Cat Bearing Gifts

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  It was a long journey up to the hospital through tangled woods, down through a deep ravine, and across the busy freeway. Even if he could avoid the coyotes and occasional loose dogs, and dodge the fast cars, even if his aging bones didn’t give out, it wasn’t likely he could slip inside unseen through those bright halls, among so many people, and find Birely’s room. Even if he got that far, how could he help Birely? He was only mortal, now. What could he do to help? He’d been more effective as a ghost without the limitations of a mortal body—and without the aches and pains. When he was spirit alone, he could appear suddenly wherever and whenever he chose, and more often than not he could subtly influence others with his whispers, just as he’d prodded tough old Lee Fontana.

  He knew he’d had an effect on Lee’s life, that he had hazed Lee away from some of the more shameful moves he’d considered. Even that last big robbery, when Lee held his forty-five to the head of the cowering postal clerk, Lee hadn’t hurt the man. How much of that was due to Fontana’s own sense of kindness, which he couldn’t seem to escape, and how much to Misto’s influence, would never be clear—though Lee’s successful escape from the law was Lee’s own sly plan. Misto couldn’t take credit for that any more than he could be blamed for the darker presence that harassed Lee, and that Misto had sought to drive away.

  But Misto’s own ghostly power hadn’t lasted long, and he found himself again among the living, encumbered again by a living cat’s uncertain existence, by the forces of pain and of joy that the mortal world bestowed, and now by the pains and aches of old age descending on him once more; he didn’t like that part of growing old.

  Deciding against that perilous journey to the hospital, he left Emmylou’s yard wanting companionship, wanting the other cats to talk with, Joe and Dulcie and his son, Pan. Scrambling up a pine to Emmylou’s roof, he looked down upon the shabby neighborhood of small old cottages, to the village stretching out beyond, and to the vast expanse of lonely peaks and steep ridges that sheltered the coastal town. Tonight he had no heart for wandering, for roaming through the chill wind and the unforgiving dark, and he headed back to Joe Grey’s house, to the most welcoming home he knew while his own two humans were absent. Maybe Joe was there now and would claw away his uncertain feelings, make him laugh again, and to hell with getting old.

  Padding morosely over the roofs, the way seemed long tonight and the sea wind was unkind. He was deeply chilled by the time he reached Joe Grey’s tower. Bellying in through one of the six windows, he found Joe’s heap of cushions empty. Pushing on in through the cat door, leaving it flapping behind him, he crouched on the nearest rafter, looking over, down into the upstairs suite.

  The big double bed had been slept in but was now empty, the covers thrown back in a heap. A fleece robe lay crumpled on the floor, a silk nightie flung over a chair. The doors to the walk-in closet stood open, a shirt dropped on the floor inside. Where had they gone, in such a hurry in the middle of the night? He looked down at Clyde’s little office, his desk hidden by piles of papers, and through the open doors into Ryan’s studio. The house smelled empty and sounded hollow, he had no sense of anyone there among the unseen rooms, not even Rock. The big silver dog, the minute he heard the cat door, would have been right there huffing at him, making a fuss. Rock was not in the house, the only living soul present was little Snowball, curled up on the love seat, so deeply asleep that even the flapping cat door hadn’t woken her. The sleep of an aging cat, her sweet spirit floating deep, deep down among her hoard of dreams.

  But what had gone down, here? Why had Ryan and Clyde risen in the middle of the night and left the house? Some emergency, someone hurt? Feeling a cold chill suddenly for his own humans, who would be traveling now on their way home, he dropped down from the rafter onto the desk, jolting his poor bones, and set about searching for a note or phone number jotted hastily, for some clue to where they had gone and, most important, for any hurried notation about John and Mary Firetti. Perhaps for some note from the veterinarian who was temporarily minding the practice and feeding John’s feral band of shore cats.

  He found nothing. Slipping down to the floor, he looked for some bit of paper that might have fallen. Again, nothing. He padded into Ryan’s studio beneath its high rafters and tall, bare windows. Trotting beneath the big drawing board, circling the solid oak desk and blueprint cabinet, he looked out the west window, down at the drive where he had not thought to look before while he was still on the roof.

  The king cab was gone, only Clyde’s antique roadster was there, parked to one side and shrouded in its canvas cover. He circled the studio again, then prowled the bedroom, tracking Rock’s scent back and forth as he’d followed close behind Ryan and Clyde from bed to bath to closet, back again to the stairs, and down. But then he thought, not only his own family was headed home. So were the Greenlaws and Kit. Could something have happened to them, on the road or before they left the city? He leaped onto the desk again, eyeing the answering machine.

  He’d never used one of these. He nosed uncertainly at the flashing red light. Warily he punched the play button, hoping he wouldn’t erase whatever was there.

  Nothing happened. He punched again. There was a long, annoying buzz and the red light flashed and then died. The green light blinked twice and died, too. No lights now and only silence. He hissed at the uncooperative lump of plastic, hoped he hadn’t erased anything, and turned away. His medieval life—what he remembered of it—might have been harsh, but one didn’t have to deal with machines. And the machines of young Sammie’s time had been simple ones, even cars had been slower and more predictable. Leaping from the desk to the file cabinet and across to the love seat, he climbed into Snowball’s crumpled blanket close to her, and curled up. She woke only a little, looking at him vaguely. He spoke nonsense to her, as much to comfort himself as to comfort her. He washed her face and licked her ears, talking to her as Clyde and Ryan or Joe would do, telling her what a fine cat she was.

  But soon she began to grow restless, to glance toward the stairs and toward the kitchen below. Leaping down, he led her down the stairs to her kibble bowl, which of course had been licked clean. He hopped from a chair to the counter, pawed open the cupboards until he found her box of kibble. With considerable maneuvering, and spilling quite a lot, he managed to tip the box on its side and send a cascade of little, aromatic pellets raining down over the side, some of it into the bowl. He sat atop the counter looking over, watching her gobble up the dry little morsels, watching her drink her fill at the water dish, her curved tongue carrying water into her pink mouth like a little spoon. She didn’t offer to jump up on the counter, her arthritis was worse than his. Snowball’s face was getting long, her belly dragging with age.

  But she still handled the stairs all right, and when they headed back up, she settled into the exact same spot on her blanket again. When, purring, Misto stretched out near her, she looked at him expectantly. He looked back, puzzled—it was frustrating that his feline cousins couldn’t talk to him, that, despite a vast repertoire of body language, they couldn’t communicate their desires exactly, as a speaking cat could.

  But he could see she wanted him to talk again, wanted to hear his voice. Snowball, too, was lonely, she wanted to hold on to the rambling cadences of a speaking voice. Clyde and Ryan often read to this little cat, the same way the Greenlaws read to Kit, or as Wilma Getz read to Dulcie, in bed at night. Just as Mary and John Firetti read to Misto himself, though John’s reading too often involved veterinary journals that put him right to sleep. The difference was that the speaking cats understood all of the tale, while, for Snowball, the excitement and drama of the story lay in the tone of voice, in the emotion that one could impart.

  Now, tonight, Snowball needed a story. To please her, and to distract himself from his own worries, too, he told her about his kittenhood in that long-ago Georgia time, about the steamy summers, playing in the grassy yard with small Sammie behind the white picket f
ence, playing with a little rubber ball she threw for him, or climbing together up the twisting oak tree that shaded the little front lawn. He left out the bad parts that happened later; and he left out the way he himself had died. He gave Snowball a happy tale, nothing angry in his voice to spoil her dreams, no dark shadow of Brad Falon stalking Sammie and her mother. Where was Sammie, now that she was gone from this world? Did humans, like cats, return to experience more than one life on this earth? Or did human spirits go on somewhere else altogether, wandering farther than Misto himself could ever imagine?

  And what about a cat, once his nine lives were finished? Did he move on, too, as a human might? Did a cat at last rejoin his human companions? So many questions, and not even the wisest cat or human could know the true answer. All Misto knew was, there were more adventures to come than one could see from the confines of a single life. And that, from the other side, looking back, one saw many more patterns to the tangles of mortal life than were apparent while you were still there.

  But, speaking his thoughts to Snowball and telling his tale, half his mind still worried uneasily at what had taken Clyde and Ryan out in the small hours. He didn’t like the absence of the other cats, either, when usually one or another would come wandering in through Joe’s tower, or he’d see someone silhouetted out on the rooftops, someone to race away with and laugh with. Thankful for Snowball’s presence, he pushed closer still to the white cat and closed his eyes, and tried mightily to purr, to lull himself into a soothing sleep, too.

  20

  BIRELY LAY BENEATH the bright lights in the operating room, sedated but awake, his nose numbed by a local anesthetic as Dr. Susan Hunter leaned over him working swiftly, carefully rebuilding the shattered bone. With normal breathing impossible, with the breath sucked through his mouth too ragged and labored, she could not administer a general anesthetic. She was a thin woman, wiry and strong. Pale dishwater hair barely visible beneath her blue cap, long, thin hands, long fingers, a light, sure touch with the surgical instruments. Birely lay relaxed, deeply comforted by the welcome cessation of pain, his waking dreams happy ones; he was a little child again safe between his parents, not a grown man tramping some dusty road to nowhere, with no home to come to at the end of the day. No watchful traveling companions waiting to separate him from any small amount of cash he might have in his jeans, no overnights in a strange jail for some petty crime that, usually, his buddies had committed. His childhood memories were far different and more comforting—until the last memory grew frightening and he became restless, fidgeting on the table.

  Sammie had told him this story many times, it happened when she was just nine and Birely wasn’t born yet. Her daddy was gone away in the Second World War, her mama working as a bookkeeper in their small Georgia town. The town had three gas stations, one of which their daddy would later buy, when he returned from the war. Sammie and her mother lived in a small rented house that would have been peaceful if not for an old schoolmate who, the minute her daddy was sent overseas, began to pester Becky, coming around the house uninvited wanting to spend time with her, a pushy man who frightened young Sammie with his cold eyes and slippery ways. Sammie had a cat then, a big yellow tom who liked the man no better. On the night Brad Falon came there drunk, knocking and then pounding, not beseeching anymore but demanding to be let in, it was the cat who at last drove him away.

  When Falon pounded, Sammie’s mother bolted the door and ran to the phone. Falon broke a window, reached in, and unlocked it. He swung through, grabbed the phone, and threw it against the wall. He threw Sammie hard against the table, shoved Becky to the floor, and knelt over her, hitting her and pulling up her skirt. As Becky yelled at Sammie to run, the big yellow cat exploded from the bedroom and landed on Brad Falon’s face, raking and biting him. When Falon couldn’t pull him off, he flicked open his pocketknife.

  The cat fought him, dodging the knife. Becky grabbed up a shard of broken window glass and flew at Falon. He hit her, he had her down again, cutting her, but the cat was on him again. He leaped away when a neighbor man, hearing their screams, came running, a wiry young fellow. He saw the broken window and climbed through, but already Falon had fled, banging out through the front door. Their poor cat lay panting where Falon had hit him.

  Now, on the operating table, Birely woke hearing Sammie weeping, the dream always ended this way, her weeping always woke him; but he knew the cat had survived, Sammie always ended the tale the same way. Groggy now and filled with the dream, he was jerking on the table. Dr. Hunter had drawn back. She waited, trying to calm him, until at last she could proceed.

  After surgery, Birely was taken back to the ER for the rest of the night. The next morning he would be moved to ICU or to the observation ward. The ER doctor on the floor said that, with whatever emotional trauma he’d suffered there on the table, he could have no visitors. “Only his sister, and only if he calms down sufficiently.” It was that order from the attending physician which, had it been strictly heeded, might have saved Birely’s life.

  VIC WOKE BEFORE dawn in a real bed, under smooth sheets and real blankets, and it took a moment to think where he was. Then, when he looked around at the big, fancy bedroom, he had to laugh. It was his room, now.Last night the bed had smelled of soap or maybe of that old woman’s face powder. Now, did it smell of him? If those old people came home again to sleep in it, would they smell that he’d been there, and be frightened? He guessed that cat would smell him if they let it inside. Well, of course they let it in, they’d had it right there in the car with them. Good thing that cat couldn’t testify how he’d roughed up those two, he didn’t need no witnesses.

  Climbing out of bed, he stood naked to the side of the open drape, looking out at the faint glow of predawn lights from the village. Watching the sky grow light in the east, he went over what he had to do before he made a last trip back to the ER, or to wherever they took Birely, if they meant to fix his smashed nose. He wondered again if Emmylou was paying for all that.

  Maybe if he didn’t go back too soon, they’d put Birely in a regular room where there’d be fewer nurses going in and out, and more visitors allowed. People wouldn’t notice him so much; with his new “look,” he’d blend right in, could take care of business without being bothered. Birely’s final business. What more natural place to die than the hospital? You were there because something was wrong, people went to the hospital to die. He wondered how many folks had been done in there with help, and no one the wiser. How many cadavers did they haul out of there in a week, and no one suspicious that one or two hadn’t died natural?

  He went over, again, the way that paperback book had laid it all out, a book he’d picked up at the Goodwill when he was buying a pair of jeans, waiting for Birely to find a shirt he wanted. He’d got real interested in the story, had read that part four or five times, off and on, had carried the book in his pack for a long time. Well, it was sure as hell the foolproof way. How would you ever get caught? With a little adaptation, you could use it on a druggie, too. Just one more needle puncture. A little creativity, you could use it on just about anyone.

  But in the book, this guy had died in a hospital exactly like he meant for Birely. All you needed was a 30cc or 50cc syringe, and he was sure he could pick that up around the nurses’ station, there’d be syringes there somewhere, in a drawer or cupboard. If he couldn’t find any, he could put on those rubber gloves he’d seen handy in the wall dispensers in the rooms, slip on gloves, dig a syringe out of the hazardous-waste bin right there in the room, too. Hospital was all organized for fast work, they made everything easy.

  The way they did it in the book, you do the injection, the guy goes into some kind of fit or trauma, half a second later he’s dead. Touchy part, you had to get out fast. Book said the minute the injected air hit the heart, the dials went crazy, alarms going off, the whole damn staff running in to save a life and you’d better be long gone.

  Moving into the bathroom, he
brushed his teeth with the old guy’s toothbrush, and even took a shower. Felt strange to be so clean, didn’t seem quite comfortable. First, before he went back to the ER and did Birely, he had to hide the Lincoln. Then he’d need wheels to get back to the hospital, Debbie’s station wagon would do for that. How could she refuse, when he’d sold that stuff for her to the Frisco fence—that, plus what he had on her.

  When he and Birely’d first moved in, up the hill, he’d seen her down there around her cottage, and then seen her twice in the village market, light-fingered and quick. He’d drawn back into the shadows, to make certain, knowing he’d find the information useful, one way or another.

  Two days later, he saw her come out of a village dress shop pushing one of them fancy baby carriages. She didn’t have no baby that he’d ever seen, just the two girls. She came out of the store with the sun hood pulled over, the “baby” all covered up with a blanket, and the older girl walking beside her.

  After that, a couple times he’d watched her return home, haul the carriage out of the station wagon all folded up, no sign of a baby, but she always carried four or five bulging shopping bags inside. For a few days he’d followed her, too, walked into town when she left. It wasn’t far, and it was never hard to find that old brown Suzuki station wagon, the village was so small. She liked to park beside the library where there was more shade than on the street. She often had the twelve-year-old with her, but never the smaller girl. He’d see Debbie take off with both girls in the morning, come back without them as if she’d dropped them at school, but in the afternoons, she’d have only the older one in the car again. Or maybe the little one was in the back where he couldn’t see her. The older kid, Vinnie, she was a smart-ass, but when she shopped with her mother she was quick, fingers nearly as slick as a professional.