How to Moon a Cat

by Rebecca M. Hale

  “Yes, well, hmm,” Carlin replied. “I’ll keep that in mind. Meanwhile, the weather conditions for the race couldn’t be better. The sun is shining down on this lovely boulevard, but the temperature is still relatively mild. There’s a light breeze in the air, but it won’t do more than give the riders a nice cooling as they make their final laps through the downtown area.”

  Spigot stroked the point of his narrow chin. “What do you think of the run in to the finish line, Harry? Are we going to see a sprint today?”

  “It’s three circuits around the downtown loop, flat, with plenty of room for the teams to line up their sprinters. I’d say we’ve got perfect conditions for a real neck-and-neck all the way to the line.”

  Spigot leaned forward eagerly. “Yes, we’ll tell the crew to get their cameras ready, because this might well be a photo finish.” He glanced at a sign being held up by their producer and cleared his throat. “Now, let’s catch you up on the action out on the road so far.

  “After the, ahem, delay getting out of the starting gate, there was an early breakaway of about ten riders. The peloton—that’s the term we use for the main group of riders—has kept them on a tight leash, though. There’s never been more than about a twelve-minute time gap between them, and with the flat terrain of the last fifty kilometers, the peloton should have no trouble catching them before the finish.”

  Carlin glanced slyly at Spigot. “Is that your prediction, then?”

  “That the peloton will catch the breakaway?” Spigot nodded his head emphatically. “Yes. Absolutely.”

  Carlin smiled warmly. “I think we’re in agreement there. Can’t see it playing out any other way today.” His expression grew more serious. “Let’s see. We also need to brief you on a bit of a mishap the riders ran into on the road outside of Auburn.”

  “Oh, this was a spectacular crash,” Spigot said luridly as he hunched forward and tapped the arm of a production assistant. “I think we have the video to show you . . . Ah, there it is. See that rider in the bright pink shirt? He’s right in the middle of the pack. The road takes a slight turn coming around the bend. There must have been some loose gravel on the surface and . . . oh! Down he goes!”

  Carlin somberly cleared his throat as the television screen zoomed in on a thrashing pile of bodies and bikes. “Yes, well, as you can see, he took a good part of the peloton with him. Luckily, everyone was able to piece themselves back together again. A couple of bikes had to be switched out, but the team cars are always prepared for that. There were a few scrapes and bruises on the riders, no doubt.”

  Spigot was still plastered to the gory picture on the monitor. “Ooh, see there? That one’s got a nice-looking rash on his upper thigh. That’s going to hurt in the morning.”

  “You know, William,” Carlin said professorially. “This crash happened very near a place of great historic importance to the state of California. Do you know what that is?”

  Spigot turned toward his broadcasting partner, his narrow face flattening into a cynical expression. “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “They were but a few kilometers away from the sawmill where James Marshall discovered the first gold nuggets that set off the California Gold Rush,” Carlin said enthusiastically.

  Spigot smirked wryly. “Perhaps that’s what that pinkshirted rider was thinking of when he miscalculated that turn. Shame, that. Well, as we said, everybody made it safely out of the pileup, and the riders are now approaching Sacramento. Soon, they’ll enter a loop that will make three laps through the downtown area. The breakaway is still out in front of the peloton, but the gap has gone down dramatically over the last half hour. Harry, how much of a lead have they got now?”

  Carlin bent over a small computer located on the side of the broadcast booth that collected data from the riders’ progress out on the course and used it to calculate their predicted finish times.

  “Let me check the computer . . . there it is. The peloton is trailing the breakaway group by just under two minutes.”

  Spigot shrugged confidently. “Ack, they’ll be caught. Does the computer say they’ll be caught?”

  There was a pause while Carlin fiddled with the keyboard. “The computer thinks they’ll be caught,” he confirmed confidently.

  Spigot nodded wisely into the camera. “Don’t tell that to the boys up front. They think they’ve got a shot at staying away to the finish line. They’re still dreaming of victory.”

  Carlin switched his attention to the color monitor transmitting the live feed from the course. “We can see from the picture on the video cameras that the lead riders are now turning the corner at L and 26th to begin their first downtown lap,” he said, squinting at the screen. “That building in the background is Sutter’s Fort, I believe. Say, that’s another historic venue I meant to tell you about . . .”

  WITH ISABELLA’S DIRECTIONAL assistance, I managed to navigate around several race-related roadblocks to find a shaded parking space for the van on the far side of the park that held Sutter’s Fort.

  Monty was still snoozing loudly when I cut the engine. I turned back to Isabella and put my finger to my lips. She reached out her paw to tap on her carrier’s metal grate.

  After rolling down the driver’s side window a couple of inches, I carefully opened my door. I stepped quietly out and, holding my breath, gently pressed it shut. I hurried around to the rear of the van and gripped the back door handle.

  With a hopeful grimace, I pulled the lever toward me. There was a slight clink of metal and a low squeal of hinges, but Monty appeared to still be fast asleep when I reached into the cargo area and lifted out the stroller. Once I’d reconfigured it to cat-carrying mode, I crawled back in to get Isabella.

  “Wrao,” she demanded impatiently as I unhooked the latch to her door.

  Rupert was dozing peacefully, so I decided to leave him in the van with Monty. He let out a wheezing snore as I opened his carrier and set a bowl of water on the floor beside it. Then, I scooted a retreat out the back.

  With a last check on the van’s two sleeping occupants, I cracked open a second window and locked the doors. Several tall redwoods blocked the overhead sun, shading the van. I felt confident the interior would remain cool for the short time it would take Isabella and me to check out the fort.

  A group of ten furiously pedaling cyclists zoomed by on the cordoned-off race route as I began pushing the stroller down a sandy path leading into the back side of the park. A sandwich placard set up on the grass next to a clump of redwoods caught my eye.

  TODAY AT SUTTER FORT:

  THE WORLD’S BEST CYCLISTS

  ARE OTHERWISE PREOCCUPIED;

  SEVERAL A-LIST CELEBRITIES

  ARE IN TOWN BUT WILL NOT BE APPEARING.

  INSTEAD, WE’RE SURE YOU’LL ENJOY

  THE PRESENTATION OF

  MARK TWAIN

  IMPERSONATOR

  CLEMENT SAMUELS.

  Chapter 29

  SUTTER’S FORT

  WE FOLLOWED THE inevitable trail of teaser placards around the park to the front of Sutter’s Fort. Isabella called out an alert at each one to ensure I didn’t lose my way.

  Surrounded by green grass and yucca plants, the historic state park was a frequent day-trip destination for local schoolchildren. A large group of short-statured munchkins milled around the fort entrance as I approached.

  Constructed in the early 1840s, these whitewashed brick walls had formed the cornerstone of Swiss immigrant John Sutter’s ambitious trading and agricultural enterprise. In its heyday, the stronghold of Sutter’s Fort provided a fullservice rest stop for travelers through the region—those depleted from the trek over the Sierras and those gearing up for the climb. Sutter was well on his way toward achieving his vision of a new Swiss empire when he lost it all in the sweeping social upheaval of the Gold Rush.

  Soon after the discovery of gold near a watermill in the nearby Sierra foothills, Sutter’s vast estate was overrun by hordes of fortune-hun
ting Forty-Niners. Sutter was besieged from all sides: he couldn’t keep gold-seeking trespassers off his property, and he couldn’t persuade his gold-infatuated employees to stay on it long enough to complete their work. Sutter’s once-vast manual labor force abandoned their posts to search for gold, leaving fields unplowed and stock untended. The estate crumbled before his eyes. That which wasn’t ransacked by vagrant miners quickly fell into ruin from lack of maintenance.

  I paused to survey the thriving city surrounding the park square. What had once been the focal point of an agricultural empire encompassing some fifty thousand acres now sat, incongruously, in the middle of Sacramento’s downtown business district. A sizeable medical center, a church, and several office and apartment buildings looked out on the remnants of the square sentry and cannon portals Sutter had positioned atop each of the fort’s four corners.

  In addition to his vast estate, I reflected as I dodged a spontaneous game of tag that had broken out near the fort’s flagpole, Sutter had also been known for his eccentricities. In the years before his precipitous downfall, Sutter paraded around Northern California as a self-proclaimed general, an assertion that no doubt irked the territory’s Mexican rulers. But since the closest Mexican troops were over a hundred miles to the south (under the command of the legitimately titled General Castro), there was no formal objection to Sutter’s delusional proclamations.

  As the Sacramento Valley began to attract increasing numbers of independent-minded Americans, however, the Mexican authorities became more and more wary of Sutter’s growing spread. It was at Sutter’s Fort, after all, where locals first heard rumors that the Mexican government was planning to tighten its loose apron strings on the region, send in troops to round up the American immigrants, and force them all to either declare their allegiance to the Mexican authorities or leave.

  Many suspected U.S. Army Captain John Frémont was the one responsible for spreading these inflammatory rumors—the explorer made several stops at Sutter’s Fort during his mapping expedition of the Oregon Territory. Frémont had high expectations about both the future of California and the role he would play in bringing it into the American fold. The Pathfinder’s blustery entrance to the scene triggered a chain of events that would forever change control of the region—whether the American government was ready for it or not.

  I PUSHED THE stroller up to the ticket counter as Clem’s resonant stage voice echoed from inside the fort. While fishing through my shoulder bag for the admittance fee, I caught a glimpse of Clem’s linen-clad figure standing on the flat top of a horse wagon in the fort’s open center area. He was about to begin his act for an audience of enraptured schoolchildren and their adult caretakers.

  I slid my five-dollar bill across the counter to the park attendant manning the ticket booth, thankful that she was too distracted by the next busload of children queuing up behind me to notice the feline passenger in my stroller. Isabella sat quietly but attentively in the carriage compartment as I pushed the stroller into the fort’s rectangular courtyard.

  The fort’s open interior spread out over more than an acre. A ringed layer of rooms was built inward from the fifteen-foot-high, whitewashed brick wall that formed the perimeter. The main living quarters were located near the center of the fort, while the perimeter rooms were designated for livestock pens, leather tanning, and a small row of holding cells.

  A group of volunteers decked out in period costume simulated tasks around the grounds to help visitors envision what the fort had been like in its pre–Gold Rush prime: a pair of men in heavy leather aprons demonstrated blacksmithing, a woman and two children in homespun pioneer garb prepared a gooey bowl of dough in one of the kitchens, and a soot-covered cook stirred the coals of a freestanding wood stove as he monitored a previously made lump that was now baking into bread.

  Amid all this busy activity, Clem commanded the wagon’s makeshift stage, which was set up in the middle of the courtyard. He wore the same costume he’d used for his Nevada City performance: a rumpled linen suit, tattered black bow tie, and lace-up ankle boots. His feet thunked heavily across the wagon’s rough wooden boards as he started in on the beginning of his monologue.

  “Now, I presume that introductions are unnecessary?” Clem asked as he leaned out over the edge of the wagon toward the front row of children and made a series of exaggerated facial contortions. I smiled as the youngsters tittered in amusement. A little girl’s enthusiastic hand shot up, and she called out excitedly, “I know who you are! I know who you are!”

  An exhibit on the history of the fort was housed in the rooms built into the perimeter wall to the right of the entrance. Since I had a few minutes to spare before Clem caught up to the part of the performance where I had left him at the Nevada Theatre, I wandered into the open door of the display area to look around.

  As I pushed the stroller inside, Isabella and I were immediately greeted by a life-sized wax figure of John Sutter. He was a pale, balding, mustached man in a long coat, buttoned vest, and frumpy neck scarf. From his sharp disapproving gaze, I got the distinct impression that General Sutter would not have appreciated my intrusion onto his property.

  That, or he hadn’t been fond of cats, I thought as Isabella stared up at him, her brow furrowed in a bewildered manner.

  “He’s not real, Issy,” I assured her as the stroller bumped over the rough concrete floor past the wax figure.

  I followed the indicated path into the rest of the exhibit. A series of posters detailed Sutter’s early life in Europe, his journey to California, and his relationship with General Mariano Vallejo, the local representative of the Mexican military who had resided in the unmanned garrison at nearby Sonoma. With no troops serving under him, Vallejo’s “General” moniker had been almost as impotent as Sutter’s.

  Clem’s voice continued in the courtyard as I rounded a corner into the second room of the exhibit. “Our story begins with John C. Frémont . . . ”

  Right on cue, I found myself face-to-face with a portrait of the famous Pathfinder. He was depicted as a serious young man with an innocent-looking expression engulfed by a thick tangled beard. Positioned next to Frémont was a picture of the Bear Flag with which he was now so inextricably linked.

  The Bear Flag in the frame was a photograph of a replica that had been created at the fifty-year anniversary of the Bear Flag Revolt. This flag had the same general layout and design as the current state flag. A five-pointed star was affixed on the upper left-hand corner, and a red banner ran across the bottom. Next to the star stood a bear, positioned with all four feet on the ground beneath it.

  I studied the flag’s bear, recalling the passage from Oscar’s DeVoto book that had described the original animal as “standing on its hind legs.” Who had changed the position of the bear on later flags? I wondered again. And why had Oscar written the notation about the bear into the margin next to that text?

  Local Indians, passing through Sonoma after the revolt, ridiculed the animal on the flag, calling it a pig or a stoat.

  “I could see someone confusing this bear with a pig,” I mumbled to Isabella as I stared at the beast’s heavy floorscraping belly, “. . . but a stoat?”

  “Wrao.”

  I glanced down at the stroller where Isabella was pawing at the netting.

  “Wrao,” she repeated.

  “No, no,” I replied sternly. “No more escapes . . . ”

  And then I saw what had caught Isabella’s attention. There on the dusty floor beneath the Bear Flag display case, propped up against a dimly lit corner, sat a little stuffed bear holding a California state flag.

  My fingers trembled as I reached down to pick it up. I blew off a dusting of spiderwebs as I turned the tiny paper flag so that I could read the two lines of gold-lettered script on the back: BEAR FLAG MEMORIAL, SONOMA PLAZA.

  Chapter 30

  A DELICATE CONSTITUTION

  MONTY SLOUCHED IN the van’s front passenger seat, his bony frame limp with sleep. His face twitched wit
h the slight crease of an eager-to-please smile.

  “Why yes, Mayor, absolutely,” he mumbled groggily. “I’d go with the dark blue tie. It brings out the color of your eyes.”

  His head flopped wildly from one shoulder to the other. “No, no, I’d use the sterling silver cufflinks,” he said, his speech markedly slurred. “They make you look more gubernatorial.”

  Monty smacked his lips together. “Sacramento? Mayor, sir, you know my heart’s in San Francisco . . . ”

  A trickle of drool began to run down Monty’s chin as he continued to sputter out words from his dream. “Me? Why, I’d be honored. You’d be leaving the city in capable hands, I can assure you . . . ”

  His lower jaw dropped to his chest, leaving his mouth gaping open. A large fly zoomed through the two-inch opening at the top of the passenger side window and buzzed curiously toward the black hole.

  Monty’s lips suddenly clamped shut, thwarting the fly at the last moment. His mouth formed a slobbering pucker as he murmured, “Just need to get my photo album started . . . ”

  HAROLD WOMBLER’S PICKUP slowly circled Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park, weaving around the barricades set up for the bike race as he looked for Monty’s large white van. He found it parked in a slot beneath a clutch of redwoods, around the block from the fort’s main entrance.

  After scoping out the surrounding area to ensure he wouldn’t draw immediate police attention, Harold pulled to a stop in the middle of the street, double-parking behind the rear of the van. With an aching groan, he engaged the parking brake, gathered the frogs into their terrarium, and clambered out the cab of the pickup.