Cat Who Went Up the Creek

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  “We’ll roast hot dogs on our smoky charcoal stove—bacon-wrapped to make more smoke.”

  “We’ll do wild dances on the beach, half naked.”

  Hannah said, “Count me out of that one—please! But I’ll make cole slaw.”

  Wendy asked, “How about joining the party, Mr. Qwilleran?”

  He replied solemnly, “Mr. Qwilleran went home early. I’m Qwill, his doppelganger.” A remark that brought trills of laughter. “Yes, I’d like to join your celebration if you’ll let me provide the beverages and keep my clothes on.”

  At six o’clock he arrived at the party with beer, iced tea and fruit drinks in a bucket of crushed ice. A rustic picnic table was set with paper plates. Doyle presided over the smoking charcoal stove, and Wendy played a Tchiakovsky recording at full volume.

  When they sat down, Doyle proposed a toast to the terrible-tempered Mrs. T. “May she stay in Milwaukee until her house is finished. One night I dreamed I pushed her off the Old Stone Bridge, and when I woke I was profoundly disappointed.”

  Hannah questioned the causes of the woman’s crankiness, and the group suggested rotten childhood, lack of love life, hormone imbalance, genes and so forth.

  Then they considered the asocial family in Cabin Two. They had apparently gone out to dinner. Hannah said she knew them only as Marge and Joe. Wendy thought they had gotten Danny from a rent-a-kid agency. Doyle said she had a runaway imagination. A photographer by trade, he hopped around taking snapshots of the group.

  Then Qwilleran said he would rent Cabin Five as soon as the police released it.

  “You’ll have no squirrel trouble,” Doyle said. “They’re wary of cats.”

  Finally they discussed the opera being performed by the Mooseland chorus. The Underhills were attending Friday night, also, and Qwilleran invited the three of them to be his guests at dinner on Sunday after the last matinee.

  Doyle said, “I find Mooseville and Moose County on the map but no Mooseland.”

  “It was the name given to a new confederated high school,” Qwilleran explained. “Now it’s a label for anything on the fringes of the county, surrounding the urban core.”

  “Urban core!” Wendy laughed. “You must be kidding.”

  “That’s where everything happens! Pickax City, population three thousand, is the county seat. Sawdust City is our industrial capital, also known as Mudville. The center of aggie business is Kennebeck.”

  Aggie. It amused him to talk like a man of the soil.

  “Are there any teaching jobs here?” she asked.

  “Always. Teachers die, get kidnapped, skip the country.”

  “Any movies?” Doyle asked.

  “There’s a film society, but the original Pickax Movie Palace is now a warehouse for household appliances.”

  Wendy said, “That what’s so enchanting about Moose County. A few miles from your ‘urban sprawl’ you have a dark, scary forest straight out of Grimm’s fairy tales.”

  “That’s the Black Forest Conservancy, established by the K Fund for ecological reasons.”

  The Underhills approved.

  “I hear a truck,” Harriet said. “I think it’s the folks in Cabin Two. We ought to invite them for a beer, just to be neighborly.”

  The family of three joined the group. Joe worked hard to be friendly, but Marge was shy, and Danny was tongue-tied.

  After the party broke up, Wendy revised her opinion. Danny was Marge’s kid, but Marge and Joe weren’t married.

  To cap the evening, Qwilleran distributed copies of Tuesday’s paper. “Read all about it!” he shouted. “Miniaturist discovered at Nutcracker Inn! Inside story of an amazing hobby. Don’t miss it in today’s Something!”

  Hannah was on the verge of tears. “I wish Jeb were here. He’d be so proud of me.”

  After the hot dogs and cole slaw and iced tea, Qwilleran had a strong desire for a cup of coffee and piece of pie. It was after nine o’clock, and a velvet rope was stretched across the entrance to the dining room. But there were diners lingering over their dessert, and the host said he could accommodate Mr. Q. “Sit anywhere,” he said.

  A server passed, carrying a birthday cake with a single candle burning. It was en route to a table occupied by three members of the Brodie family. He followed it.

  “You’re just in time, Qwill!” cried Fran. “Pull up a chair! It’s Mother’s birthday.”

  Police chief Andrew Brodie was looking self-conscious in the suit, shirt, and tie he always wore to church. His wife, a modest north-country woman, looked uncomfortable in a dress obviously chosen by her sophisticated daughter.

  “Happy birthday!” Qwilleran said. “This is an unexpected pleasure.” He clasped her extended hand in both of his.

  “Oh, it’s such an honor to have you at my birthday party!” she said.

  “The honor is all mine. I’ve heard so much about you!”

  “I read your column every Tuesday and Friday, Mr. Qwilleran.”

  “Please call me Qwill. I don’t know your first name.”

  “Martha, but everyone calls me Mattie.”

  “Do you mind if I call you Martha? It has a lovely sound, and there are so many famous Marthas in history.”

  “Mother! Will you make a wish and blow out the candle before it sets fire to the cake?” Fran gave Qwilleran a look of feigned exasperation.

  He chuckled. Anyone as glamorous and successful as Fran deserved to be exasperated once in a while. When Mrs. Brodie made her silent wish, he could guess what it was—that Fran would marry the president of MCCC and settle down, like the other daughters in the family.

  “This is the most wonderful birthday I’ve ever had!” she confided to Qwilleran. “Dr. Prelligate sent me a dozen long-stemmed red roses—first time in my life! He would have been here tonight but he had to go out of town.”

  “Mother! You’re supposed to cut the cake.”

  The cake was lemon coconut, and Andy announced that Mattie could bake a better one.

  Fran asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Snooping. Do you know what happened to the cuckoo clock that was here before old Gus died?”

  “There was no cuckoo clock when I started the inventory.”

  Andy asked, “How do you like staying here?”

  “We’re on the third floor, and the cats don’t like being cooped up, but we can’t get into our cabin because the detectives have it sealed.”

  “Looking for clues,” Andy muttered.

  Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. “They’ve had forty-eight hours! Koko came up with one in five minutes!”

  “I always said that smart cat should be on the force!”

  “Are you going to the opera Friday night? It’s the one with the famous cop song: A policeman’s lot is not a happy one!”

  “You ain’t kiddin’.”

  Upstairs, in 3FF, Qwilleran broke the good news to the Siamese. “Soon we’ll be moving to a cabin with a screened porch—and ducks paddling, trout leaping, squirrels squirreling!”

  He was feeling in good spirits himself, and he composed a limerick to amuse readers of Friday’s column.

  An amazing young fellow name Cyril

  Was ingenious, agile and virile.

  He ran up and down trees

  On his hands and his knees

  And eventually married a squirrel.

  chapter six

  As Qwilleran was going into the dining room for breakfast, Nick Bamba hailed him from the office. “Couple of things for you here, Qwill. One looks like the postcard from Polly you’ve been waiting for.”

  To exhibit his nonchalance, he put the postcard in his pocket and borrowed a paper knife to open the envelope. It contained a pair of complimentary tickets, fifth row on the aisle, for the opening of Pirates of Penzance.

  At the entrance to the dining room the hostess on duty was Cathy, the MCCC student.

  “Would you save me a table for four Sunday evening?”

  “In the window as usual?�
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  “Please. And how are reservations coming in for Friday?”

  “Very well! Is there something special?”

  “It’s opening night of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera at the auditorium. I’m reviewing it for the paper and have two complimentary tickets. Do you know anyone who could use the other one?”

  “I’m quite sure. Is it a good opera?”

  “Very clever. Very tuneful.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  He gave Cathy the second ticket, wondering what young innocent would be his seatmate and wishing Polly were in town.

  And after taking a table, and after some badinage with the waitress, and after deciding on French toast and sausage patties . . . Qwilleran looked at Polly’s first postcard.

  He expected to see a replica of an eighteenth-century village with an oxcart on a dirt road, surrounded by hens pecking in the ruts. Instead he saw an airport motel with a hundred-foot electric sign and a parking lot filled with cars. The message on the reverse side was in minuscule handwriting:

  Dear Qwill—Arrived safely. Luggage lost. Delivered in middle of night. Locks broken. Mona went to hospital with rhinitis caused by strong perfume on plane.

  Love, Polly

  Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. He had asked for more personal news, and Polly always aimed to please.

  alt="[image]"/>Around noon Qwilleran set out for his luncheon-interview with Bruce Abernethy. The doctor lived in the village of Black Creek. There were two Black Creeks, one wet and one dry, as the locals liked to say. The former flowed north to the lake and had been a major waterway in pioneer days, when the forests were being lumbered. It was wider and deeper in the nineteenth century and had the advantage of being straight—an important consideration when logs were being driven downstream in the spring. The “dry” half of the metaphor was the village on the east bank of the creek—although not completely dry; the Nutcracker Inn had a bar license, and there was a neighborhood pub behind the gas station. It had a roller-coaster history: a thriving community in the boom years; a bed of ashes after the Big Burning of 1869; a veritable phoenix in the Nineties; a ghost town after the economic collapse. During Prohibition there was a period of prosperity as rum runners brought their contraband from Canada and went up the creek to the railroad.

  When Qwilleran first arrived in Moose County from Down Below, the Limburger mansion stood like a grotesque monument to the past, but there was little else. Now Black Creek’s downtown had a post office, fire station and branch bank—plus a drugstore selling hardware, a grocery selling books and flowers, a gas station selling hamburgers, and a barbershop selling gifts.

  Qwilleran, on his way to the Abernethy house, stopped to buy flowers, which he handed to the doctor’s wife when she greeted him at the door. “Come in! Bruce is on the phone. . . . Oh, thank you! How did you know that daisies are my favorite? . . . The date of the MCCC luncheon has been set for July 27. That’s a Thursday. Is that agreeable with your busy schedule? Everyone is so pleased you’ve consented to join us!”

  “My pleasure,” he murmured. The invitation was more welcome than he revealed.

  The MCCC faculty had not crossed paths with the “Qwill Pen” columnist—nor had he pursued them. His fellow journalists considered them cliquish. Actually the college had a limited curriculum, and many members of the faculty commuted from Down Below to teach two or three days a week. Qwilleran had met the college president briefly when the man was escorting Fran Brodie to a reception. Otherwise, his sole contact was Burgess Campbell, who gave a lecture course in American history. A localite, Campbell frequented the men’s coffee shops that were a part of the Moose County culture.

  So the invitation to the luncheon was welcome. Contacts made there might open up a new source of “Qwill Pen” material.

  Nell was saying, “You’re going to love Bruce’s story. He’s told it only twice, I think, outside the family, so it will be more or less an exclusive for your book. When do you expect to have it published?”

  “As soon as I have enough tall tales to make a decent showing—not just ‘a slender volume,’ as the reviewers say.” He was trying not to stare above Nell’s head; there was a cuckoo clock on the foyer wall.

  “Will it be illustrated?” she asked.

  “That possibility hasn’t been discussed as yet, but it would help flesh out the volume and add to its desirability.”

  “I’ve done illustrating for magazines and would like to submit samples.”

  “By all means, do it!” Qwilleran said with sincerity.

  The doctor came hurrying from his study. “Sorry about the delay. Full speed ahead—to the Black Bear Café! It’s my treat.”

  “I’ll drive,” Qwilleran said. As they pulled away, he added, “Pleasant neighborhood here. Any problem with squirrels?”

  “Not since we frustrated them by putting power lines and cables underground. And notice that the trees are away from the house. There’s a brook back there and some fine black walnuts. They like proximity to water . . . so we have the problem licked. Until next week! Then their engineering minds will figure out a solution. There’s nothing like a squirrel for keeping you humble!”

  Qwilleran said, “Andy Brodie tells me you’re a fourth-generation doctor.”

  “And proud of it! My great-grandfather arrived on a sailing vessel from Canada in the early days of lumbering here. It was dangerous work. Axes, saw blades, falling trees and murderous fistfights took their toll. Every community had a sawmill, a rooming house and an undertaker who built pine coffins. And there were a lot of amputations in those days. The term ‘Dr. Sawbones’ was no joke. As families moved in, there were children’s diseases and the perils of childbirth. Visit an old cemetery, and you’ll be amazed at the number of women who died in their twenties. My grandfather—second generation—made house calls on horseback and did surgery by lamplight in homes that weren’t very clean. My father had an office in his front parlor, and patients came to him. He not only treated their ailments but tried to educate them about health and hygiene.”

  The Black Bear Café was in the town of Brrr, so named because of a sign writer’s slip-of-the-brush.

  Since it was the coldest spot in the county, the townfolk relished the humor of the mistake and enjoyed the distinction of a place-name without a vowel. The town was on a bluff overlooking a fine natural harbor, and on the crest was an old hotel dating from the lumbering era. Architecturally it was in the shoebox style—plain, with many small windows. Its notable feature was a sign that ran the length of the roof, announcing ROOMS . . . FOOD . . . BOOZE. The letters were large enough to be seen for miles, and it was a favorite hangout for boaters, who nicknamed it the Hotel Booze.

  Gary Pratt was the present owner, a young man with a lumbering gait and shaggy black beard. It was no wonder the café bore the name it did. When he acquired a mounted black bear as official greeter at the entrance, the picture was complete. Added to the restaurant’s attractions was its famous “bear burger,” considered the best ground-beef sandwich in the county. Certainly it was the largest.

  “What’s the Abernethy clan connection?” Qwilleran asked when they had taken seats in a booth.

  “Leslie of Aberdeenshire, dating back to the thirteenth century. Nell likes me to wear the kilt. Why don’t we promote a Scottish Night at the Nutcracker Inn?”

  “Andy could play the bagpipe,” Qwilleran suggested.

  “My daughter could dance the Highland Fling.”

  Bruce ordered a glass of red wine, and Qwilleran ordered coffee. Both said they would have burgers—but not right away. They had business to discuss.

  Qwilleran produced his tape recorder, and the doctor recounted a story that was later transcribed as “The Little Old Man in the Woods.”

  When I was eleven years old, we were living in a wooded area outside Fishport, and behind our property was the forest primeval—or so I thought. It was a dense grove of trees that had a sense of mystery for an eleven-year-old.
I used to go there to get away from my younger siblings and read about flying saucers. A certain giant tree with a spreading root system above ground provided comfortable seating in a kind of mossy hammock.

  I would sneak off on a Saturday afternoon with the latest science fiction magazine—and a supply of pears. You see, the early French explorers had planted pear trees up and down the lakeshore. To own “a French pear tree” was a mark of distinction. We had one that was still bearing luscious fruit. Before leaving on my secret Saturday reading binge, I would climb up into the tree and stuff my shirtfront with pears. Then I’d slink away into the forest.

  One day I was lounging between the huge roots of my favorite tree and reading in pop-eyed wonder about the mysteries of outer space, when I heard a rustling in the tree above me. I looked up, expecting a squirrel, and saw a pair of legs dangling from the mass of foliage: clunky brown shoes, woolly brown knee socks, brown leather breeches. A moment later, a small man dropped to the ground—or rather floated to earth. He was old, with a flowing gray moustache, and he wore a pointed cap like a woodpecker’s, with the brim pulled down over his eyes. Most amazingly, he was only about three feet tall.

  I wanted to say something like: Hello . . . Who are you? . . . Where did you come from? But I was absolutely tongue-tied. Then he began to talk in a foreign language, and I had seen enough World War II movies to know it was German.

  Now comes the strangest part: I knew what he was saying! His words were being interpreted by some kind of mental telepathy. He talked—in a kindly way—and I listened, spellbound. The more I heard, the more inspired and excited I became. He was talking about trees! That the tree is man’s best friend . . . It supplies food to eat, shade on a sunny day, wood to burn in winter, boards to build houses and furniture and boats . . . The greatest joy is to plant a tree, care for it, and watch it grow. What he did not say was something I had learned in school: That trees purify the air and contribute to the ecology of the planet!

  Then, before I knew it, he was gone! But I had changed! I no longer wanted to be an astronaut; I wanted to grow trees!