How to Catch a Cat

by Rebecca M. Hale

  “Everything ready to go?” Oscar asked quietly.

  Humphretto nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, sir.”

  Oscar smiled at the salutation. Humphretto clearly outranked him. The “sir” was merely out of respect for his advanced age. “Let’s get to it, mate.”

  The lieutenant led the way, shimmying down a rope ladder attached to the ship’s side. Oscar followed at a much slower pace and not near as nimbly.

  Wobbling precariously, Oscar managed to transfer first his pack and then his body into the canoe’s front end.

  Humphretto had taken up the rear steering seat. There was only one paddle, so the lieutenant insisted on providing the manpower.

  Moments later, they slipped into the morning’s half-light, undetected by the remaining crew.

  Oscar glanced over his shoulder at the panting lieutenant. Humphretto had paused his paddling to remove his horsehair jacket, which was too warm for the morning’s strenuous exercise.

  “That’s a truly stunning coat. I’ve been admiring it the whole trip.”

  “Well, thank you, Oscar. I was going to leave it behind today, since the weather’s been so pleasant, but the captain said you wanted me to bring it along.”

  “Yes,” Oscar replied, returning to a face-forward position. “You never know when such a piece of apparel might come in handy.”

  Humphretto shrugged. Right now, the bulky coat was more of a burden than a blessing. He paddled a few more strokes and then called out to the front of the canoe.

  “Why did you ask me to bring my sewing kit?”

  —

  WITH HUMPHRETTO HUFFING and puffing at the stern, the canoe slowly picked up speed, gliding away from the San Carlos.

  The rising sun glistened on the water, shining across the faint ripples generated by the tiny boat.

  The bay’s north shore was calmer and noticeably warmer than the south, where Humphretto had explored the day before. As the canoe slid onto the beach, the lieutenant gazed up at the gentle green hills and sighed.

  In the presence of such natural beauty, he could almost forget the urgency of their visit.

  The tranquil scene was broken by a husky voice that called out from the woods.

  “Oscar!” The bushes along the hillside rustled. The movement in the leaves indicated a large disturbance. “I thought that was you!”

  Despite the warning signs, Humphretto was unprepared for the sight—and size—of the creature who emerged from the greenery.

  As Oscar hobbled across the wet sand, the lieutenant stood by the canoe, awestruck.

  “Oh my.”

  Humphretto had heard tales of Neanderthals living in the great forests of the north. A few of his fellow Spaniards had speculated that the species represented offshoots from mankind’s early predecessors. Others swore the beasts were artifacts of the devil, pure evil spewed up from the depths of hell. He’d been cautioned to guard himself when traveling in the woods, lest a wooly demon drag him off to its lair.

  Humphretto had always eschewed these stories as creative fiction told around a campfire, but right now, he was having second thoughts.

  The specimen running onto the beach—whatever it was—was downright terrifying.

  The creature was covered in hair, much of it orangish-red, some of it human, some of it animal. Humphretto thought he recognized a cured hide or two in the mix. A raccoon tail swung wildly from the back of a roughly hewn cap. It was a brutish assembly of lumbering limbs and muscle.

  And it had just tackled Oscar with a frightening bear hug.

  His hands shaking, Humphretto reached for the musket attached to his shoulder belt. He had never actually fired the weapon. He didn’t even know how to aim it. But he couldn’t stand by and let the ship’s chef get mauled by this . . . this . . . thing.

  “Come on, Humphretto.” Oscar broke free of the friendly embrace and waved for the lieutenant to join them. “Let me introduce you to my friend Sam.”

  Humphretto stared in awe as Oscar walked up the shoreline, laughing chummily with the hairiest man the lieutenant had ever seen.

  After a few steps the chef turned and called back to the canoe.

  “And don’t forget to bring the coat.”

  Still perplexed, Humphretto reached for the horsehair jacket. Coat in hand, he started to follow Oscar and his strange companion.

  But the lieutenant abruptly stopped as he noticed two small green figures riding on the burly man’s shoulders.

  His brow furrowed.

  “Are those frogs?”

  Chapter 58

  THE BEAR

  TRUE TO HIS word, Oscar returned to the San Carlos that afternoon, before any of the remaining crew members noticed his absence and in plenty of time to prepare the evening’s dinner. He and Humphretto left the canoe tied in the water. The lieutenant scampered briskly up the rope ladder, leaving Oscar to lumber up on his own.

  Once he reached the top deck, Oscar proceeded immediately to the kitchen. Due to the recent departures, the dining table’s head count had been dramatically reduced, but Oscar assembled enough ingredients to feed a full ship.

  Captain Ayala stepped into the galley for an update on the day’s excursion. He frowned, noting the amount of food laid out on the counter.

  “You must have worked up an appetite, Oscar. There’s hardly anyone left. We won’t make a dent in this. It’ll go to waste.”

  With a grin, Oscar confidently thunked the counter with his knife.

  “Captain, I guarantee all of this food will be devoured by midnight—by your regular crew members.”

  Unconvinced, Ayala ground his left foot into the floor. He winced from the pain as Oscar reached for a large pot hanging on the wall.

  “Humphretto’s assistance was invaluable.”

  The captain scowled his frustration. “I haven’t seen him since you returned.”

  “I believe he retired to his quarters.” Oscar paused and then pumped his scraggly eyebrows. “He’s in mourning.”

  Ayala’s face registered alarm. “Who died?”

  Oscar tossed a handful of vegetables into the pot.

  “His coat.”

  —

  CAPTAIN AYALA FOUND his lieutenant a few minutes later. He knocked on the open doorway to Humphretto’s tiny cubicle and leaned inside.

  The little man sat at his desk, staring down at his various sewing and shearing tools. The implements were covered with tufts of reddish-brown fuzz that carried a rank animal scent.

  Ayala tried to draw the lieutenant’s attention. “I understand you made an enormous sacrifice today. Thank you, my friend.”

  Humphretto shuddered as if reliving a painful memory. His gaze remained fixed on the desk’s wooden surface. After a moment of silence, he finally spoke.

  “I have never seen such hair on a man.” With a disturbed sigh, he picked up a pair of scissors and wiped the handle with a felt cloth. “If you need me, Captain, I’ll be sharpening my shears . . .”

  Scratching his head, Ayala quietly left the room. He closed the door and stood in the hallway, puzzling.

  He was still unclear exactly what had gone on during Oscar and Humphretto’s excursion.

  What’s the old man up to? he pondered. He limped down the corridor, his brow deeply furrowed. And how is all this going to bring my crew back?

  —

  DINNER WAS A somber and lightly attended affair. The huge spread brought up to the top deck went largely untouched.

  The few sailors still on board clumped together in nervous groups, staring at the empty chairs that lined the table. Even the Baron hunched uncomfortably in his seat.

  It seemed unlikely that the last canoe, tethered at the bottom of the rope ladder, would remain empty for long.

  Ayala stared at the near-empty table with grave concern. He had little appetite, and his foot throbbed with as much pain as ever.

  Oscar, however, appeared untroubled by the sparse showing. He and his niece wrapped up the leftovers and carried the f
ood back downstairs to the kitchen.

  —

  AS THE SUN went down, a tense quiet settled over the ship. Captain Ayala retired to his room, defeated. If the men were determined to leave, he was helpless to stop them.

  A couple of the remaining sailors headed to their bunks; the others convened in the shadows, discussing their options. The Baron joined the conversation, forking over a substantial sum of cash to ensure himself a seat on the next departing vessel. The lone canoe soon filled to capacity and, under the power of its one paddle, disappeared into the night.

  Humphretto watched the last group leave and then sadly rolled up the rope ladder. It was too late, he feared, for Oscar’s plan—and his hairy friend—to do any good.

  A few hours later, a desperate splashing could be heard in the shallows by the ship’s hull.

  With a groan, Ayala struggled from his bed and hobbled onto the deck.

  This was it, he thought grimly. His first commission in command of a ship would end with its pitiful abandonment in an unknown port.

  He lifted his lantern to look over the railing, expecting to see the last hapless traitors swimming toward shore—and then gasped with surprise.

  The splashing was not the sound of crew members jumping ship, but of the missing sailors clambering to return.

  “Throw down the ladder! Let us back on board!”

  Hearing the commotion, Humphretto rushed to the captain’s side. He unfurled the ladder down to the water. A flotilla of canoes had converged on the San Carlos, including the tiny craft that had departed just hours earlier.

  One by one, the sheepish faces climbed over the railing and onto the deck. They rushed to the table where a full spread of leftovers awaited them.

  Oscar looked on with approval as the hungry men dug into the food. Almost fifty famished sailors gorged themselves at the dining table. For the men who had left immediately following Monty’s disastrous exorcism, it was their first decent meal in over a day.

  After the initial food orgy, nutritional intake slowed to allow stomachs to catch up with digestion. As more and more crew members leaned back in their chairs, rubbing their swollen guts, the men recounted the terror that had driven them to return to the ship.

  While wandering through the marshy woods on the bay’s south shore, they had encountered a fearsome creature, one so horrific and terrifying that they had decided the phantom spirit on board the San Carlos was less dangerous.

  “A demon beast, that’s what it was. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Bigfoot, I tell you. Sasquatch.”

  “Naw, I think it was a bear.”

  —

  AYALA LISTENED QUIETLY to the dinner conversations. Then he motioned for Oscar to join him in the stairwell leading down to the ship’s lower level.

  Now that the crisis had abated—at least temporarily—and there was a chance the ship might actually make it back to Mexico, Ayala wanted to hear more about the territory on the bay’s north shore.

  “What can you tell me about the habitat where Mr. Eckles is camped?”

  Oscar stroked his chin, reflecting. “Sam quite likes it. He says it’s far more pleasant than the south side of the bay. Less fog, warmer weather. He’s got a floating platform in the harbor that he lives on most of the time. It’s a funny-looking thing. He calls it a houseboat.”

  “Interesting. I’ll make a note of that in my observations.”

  Oscar opened his mouth, as if to caution against a direct quotation, but Ayala waved him off.

  “Anonymously, of course.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  “The thanks are all mine to you, Oscar.”

  • • •

  THROUGHOUT THE RAUCOUS late-night dinner, the fantastic tales from the satiated sailors, and the hushed conference in the stairwell, one observer remained hidden, revealing nothing more than a slit of an eyeball in the ship’s wood paneling.

  As the stowaway watched the festivities, she fumed over the chef who had thwarted her plans. Intent on revenge, she pondered her next move.

  Two Days Before the America’s Cup Regatta

  Modern-Day San Francisco

  Chapter 59

  SLEPT OUT

  AFTER THE EXORCISM-TRIGGERED fire alarm and sprinkler soaking, the first few days of Van’s internship passed without incident. He’d been unable to identify any scent-making device in the ceiling sprinklers—and the perfume had yet to return to the reception area or the admin’s desk.

  The niece had begun to think the Knitting Needle Ninja might have moved on to other interests. Maybe she’d grown bored with killing mayoral interns. Perhaps she’d developed a new hobby—one that didn’t involve knife-edged crochet needles.

  But when Van didn’t show up for work one morning, the niece feared the worst.

  “Oh, Issy,” she said, wincing as she glanced from the clock over the door to the cat’s filing cabinet roost. “I’m afraid we’ve lost another one.”

  Isabella showed no concern for the missing intern. Her blue eyes were focused on the ceiling. Her radar ears had picked up on a mysterious sound above the room.

  Van’s rudimentary sprinkler search hadn’t satisfied Isabella. She was convinced the source of the perfume scent was hidden somewhere, somehow, in the ceiling.

  And so, to the niece’s worried pondering, the cat provided an absentminded reply.

  “Mrao-rao.”

  The niece tapped a pencil against her desk.

  Hmm.

  —

  WHEN AT NOON, Van still hadn’t appeared, the niece called the phone number he had listed on his emergency contact form.

  An elderly woman answered the line.

  It must be Wanda’s sister, the niece surmised. The voice sounded similar—as did the tone.

  The mother was surprisingly unbothered about Van’s disappearance. He hadn’t slept in the garage the previous evening, but that wasn’t unusual. Her feral son rarely stayed indoors on a clear night. He’d never been able to pass up an opportunity to enjoy prime camping weather.

  She was, however, worried that Van might have lost yet another job.

  “We were so hoping that this would work out for him,” the mother fretted over the phone. Her voice sank into a frazzled whimper. “Please don’t send him back here. Not just yet.”

  The niece frowned at the phone after the conversation ended.

  “He’s not that bad.”

  Isabella’s warbled response wasn’t exactly a concurrence.

  “Wrao-rao.”

  The unlikely intern was starting to grow on the niece. He was kind of like Monty in that regard.

  Despite his eccentricities, she preferred not to think of him skewered by one of Mabel’s knifed knitting needles and lying dead somewhere in the woods.

  It looked like she was one of the few who held that opinion.

  —

  THE CLOCK TICKED past one.

  “That’s it.” The niece picked up the phone. “It’s time to call the police.”

  Just then, the reception door opened and Van walked sleepily through. His hair was ruffled, and stray pine needles poked out of his rumpled clothing—the same outfit of jeans and T-shirt that he had worn the day before. With a yawn, he waved to the niece.

  “Howdy.”

  He reached toward the filing cabinet to pat Isabella on the head. A short hiss warded off the gesture. Rupert, dozing on the cat bed on the floor below, was more than happy to accommodate a belly rub.

  It turned out the intern had just slept in—or, to be more specific, out.

  Like Monty, the niece’s irritation with him returned with his presence.

  “Van, you really shouldn’t be wandering in the woods by yourself right now. You’re just asking for trouble. Aren’t you afraid Mabel might track you down out there and kill you in your sleep?”

  Van shrugged with his typical nonchalance.

  “I think that exorcism thing must have worked. I would have noticed if she was followi
ng me.” He tapped his ears. “I’m very observant.”

  The niece doubted Van had any visual capabilities associated with his ears—or that the exorcism had had any effect on Mabel’s murderous intentions.

  As for Monty’s hopes that the exorcism ceremony would convince the Baron to reinstate him to the America’s Cup promotional committee, that initiative appeared to have also failed.

  He and Van had edited the video to remove the portion showing the sprinklers raining down on the mayor’s reception area. Following Monty’s insistent orders—and against her own better judgment—the niece had e-mailed the video clip to the Baron’s assistant.

  To Monty’s intense frustration, there had been no reply.

  “Are you sure they got it?” he’d asked persistently.

  “I called to check.” The niece had pursed her lips, deciding the less she relayed about the conversation, the better.

  “And?”

  “They got it.”

  —

  THE NIECE WAS far more concerned with her intern’s security precautions, or lack thereof, than Monty’s failed attempts to reinsert himself into the America’s Cup activities.

  She tried to find the right words to convince Van to be more cautious. She opened her mouth, drew in her breath as if to speak, and then abandoned the effort as an exercise in futility.

  Oblivious to her frustration, Van started his regular pacing on the floor in front of her desk. He tucked his hands behind his back and looked up toward the ceiling.

  “But you know, if I could pick a place to die, it would be the forest . . .” He stared dreamily off into space. “My feet would become flowers and from my heart would sprout a clump of grass . . .”

  As if inspired by the speech, Rupert began rummaging inside his litter box. The igloo-shaped hood rocked back and forth as the cat dug enthusiastically through the sandy composite.

  The niece stared up at the tall man, pondering his strange existence.

  Isabella restricted her insights to a cryptic one-syllable assessment.