Cat Striking Back

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  When Dulcie returned, defeated by the high bolt-Joe was the master at slipping hard-to-manage bolts-she did a double take at Kit’s protruding cheeks. She watched in silence as Kit circled beneath the RV, spitting out a few nails beneath each tire. Seeing what the tortoiseshell was up to, Dulcie smiled and slipped under to help her.

  They pawed at each nail until they made it stand upright just beneath the tire. They had nearly finished when they heard footsteps approaching, loud on the hardwood floor. They dove back beneath the workbench as he came down the two concrete steps carrying another stack of boxes; they stared out at his feet as he set the boxes on the bench. They watched him return to the door, heard him lock it. This was the last load, then? Now they couldn’t get back inside to find Joe, and Dulcie began to fidget, watching the man nervously.

  They still couldn’t see his face, unless they came out where he could see them, where they’d be center stage beneath the torchlight. He was putting the boxes in through the RV’s side door when they heard a car out front and the voice of a police radio. Had Brennan come back? The man froze. He glanced at the electric torch but daren’t extinguish it now in case it shone out beneath the overhead door. He didn’t move as the brighter light of the cop’s torch skated along the thin crack-but then the crack darkened again. There was a long silence, as if the officer outside was waiting and watching. Had the soft light within the garage alerted him? Or was this, again, only routine? Or was this Brennan’s supper break? The cats imagined him sitting in his unit eating a giant burger and sipping from a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

  But then at last the unit backed out of the drive and moved on, its purring engine growing softer as it headed up the street. At once, the thief moved to the big garage door and stood with his ear against it, listening. He waited there for some time, but there was only silence from the street. Finally he loaded the last box and silently closed the door of the RV. Slipping into the driver’s seat, he activated the electric door with a remote that, at some point, he must have stolen. As he backed out, Dulcie and Kit, feeling the cold night air on their noses, longed for the freedom of the open night. The breeze was like a whisper urging them to run-but Dulcie thought of Joe and she didn’t move, she thought only of getting back in the house. Maybe he was hurt, injured by the heavy ashtray the man had thrown. The door started down.

  “We can get back in quicker from outside,” Kit said. The door was halfway down. “Run!” Kit said. “Run now!”

  Dulcie came to life. They fled beneath the closing door, jumping high over the red light that marked the electric eye. The door slammed behind them as they dove into the bushes.

  Kit said, “We never saw his face.” In the shadowy living room they’d seen only his back. From beneath the workbench they’d seen his wrinkled brown running shoes, his dark jeans, and a glimpse of his green windbreaker.

  “What did he smell of?” Dulcie said. She’d memorized his smell as he stood close above them, his personal male scent overlaid with something she should know but couldn’t identify. Something akin to catnip, only different. When they were certain the RV was gone, they fled around the house to the back. Dulcie bolted up the trellis and in through the bathroom window, frantic to find Joe, but Kit stopped on the balcony behind her, mewling softly to summon Tansy. She listened, then mewled again. She looked down at the yard, studying the dark and crowded bushes. “Tansy?”

  There was no answer and no pale movement among the shadows. She looked away toward the hills, worried that the scruffy little cat had gone on through the night alone. Praying that if Tansy was headed home, she would be wary and cautious and safe.

  23

  WHEN DULCIE HAD hissed at Tansy to run, Tansy obeyed as fast as her thin little legs would carry her. The sight of that man chasing Joe jarred to life every terrified kittenhood memory of such cruel men and sent her streaking away up the stairs and into the bathroom, leaping out the window and scrambling backward down the trellis, catching hanks of fur on the thorns. At the bottom she stood shivering, looking out into the night and watching the darkest shadows. She waited a long time for Kit to follow her, and all the while Dulcie’s words rang in her head, Go! Get out, both of you! And the stink of that man’s anger clung to her. As she listened for the other cats to emerge from the house, her heart pounded with fear for them. But she was too afraid to go back. There was only silence from the house behind her. When after a very long time Kit didn’t come, when no one came, she fled for the far hills and home, running blindly up through the dark village-until she realized she was lost, was crossing un- familiar streets through neighborhoods that she had never seen. She was lost and her sense of direction seemed to have abandoned her.

  She stood on an empty sidewalk on an unknown street among houses she was sure she had never seen. She listened. She sniffed the scents of this strange place, trying to smell something familiar, trying to find her direction.

  At last her pounding heart eased. At last, reclaiming her good cat sense and determination, she scrambled up the nearest pine tree to the nearest roof where she could see better.

  Well, of course! There were the hills, black humps like the backs of huge animals, their familiar curves caught in faintest moonlight against the night sky. There were the hills and there was home, and she ran leaping from roof to roof until the houses stood too far apart, then she scrambled down to the gardens. And away she went, racing through weedy grass and up into the open hills, racing for the ruin’s jagged and protective walls that rose like a palace against the blowing clouds.

  Fleeing for home, she wondered why she had ever gone among humans? This always happened, this violence from humans. Her mouth and nose still reeked of the smell of that man, the smell of human rage. On she raced, her senses sharply alert for predators. She was passing the house with dirt piled in its yard when she smelled something other than a predator. She smelled death.

  Human death?

  She froze in place, looking all around. Why would there be a dead person here? She was frowning, studying the house when she saw something pale stir on the hill above, a small, feeble movement. She crouched warily, looking. She reared up, stretching tall, scenting the air, and it was then that she smelled him. She ran straight up the hill to him, streaked up through the grass and crouched beside him, her paws going cold. “Sage? Oh, Sage.”

  He didn’t move or speak, he lay unnaturally hunched. But he was alive, his eyes looked into hers, filled with pain. When she snuggled carefully beside him, touching him with her nose, he pressed against her shivering, his body rigid and tight.

  “What?” she said softly. “What happened?” She looked around into the night, but she saw nothing, now, that could have attacked him. She could smell no coyote or other animal, and certainly no human-except for the stench of a dead person that came from the house below.

  Above them a raft of clouds blew past, again freeing the fickle moon, and down the hill, the house and the pale drive and the walks brightened. The dirt pile lit up along its side and the tiled roof became a tangle of curved shadows. The smell of death sickened her, and then the wind came straight at her and she smelled that man, too. The man she had run from. How could he be there when he was down in the village in that house?

  “A human hurt you…did this to you?”

  “He’s gone,” Sage said. “A long time ago.”

  “What did he do…what happened?”

  “He threw a hard tool at me, a hammer. Threw it through the window where I was watching him. It came through straight at me, broke the glass, I wasn’t quick enough.”

  “Why did he?” She licked his face. “What did you do to make him so mad? To make him hurt you?”

  Sage rose stiffly and started down the hill, limping badly.

  “Stay still, you’ll hurt yourself more.”

  Ignoring her, he headed for the house, every line of his body showing pain and anger. She followed him until, approaching the garage, the smell of death hit her so hard she turned away, gagging.
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  “Come where the window is,” he said impatiently. “Mind the glass. Come where we can see in.” Crawling painfully up onto the stack of lumber, trying to avoid the jagged shards, he put his paws on the sill, looking in between knives of glass. She hopped up beside him.

  “See that ditch?”

  She looked at the deep fissure. “Why is there a ditch there?” She looked at the dirty concrete floor where earth had been hauled out, at the muddy footprints.

  “There’s a dead woman down there. That man went down in the ditch and dug the hole deeper, then he brought her in his car and carried her down the ladder and covered her up with dirt.” Sage turned to look at her, the pupils of his eyes huge and dark-with fear, with anger. “That’s not how humans bury their dead. Even I know that. This was sneaky, stealthy. When he saw me watching, he went white and grabbed the hammer and threw it.”

  Tansy looked back at him, surprised not so much by what the man had done-humans would do anything-but because, maybe for the first time in his life, Sage was paying attention to something outside the clowder; he was enraged by something that was not a part of their world. From Sage’s standpoint, the hiding of a dead human would have nothing to do with a cat’s proper business-until the man had hurt him. She guessed that made it his business.

  She said, “I saw him earlier, in the village. He was stealing from a house, we watched him. He threw something at Joe Grey and chased him.”

  Sage’s eyes widened. “Did he hurt Joe?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking down in shame. “I ran…I should have gone back. But I must go back,” she said. “I have to see if they’re all right, I have to tell them that he came here and that he buried someone. Why would he bury a woman? Unless…Did he kill her? That is a crime in the human world, humans will want to find him and punish him. We-”

  But now Sage turned reluctant. “This has nothing to do with us. This is not a matter for cats.”

  “Then why did you show me?”

  “Because he hurt me. I’m going home where it’s safe.”

  She sat looking at him. “You spent weeks among humans when you were hurt before. Humans cared for you, they pampered you, gave you nice things to eat, made soft beds for you-humans saved your life, Sage!”

  “Come on, Tansy.” He eased down from the sill and off the lumber pile with a grunt of pain. “We need to go. This is human business.” Expecting her to follow, he limped away, heading up the hill.

  Tansy did follow. She dare not let him travel home alone when he was nearly helpless-yet she was ashamed to let him stop her from what she must do. If they didn’t tell the village cats what Sage had seen, maybe no human would ever know that a dead woman lay there hidden in that ditch. Somewhere, a woman was missing. And no one would ever learn where she had gone.

  24

  EARLIER IN THE Longley house, when Dulcie and Kit dove into the recess beneath the stairs, Joe Grey had slid around the corner and into the shadows of a hall, stopping, dead ended, at a closet door. Frantically he had pawed it open as the man searched the living room. Slipping inside and beneath a tangle of coats, he pulled the door closed with a hasty paw, thanking the great cat god that the hinges were silent. He didn’t dare let it latch, even the smallest click would crack like a rifle shot. This wasn’t smart, shutting himself in such a trap. If the guy jerked the door open, he’d have to be quick to get out, to save his furry neck. The closet stunk of damp wool, and of dog urine on the tip of an umbrella that was propped in the corner.

  As the man’s heavy footsteps approached, he leaped up between a trench coat and a black peacoat, digging his claws into the thick wool. Hanging there with the claws of all four feet busily engaged, he hoped the damn rod wouldn’t give way.

  The footsteps paused just outside. The door opened and the man knelt, looking in beneath the coats. He picked up the umbrella and poked it into the dark corners. Then he gave a cross “Hmph,” shut the door, and went back down the hall.

  Dropping carefully to the floor, Joe pressed against the door. He listened for some time to the guy searching for him. Finally he must have given up, because Joe heard him return to filling his boxes with books. He imagined Dulcie and Kit watching from beneath the stairs-he’d heard Dulcie hiss at Tansy to run, had heard the smaller cat’s racing footfalls on the floor above.

  He waited, it seemed, for a very long time before he heard the guy walk heavily away toward the garage, as if loaded down with another stack of boxes. When he’d gone, Joe leaped at the knob, grabbed it between his paws and swung until he could kick the door open. Peering out, he whispered for Dulcie.

  There was no answer. He waited, listening. There was no sound. When the man didn’t return, he was about to slip out and look for her and Kit when he heard the garage door rise and the RV pull out-and a chill hit him.

  Had they followed the guy and slipped into the RV intent on shadowing him, on finding out where he was taking the stolen property?

  That would be like them. Both females were as nosy as a bloodhound on the scent. Frightened for them, he raced up the stairs and out the bathroom window, hoping to see which way the RV headed, thinking to call the station and report the burglar, get a be-on-the-lookout started. He could think of nothing else to do.

  Racing across the roof to the edge, he saw the dark vehicle moving slowly away, up the street. He fled across the shingles after it, with a giant leap to the next roof, and the next, praying that Dulcie and Kit weren’t inside being hauled away to who knew where. He was scorching down a pine tree, where the roofs were too far apart, when the RV slowed and pulled into the Beckers’ drive. As he fled through the bushes for the Beckers’ yard, he heard their garage door open.

  The RV disappeared inside, and the door rolled down again. This guy must sweat every time the sound of an electric door broke the night’s silence, as he hastened to conceal his intrusion. How did he have openers for these houses? How, for that matter, had he known these particular houses were empty? Joe approached the Becker house beneath a low-growing pepper tree. Within seconds he was clinging to the wrought-iron grille beside the Beckers’ front door. Though his big paws weren’t as clever as Tansy’s, with persistence and with tomcat muscle he soon slipped the window open and bellied inside.

  Leaving the window open for a quick departure, he listened for sounds from the garage. A sudden scurrying behind him made him spin around.

  Dulcie came sliding through the window and into the dark entry hall, uttering a little mewl of relief at finding him there. Kit exploded through behind her. Both cats were panting.

  “Might as well try to catch a racehorse,” Dulcie said, “as to track you. You must have flown across the roofs. What…?” She went quiet at the sound, from the direction of the garage, of a knob turning.

  They heard the inner door creak open. Footsteps approached fast, as if he was certain the house was empty-and as if he was familiar with the layout. There was no handy place to hide from him, and the cats fled in three directions. Joe spun toward the stairs and up out of sight. Kit leaped onto the rosewood bookcase, where she froze between two decoratively carved boxes, her mottled coat blending with both. Dulcie slipped into the African basket, her dark stripes melting into its patterns. The burglar had traversed the short distance to the entry hall, where he paused within touching distance of Dulcie and Kit, noticing neither camouflaged cat.

  From the shadowed stairs, Joe peered down into the living room, thanking the great god who had effectively crippled human night vision. He had sensibly tucked his head down to hide his white paws and chest, hoping, if he was seen, that he’d resemble one of those life-size cats that people brought home from the gift shops of airports-wouldn’t that be a shocker if this guy picked him up expecting a stuffed replica and got a fistful of fighting tomcat.

  Again the burglar was well prepared, with a stack of empty boxes. Moving on through the foyer, he began to strip the living room of all the small pieces, intricately patterned handmade pillows, small c
arved chests. For nearly an hour the cats posed, unmoving, rigid in their grandstand seats as the busy burglar packed up rugs and accessories, carved side tables, and the paintings from the walls. He even had newspapers to pack up the expensive-looking porcelain and protect the delicate tables, and he seemed to know exactly what he wanted. Dulcie imagined a computer inside his head ticking off dollar signs, toting up the value of each separate piece. When he seemed about to finish in the living room, Joe left his perch on the stairs and the cats crawled uncomfortably beneath the lowest shelf of the teak table. A tight squeeze but a better hiding place, putting them at eye level with his shoes as he made trip after trip carrying his treasures to the garage. This guy had planned with care, from acquiring the garage door openers to inventorying the contents of the designated houses. There seemed to be no hesitation, no misstep. The question was, how did he know these houses so well?

  They could hear him out in the garage loading the boxes into his RV, which must be getting pretty full. Returning, he went through the rest of the rooms, upstairs and down, carrying away the nicest treasures. Last of all, he opened the hall closet and started loading up the packages and sealed boxes.

  The deep closet, crowded with Frances ’s wrapped treasures, proved her to indeed be an avid collector. Dulcie guessed she had to be a topflight accountant to afford the luxuries with which the house was furnished. By the time the burglar had made only two trips carrying taped boxes and brown-paper packages, Joe had worked out his plan and was tensed to spring into action. As the man headed away on his third trip, Joe slipped down the stairs to have a look at the closet door.

  The doorknobs on both sides were simple round ones. The lock was installed above the knobs. There was no corresponding bolt inside, not your usual safety arrangement. If you were inside, and someone locked the door, you’d be trapped. And that made the tomcat smile.