass killer?

  His temper eased only when he felt a breeze behind him where there was no wind, then felt a soft paw press slyly against his cheek. He imagined the ghost cat stretched out on the wide shelf, enjoying the view through the back window—enjoying a little game, Lee realized when the deputy began to scratch a tickle along his neck. Lee hid a smile as the deputy scratched his ear, then his jaw. When the portly man slapped at his balding head, Lee had trouble not laughing out loud. When he scowled at Lee as if his prisoner was causing the trouble, Lee glanced sternly toward the shelf behind him—kitty-play was all right, but the cranky deputy looked like he wanted to pound someone, and Lee was the only one visible.

  MISTO STOPPED THE teasing when Lee frowned. He rolled over away from the deputy, hissing softly at the way the heavy lawman hogged the seat, squeezing Lee against the door, deliberately crowding him in the hot car. When Lee’s companion lit up a cigar Misto wanted to snake out his paw again and slap the stogie from the fat man’s face.

  And wouldn’t that make trouble, when the unpredictable lawman felt his burning cigar jerked from his mouth and saw it flying across the car—an armed and unpredictable lawman. Smiling, Misto guessed he wouldn’t try the man’s temper that far.

  LEE SAID NOTHING about the cigar smoke, but sat trying not to cough. Neither deputy had said much to him and he didn’t want to get them started; he’d take the smoke and the silence. He looked out the window at the yellow wheat fields stretching away; he stared at the back of the driver’s head until the thin deputy met Lee’s eyes in the rearview mirror, his glance cold and ungiving. Soon the car was so thick with smoke that Lee couldn’t help coughing.

  “Can I crack open the window? The emphysema’s getting to me.”

  The fat deputy scowled, but grunted.

  Taking that as a yes, Lee managed, despite the handcuffs, to roll down his window, and sat sucking in the fresh breeze. The warm wind made him think of the desert, of Blythe, of the buried post office money and the simple pleasures it would buy.

  “What’re you smiling about, Fontana?” the fat deputy said. “You know something we don’t?”

  Lee shrugged. “Hungering for a good Mexican meal. They ever serve Mexican in the Atlanta pen?”

  In the front seat, the thin deputy drawled, “Atlanta, you’ll get Brunswick stew. That can be as hot as you’ll want to try.” When Lee began to cough hard despite the open window, the driver glanced back at his partner. “The doc at Springfield told you, Ray, no smoking in the car. That cough gets bad, he keeps it up, we’ll have to turn around and take him back.”

  Scowling, Ray opened his window and threw the burning cigar out on the shoulder of the highway. Lee hoped to hell he didn’t set the wheat afire. This wasn’t going to improve the man’s temper, if he couldn’t smoke. And it was a two-day drive to Atlanta.

  Soon, with the cigar smoke sucked away by the wind, Lee was able to breathe again. As he settled back, easing pressure off the belly chain, trying to get comfortable, he felt the weight of the ghost cat stretch out along his shoulder. Felt the insolent tickle of bold whiskers, and again he tried not to smile. Lee wished they were flying instead of driving, he liked looking down at the world below, the patterns of farms and cities, the snaking rivers. He’d been startled when, during the flight out from L.A. to Springfield, they’d passed right over the country he had known as a boy. He’d pressed his forehead to the plane’s tiny window seeing, in a new way, the wrinkled face of Arizona, the great plains broken by dry, ragged mountains. He saw Flagstaff, the San Francisco peaks rising behind. Where the highway moved north of Winslow, and the Little Colorado River made a sharp turn, a lonely feeling had clutched at him. Off to his left, three fields formed a triangle with trees marking their borders. Those had to be the north fields of the ranch where they’d moved when they left South Dakota, when his dad sold out, sold all the stock, hoping for a better living.

  The ranch his father had bought was no better for grass except in early spring, and that new green grass had been without much substance to put any fat on a steer. Sparse grazing land again, hot as hell in the summers, and the well water tasted bitterly of iron. He’d worked long hours, as a boy, doctoring and branding their scruffy cattle. He could still smell the dust, could still feel his favorite bay gelding under him, could still bring back the sweet smell of new grass bruised by a horse’s hooves. He could taste the vinegar-soaked beefsteak his mother would cook for breakfast, for the few neighbors who helped each other during roundup, moving from one ranch to the next. Fresh-killed range beef was tough as hell if you didn’t soak it overnight in vinegar.

  He’d been fourteen when they moved west to Winslow. His brother Howard was fifteen but as useless in Arizona as he’d been in South Dakota, making more work for others than if you did the job yourself. Ma had kept the girls busy tending the garden and chickens, and canning what she could from their pitiful garden. His two older sisters didn’t want to work with the cattle, but Mae had yearned after horses. She rode whenever she could sneak away, she would have grown into a good ranch hand if Ma had let her.

  The year they moved to the Flagstaff land, Russell Dobbs had followed them all the way out from the Dakotas. Lee had been thrilled when his grandpappy showed up, but his mother was cold with rage. She’d been so relieved to come west to get away from her renegade, train-robbing father.

  Grandpappy would be with them for a few days, then gone for a few. Shortly after he arrived, the Flagstaff paper reported a train robbery just north of Prescott. Two weeks later a second train was held up, east of Flagstaff. That was the start of a dozen successful jobs, all at night when Russell might have been there at the ranch, asleep in his bed. Russell knew, if the feds came looking, his daughter would lie for him despite her disapproval. It was at that time that Lee’s mother turned inward. She didn’t speak to her father much when he was at the ranch and she didn’t smile often. After Russell left them for good and moved on again, she lived the rest of her life blaming him for everything that went wrong in the family. It was his influence, she said, that had soured their lives.

  As a boy, Lee had known exact
ly how his grandpappy felt, had known the wild need that kept Dobbs robbing the trains and moving on to rob again. On the ranch, even when Lee stood on a knoll looking across emptiness as far as he could see in every direction, he felt the same trapped need to move on. He could still see that look in Dobbs’s eyes, the intensity in Dobbs’s movements and in his impatient ways.

  Lee, with his own hunger for the fast trains, would do anything as a kid to get into town to see the train pull in, to watch that thin line of smoke curling up from the bell-mouthed stack, the black engine belching steam, steam sighing from the big pistons and drive wheels. His father always wanted Lee to go with him to the stockyard, to take an interest in the cattle trading. But the minute their buggy hit town Lee would sneak off to the station and beg the engineer to let him aboard. He could still feel the warm iron floor under his bare feet as he stood inside the engineer’s cab looking at the bright brass gauges and levers, drinking in the power of the engine, a power that filled him right up like a dipper of water on a hot day.

  But then his eyes would turn to the engineer’s heavy thirty-thirty hanging beside the seat in its scarred leather scabbard, and he would imagine that weapon turned on his grandpappy during a robbery, imagine his grandpappy shot, twisting and falling, and Lee’s excitement would turn to fear.

  When the engineer shooed him off the train again he would wait beside the track feeling the ground rumble as the engine got moving, would stand there caught in the scream of the whistle and the jolt of the drive wheels as she gathered speed. Would stare up, entranced, at the big pistons pushing to a gallop and the rocking cars heaving past him.

  Now, remembering that day flying from the West Coast to Kansas City looking down from the airliner at his old home, he had that same sense of living in two times. As if part of him was still a young man back on the prairie sixty years in the past, while part of him stumbled along toward the end of his life’s journey.