by Mark Tufo
***
“Humans are good, Cat,” Ben-Ben said as he licked clean the can of what Jessie called stew. “You don’t know anything.” He finished, looking up, his snout covered in stew goo.
“This one is, I agree,” she answered, shielding her stew can from Ben-Ben’s eager nose. “Get out!” she said loudly, “You already ate!”
“Why are you taking so long? Do you need some help with it?” Ben-Ben asked as he began to push her out of the way.
“You move any closer to my food and I’m sticking my claws in you!”
Ben-Ben immediately backed up, his rear end pressed up against the car outside viewer. “Is this far enough away?” he asked with genuine terror.
“Outside would be preferable but that’s far enough away for now,” Patches said with a small note of humor.
She began to tease him as she would take a small bite of her food, slowly chew it and then meticulously clean off her whiskers. Ben-Ben was leaving a small pool of drool as he kept staring at her food can. I had also finished mine and the hurting part of the hunger was mostly gone, but I could have eaten another can. I wasn’t going to let the cat know that, though.
Jessie had the baby outside and was walking around the car with him in her arms; she was talking animatedly as she got him to eat some food. He smelled and looked better. I still didn’t feel good about him.
As if Patches knew what I was thinking, she spoke. “The baby is not well.”
“I am not in the mood to listen to you anymore, Cat.” I was angry because I thought she might be smarter, that she really didn’t need any of us and that she was pointing out something I feared. It wasn’t truly her fault, but all the same I was tired of it. Of her.
“Nevertheless, the baby, I fear, is going to die.”
I jumped in the backseat, her can of food spilled onto the floor, I revealed my teeth, I was within a whiskers’ length from her head. The cat was afraid and I was happy for it. “Do not trifle with me, Cat, there is nowhere for you to hide now.”
I’ll give the cat credit she stood her ground, the hair on her back was raised and I knew she had her claws ready for action, I could kill her, but she would draw blood.
“I see things, Riley, things humans and dogs do not,” she said, trying her best to move slightly to get her dangerous claws up if she needed to.
“I can smell things you can’t even dream exist,” I spat out.
“Riley, I’m sure you can. This has nothing to do with your nose. The infant carries a cloud around itself like a fake skin.”
“The white softness in the sky that hides the burning disc sometimes?” I asked.
“No, this is black. And not like rain clouds.”
“Why can I not see this?”
“George believed me.”
“He did?” I asked, my lips slipping back into their normal place.
“Do you remember when Alpha Male’s sire came to stay with us?”
“I was still a puppy, but he was always so nice to me, he used to play with me for hours.”
“He came to be with his pack before he died, I told George as much. It is something the humans called a custom; they care for each other before they pass over.”
“Pass over to where?”
“We’ll talk about that later. But I told George and he didn’t try to rip my face off because of it. He loved the Alpha’s sire and made sure to spend as much time as he could with the old two-legger before he went for good.”
“I kind of remember that, I just figured it was because the human was giving him extra snacks.”
“I knew when George was getting close too.”
“You did? Did you tell him?”
“No, but he realized what was going on when I started spending more time with him.”
“I wish George was here.”
“Can I eat the wet meat?” Ben-Ben asked, staring intently at the spilled food.
“No!” Patches and I said at the same time.
Ben-Ben whined and sat back down, his eyes skipping back and forth between me and Patches and the food.
“Does the cloud always mean a passing?” I asked the cat. Her lack of response told me what I needed to know. Ben-Ben, at some point while I was thinking about this, had got onto the floor of the car and was slowly crawling toward the stew.
This time I left him alone as I turned and hopped back into the front so I could think about what the cat had told me. Jessie was straight ahead, frowning at the baby who was refusing anymore food.
