Long after Kate slept, that Saturday night, down the coast in Molena Point, rain swept in torrents along the rocky shore, turning sodden the cottages and rooftops and, south of the village, bending double the wild grass on Hellhag Hill, drenching the two friends who climbed through the black, wet tangles, desperately searching.
Joe Grey heard it first, a lonely and mournful weeping as he reared up in the tangled wet grass. He and Clyde were halfway up the hill, Joe’s paws and fur were soaking. In the driving rain, he could see nothing. Leaping to Clyde’s shoulder, he stared up through the windy night toward the crest. The weeping came and went in the storm as unfocused as the cries of spirits; the gusts pummeled him so hard he had to dig his claws into Clyde’s shoulder. Clyde grunted but said nothing. Above them, the grieving lament increased: somewhere in the cold blackness the kit sobbed and bawled her distress. The time was three A.M.
Scuds of rain hit their backs fitfully, then were gone again. Of course no stars were visible, no moon touched the inky hill. Pressing a paw against Clyde’s head for balance, Joe prayed the kit hadn’t gone into the cave. Crouching to leap down, to race up to the crest, he peered down into Clyde’s face. “Can you see her? Can you see anything?”
“Can’t see a damned thing. You’re the cat. What happened to night vision?”
“It takes a little light. I’m not an infrared camera!”
The yowl came again, louder, making Clyde pause. “You sure that’s the kit? Sounds like the ghost itself.” The ghost of Hellhag Hill was a treasured village myth, one Joe didn’t care for. Rising tall against Clyde’s head, Joe peered harder into the black night. Had he seen an inky smudge move briefly? Clyde stunk of sleep, a sour human smell.
“There,” Joe said. “Just to the left of the cave.”
Clyde moved to stare upward, clutching Joe tighter. The trouble had started an hour ago with the ringing phone in their dark bedroom. Burrowing beneath the covers, Joe heard Clyde answer, his voice understandably grouchy. “What?” Clyde had shouted into the phone. “It’s two in the morning. This better not be a wrong number.”
There was a long silence. Clyde said, “When?” Another silence, then, “Are you sure?” Then, “We’re on our way.” Joe had peered out as Clyde thudded out of bed and stood looking around the dark room, then staring toward the study and Joe’s aerial cat door. “Joe! Where the hell are you? Joe! Come down here! Now! Wilma just called. It’s the kit, she’s run away!”
Joe had crawled out from under the blanket yawning. “What do you mean, she’s run away? She’s probably out hunting. She doesn’t mind the rain. Where’s Dulcie? Isn’t she with Dulcie?” But the feeling in his gut was uneasy. The kit had disappeared last winter for several days—and had fallen, paws first, into trouble.
“What happened?” he said, stalking across the blankets. “Why suddenly so distressed? What else did Wilma say?”
Clyde was pulling on his pants and a sweatshirt. Joe leaped to the top of the dresser, waiting for an explanation.
“They’re dead,” Clyde said, staring back at him. “Lucinda and Pedric. There was an accident—somewhere north of Russian River. The minute the kit heard, she ran out of the house bawling and yowling. Dulcie raced after her, but apparently she lost her, couldn’t track her in the rain and wind. They don’t know where she went or what she’ll do. She was so upset, Dulcie thinks she’ll head for Hellhag Hill.” Clyde pulled on his jogging shoes. Hastily tying them, he grabbed his keys.
In the downstairs hall Clyde dug his parka from the closet, snatched Joe up in his arms, and headed for the car. Racing down the hall, they heard Rube huffing behind the kitchen door. Clyde double-timed it through the dark living room and out the front door, not bothering to lock it. Sliding into the old Buick sedan that he’d driven home that night—to avoid putting up the top in his yellow antique roadster—he dropped Joe on the passenger seat like a bag of flour, hit the starter, and fished a flashlight from the glove compartment.
Shining the light along the sidewalk, Clyde headed for the hills, man and cat watching every shadow, every smear of darkness. Joe, crouched on the dash where he could see the street, glanced over at Clyde.
“How could there have been a wreck? When did this happen? How could they have a wreck at night? Lucinda and Pedric don’t drive at night. Never. At eighty, that’s smart. So how—”
“Wilma didn’t give me details, she was frantic for the kit, I’ve never heard her so out-of-control. The Sonoma County coroner called her. A wreck, a tanker truck—gasoline. A nighttime wreck, a fire. My God, those two innocent people. The kit was wild, hysterical.”
“Watch your driving. I’ll do the looking. Why did Wilma tell her all that? Didn’t she know the kit would—”
“Kit had her ear stuck to the phone, you know how she is. She heard before Wilma could snatch her away. And even if she had—”
“There! Slow down.”
Clyde skidded to a stop.
“Is that her in the bushes?” Joe had been ready to leap out when he saw it was not Kit but a raccoon—and his concern for the kit escalated into a sharp fear. The car lights picked out raccoons’ masked eyes, an unwelcome gang of midnight predators.
Joe had shouted and shouted for the kit as they moved on between the close-crowding shops and houses. “I think she headed for Hellhag Hill,” he had said tightly, hoping she hadn’t bolted down into the caves that, as far as he knew, might go clear to the center of the earth. Because the kit could, in her volatile grief, mindlessly run and run and keep running. Even at the best of times, the kit was all emotion—and Lucinda and Pedric were her family.
Trying to see out of the slow-moving car, Joe had been weak with nerves by the time they reached Hellhag Hill. Clyde parked along the dropping cliff where the waves slapped and churned below them, set the hand brake, and snatched Joe up again. The minute he opened the door, both man and cat were drenched. The hill humped above them like a bloated black beast. Impatient with human slowness, Joe had leaped from Clyde’s arms and raced blindly upward through the forest of wet, blowing grass.
But now, perched on Clyde’s shoulder again where he could see better, he tried to identify that faint smear of blackness. Was that the kit, rearing up for a better look down at them? But as he watched, the black speck disappeared, was gone. Now, not a sound from above. Only when Clyde paused again and stood still did they hear one tiny sob.
Rearing up taller against Clyde’s head, Joe shouted, “Come down, Kit. Come down now! Right now! I have something to tell you. Something about Lucinda and Pedric.” And he leaped down into the tall wet grass and raced ahead of Clyde up the black hill.
Only when they were very near the tumble of boulders on the crest did the kit peer out, crouching and shivering. This was not their fluff-coated, flag-tailed tortoiseshell, their sassy, brightly animated friend. This rain-soaked, forlorn little animal was dull and spent, a miserable ragged beast who, with her wet fur matted to her body, seemed far smaller, far more frail.
“Come here,” Joe said, shouldering through the wet grass. “Come now.”
The kit came to Joe, with her head down, slow and grieving. She looked like the first time Joe had ever seen her, a terrified feral animal afraid of humans, afraid of other cats, afraid of the world, totally alone and without hope. She stood hunched in the grass before him.
Behind Joe, Clyde stood very still. Then in a moment, he took two careful steps toward her. She didn’t spin away. Two more steps, and another, and he knelt beside the kit, where she cowered with grief before Joe Grey.
Gently Clyde picked her up, gently he held her. The wind beating at them made her shiver. Unzipping his jacket, Clyde tucked her inside, then zipped it up again. Only her dark, lean little face could be seen. Pitifully the kit looked up at Clyde. “They never drive at night. They would never be driving at night. Why were they out at night on the highway?”
She stared into the wind and up at the stormy sky. “How could your strange human God cause Lucinda and Pedric to be dead? Why would he do that?” She looked at Clyde, and down at Joe Grey. Around them, the black hill rolled away, uncaring. Above them the black sky stormed uncaring and remote. To the vast and incomprehensible elements this small cat’s mourning went unheard, her pain unheeded. What possible power, so beyond mortal ken, would bother with this insignificant beast? What power in all the universe would care that she was hurting?
They had started down the hill, Clyde snuggling the kit close, Joe Grey shouldering through the wet grass beside him, when lights appeared on the highway below coming slowly around the curve.
When Clyde and Wilma, Kit and Joe and Dulcie, were all together, sitting in Wilma’s car, the kit crawled out from Clyde’s jacket. Obediently allowing Wilma to towel her, she was quiet, very still. As Wilma worked, her yellow slicker made crinkling sounds over her soaking pajamas, and her wet boots squelched with water. As the kit began to dry and grow warmer, when her small body wasn’t quite as rigid, Wilma said, “I don’t know much more than you heard. I can’t imagine why they were on the highway at that hour. It’s been storming all night up there.”
She looked at Clyde. “Sheriff’s office called me just before I called you. The accident happened on 101 somewhere north of Ukiah. They had been heading north. A gas truck…apparently hit them on a curve.” She looked desolately at Clyde. “Both vehicles rolled and burned. Just burned…” Wilma covered her face. “Exploded and burned.”
She was quiet for a long time, holding the kit, her face pushed against the little cat. Still the kit was silent. Wilma looked up at last. “There was nothing left. Nothing. The vehicle’s license was ripped off in the explosion, went flying with torn pieces of the RV. That’s how the sheriff knew who to call.”
Since Lucinda had sold her house just after she and Pedric were married, the newlyweds had used Wilma’s address for all their business, for everything but interest income, which was handled by direct deposit. Wilma faxed their bank statements to them, and sent any urgent papers. Wilma’s address had been on the couple’s drivers’ licenses and on their vehicle registration.
As the five sat in the front seat, close together, Dulcie nosed under the towel, into Wilma’s arms, snuggling close to the kit. Around the car, the wind eased off, and the rain turned from fitful gusts to a hard, steady downpour. It seemed to Dulcie that fate had, since early in the year, turned a hard and uncaring countenance on their little extended family. First Captain Harper had been set up as a suspected murderer. Then that terrible bomb that came close to killing everyone at Captain Harper and Charlie’s wedding. Then during Charlie’s gallery party, that man dying. And now this terrible, senseless accident to Kit’s human family. She felt lost and grim, she wanted only to be home with Kit, tucked up in Wilma’s bed with hot milk and kitty treats, where nothing more could happen.
When Clyde and Joe slid into their own car and headed home, Joe settled unashamedly against Clyde’s leg. He felt more like a pet cat tonight, needful of human caring. Not since his days as a stray kitten, sleeping in San Francisco’s alleys, had he felt quite so in need of security and a little petting—it was all very well to have a solid record of murder and burglary convictions to his credit, but sometimes a little mothering of the bachelor variety was a nice change. The thought of Lucinda and Pedric gone, forever and irrefutably gone, had left him feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable.
Glancing down at Joe, Clyde laid his hand on Joe’s shoulder and scratched his ear.
They’d been home for half an hour, Clyde had toweled Joe dry and used the hair dryer on him, and Joe was half asleep under the covers when Clyde came upstairs bringing with him an aroma that brought Joe straight up, staring.
Clyde set a tray on the bed, right in front of him. Imported sardines? He had to be dreaming. A whole bevy of those little pastrami-on-rye appetizers that Clyde kept stashed in the freezer, now warm from the microwave? He looked at Clyde and looked back at the brimming tray.
Clyde, who had showered and pulled on a robe, set his hot rum drink on the night table and slid into bed, propping the pillows behind him. “So tuck in. What? You’re not hungry?”
Joe laid a paw on Clyde’s hand. He gave Clyde a whisker rub, then tucked into the feast with a gusto and lack of manners that, tonight, Clyde didn’t mention. If Joe slopped on the covers, Clyde didn’t seem to care. With the wonder of Clyde’s offering, and with the bodily nourishment as well, a wave of well-being surged all through Joe Grey. He began to feel warm all over, feel safe again; began once more to feel strong and invulnerable.