Chapter 10.

The Cat hurried through a grove of beech trees, down a slope, across a creek, up the opposite slope, and under the branches of pine trees, urged on by the threat of the cat-hoarding house. The trees thinned to open sky above a pasture, with a road beside, and the Cat jumped onto a stone wall. As he rested and groomed himself, he tried to remember what his mother had told him and the other kittens on the day she weaned them. Pay attention! Then, what had she said? Something about choosing the right patron. Not settling for second best.

The Cat needed to redouble his efforts to find a patron. He thought wistfully of the coffee woman at the dump. Where was she? Poor Cat! Meow.

Stop that. Jumping to his feet, the Cat shook himself and looked all around. On the other side of the pasture, a white house showed through a screen of evergreens.

Wait! The breeze shifted, and the Cat opened his nostrils wide to a tantalizing bird-scent. It came from some distance off, across the road. It reminded the Cat of food that came from special cans, and even more of a food that humans ate. The Girl used to slip him shreds of it under the table.

The breeze shifted again, overwhelming the delectable bird-scent with some aromatic weed. Dropping down from the wall, the Cat pushed through Queen Anne’s lace and milkweed toward the row of evergreens. He climbed another stone wall, leaped across a ditch, and crawled under the thick hedge to a lawn. There was the white house he’d glimpsed, a spread-out structure with an outdoor stairway on one side.

The Cat crossed the grass to an old tree, its sagging limbs propped up on posts. Underneath the tree there was a marrow bone that had recently been chewed by a dog—too thoroughly to tempt the Cat. On the lawn beside the house, towels and shirts flapped on a clothesline tree. The Cat sniffed a low-hanging sleeve, detecting a woman.

As the Cat explored the scene, he heard an engine approaching on the road. A small yellow car paused at the stone posts and turned in the driveway. The Cat crouched behind a laundry basket to watch.

The driver, a woman with wavy brown hair, drove around to the outside stairway, got out with a paper bag, and placed the bag on the first step. While the Cat tried to decide whether to approach her, the woman lifted a glinting stone from around her neck, held it over the bag, and murmured. Then she got back in her car and drove away.

It was too late to approach the woman as a possible patron, but at least she’d left the paper bag. The Cat loved paper bags, and he crept up to the stairway to inspect this one. Whew, what an overpowering fragrance! It almost obscured the fresh scent of a man around the stairs.

The Cat pattered up the stairs and meowed several times, in case the man was in the house now. He pattered down and rubbed his jowls against the folded edges of the bag. Even a perfumed bag was irresistible, especially lined with crinkly tissue paper.

Would the man, or the woman of the shirt on the clothesline, show up sooner or later? The Cat sat down and wrapped his black tail around his white paws to wait.

Sure enough, before long a green car with a man drove through the stone posts. He, too, climbed out with a bag, a plastic grocery bag. As he closed the car door, the man noticed the Cat on the stairs. His face contracted. “Rune! What the—?”

The man’s eyes shifted from the Cat to the paper bag and back again, and his frown deepened.

This was not a promising beginning for a patron, but the Cat, withholding judgment, stepped down and rubbed against his ankle. This was the man who lived in the house; he could tell by the smell. The man leaned down, and the Cat raised his head to be petted.

But the man only picked up the paper bag and stared at a note stuck to it. “Rune,” he growled at the sheet of paper, “did you not read my lips? I said No. No, I will not take that black and white cat. Why are you doing this to me? I just want to eat my comfort food and crash.” He parted the tissue paper and looked inside the bag. “And a lavender-scented candle. Sheesh! Did she think I was going to go into some kind of Christmas Tree Shop trance and suddenly want to adopt a cat?”

The Cat had just realized the most interesting thing about this man: the plastic bag hanging from his other hand. The bag swung gently back and forth, teasing him with a meaty aroma. The Cat sniffed and meowed, glancing meaningfully at the man.

Setting the candle down, the man squinted at him. “But just a minute—you aren’t fluffy. Didn’t Rune mention long hair, brushing? So maybe she didn’t leave you. Although I wouldn’t put it past Rune to pull a switcheroo.”

The Cat wasn’t sure if this man would be willing to share, but the smell of warm meat overpowered his caution. Balancing on his haunches, he reached up a paw to snag the bottom of the takeout bag. The plastic ripped, but not enough to release the contents.

The man jerked the bag up. “Shit! Get out of there!” The Cat backed away and meowed.

Pulling a key from his pocket, the man started up the stairs. But then he stopped and looked back. “I guess you’re hungry.”

The Cat meowed.

The man sighed. “Okay, I lied to Rune. I don’t actually dislike cats.” Pulling a box out of his bag, he lifted the lid and dropped a few pieces of meat onto the step.

Meat! The Cat fell upon it, purring as he gulped a succulent strip.

“But this is a one-off deal, understand?” said the man, licking his fingers. “Don’t expect to settle in here.”

As the Cat gobbled and purred, the man climbed the stairs and disappeared. The Cat licked the last traces of oily sauce from the wooden step. Perhaps the man would return with more food. Or invite the Cat in.

While the Cat waited, he pawed carefully around the spot where the meat had fallen, as if to cover it. He stretched his tongue from side to side to clean his whiskers. He licked his right paw and rubbed the right side of his face, then licked his left paw and rubbed the left side.

Well. That done, the Cat felt himself sinking into a stupor as the sun sank behind the evergreen hedge. But it wasn’t safe to sleep out here. Leaving the doorstep, the Cat padded across the driveway to inspect the green car. Sometimes cars were left open.

As the Cat sniffed the tires of the man’s car, headlights from another car poked into the driveway. A shaggy dog was hanging from its back window. “There you go, Lola,” said a woman’s voice. The Cat darted under the first car, in case the dog was hostile.

The dog shambled across the lawn and squatted to pee. Had the Cat seen that dog, in that car, before?

The dog stood up again, sniffing in the direction of the Cat. She whined and took a step toward the man’s car.

“Come on, Lola,” said the woman, opening the front door of the house. “We’re going to watch Nature, remember? About wolves.” The door shut behind them.

Dogs and their humans. It was pathetic, the way dogs let humans order them around. Humans, as the Cat’s mother had pointed out to her kittens, didn’t hear very well, could hardly smell anything, and couldn’t see in the dark. Why would you allow such creatures to make the rules?

In the distance a creature yip-howled, and the fur on the back of the Cat’s neck bristled. Shelter, he needed shelter. Crawling out from under the green car, he found a front window open. He leaped up and into the seat. Recent smells: the man, with overtones of many dogs. And a deep old smell, coming from the backseat: one particular dog.

Squeezing between the front seats, onto the back floor, the Cat nosed through a clutter of newspapers, foam coffee cups, dog toys, leashes, and flip-flops. Sometimes food was left in cars, and here was a round cardboard carton, like an ice cream carton. Only it smelled like ashes.

The Cat climbed onto the backseat, which was covered with a towel. The feel of the rough cloth under his paw pads, together with its old dog smell, triggered a kittenhood memory.

The Cat kneaded and purred and kneaded and purred until he had the towel rumpled just right.

Somewhere the wild creature yipped again, and the Cat’s ear twitched. But he was safely wrapped in a dream of his mother’s nest in the laundry room.

 

 

 

 

Must be a dogged cat.

Uncle George