Chapter Eight: The Cat Insists on Being My Friend and Ally

I wandered over to the hole in the foundation and glanced over both shoulders to make sure that no one was watching. No one was, of course, I knew that. But still, this was embarrassing.

I pointed my nose toward the hole. “Uhhhhh, Miss Mary D? Hello? Are you still there? I’ve experienced a slight change in plans. Maybe you should come out so we can talk about it.”

I could hear her sniffling under there, but for a long time she didn’t answer. Then I heard her voice. “No, I won’t come out. You said I was weird.”

“Perhaps you have me confused with someone else, ma’am. I’m almost sure I wouldn’t have said such a thing, and if you’ll just come out, we can . . .”

“You said it. I heard you. You said I was a weird cat and nobody cared about me.”

“No, no, I think what we have here is a sim­ple case of mistaken identity. You’re probably thinking of my companion, my friend, Drover—small sawed-off, stub-tailed little mutt. I often get blamed for his, uh, careless remarks, don’t you see.”

“It was you, and I’m not coming out.”

I took a deep breath and glanced around. It was getting dark. “Okay, maybe it was me. I admit it. Did you hear that?”

“Keep going.”

“I, well, there isn’t much more to say, really. I admit that I was misquoted and I accept full and total responsibility for everything that happened . . . although I still say you shouldn’t have taken it so hard.”

“Are you sorry for making me cry?”

“I, uh . . . am I sorry for . . . ? Okay, okay, let’s get it over with. I made a few careless remarks and I’m sorry they hurt your feelings and made you cry . . . although I must add . . .”

“You’d better stop while you’re ahead, doggie.”

I glared at the dark hole from whence her voice came. “Yes ma’am, I guess you’re right. Now, will you please come out?”

She came out and looked at me with a pair of sad, red-rimmed eyes. “What are you doing here? I thought you were leaving.”

“Yes, exactly. I, too, thought I was leaving, but instead of leaving, I got left.”

Her eyes brightened on that. “Ohhhhh, how exciting! You mean we’re marooned together?”

“That seems to be the case, and let’s get right to the . . . you, uh, don’t happen to have some cheese, do you? All at once I have this powerful craving for cheese, and I don’t even like the stuff.”

She began purring and rubbing on my leg. “I know. It must have something to do with being marooned. With me, it started the first day, and I’ve been hungry for cheese for two years. Weird, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s weird and it’s not like me at all, and let’s go straight to the bottom line, ma’am. Cir­cum­stances have placed us on the same team, so to speak.”

“Oh? You want my help, is that what you’re saying?”

“I, uh . . . I’m not one who needs help very often or who enjoys asking for it, but yes, I seem to be . . .” I coughed. “I seem to find myself . . .” This was very painful. “We appear to have reached the point where I need your help, yes.”

“Otherwise, you might not survive the night?”

“That’s, uh . . . that thought had occurred to me, yes. And a guy doesn’t need to worry about the second night until he’s survived the first one, is sort of how it looks from here.”

“Yes, the coyotes are bad in these canyons, and the bobcats are even worse. Do you want my advice?”

“No, actually I thought . . .” I swallowed hard. “Yes, I want your advice. After all, you’re the one who’s stayed alive down here for two years.”

“That’s right.” She kept on rubbing on my leg. “I’d advise you to spend the night under the house. It’s the only safe place on the ranch.”

I moved several steps away from her. “Yes, right. I had already reached that same conclusion myself.”

“There’s only one problem, doggie.”

“You can call me Hank, and what’s the problem?”

“You don’t like cats.”

“I don’t like . . . ha, ha, ha. Whatever gave you that idea? I mean . . . okay, it’s sort of natural for cats and dogs to be on opposite sides, but I think that we, uh, have room for compromise here, given the unusual circumstances and so forth.”

“You don’t think you’d mind staying under the house with a cat?”

“I feel that we can . . . work around that, yes. No problem.”

“But there’s still another problem. I rub on things, and you don’t like that.”

She came over and rubbed me on the front legs, rubbed my left side, my tail section, and then my right side. I sat there as still as a statue, fighting against all my natural impulses to make fangs and growl.

Fellers, this was one of the toughest assignments of my whole career. All my years of Security Work rose up inside my head and called for me to snarl and snap at that cat. But I sat there and took it. I had no choice.

“Actually, ma’am, I’m discovering a whole new appreciation for the, uh, rubbing process. There’s something soothing about it and . . .” And I wanted to bite her tail in half SO BADLY! “The rubbing business might be a small problem, especially at first, but the alternatives are not all that great. In other words, I think we can work that one out too.”

“Well, I’d hate for you to be unhappy.”

“Oh no. No, no. I’m very, uh, happy. Very.” And if she didn’t quit rubbing on me and flicking that tail across my nose, I was going to . . .

Just then, I heard coyotes howling in the distance. “No sir, that rubbing will be no problem whatever. You just rub all you want and, by George, we’ll . . . do you suppose we ought to finish this conversation under the house?”

“Yes, I guess we should. I’d rather stay outside and enjoy the fresh air, but it starts getting dangerous at this time of night.”

I headed for the hole in the foundation. “Right, so why don’t we just head for the fort?”

“Sometimes the coyotes come right up to the opening and bark at me. They like to eat cats, you know.”

“Yes, and guard dogs too. I’ve had a little experience with those guys, and it makes sleeping under the house sound pretty good to me.”

I waited for her to go under the house—ladies first, you know—and I followed, wiggling my way through the narrow space between the ground and the floor of the house. It wasn’t so easy for me to get around in such tight quarters, I mean, with my huge thighs and massive shoulders and everything, but I had pretty strong incentive to make it work.

We crawled all the way to the northwest corner, as far away from the opening as we could get. It was very dark in there and also dusty, but I was learning to like it.

I still couldn’t believe Slim had left me down there. What a lousy way to treat the Head of Ranch Security! Well, if I could just make it through one night with the cat, surely he’d be back to get me the next day.

Although . . . oops, he was feeding the Hodges’ Place every other day, not every day, which meant . . . what if nobody missed me at all? That was hard for me to believe, but stranger things had happened in the world.

Well, there we were, and Madame Kitty was having the time of her life, rubbing and purring, purring and rubbing and dragging her tail across my face. After all those months and years of being alone, she had something warm to rub on, and before she got done with me, I would probably be as bald as a Thanksgiving turkey.

I hated it. Every second seemed like a minute, and every minute seemed like an hour. Would this go on all night? Didn’t she ever sleep?

Well, maybe she didn’t sleep at night, but I certainly did. Sleeping happened to be one of the things I did particularly well, and it didn’t take me long to drift off and start pushing up a long line of Z’s.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

As you might expect, I dreamed of the lovely, incomparable Miss Beulah the Collie. Who would want to dream of anyone else? I had gone visiting at her place and we were sitting together in the shade of that big native elm north of the house. Plato, the spotted dumb-bunny bird dog, was nowhere in sight, which pleased me very much.

In real life he was always around, like flies and gnats, but this was my dream, and in my dreams we have no bird dogs. Who needs ’em? And why Miss Beulah continued to waste her time hanging around that . . . oh well.

I am still the master of my dreams, and in my dreams we have zero bird dogs.

There we were, Miss Beulah and I, sitting in the . . . I’ve already said that. I cocked my head to a rakish angle and said in my smoothest voice, “Well, my prairie winecup, here we are, alone at last. A penny for your thoughts.”

She gave me that secret smile that sent little shock waves all the way out to the end of my tail. And then she leaned toward me, so that I caught the scent of her aroma, and said, “Cheese. Would you like some cheese?”

“Well I . . . yes. Those aren’t exactly the thoughts I had expected to buy for a penny, but yes, I would love some cheese.”

And then—you won’t believe this—then she rolled in a huge wheel of cheese. I mean, that thing must have been five feet across, and we started gobbling cheese in big bites and I found myself talking with my mouth full.

“Well Beulah, let’s talk about love, shall we?”

“Yes, let’s. I love cheese.”

“Mmmm, yes, and so do I. And you know what, Beulah? I used to think only of you, but now I think only of cheese. Love is crazy, isn’t it, my dear?”

“Yes,” she said with her mouth stuffed with cheese, “and love is blond, the same color as cheese. Oh Hank, this is so romantic, talking to each other with our mouths stuffed with cheese!”

“Yes, my love, and blowing cheese crumbs in each other’s faces. This is the way I’d always hoped it would be.”

Well, it was a beautiful dream, but just then, guess who walked up and ruined it all. You’ll never guess.