by Faith Hunter
Ouch. A harsh truth, but the man had a point. One less kid did mean one less mouth to feed. And considering how hard it was to feed your own mouth out here, trying to feed a bunch of little mouths too was a burden in and of itself. Still, a missing kid and a worried sibling was awful hard for even Frank’s hardened heart to ignore. Not to mention the fact that if they found the girl, there might be some kind of reward. Maybe not from the dad, but perhaps someone would care enough to pay for her.
“How old is your sister?” Frank said.
The kid blinked in silent surprise. Then she grinned just a bit and said, “Victoria ain’t my sister. She’s my kitty cat.”
Frank felt his mouth fall open a bit as Earnest gasped loudly behind him. All this fuss and tears for a lousy cat. What kind of garbage were folks teaching their kids these days? Frank went through plenty of cats and dogs growing up. When they got gone, you just forgot them and went onto the next one. Of course, Frank always was careful what he told Earnest.
“A cat?” Frank said.
“Yessir,” the kid said.
“A cat.”
“A kitten.” Sally held up one hand and spread out her little fingers. “Five months old.”
Frank rolled his eyes, looking to the ceiling for help he knew wasn’t coming. “For the love of…” He glanced down at the girl with a frown. “Look, we’d love to help you but—”
“You will?” the kid said. She smiled wide as she rushed around the desk and hugged his leg. “Oh thank you, sir. Thank you.”
Frank tried to wiggle out of her grip. It took a moment or two to pry the little crumb snatcher off of him.
“Wait up now,” Frank said, holding her at arm’s length by the collar of her nightdress. “I didn’t say we would help you. I said we would like to, but we can’t.”
Sally stared up at him with a long look of sorrow. Then the waterworks started. The little girl’s eyes welled with tears as her voice hitched on very word. “But you gotta help. I’m so worried, mister. I’m so worried.”
“No,” Frank said firmly. “We don’t have time to go running around lookin’—”
“She’s worried, Frank,” Earnest said.
Closing his eyes, Frank groaned again. He didn’t need to turn around to know his cousin was weeping as well. Frank could hear the blubbering from where he stood.
“She’s out there all alone,” Earnest said between sobs.
“All alone,” Sally echoed.
Frank rubbed at his tired eyes and silently wished the girl would just disappear, taking his annoying cousin with her. Instead of the sound of them poofing into oblivion, there came the muffled clink of metal on wood. A familiar sensation crept over Frank. He knew that sound. There were two sounds in the world Frank was intimately familiar with. That particular sound was the drop of a coin onto a wooden table. Frank peered down at the desk between his fingers.
Sure enough, there on the worn wood lay a silver dollar coin.
A whole dollar.
“I got this dollar from my mawmaw,” Sally said. “I was saving it for when we go to the city next month. I was gonna buy a new dress and shoes and a book and maybe some candy with the leftovers. But then I was gonna give it to Mr. Jackson to find Victoria for me. It’s yours, if you help me.”
Frank stared at that dollar. That unprotected, just sitting there for the taking dollar. He could just pick it up, shove the kid into the whiskey crates, and walk on out of here. That would teach the little one an important lesson on trust. Never pay for a service not yet rendered. On the other hand, could he rob from a child? Stealing from full grown adults was one thing. Did he have it in him to steal money from a little girl who was weeping an ocean of tears over losing her five-month-old kitty cat?
He thought on this troubling question. Invested carefully, a whole dollar would feed Earnest and him for a good long while. They could even afford a few nights in a cheap hotel.
Maybe not.
But maybe.
And all it took was that maybe to change his mind. Innocence be damned, Frank reached out and snapped up the silver dollar. Not only did he have it in him to steal the money, he was gonna lie about it too.
“Kid,” Frank said, “you got yourself a deal.”
Sally clapped for joy before she hugged Frank’s leg again. “I just know you’ll find Victoria for me.”
“We sure will,” Earnest said. “We promise.”
Frank pocketed the silver dollar and pushed the kid off of him. “Go on then. Get out of here so we can get to work.”
“Wait,” Earnest said. “What does Victoria look like?”
Sally took on a dreamy look as she said, “Pa says she looks like a powder puff, she’s so fluffy. She has tiny gray paws and a floofy silver tail and bright blue eyes and a cute button nose.”
Frank did his best to ignore these adorable particulars as he rubbed at the coin in his pocket.
“Cute button nose,” Earnest echoed as if committing the details to memory. “Oh, and you gotta tell us where we can find you once we get your cat back.”
The little girl described a small farm house less than a half mile north of town. “When you bring her back, don’t tell Pa I paid you the money. He’d be awful sore if he knew I spent my specials on Victoria.”
“Don’t worry,” Frank said. “I don’t plan on telling your pa nothin’.” He smiled at this clever truth.
“Good,” Sally said. With that, the little one turned and skipped out of the front door, taking the light with her, and leaving the pair of cousins alone in the moonlit office.
Earnest bright smile all but glowed in the shadows. “Aw, Frank, this is gonna be great. A whole dollar just for finding a kitty cat. Where are we gonna start looking first?”
“We ain’t,” Frank said. He took the dollar out and held it up to a beam of moonlight. It gleamed in his palm. A shining beacon of sudden wealth. His mouth began to water at all the things he could buy with a whole dollar.
“What do you mean we ain’t?”
Frank pocketed the dollar again and felt his way to the backdoor in the darkness. “That cat’s long gone.” He opened the back door and was nearly through when he heard his cousin behind him.
“Frank?” Earnest said.
“What?” Frank said, and turned to face the man.
In a thin beam of moonlight, Earnest stared at Frank with a pitiful look of worry. “We are gonna find her kitty cat, ain’t we? I mean, she did pay us a whole dollar and all.”
“I said there ain’t no use. Gone two days? Thing’s probably starved to death. Or got eaten by something else.”
“But we don’t know that. Her kitty could be out there. And we promised her, Frank. We can’t just take her money and not even try.”
“You promised.” Frank snorted. “I didn’t promise crap.”
Earnest whimpered as his eyes silently begged Frank for some sign of compassion.
Frank dug deep. He dug deep and he dug hard and he came up with…nothing. Sure, he had the nerve to rob a little girl blind. Yet he didn’t have it in him to disappoint his cousin.
“All right,” Frank said. “You got one day. If we can’t find it by tomorrow night, then we move on. And we keep the dollar. Deal?”
“Deal.” Earnest smiled wide again in the moonlight, baring nearly every tooth he still owned in his head. Which, considering his easy living and usually neglected hygiene, consisted of a surprising amount.
After bedding down in a nearby barn for the night, the cousins began their investigations bright and early the next morning. Frank led Earnest to the local inn for a spot of breakfast and some light interrogations. Then they went to the general store, where Frank bought a few provisions and a new canvas bag to carry them in, while Earnest asked if anyone had seen Victoria. It wasn’t until midafternoon, as they bellied up to the bar to spend their last few pennies that Earnest began to see the way of things.
“We ain’t never gonna find her, are we?” Earnest said.
; “Sorry,” Frank said. “But you can’t say we didn’t try.”
Earnest slumped on the bar stool, folded under the weight of his failure.
Frank hated to see his cousin so down, but sometimes the truth was a hard thing to take. He patted the man’s shoulder. “We still have a few cents left. Let’s grab a beer or two and see if we can drink her off your mind.” He waved the barkeep down.
“I couldn’t help but overhear your story,” the bartender said as he made his way to the end of the bar with two mugs of beer. He slid the beers across to the cousins. “You lost someone close?”
“Not close to me,” Earnest said. “But she sure is important to someone.”
The bartender shot Frank a curious glance.
“He’s been looking for a little gray kitten with blue eyes,” Frank said, for lack of a better thing to say.
The bartender rubbed at his well shorn chin. “A kitten you say? You know, if you’re really in the market for a cat, you might want to talk to Professor Von Moose.”
“It’s not just any gray cat with blue eyes,” Earnest said between gulps of beer. “She’s a special cat. Her name is Victoria.”
“Victoria. Victor. Vicky. Vixen. Hell, I bet the man has one of each by now.”
Frank cocked his head at that. “One of each?”
“Sure,” the barkeep said. “The man’s been going around town snatching up all the stray animals. Cats, dogs, rabbits. Anything furry and four legged and can fit in his traps. God only knows what he wants with them.”
Earnest looked to Frank, his eyes alight with joy. Frank was really hoping he would get out of here without having to actually track down the kitten. But now he didn’t have a choice. Thanks to one mouthy barkeep, Frank was once again in the thick of it.
Earnest smiled wide.
“Where can we find this Professor Von Moose?” Frank said.
The barkeep sketched out a quick map that took the men about a mile south of town, down into the shadows of a gulley half hidden by a series of boulders and scrim and rocks. Frank never would’ve guessed that the mouth of a cave rested at the base of the gulley, just under an overhang of rock and dry grass. An excellent hideout if he had ever seen one.
“You reckon Victoria’s in there?” Earnest said.
“Maybe,” Frank said. “That barkeep claimed this professor person lives here.”
“But why would a professor live in a cave? Don’t they live in book palaces?”
“You mean lye-berries, and no. Not all the time. Sometimes they live in proper houses and have wives and such.”
“You’re pullin’ my leg.”
“No. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” Frank looked back to the mouth of the cavern. “But I ain’t never seen one live in a hole in the ground like some kind of mole.”
Earnest peered into the dark opening. “Whatcha think he gets up to in there?”
Frank leaned into the opening. A faint flicker of light lapped at the distant edge of the darkness. Frank couldn’t be certain, but he thought he heard a soft chuffing sound escape the cave. “I guess there’s just one way to find out.” He held his hand out to Earnest. “You first.”
“Why me?”
“Because you don’t wanna disappoint that little girl.” Frank gave his cousin a shove into the cave. “Go on then, get on in there.”
Earnest stumbled into the opening and Frank followed. After they shuffled past a few feet of tightly grouped rocks, the cousins found themselves in a narrow tunnel. As they followed the passage, the flickering light flared into a soft glow in the distance. The chuffing sound increased too, a slow huff, huff, huff somewhere at the end of the tunnel.
“Whatcha think’s makin’ that sound?” Earnest said after a few minutes of walking along.
“I don’t know,” Frank said.
They continued to follow the tunnel toward the light and sound, not sure what they were in for, and Frank began to second guess the whole venture. Damn Earnest and his soft spot for cute, furry animals. It was gonna get the pair of them killed one day. Maybe that day would be this day? Not if Frank could help it. He cast a glance back over his shoulder, to the pinpoint of light that was the cave opening. Frank tugged on Earnest’s sleeve, ready to drag the man back to civilization and away from that loathsome noise where they could forget this whole thing even happened.
“Come on,” Frank said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait,” Earnest said, pulling away from Frank.
Frank grabbed Earnest’s shoulder and tried to steer him in the other direction. “I think we should go. Something doesn’t feel right here.”
“No, wait. Don’t you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Listen.”
Frank paused in his retreat and turned his attention to the tunnel sounds. At first he only heard the strange, rhythmic chuffing noise. Just under it there drifted the faint strains of other animals; mewling and growling and yipping and meowing.
“It’s the missing animals,” Earnest said, and took off in a jog down the remainder of the tunnel.
“Wait a minute,” Frank shouted as he ran after his cousin. “We don’t know that. They could be the man’s…own…livestock…” Frank’s words trailed off as the pair of men reached the end of the tunnel.
And spilled into the enormous chamber waiting beyond.
The cousins stared in wonder at the huge cavern buried several hundred feet under the town above. The place was lit by a series of small bubbles mounted to the walls and ceiling, each casting an unearthly glow. The rocks and soil were much darker than the dry earth on the surface, and sported a deep sheen of crimson. One corner of the cavern contained all the amenities of someone’s living quarters. A small cot, a wash basin, a rack from which clothes hung, a piss pot, and even a small bureau and mirror. Beside this there rested a long, chest-high table with an accompanying set of stools. The table lay covered in all manner of instruments; some looked like things made for doctoring folks, while others looked the opposite.
The majority of the chamber was taken up by a sizable as well as strange device—an egg-shaped metal and wooden construct probably a good twelve feet high. It was covered in levers and gears and flywheels, almost all of which moved in some manner. Parts of the machine spun while others rocked side to side and yet others bobbed up and down. The machine huffed and chuffed to the rhythm of these movements, explaining where the eerie noise came from. A gaping hole at least three feet wide rested in the middle of the thing, the edge of which was lined in series of fabric cover flaps. The empty space crackled, softly flickering as blue fingers of miniature lightning raced back and forth along from flap to flap.
Frank stared in genuine awe at the machine. He had no idea what it did, but he wanted to see the thing do it anyway.
“Frank!” Earnest shouted. “Look!”
Frank managed to wrench his attention away from the fantastic machine and toward his cousin’s voice. Earnest stood before a wall of pens and cages stretching from floor to roof. Most of the pens were empty, as far as Frank could tell. The others held a wide variety of small, furry animals. Cats and dogs and rabbits, just like the barkeep said. In the middle of it all, Earnest stood cradling a gray kitten to his chest. A gray kitten with beautiful blue eyes that gleamed in the halo of flickering electric light.
“Well, I’ll be,” Frank said under the huff of the weird machine.
Earnest motioned to the other pens and said in a raised voice, “We should free the others too.”
The furry beasts yipped and meowed as one, begging to be freed.
“No,” Frank shouted over them. “We didn’t come here for the others. Just the one.”
“But Frank—”
“Don’t but Frank me. We aren’t carting a dozen damned cats back to town. Ya got your precious kitten, let’s go.”
Before they could argue further, or leave, the machine came to a sudden halt. The bobbing settled down. The spinning stopped. The rocking slowed. The c
huffing and huffing died out in a soft echo. Even the animals stopped their griping, leaving a thick silence behind.
“What did you touch?” Frank asked.
“Nothin’,” Earnest said.
“Gentlemen,” a new voice said.
The pair of them turned about to find an older man standing beside the now-quiet machine. For a cave-bound man, he dressed awful fancy, sporting a dark suit pants and vest combo topped by a knee-length off white coat. His graying hair stuck out in all directions, nearly as wild as the bush of beard that had laid claim to the bottom half of his face. Through this beard there peeked a wide, peculiar smile. A pair of spectacles framed a set of wild eyes that stared at the cousins with undisclosed glee.
All of the animals let out a low whimper, including Victoria.
“May I assist you with something?” the man said.
“Professor Von Moose?” Frank said.
“Why, yes.” The man cocked his head to one side. “I’m afraid you have the better of me.”
“We’re Frank and Earnest,” Earnest said without hesitation.
Frank groaned.
“Are you?” the man said.
This seemed to confuse Earnest. “Yes?”
The man gave a soft laugh. “No, I mean do you live up to your name? Are you indeed frank and earnest?”
“We do our best,” Frank said.
“I’m sure you do,” the professor said. “Am I to understand this is a professional visit?”
“Um…”
“I mean I take it you’re here for me?”
“No, sir,” Earnest said. “We’re here for Victoria.” He held up the kitten’s paw and waved it at the professor.
The kitten meowed.
Von Moose smiled wider, a feat Frank wasn’t sure possible, yet happened. “Victoria? Yes. She is very useful. Very useful indeed. As are all of the animals.”
“Useful?” Frank said.
“Of course,” the professor said. He looked longingly at the egg-shaped machine as he patted the side of it. “They provide the spark that powers my little project here.” The professor looked back to Frank again. “Are you sure you aren’t here for me? I have been expecting someone to find me for a while now.”
