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I didn’t sleep any better that night than I had the rest of the week. I woke up grumpy and too unfocused to bother with making my own coffee, so I walked a few blocks to the local coffee shop, Ground Up. Harry was working the counter and fixed me a large French press all for myself without batting an eye. I must have looked like death warmed over.
I found a table in a corner and was waiting for my coffee to finish doing its thing when the chair across from me slid out and a cappuccino and scone were plopped down on the table.
“Figured you’d be here. You get any sleep last night?” Don asked.
“Not much.”
“Dreams again?”
I nodded.
“So, do you remember these dreams in detail?”
I pushed the plunger on the coffee pot and tried to remember something concrete from last night’s dreams.
“There was a lot going on. I remember at one point I was walking along the bayou, and I wanted to get closer. There was something that I wanted to smell, or something like that. I just remember the feeling of wanting something. But then something distracted me, or pulled me away, or something – I don’t know.”
“Is that it?”
“Later – I don’t know how much later – I remember feeling afraid.” I paused to take a sip of coffee. “There were these, I don’t know, shadows or shapes, and they were making a lot of noise.”
“What kind of noise?”
I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. “It was like... yelling. Like when kids are playing and getting rowdy and talking trash. That kind of thing. But there were a bunch of them, a group, and I was afraid, so I ran and hid.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very werewolf-like reaction.”
I gave Don the best glare I could manage in my exhausted state. “So you’re an expert now? I’m new at this, okay? And maybe... maybe I’m some other kind of shifter?”
“Oh geez, what have you been reading now? Other kind of shifter?”
“Can we get back to my dream, please?”
“Fine. So what happened next?”
“The shadows – I guess maybe they were rowdy teenagers – moved on, and I came out of my hiding place. I think I was underneath some bushes. Anyway, I came out and started walking along the bayou again. I had walked a ways when I heard crying.”
“Like a baby?”
“No. Some kind of animal. A kitten, I think. I followed the sound to where that old railroad trestle crosses the bayou. Where the bike trail is.”
“And?”
“I could hear it – it sounded really scared and sad – but I couldn’t find it. I kept looking, and I started getting worked up and anxious and that’s when I woke up.”
Don downed the last of his drink and wrapped what was left of his scone in a napkin. “Okay, let’s go.”
“What? Where?”
“To the trestle – the bike trail. Come on.”
“But my coffee! I need this.”
Don went up to the counter and Harry gave him a big to-go cup for the rest of my coffee. I let Don drag me out of the shop and down the street. “What are we doing?”
“We are going to go to the trestle and see if we find a lost kitten or whatever. Maybe if we go to the scene of the dream it will help somehow.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. We were only a few blocks from where the trail crossed the bayou, so what did I have to lose but a little time?
We were the only ones on the trestle – the early morning cyclists and joggers were gone by now and people with normal jobs were at work. There was some highway noise, but we were used to that.
“Okay, here we are,” Don said. “Do you remember where you were in your dream?”
I looked around, trying to remember shapes and angles from the dream. It had been dark, but I had been able to see pretty well. “I remember that,” I said, pointing to the distinctive shape of a Quonset hut to our north. “I remember going up there because I smelled wood and I wanted to look for rats.”
“Ew.”
I ignored him and turned to look over the railing. “So I was on the north bank, under the trestle.”
We stood there for a minute looking around, listening to the traffic whiz by on the highway.
“Hear any kittens?” Don asked.
“Ha ha. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to be doing here.”
“I don’t know. I just figured, it was close so what was the harm in checking it out, if it would help.”
“Yeah. It makes sense. You hear anything?”
“Nope.”
We stood there for another minute, not hearing anything but the sound of traffic and some banging sounds from the nearby lumberyard. A long-legged bird was high-stepping around in the water below, looking for something to eat.
Don sighed. “Maybe –”
And then we heard it. In one of those rare soundless moments in the middle of all that noise we heard the saddest, tiniest mewing sound I’d ever heard. All the cute cat videos on the internet had not prepared me for that sound.
“Ohmigod! Ohmigod ohmigod. Did you hear that?” I started spinning around, trying to figure out where the sound had come from.
“Okay, calm down. It’s obviously not here on the bridge. You stay here.” Don jogged back to end of the bridge and took a dirt path down the slope. When he got to the bottom he looked up to where I was standing on the bridge.
“Do you see anything?” I called down.
“Not yet.” Don was looking around on the ground, up the slope, and then up to where I stood on the bridge. “Maybe. About six feet to your right. A little farther. There. There’s something hanging from the bridge.”
I looked down and could see a piece of twine tied around one of the upright posts of the bridge railing. “There’s something tied to the railing.”
“Can you pull it up?”
“Ohmigod. What if it’s – I don’t know – gross or creepy or something?”
“Dude, it was alive a few seconds ago, right? If that’s it we’ve gotta help it.”
“Right.” He was right, so I managed to get my hand down between the rails and started pulling up whatever was hanging from the twine. It wasn’t heavy, and it didn’t seem to be moving. When I got it up far enough I could see it was a cheap drawstring bag. It wouldn’t fit between the horizontal railings, so I had to work it up, one rail at a time. By the time I got it high enough to reach from above, Don had made it back up to the bridge and lifted it over. He put it on the pavement between us and started working on the knot that was holding the bag closed.
I could see the bag move a little, and then I heard that sad little mewing again. “Hurry!”
“I’m trying!”
“The office at the lumberyard should be open by now. Let’s go over there and ask if we can borrow some scissors and cut it open.”
“Yeah.” Don scooped up the bag. “No, it’s still tied to the bridge. Shit!”
I leaned over to where the twine was fastened to the upright. Maybe a different person had tied this knot, or whatever sick asshole had done this wasn’t as concerned about the bag staying tied to the bridge as he was about keeping the bag closed, and that knot came apart quickly.
We jogged to the lumberyard office, Don cradling the bag and me clutching my half-finished coffee.
The guy in the office must have been shocked when we stumbled in, panting and rambling, but he figured out what we needed and pulled some big scissors out of the desk. Don put the bag down on a table, and the lumberyard guy and I stood on either side of him while he carefully cut the bag open.
I was holding my breath as Don looked inside the bag, then reached in and pulled out a tiny kitten. It wiggled a little and mewed again, and I was able to start breathing again. “Is it okay?”
Don looked it over. “I’m no expert, but it’s probably hungry and scared. We need to take it to a vet. Oh, poor thing – it only has three legs.”
“What? What did those monsters do?!”
“Chill, Jake. It looks like he was born this way. That’s probably why those creeps decided to pick on it.”
“Gosh,” said the lumberyard guy – I looked, but he wasn’t wearing a nametag or one of those shirts with his name on it. “You found this little guy? In that bag?”
“Yeah,” Don said, cradling the kitten against his chest. “We think some kids put it in that bag and then tied it to the bridge.”
“Damn. That’s sick.”
“Yeah!” I said. “Someone should –”
“Jake,” Don cut me off. “Let’s get going. I want to get him to a vet.”
“Oh. Sure.”
We thanked the lumberyard guy – whose name turned out to be Jake, too – and went back out to the bike trail.
“Should we walk back home and get your car?” Don asked. “Or walk?”
“Walk?”
“Yeah – if we take the trail it takes us to the shopping center where there’s one of those big pet stores with a clinic.”
“Let’s just walk. I don’t need to go to class today.”
“What about your appointment with Miss Nancy?”
“I’ll cancel. It’s cool. I can see her tomorrow.”
We walked, and it was nice, actually. Early March in Houston was a good time to be outside and the sunshine was cheering me up. Don was still cradling the kitten, stroking it and murmuring to it, and I had a feeling he was going to keep it.
❧
While Don took the kitten to the back of the store to see the vet, I grabbed a cart and flagged down one of the workers to find out what I needed to get to set up housekeeping for a kitten. I piled a bunch of stuff in the cart – a litter box, some litter, a scooper. I looked at the dishes, but there were too many to decide between, so I decided Don could use his own dishes and get fancy cat dishes on his own later. The toys were cute, though, so I bought some catnip mice, and a feathery thing, and something on a string that it could chase. I wasn’t sure how well it would be able to run on three legs, but Don could worry about that. I got a cardboard scratcher thing, too. Don’s furniture was pretty shabby, but it didn’t deserve to get ripped to shreds. I knew enough about cats to know they had a reputation in that area.
I took a turn down the food aisle, but decided I’d better wait and see what the vet said. I pushed the cart back to the clinic area, but Don was nowhere to be seen.
“Are you looking for the man with the kitten?” the girl behind the desk asked.
“Yeah. Is he in with the vet?”
“Yes. He’s been in there for a while, so it shouldn’t be too much longer.”
I sat on a bench to wait for Don and pulled out my phone. I wished I had brought something to study – midterms really were coming up soon. I checked my email, but nothing new there. I had just started a Sudoku puzzle when Don came out, still cradling the kitten. He was totally keeping it.
“So, what did the vet say?” I asked as Don sat down next to me.
“Dehydrated, hungry, but mostly okay. He wasn’t out there long enough to cause any lasting harm. We found him pretty quick...”
We both sat there for a minute, not saying anything. I was thinking about how we had found him. Why we had found him.
“Dude...”
“Yeah.” I said. Don must have been thinking similar thoughts.
“Dude, you knew he was there. That’s...”
“Something we can talk about when we get home, okay?”
“Okay.” Don turned his attention back to the kitten. I had to admit it was pretty cute. It – he – had brown and black stripes and a white chin. The skin around his big round eyes was black, which made him look like he was wearing eyeliner. A little goth kitty – so cute. Don started rubbing his belly with a couple of fingers and he closed his eyes and started purring. Even if Don hadn’t already decided, I had. He was keeping the kitten. Don needed the kitten.
“What are you going to name him, then?”
“Huh?”
“Your kitten. What are you naming him?”
“Oh, I can’t keep – Jake, what is all that stuff?”
“Cat stuff. You are so keeping the kitten.”
“Jake, I can’t afford a pet. I’m trying to save up to go back to school.”
“Then we’ll share the kitten. I’ll buy this stuff, and we’ll figure out the rest as we go along, but he has to stay at your place. I don’t think my squirrel would like him.”
Don turned back to the kitten, but I knew it was partly to hide behind his long, dark bangs. “Okay.” That was easy. I knew he wanted to keep it.
“Great. So what are you naming him, and what kind of food do we need to get?”
❧
It was a testament to the power of our friendship that I helped him schlep all that stuff home. It was only about a mile, but it was heavy, and I carried most of it because he was carrying Bridger. Yeah, we were walking back across the bridge where we found him when Don got that brilliant idea. Whatever – it was his cat. I guess if it had been a girl cat he would have named her Bridget.
Don was rattling on about follow-up appointments and getting Bridger neutered and making sure he stayed inside and yakity yakity I lost track by the time we got home.
Bridger pussy-footed around Don’s apartment, sticking his little nose into every corner, while we set up his litter box and Don put some food and water down for him. We showed him where everything was, and then hoped for the best. He seemed to be settling in okay, and Don was totally captivated, so I headed back to my own place to get some studying done.
I curled up on the sofa to review some of my notes, but I couldn’t concentrate. I started thinking about my dream, and about how I had heard the kitten in my dream, and then we found him. Either I was a werewolf (or whatever), or I had been sleepwalking and seen something, or this was the craziest coincidence ever, or... I didn’t know what. I put my head back, closed my eyes, and for the first time in days I managed to get some sleep.
