Cat Telling Tales

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  The clouds were nearly as dark as his nightmare, heavy clouds hanging low above them, hurrying night along. They yawned and stretched, and smelled rain on the wind, and the wind itself had grown colder. Weather in Molena Point, which was notional any time of year, could never be trusted this early in the year. One moment the sidewalks and rooftops were burning hot, an hour later the streets and roofs were soaked with rain. Ever since Christmas the weather had swung from heavy storm, to idyllic spring, to days as humid as summer; only a cat could tell ahead of time what the day would bring, and this time of year even a cat might be inclined to wonder. The coyotes were silent now; the cats listened, and sniffed the breeze. When they detected no scent of the beasts nearby they backed down the rough oak trunk and headed home, thinking eagerly of supper.

  Below them in the village, high on the rooftops, tortoiseshell Kit and Misto barely noticed the weather or cared that rain was imminent, they were deep into another time, another place, as the old yellow tom shared his ancient tales. The tide was out, the iodine smell of the sea mixed with the scent of the pine and cypress trees that sheltered the crowded little shops. As Misto ended a tale of knights and fiery dragons, as if in concert with his words the last rays of the setting sun blazed red beneath the darkening clouds. And when they looked down from the roof of Mandarin’s Bakery where they sat, a thin stray cat, a white female, was slipping along the sidewalk and into the alley—toward a baited trap redolent with the smell of canned turkey. Maybe tonight she’d spring the trap and end her wandering.

  Neither Kit nor Misto moved to stop her, to scramble down and haze her away from the waiting trigger that would snap the mesh door closed and shut her inside. This stray was starving on the streets and too fearful to approach strange houses for food, she was a dumped cat, an abandoned household pet with no real notion how to hunt for her living. Her instincts to chase and catch were still kittenish, without focus, without the skills wrought by training. She was a charming little cat but, in their opinion, helpless as a newborn.

  It hurt Kit that so many unwanted pets roamed the village, animals often sick, thrown away by their human families. Coddled from kittenhood in warm houses, then suddenly evicted, they had little chance to survive on their own, no notion how to snatch gophers from the village gardens or snag unwary birds on the wing. Many still lingered hopefully near the very homes from where they’d been abandoned, houses standing empty now. Families without jobs, moved away suddenly, leaving the village to search for cheaper rent, cheaper food, for the possibility of work somewhere else. Families who dragged away their grieving children and left behind the little family cat, to make it on her own.

  Only the boldest cats would yowl stridently at a strange cottage door demanding to share someone’s supper, only the most appealing cats were taken in and given homes, while the shy and frightened and ugly were chased away again into the cold night.

  Some of the strays didn’t even belong to this village, they had been dropped from dusty cars stopping along the highway, the drivers tossing them out like trash and then speeding away among the heavy traffic, leaving a little cat crouched and shivering on the windy roadside. All across the state, more animals were abandoned as more houses were repossessed, or leases broken. With taxes rising, fewer customers and fewer jobs, many stores had closed in the village, their windows revealing echoing interiors furnished only with a few empty boxes left in a dusty corner. Ever since Christmas Kit and Misto, and Joe and Dulcie, had watched their human friends trap the strays and settle them in volunteer shelters. Sometimes one of the four would entice a stray into a trap, a strange occupation, helping to capture others of their kind—or, almost of their kind. There were no other cats in the village like these four.

  No other cat who carried on conversations with a few favored humans, who read the local Gazette but shunned the big-city papers, who hung around Molena Point PD with an interest as keen as any cop—an interest no cop would ever believe. Misto was the newcomer among them, the old cat had shown up in the village just before Christmas, a vagabond who had once been a strapping brawler but was now shrunken with age, his yellow fur slack over heavy bones, his big paws worn and cracked, his yellow tail patchy and thin. But he was a wise old cat, and kind. Now, as they watched the white cat below, Kit gave Misto a shy look. “Tell about the cats from nowhere. Could some of these strays in the village, the ones we’ve never seen before, who seem to come from nowhere, could they be the same as in that tale?”

  The old tom laughed. “These are only strays, Kit. Pitiful, lonely, scared, but not magic. Magic is for stories, just for make-believe.”

  Kit nipped his shoulder. “We’re as different as the cats in the stories! And we’re not make-believe. Do my teeth feel like make-believe?”

  Misto swatted at her good-naturedly, and licked at his shoulder. “We’re not magical, we’re just different. If those poor strays had any magic, do you think they’d be wandering hungry and lost? They’d have made something better happen for themselves.”

  “I guess.” Kit cut her eyes at him. “Tell it again anyway,” she wheedled. Above them the heavy clouds had dropped lower still, and a mist of rain had begun to dampen the shingles and to glisten on their fur. The story Misto told came from France; he had heard it among the docks on the Oregon coast, listening to the yarns of fishermen and sailing men while pretending to nap among the coiled lines and stacks of crab traps.

  “Five centuries ago,” Misto began, “in a small French town, dozens of cats appeared overnight suddenly prowling the streets, attacking the village cats, slashing the dogs, chasing the goats and even the horses, and snarling at the shopkeepers. With flaming torches the villagers drove them out, but secretly a few folk protected them. Next day, the cats returned, prowling and defiant, and they remained, tormenting the villagers, until on a night of the full moon they all disappeared at once. The moon rose to empty streets, every cat was gone.

  “The villagers came out to celebrate, they danced until dawn, swilling wine, laughing at their release from the plague of cats.

  “But when the sun rose, the villagers themselves had vanished. In their place were dozens of strangers, catlike men and women who took over the shops, moved into the deserted cottages, settled onto the farms. It was their town, now. Not a native villager remained, except those few who had sheltered their feline visitors. Only they were left, to live out their lives among the cat folk, equitably and, I’ll admit, with just a touch of magic,” Misto said with a sly twitch of his whiskers.

  Kit smiled, and licked her paw. Ever since she was a kitten, such tales had set aflame her imagination, had brought other worlds alive for her. Around them, gusts of wind scoured the rooftops and tattered the clouds ragged, and soon the rain ceased again, blown away. The sun appeared, swimming atop the sea in a blush of sunset, and below them on the nearly deserted street, an ancient green Chevy passed, heading for the sandy shore. Kit rose, the white cat forgotten, and the two cats followed, galloping over the wet rooftops until, at the last cottage before the shore, they came down to the narrow, sandy street where the old green car had pulled to the curb. The driver remained within, watching the shore.

  Only three cars were parked near her, all familiar, all belonging to the nearby cottages; and there was not a pedestrian in sight. At last the driver’s door swung open and an old woman stepped out, tall and bone thin, her narrow face and skinny arms tanned and wrinkled from the sun, her T-shirt and cotton pants faded colorless from age and many washings. Her walking shoes were old but sturdy, and as deeply creased as her face. She carried a brown duffel bag that Kit knew held soap, a towel, a toothbrush, clean clothes as thin and worn as those she wore. Heading for the little redwood building at the edge of the sand that held two restrooms, MEN and WOMEN, she disappeared inside.

  Three days ago Kit had followed her, in the early morning, followed her into the dim, chill restroom, not liking the cold concrete beneath her paws, which was icky with wet sand. Wrinkling her nose at the smell of
unscrubbed toilets, Kit had watched from behind the trash bin as the woman stripped down to the skin, shivering, and gave herself a sponge bath. How bony she was, and the gooseflesh came up all over her. She had to be homeless, living in her car, she was always alone, keeping away from crowds, careful to move away if a police car came cruising. Kit had watched her dress again in the fresh clothes she took from the duffel, watched her fill the sink with water, squeeze a handful of soap out of the metal dispenser that was screwed to the wall, watched her launder her soiled clothes and wring them out. Back in the car, she had spread her laundry out along the back, beneath the rear window. If the next day turned hot, they should dry quickly. If the morning brought fog or rain, the clothes would lie there wet and unpleasant and start to smell of mildew. Did she have only the one change of clothes? Had she always been homeless? She was nearly as pitiful as the stray cats of the village. Except, she had more resources than they did. She could speak to others, she could find some kind of job, she had a car and she must have enough money to put gas in the tank.

  On several mornings, Kit and Misto had watched her carry a plastic bucket down to the shore, scoop it full of sand, and return to the car, leaving it inside. “Is she building a concrete wall?” Misto joked. “She’s filling a child’s sandbox,” Kit imagined. “She’s making a cactus garden,” Misto replied. “She has a cat,” Kit said, “she’s filling a cat box.”

  But this evening the woman didn’t bother with the sand. Reappearing from WOMEN, she spread her clothes out in the car, then, carrying a battered thermos and a brown paper bag, she walked down the sloping white shore halfway to the surf. She took a wrinkled newspaper from the bag, unfolded and spread it out on the sand, sat down on it as gracefully as a queen on a velvet settee. She unscrewed the thermos, poured half a cup of coffee into the lid, and unwrapped a thin, dry-looking sandwich that she might have picked up at the nearest quick stop—or fished out of the nearest trash. Eating her supper, she sat looking longingly out to the sea, as if dreaming some grand dream; and Kit and Misto looked at each other, speculating. Was her poverty of sudden onset, had she lost her job and her home? Had her husband died, or maybe booted her out for a younger woman? Or was she an itinerant tramp? Maybe a con artist, come to the village looking for a new mark?

  But now as dusk fell, Misto rose, gave Kit a flick of his thin yellow tail, and headed away to his evening ritual. Kit watched him trot away along the edge of the sea cliff that climbed high above the sand. When she could no longer see him, when his yellow coat was lost among the tall, yellow grass, she spun around and raced for home, a dark little shadow leaping across the rooftops and branches from one cottage to the next. Her two elderly housemates would have a nice hot supper waiting, and Pedric might have his own tales to tell, as the thin old man often did. But even as she fled for home thinking of a cozy evening with the two humans she loved best in all the world, the image of the bony old woman disturbed her, the sense of a life gone amiss, of pain and worry wrapping close the lonely woman who had no home and, Kit guessed, no friends.

  4

  A quarter mile to the south where the cliff rose high above the sand, a little fishing dock crossed the shore below, a simple wooden structure. A tall flight of wooden steps led up the cliff, to a path that met the narrow road above. The sun was gone now, and above a low scarf of dark clouds the evening sky shone silver. On the pale sand, long shadows stretched beneath the little dock; winding among them, a band of stray cats waited, circling the dark pilings shy and hungry, rubbing against the tarred posts, waiting for their supper, listening for the sound of an approaching vehicle. There was little traffic on the road above, though earlier in the day tourists’ cars had eased past bumper to bumper, the occupants ogling the handsome oceanfront homes on the far side of the road, homes innovative in their architecture and surrounded by impressive gardens. That was a world apart from what the stray cats had ever known; they didn’t go up there among humans to hunt, they kept to the wild and empty cliff and its little sheltering caves strung above the shore. Now, when they heard the van coming, still three blocks away, heard its familiar purr and the sound of its tires crunching loose gravel, they crouched listening, ears up or flattened, tails waving or tucked under, depending on how each one viewed the approaching human.

  The van stopped on the cliff above, they heard the door open, listened to John Firetti’s familiar step approaching the cliffside stairs, the soft scuff of his shoes as he descended the wooden steps.

  He was a slim man, well built, his high forehead sunburned where his pale brown hair was receding. Mild brown eyes behind rimless glasses, a twinkle of compassion and amusement—and perhaps, too, a barely concealed expression of amazement. Even as he approached the cats, Misto came racing along the cliff to meet him, lashing his thin tail with humor, beating Firetti to the bottom, looking back up at him with a silent laugh. The veterinarian carried a big, crinkling bag of kitty kibble and meat, a paper sack of scraps that smelled of roast beef, and two fat jugs of water.

  Descending to the sand, man and cat moved together beside the dock, from one feeding station to the next, setting down bowls of kibble, rinsing and filling water bowls. The bolder cats rubbed against John’s ankles, and none of them shied from Misto. Only two cats kept away from the crowd, peering down from the cliff above, half hidden in the tall grass. The two young ones had arrived together, most likely dumped there, and were shy and new to the group. Dr. Firetti and Misto pretended not to notice them.

  John Firetti had grown up in the village and had never wanted to live anywhere else. Vet school at U.C. Davis, and then his years at Cornell, that was a time in his life when he studied hard, got his degrees, then hurried home again to practice in his own small village, near the open hills and the sea. Returning from college he joined his father’s practice, and joined, as well, the older doctor’s care of the seashore ferals, feeding them, trapping and neutering any newcomers, giving them their shots then turning them loose again. The two veterinarians were among the first practitioners of the Trap-Neuter-Release programs that were now at work all over the country, helping sick and hungry stray cats, and preventing the unwanted tide of homeless kittens. Father and son had worked together in this venture, just as in the practice, until John’s father died of a sudden massive stroke. They had, tending to the needs of the homeless band, harbored a dream that only a few people would understand or believe. John Firetti was nearly fifty when that dream came true—though the cat he had waited for was not from the feral band as he and his father had imagined. He was not one of the new generation of feral kittens that they had hoped would be born with special talents. Often such a skill skipped generations. In fact, after waiting and watching for so many years, John didn’t discover the cat of his dreams at all.

  The cat found him.

  The good vet was only sorry his father wasn’t there to share the wonder of their visitor. That meeting was the best Christmas present John, or Misto himself, could have imagined. John and his wife, Mary, were still amazed to be sharing their home with the talkative old tomcat, they never tired of hearing Misto’s adventures. As for Misto, what could be more comforting than sharing his true nature, and his stories, with a pair of humans he knew he could trust? Having found his way back to the village after a lifetime of wandering, he’d received, from Joe Grey, a history of the Firettis more complete than any cop’s background report; moving in with the Firettis, he felt as if they had always been family. Evenings before the fire, the three of them trading stories, was a dream answered for all three of them.

  This evening Misto watched the wild little cats eating nervously and glancing around to make sure no dog or human came up the beach; but when John went back up the stairs to approach two humane traps that he had hidden in the forest of grass, Misto followed him.

  The doors of both traps were bound open with bungee cords; Misto sniffed at them, then looked up at John. “They’ve been inside,” he said, his whiskers twitching at the scent of the two half-gro
wn kittens. “Been in again, licked the plates dry again.”

  John pulled out the empty dishes. “I think it’s time.” He put in new dishes that smelled of freshly opened tuna. He removed the bungee cords from the doors, so they would slam shut the instant a cat moved deep inside and stepped on the flat metal trigger that looked like part of the cage floor. The slamming door would scare the captive but in no way would harm him; he’d be deep inside, two feet away, when it sprang closed.

  “They’re only kittens,” Misto said. “Maybe you’ll find homes for them, maybe the people who dumped them will find a place to live and come back for them.”

  John turned to look at him. “Would you give them back?”

  Misto lowered his ears. “I guess not, I guess they wouldn’t take any better care of them the second time around.” Man and cat shared a comfortable look, and headed away together where they could watch the traps unnoticed. They were halfway to the van when Joe Grey came trotting over the roof of a sprawling clifftop home, and paused to watch.

  Having left Dulcie among the roofs of the village shops, he’d watched her head for the library where, during the busy evening hours, she would preen among her admirers, always dutiful as the official library cat. He had to smile at the number of pets and hugs she’d receive from patrons all unaware that, moments earlier, the tabby’s sweet face and dainty paws had been grisly with the blood and gore of freshly slaughtered rats.

  Too full of rat himself to go home for supper, he’d headed for the shore, for the little ceremony of the evening feeding. Moving over the rooftops, he had appeared as only a gray shadow within the shadows of the sheltering oaks, his white markings dancing along like pale moths, white stripe of nose, white paws and apron as disembodied as the Cheshire cat’s fading smile.