Miguel noticed that Ron had dark shadows under his pale eyes and tried to allay his fears.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, looking toward the windows, tense and distracted. “I mean, how do you even begin dealing with a criminally insane person? I feel like a fugitive in my own house, with bricks coming through the window. But what really scares me is him threatening to take Creto.”
“You’re doing the only thing you can do, keeping Creto close,” Miguel said, topping off their wineglasses. “He’s gone now.”
George said, “You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”
Suddenly they heard a knock at the door and turned to see a chicken squawking on the other side and banging the glass door with her beak.
“That’s Lucy. She wants to come in,” George said as he got up to slide the door open for the fluffy iridescent-black hen. “Every evening, at sundown, she climbs up the outside staircase and pecks at the glass.” Another smaller rusty-red hen with a bouffant hairdo and flared, feathery boots followed closely behind and hopped inside after her. “And the little red, that’s Helena. She’s blind. It’s interesting how the others know this and look out for her. They all make sure she gets her fair share of feed. They guide her and curl up around her protectively.”
Helena was chirping away as George talked to her and told her how pretty she was. She wanted to be held and petted, so he scooped up the little blind chicken, clutching her to his chest, and plopped back into his armchair.
“Some of the girls are ex-farm factory hens that we rescued,” George said, feeding Helena bits of melon. “But amazingly, they usually end up being the friendliest and most affectionate.”
Still attached to his lead, Creto stood politely on the sofa, observing the strange clucking creatures. Lucy cocked her shimmery black head to give the cat a quizzical stare and then followed Miguel as he went to get more wine.
When they returned, Lucy came closer to the sofa, clucking and angling her bright copper eyes toward Ron and the cat. Creto had never seen such a large bird before and, a little intimidated, bolted to the other end of the sofa, as far as his leash would allow him. Miguel went over to pick up the frightened cat and cradle him in his arms.
“Ever since he was kicked in the face last year, Creto’s become scared of everything,” Ron explained.
“Was it that creep across the street?”
“I’m pretty sure it was him,” Ron said. “All the cats and kids on our street are scared of him. One day I was talking with Ann from next door about the crow man, this elderly man who feeds crackers to the crows. The crows follow him up the block like the pied piper. It got us talking about people who like animals and people who don’t. These two kids who were hanging out on their bikes and petting Ann’s cat, Gordon, said: ‘That man with the beard and all the metal on his face across the street is real mean and hates cats.’ Ann goes, ‘Why?’ And they said, ‘Because we’ve seen him chasing Gordon off the property, and shouting, ‘Get outta here.’ ”
“Poor Creto,” Miguel said. “I hate people who hurt animals.”
Stroking the little blind chicken in his lap, George looked up and said, “Maybe it’s time to leave Portland.”
“With all the upsets, I’m starting to get sick of Portland. But I don’t think I’ll have any more trouble from that psychotic pimp. He’s safely tucked away in another drug den somewhere else.”
Ron bent down to stroke Lucy where she was still standing by the sofa. She jumped onto his arm, so he scooped her up. She fluffed out her feathers and burrowed into his lap as though she sensed he was troubled and was trying to soothe him. As he held her, he could feel her tiny heart beating against the palm of his hand. Her soft clucking and warmth were calming, and he allowed himself to think about moving to the coast. He imagined himself in a little fisherman’s cottage with roses at the door, a big garden for Creto, and chickens wandering in and out of the kitchen. Sitting there in the hushed quiet, with the stars coming out, it was easy to forget about Portland and all his concerns.
Mata was still on his mind, though—and as long as she was gone, he knew he had to stay in the home that she knew.
Chapter 16
Yosemite: Walk on the Wild Side
In late April, Stinson, Michael and Tabor’s old pal from Portland, arrived in Ventura to pick them up to go back to Portland for the summer. Stinson also brought along a girlfriend from Mississippi, a pretty dark-haired mellow pixie of a girl named Madison who traveled with an acoustic guitar and a caramel pit bull mix named Bobby. Sweet-spirited, the dog got along fine with Tabor right away. Stinson had driven Madison and Bobby all the way from the Deep South.
The day before Stinson and Madison were to arrive, Michael packed up camp and stopped by Linda Tabor’s house in Thousand Oaks to tell her he was leaving. She asked to hold Tabor one last time, and they promised to stay in touch. Then Michael and Tabor walked back to Ventura to wait in their old camp under the acacias.
Michael and his wandering friends would split for months at a time and then reunite in some wild part of California or the gritty backstreets of Portland. Stinson, like Michael, was restless. A wanderer and a slacker, he had spent time in the navy, which made him realize he wasn’t keen on rules and routines. He valued his freedom, even if it meant scraping by. He saw no point in being miserable working long hours to buy things he didn’t need.
When Stinson and Madison arrived at the beach squat, they told Michael that they wanted to squeeze in a side trip to Yosemite before heading north and talked nonstop about how beautiful it was. After that, they wanted to head to Mount Shasta.
“You can show Tabor the world,” Stinson told Michael, though he didn’t need much persuading.
For her part, Tabor was excited to see Stinson again. She had greeted him enthusiastically and kept crawling into his lap over and over again to purr and pull on his beard.
After a couple of days on the beach drinking, listening to some beats, and trading road stories, Michael agreed that he and Tabor might as well get back on the road. He thought since she’d loved their time on the beach, she’d likely enjoy the mountains, too.
They began the long, slow drive up the coast. Their first stop was San Luis Obispo, a romantic old mission town on the Central Coast tucked between the Pacific Ocean and wine country. There they visited a spirit’s cove, and Michael got another ticket for panhandling.
The next morning they set off early and finished the four-hour drive to Yosemite National Park by lunchtime. The May snowmelt had swelled the rivers, and the park was filled with campers. They found a quiet spot surrounded by the granite monoliths and giant trees on the edge of a campground, someplace half-hidden by bushy foliage and scrub but close to the road where they parked. They hoped to avoid run-ins with wildlife like big cats and bears by staying near the road.
With the afternoon sun behind him, Michael tossed off his shoes and rested his back against a rock. Tabor stretched out to snooze beside him, and Bobby lay at his feet.
Stinson took a picture of the three of them and said, “Did they even have cameras when you were a kid?”
“Yeah, back in the seventies, they were the size of Rhode Island.”
A group of girls setting up in the neighboring camp couldn’t believe Michael and his crew had brought a cat into the wilderness, let alone that the pit bull and cat were friends. Michael convinced himself that it couldn’t be too dangerous to have a cat in the park with so many people around.
On the second morning, Michael was excited to introduce Tabor to the soaring sequoias and sugar pines, figuring since she enjoyed hanging out on the acacias in Ventura and had probably never seen such giant trees she would love them. But she didn’t seem to notice. She was lazing on the grass sunning herself, watching and yawning, as Michael and Stinson strung up a couple of hammocks. As soon as Michael finished stringing his, she instantly hopped on and hogged it, as if it was entirely for her. While Madison took Bobby for a long walk,
they spent the afternoon lounging among the trees with Tabor. From their hammocks, they could see the rocky stream of the Merced River, the serene golden meadows beyond, and, further in the distance, El Capitan and other rock formations rising above Yosemite Valley, as well as teams of climbers working their way up and down the sheer granite-cliff faces.
Michael lay in his hammock with Tabor on his stomach, her leash wrapped around his wrist. The other campers had made him paranoid about the presence of coyotes, bears, and mountain lions, so he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight.
Tabor craned her neck staring up a tree with fierce intensity, making a crunching ack ack sound.
Hunched among the sugar pine branches, a pair of ravens turned their silky black heads toward Michael and Tabor, kraa-ing and croaking, their bright gazes unyielding and intense.
Smiling at the cat, Michael said, “No way you’re going up that tree. I’d need a crane to get you down and those birds would kick your ass.”
She seemed to understand and curled up in defeat. While half reading The Grapes of Wrath, he watched her dozing off, her head slowly slipping onto her paws.
“You know the Native Americans believe ravens are sacred . . . shape-shifters and the creators of all living things,” Michael said to Stinson, who wasn’t listening.
Tabor woke up to wash her face, pausing now and then to stare at Michael with her intense gold-flecked green eyes. She pushed her head against the book and tugged at the pages. When he ignored her, she stretched out a paw to swat at Michael’s face. He laughed and began reading out a passage to her about the main character, Tom Joad, hitchhiking his way home to the family farm from prison. “See, Tabor, he had to thumb rides like us. And he drank whiskey and liked little animals. He rescued a turtle on the road from being run over.”
Stinson cocked an eyebrow. “You turning into a crazy cat lady reading to cats?”
“Tabor understands, but she prefers books with pictures in them.” Michael felt as if he and the cat shared a private language. She seemed to read his moods and his mind with supernatural ability. Sometimes Michael would test her: he would imagine her doing something—like jumping on his shoulder—and he’d look into her eyes, and she would do it.
“Maybe you should start a school for gifted cats,” Stinson teased.
“Cats don’t wanna learn. They wanna have fun. Tabor’s very complicated and clever and smarter than a lot of people I’ve met.”
“That’s not saying much for Tabor.”
Closing his book and marking the pages with a leaf, Michael was distracted by a group of guys rappelling down the mountainside across the stream. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something dark lumbering out of the woods behind them.
Stinson was looking toward the woods, too, and shot up from his hammock yelling: “There’s a bear behind you . . . a bear . . . get outta the way!”
When Michael turned to look, glimpsing a huge bear ambling out of the sugar pines, he snatched up Tabor and stuck her in her carrier. He and Stinson were already sprinting toward Stinson’s car when a big, butch guy with a buzz cut and beefy bulldog jowls from one of the nearby campsites charged the bear. He ran like a madman, waving his arms about, yelling and screaming. The bear froze, then wheeled around and ran away back toward a grove of low brambly trees.
“What’s he doing?” Michael asked, shocked. “Is he trying to catch that bear?”
“I guess that’s the way to get rid of it,” Stinson said, watching the big guy tearing after the terrified animal.
According to Michael, black bears hardly ever attacked people unless they were surprised or protecting their cubs. They were just curious and only came near them when raiding campgrounds for food. So after a little while, Michael and Stinson returned to their camp spot.
When Madison and Bobby came back from their hike, though, they decided to retrieve their hammocks and relocate. They found another secluded sliver of wilderness just off the road where they could stretch out on a wide, flat boulder on the edge of a clearing. With their backs to the woods, Stinson and Madison sat on the rock, and Bobby, tired out from his long walk, was curled up on the grass at Madison’s feet, napping and snoring loudly.
Michael set out cat food and water for Tabor, then ripped open a can of Steel Reserve and settled next to the cat.
Tabor looked up from her dish, her ears flickering, and sniffed the air. Suddenly she arched her back and all the hair on her body stood up, and her tail puffed into a brush. Michael looked over his shoulder in the direction where the cat was looking. He saw the brush shaking, the leaves rustling, but couldn’t see what Tabor saw. When he looked again, some fifty yards away, a big brown bear had surged out of the thicket of big old oaks and pines. A cinnamon-colored sow with paws the size of dinner plates, she fixed her golden-brown gaze on Michael and the cat and lumbered toward them.
Facing Michael on the rock, Stinson was absorbed with rolling a joint and didn’t notice anything.
Michael sat perfectly still but exchanged fearful looks with Madison, who had turned to see the bear, too. He whispered to Stinson, “There’s a bear behind you.”
“I’m not turning around,” he said, laughing. “I know you’re lying.”
“No, dude, it’s a bear.”
“Yeah, Groundscore, shut up.”
“No, Stinson, there’s a fucking bear.”
Madison, with her eyes fixed on the bear as it neared, leaned over to Stinson, and whispered, “He’s right behind you.”
Stinson spun around and then leaped to his feet. “Oh, shit, there’s a bear.”
As the bear came closer, Tabor started hissing and spitting, trying to scare it away. Bobby, roused from his sleep, was all riled up and started barking, too. Madison grabbed him by the collar, and they ran for the car.
Michael scooped up the cat and stuck her in her carrier again. Even though Michael knew he shouldn’t show fear and flee from wild, predatory animals, fear and instinct kicked in and he scrambled to the car again, Stinson on his heels.
From the relative safety of Stinson’s car, they watched the bear look in their direction, finish Tabor’s meal in one swift scoop, and then amble off back into the trees.
“Shit, that bear must’ve woken up from hibernation and hungry as hell,” Michael said. He realized it had been a stupid idea to feed the cat, as bears could literally smell food from miles away.
In fact, he realized, they had violated almost every park rule about safety. They had not stayed in the picnic areas to eat; they hadn’t used the park’s metal food-storage bear boxes; and they had brought a house cat into the wilderness.
They packed quickly and moved to another campsite for the night.
Waking up in the predawn haze the next day, just before 6 a.m., they all piled into Stinson’s car and drove back to the coast. But over the next two days they had two flat tires and had to stop over in King City to get the tires fixed before getting back on the road. Tabor and Bobby, usually cuddled up together, slept through the breakdowns and everything else.
Once they were on the road again, they decided their next stop would be Mount Shasta. Revered as a sacred place where heaven and earth conjoin, Mount Shasta is a pilgrimage for spiritual seekers from around the world. The fifth-highest peak in California, the mountain is a dormant volcano and also a destination for outdoor adventurers and rock climbers.
It was warm and sunny, and the park was crowded with campers, but just before sunset they found a quiet, shady spot near the edge of Castle Crags State Park.
Stinson built a fire and grabbed a six-pack from the car for the three of them. Michael let Tabor loose so she could play with the dog, while Madison fixed a modest picnic of bread, cheese, Doritos, and beer. As Madison broke up the crumbly block of cheddar, Michael saw that there wasn’t enough for all three of them—and barely enough to feed a family of mice.
“I’m not that hungry,” he said. “I’ll just have my beer.”
“You can’t go aro
und with an empty plate,” Stinson said, knowing that Michael was starving and just being thoughtful.
“It says not to feed the wildlife,” Michael said, laughing. He pointed to a sign tacked to a tree behind Stinson and Madison: DO NOT FEED THE BEARS AND WILDLIFE IN THE PARK.
Michael sat back against a tree, guzzling beer and doing a crossword from the Los Angeles Times that he had pulled out of the trash. He’d been controlling his drinking, after the campers in Yosemite had warned he’d need to look out for his cat in the park, but he figured he and Tabor were safe now. He looked up periodically, keeping an eye on Tabor and Bobby chasing each other through the brush and trees. The cat would wait on one side of a tree, the dog on the other, and then one of them—usually Tabor—would dart away and they’d be streaking through the undergrowth like amphetamine-doped racehorses.
Finally they collapsed together, and when Michael glanced up again to check on Tabor, she was curled up with Bobby, napping in the twilight with their heads together and paws tangled around each other. Michael took another big slug of beer and felt a kind of wild joy. The faint sounds of chatter, laughter, and music from the surrounding camps mixed with the booze and the buzz of crickets lulled him to sleep—a short, but very deep one.
When he woke from his snooze with a start, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it was now dark. Stinson and Madison were chatting on the other side of the fire, and the dog sat alone beside the tree where he had been sleeping with the cat. But Tabor was gone.
“Did anyone see Tabor?” Michael asked.
Stinson glanced around. “Thought she was with you,” he said.
Michael rose stiffly and walked around the campfire. “Bobby, where’s Tabor?” he asked the dog, who looked up at him with his gentle butterscotch eyes. He cocked his head thoughtfully, then shifted his position, lay his head on his paws, and went back to sleep.
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