When it came, it came fast, a moving wall of water propelling black tree branches and rocky debris. It smashed hard around the tight bend through the high banks, and I cringed at its violence. It reminded me of what I saw when the town was buried by the mountain. But this wasn’t mud, this was black water and limbs and boughs, and it was louder than even Mack’s truck. I turned and watched in dismay as Lucas and Olivia reached the woods and kept going, climbing steadily into the ruined forest. And then the water was upon us, smashing the tree Lucas had been straddling and swallowing it in its path. In an instant the river rose high and wide and boiled with incredible force, so loud there was no hearing anything else.
Somehow the rapids had gone from a stream to a savage flood, propelling black limbs and tree trunks with incredible force. It was as if the waters could hold back their rage no longer.
It did not seem that the surface would rise as high as I was standing, but Big Kitten did not know this. She fled, terrified, and her cubs followed.
I needed to be with Lucas. I wanted to chase him and Olivia into the woods. But what had started as an impossible leap would now be a crossing of a treacherous deluge that contained more than just water. I stared, watching whole trees twisting in the brutal currents, thrusting up and banging into one another as they fought their way downstream.
After a moment, I turned to search for Big Kitten and her cubs.
Lucas was close, and he had come to find me. Soon he and I and Olivia and Big Kitten and the cubs would all be together.
Thirty-three
The cats kept running away from the thundering flood, which made sense—the destructive waters were smashing trees into splinters and tossing boulders like dog toys in the park. But before long, we traveled far enough to be safe, and I felt we could stop and reflect on what we had just learned, which was that Lucas and Olivia were nearby. We had seen my boy. He had called to me.
But although Big Kitten slowed, she did not stop, keeping a rather brisk pace. It was as if, once at the head of the pack, she didn’t dare stop, lest her cubs decide to start following me again.
No matter how I tried, I couldn’t manage to get Big Kitten’s attention. She traveled swiftly and without relent, as if pulled by an invisible leash of her own. This was not like her—when Big Kitten traveled, she preferred to dart to camouflaging trees and rocks and pause there to consider her next move. This was more of a straight-line attack, meant to cover distance, sacrificing stealth and safety. She still found shadows and protective cover, but only briefly; if she came to a field of rocks or grass, she plowed straight through it instead of searching for a way around.
Her cubs followed uneasily, not liking that we were spending so much time out in the open. I brought up the rear, as much to protect the kittens as to try to slow Big Kitten’s pace by lagging behind. Why the urgency?
I always knew where the cubs were, even if they vanished in the undergrowth, because Boy Kitten still carried that inexplicable stench on his fur. The rain helped—I could track that stink dribbling off him and into the dirt.
It sure was taking a long time to fade.
When the rain ended, dark clouds pulled away and a stark moon lit up the path ahead. I wanted to stop and sleep, but Big Kitten didn’t even glance at me when I slowed and then halted. Her cubs anxiously pooled at my feet, stressed by how far away from us their mother was getting. Finally, I resigned myself to renewing my pursuit.
With dawn, Big Kitten finally found what she considered a safe place next to some felled trees, and we all tumbled together in an exhausted pile. At sunset, though, she nudged me with her snout and stared at me. This was not her normal going-hunting behavior. I felt I understood the message and reluctantly climbed to my feet. I fell in line behind the two kittens, and we went back to traveling.
It made no sense to me that we were trying to cover so much ground, especially given that we were hungry again. It only made it worse that we were traveling farther and farther away from Lucas and Olivia.
Water was plentiful; it was pooled and running in tiny streams. We crossed burned areas that seemed alien and lifeless, and then we would find a field or a forest that had been spared the effects of the flames. If it were dawn or dusk, small squirrels and other rodents darted away from us as we approached, and I was too tired to give chase, even for fun. The kittens both came alive and alert when they saw a squirrel leaping across the ground and up into a tree, but they seemed to understand that to expend energy on squirrel pursuits would mean falling farther behind their mother. At times, Big Kitten drew so far ahead that it was up to me to lead the kittens because only I could smell where she had gone.
If Big Kitten were a dog, like Dutch, I might have comprehended what we were doing. Big Kitten was driven, that was obvious, so much so that she ignored me and her own cubs. And every step conflicted directly with what drove me: the need to do Go Home to Lucas.
As a dog, I trotted openly and reliably, while the kittens, seemingly adopting the behavior on their own, had taken up the curious habit of slinking from tree to rock to bushes, moving in a jagged, interrupted gait. Cats might be faster in bursts, but in the end, I’d rather walk a trail with a dog.
The kittens displayed no sign that they comprehended what we were doing any better than I did. Did they sense the tension between their animal parents? Were they concerned over Big Kitten’s odd compulsion to march as far as possible every night in one dedicated direction, not even pausing to hunt?
Seeing her so far ahead of us filled me with despair. Whenever I had roamed with Big Kitten in the past, I had always felt that we were cooperating toward the common goal of doing Go Home to Lucas. When we reached the point where the next logical step was to descend from the mountains down to the city where Lucas lived at the time, Big Kitten was too timid to proceed, but she had accompanied me loyally up to that moment. Back then, I was her mother cat, but since having cubs of her own, the dynamic between the two of us had changed.
I finally reached the decision that I could not go on like this. We were climbing down into a deep, unscorched valley, the sun just beginning to light up the morning sky, and I sat down as firmly and purposefully as if Lucas had just opened the refrigerator for a t-i-i-iny piece of cheese.
At that point, neither the cubs nor I could see Big Kitten, though I could track her scent easily enough. She was not too far ahead.
Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten seemed relieved that we were taking a pause in our dogged trek. They trotted up to me, too weary to play or do anything but lie at my feet.
I waited. The sunlight grew stronger, until it was bright enough that I knew Big Kitten would want to stop for the day.
I recognized precisely the moment when she doubled back, because her scent strengthened. I waited until Big Kitten slid out from behind a rock and strode grimly toward me, her face, as always, expressionless.
Her cubs greeted her with tired enthusiasm. Big Kitten came straight to me and, for a moment, I contemplated the power in her limbs and the fatal points on her claws. She had become that unknown to me in these days of flight from so many threats.
For the first time in my life, I was afraid of Big Kitten.
I held perfectly still as the huge cat stood so close that I could smell the heat of her breath. Her kittens sat, observing the adult animals attentively.
After staring at me, Big Kitten suddenly dropped her head and rubbed it on my shoulder, her body thrumming. My apprehensions were misplaced—she would never harm her own mother cat. When she turned, took a few steps, and looked back expectantly, I felt I had no choice but to follow.
We were a pack.
We descended into the lush valley, pleasantly alive with birds joyously telling each other that another day had dawned. Big Kitten pressed on with the same determination, even out in the sunshine.
And then, suddenly, after leaping nimbly across a small brook, Big Kitten relaxed. The change was startling. She turned to play with her cubs, she greeted me with a purr and anoth
er friendly rub of her head, and she led us to a place high in the craggy rocks where a natural overhang made for a den that was redolent with her smells.
This was, I realized, Big Kitten’s version of Go Home. Whatever this place was, she had been here before, and the tension that had been driving her had left her body the way we all wished Boy Kitten’s stench would leave his.
After so many days spent migrating, it was wonderful to curl up with the cubs and know we were staying put.
Now it was all about hunger. Big Kitten ventured out hunting that night and returned with nothing. She nosed her cubs, who climbed on her, trying to communicate their need for food.
I was famished, too.
I stayed close to the den during much of the second day, hoping that Lucas was out there at the other end of my invisible leash, but not finding him.
What I did detect, however, was another human. A person produces a variety of odors when they live in a house. I can always find tangy food smells, and other odors peculiar to humans residing nearby.
We needed to eat. The sun was still up, though it was starting its descent toward the horizon, when, with a glance behind me at my cat family, I went off to find the person whose presence was drifting on the air.
The kittens followed. They still thought of me as another, probably better, mother cat, and a roaming adventure was always more exciting than resting in the den. I knew Big Kitten would soon be stealthily tracking us, uneasy that I was leading her offspring away.
I followed my nose and soon picked up smoke, garbage, and other odors emitting from a small cabin in a stretch of woods that had been untouched by the fires. I circled the house, inhaling something so tantalizing I had to lick my lips to keep from drooling. In that house was fresh meat. And a person. I found my way to a door and saw that there was a dog door built into it. I advanced carefully, but could find no signs of a canine. Nothing barked at me, and there were no marks on trees or stains of female dog urine in the plentiful grasses. If a dog had lived here once, it had not done so for a long time.
When I tentatively shoved my nose through the dog door, I was greeted with an astounding meat bouquet. It yanked me into the warm home like a leash.
A man was standing at a big thick table in the middle of the room. He wore an apron. He had no hair on his face or his head. He was bent over, with several big chunks of red meat arrayed before him. His head stayed down as he vigorously sliced away at one of these. Then he caught sight of me and glanced up, startled.
“Whoa!” He staggered back a little, his eyes wide. “Where did you come from?”
I wagged.
“Who are you?”
I heard the question and decided that the situation called for a good Sit. I put my rump on the floor and stared at him imploringly. He had meat. I was a good dog. Surely, he would make the connection.
He blinked at me several times and some of the tension eased out of his shoulders. “You found your way in through Cody’s dog door, didn’t you?” He gestured with the knife. “He’s been gone for some time now. Never occurred to me some other dog might use it.” He frowned. “You sure are skinny. I’m cutting up meat for my beef jerky. I make it for the farmers’ market down in Denver. I’m gonna cure it and take it down on Sundays. Should last me until around Halloween.”
He was talking to me, and I knew he thought I was a good dog because he wasn’t shouting or acting at all angry at my trespass. But he wasn’t feeding me, either. I wondered what other inducements I could offer. I decided to do Lie Down. My Lie Down has been admired by many humans over the course of my life. There … I was lying down. Now would he give me something to eat?
“I think maybe you’re trying to ask me for a handout, here,” he observed with a chuckle. He picked up a thin, long slice of red meat and tossed it to me. I snagged it out of the air, which is one of my great talents, and choked it down. He stared at me while I did so. “Been a while since you had a meal, hasn’t it?”
I went back to doing Lie Down, since it worked so well before.
“Well,” he decided after a moment, “here’s a bigger piece.” He carved at the large chunk of meat under his hand and then tossed me something so marvelous I nearly swooned: a thick slab of delicious beef. I leapt to my feet to eat it. It was almost big enough to take to Big Kitten, but I was too hungry and could not restrain myself.
I could smell that the cubs were close now; their odor was drifting in through the thick curtain that was the dog door. They must have seen me push through it to come in, and they surely were able to smell the meat—at least I thought so.
I finished the big portion of meat and did Sit, watching the man expectantly.
He chuckled again. “I wouldn’t be much of a businessman if I gave away all my product for free,” he lectured.
He bent his head and started cutting again. “You seem like you’re a lost dog. I don’t need a dog, exactly, but if you don’t belong to anybody, I suppose you could live here with me.”
He wasn’t saying any words that I recognized except “dog,” but he was still cutting meat, so he held my attention. That is, until Girl Kitten forced her face through the flap of the dog door.
Thirty-four
Girl Kitten peered about suspiciously, then focused on me. I had the sense that she had thrust her head forward to see for herself what had happened to her favorite dog. It warmed me to consider she might have entered such a foreign environment out of concern for my fate.
The man was concentrating on what he was doing with the meat and did not glance up until Girl Kitten burst all the way into the room and then he staggered again, this time with a hand over his chest. “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Some dishes clattered as he fell back against the counter. He stared at Girl Kitten, who trotted up to me, sniffing accusatorily at my mouth.
“Okay, okay,” he babbled. “You’re a baby, right? You’re just a baby, you’re not going to hurt me. A baby mountain lion. Oh my God, I have to get my phone. No one will believe this.”
The man opened a drawer and started rummaging around in it, setting things on a counter. Then Boy Kitten made an appearance, tentatively squeezing through the dog door and freezing once inside, his head ducked down in a way I had come to believe meant he was intimidated. He had learned to follow Girl Kitten, who had learned to follow me, and now he was in a people house. He looked unhappy, but the smell of fresh meat was undeniable; it permeated the room, igniting twitches in the noses of both kittens.
The man stared. “I’ve never … I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t understand.”
Retreating, eyes on the cubs, he fumbled his way back to the table where he’d been working. “So … so you’re with the dog? You’re being raised by a dog?” He shook his head. “That can’t be right.” He sliced with his knife and I watched intently. Girl Kitten took two steps into the room, while Boy Kitten remained flattened against the door, his head bobbing frantically, ready to flee but seemingly unable to figure out how to pass through the dog door from this side. The man hefted a piece of meat between two fingers and flipped it at Girl Kitten. It landed right in front of her and she flinched but then lunged forward and snapped it up. After a moment of hesitation Boy Kitten went after it as well. She turned her face away to deny him even a bite. Boy Kitten gave me what I interpreted as a wounded stare.
I noticed that neither cat was doing Sit or in any way indicating that they would like more treats. It was as if the kittens had no idea how to act around humans. I wasn’t even sure they understood where the scrap of beef had come from—it was just suddenly there on the floor in front of them.
I hoped I would be on the receiving end of another throw—catching a piece of meat out of the air was probably the most satisfying trick a dog can perform, and I was eager to demonstrate.
The man kept busy with his knife. “Here, here.” He tossed a few more chunks in their direction and I watched approvingly as the two of them gobbled up the treats. Already they were more comfortable in the hou
se, and Girl Kitten, at least, seemed suddenly to draw the connection between the man’s hand and the beef falling from the air, because she kept staring up at him.
“Okay, now, I can’t wait to post this.” He held up a phone in front of his face. “I am feeding two mountain lion cubs in my own home,” he intoned. “They came in through the dog door, following this big dog. I was just cutting some meat to make jerky. Waltzed right in. Watch.”
He picked up some more thin strips of meat and tossed them at the kittens. They pounced on them, though one came close enough to me that I took that for myself. Boy Kitten shot me a surly look, which I ignored. My actions seemed justified: I had, after all, found the dog door and the man.
The house, the person, the food: all reminded me that our goal had not changed. Would this man know to give us a car ride to Lucas?
“They must have smelled the meat, and the dog came in, and then the cubs followed. It’s like they’re a family or something. Or maybe they’re tame. Somebody raising cougars illegally and has a dog? I dunno. It’s just the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” The man put his phone down. “Okay, I’ll give you each a bigger piece, now, like I did the dog,” he told the kittens. He worked his knife and tossed two much larger chunks of beef onto the floor.
The kittens ate ravenously.
“You two are as hungry as the dog, huh? Did you run away from home, somewhere? You’re not going to bite me, are you? I guess I need to call the game warden. Man, this is a trip.” He crinkled his nose. “One of you tangled with a skunk.”
While the man babbled, I picked up something happening outside. Big Kitten was close by, her unmistakable scent coming to me through the folds of the dog door, and I could sense that she was uneasy. Her cubs had willingly entered the dwelling of a human. This could not make her happy.
When the kittens were finished, we all looked up at our benefactor expectantly.
“More?” He carved off large pieces for each of us. Mine hit the floor first and I snatched it and then turned abruptly from Boy Kitten, who seemed to feel he should share it with me. He was fed next while Girl Kitten gazed up at the man, and she received a nice helping as well.
A Dog's Courage--A Dog's Way Home Novel Page 24