Cat Striking Back (12 page)

F
ROM THE STREET
above, he watched the yellow roadster nose in between two pickups near the dirt pile. As the couple got out, he pulled his car farther off the street, in among the stand of cypress trees, whose five dark trunks thrust up out of the earth like a huge hand, like the mangrove trees in Florida, where they'd lived for a couple of years. With his car better hidden, he sat taking in the scene below. Did he know the man in the roadster? Why did he look familiar? It was a small village, but he'd lived here only two years. He thought maybe he'd seen him around that upscale car agency, going in and out of the automotive repair shop. Maybe giving the mechanics orders? He liked to buy his beer at the liquor store across the street. Standing in the cool interior, he'd glance over there at the foreign cars in the agency window, thinking what kind he'd buy when they'd made a big enough haul. If this guy was the head mechanic or the owner, then the last name was probably Damen, as on the sign out front. Squarely
built, dark, short hair, not particularly good looking. He wondered what the woman saw in him.

The house below him was a one-story stucco with a red tile roof, the typical pseudo Mediterranean of the area. At the far end, a blue tarp had been secured over the roof as if there was a leak there. Weird that they were working on Sunday. How could they hire people on Sunday? Didn't the unions control when men could work?

The garage door was open but from this angle he could see inside for only a few feet. He could hear someone digging in there, and as the couple approached, a strongly built, redheaded man emerged. Red hair, red beard. Plaid shirt and muddy jeans, muddy boots and a shovel in his hand. Behind him the sound of digging continued. Outside the garage beside the tall heap of earth was a pile of broken concrete. Slipping out of the car, he hunkered down beside it, looking. But even at the lower angle he could see in only another two feet.

The cement floor was tracked with mud, as was the drive: spills of dirt, muddy boot prints, and the kind of single, muddy tire track a wheelbarrow would make as they hauled out the dirt to pile in the yard. He wanted to see this drain. He wanted to hear what they might say about it. He wasn't any expert on construction, but he couldn't imagine why they'd dig a drain in a cement-floored garage. From the amount of earth that had come out of it, the thing had to be huge.

Well, they weren't only digging in the garage, part of the dirt must have come from a raw ditch alongside the wall of the house. They'd replaced some windows, too; there
was a stack of old windows out front, leaning against a tree. How long did these people plan to stay here on a Sunday afternoon? He wondered if, when they did leave, they'd lock the garage doors. He grew so nervous with the frustration of waiting that he had to use the inhaler again. He hated the bother of carrying it around.
She
said he was lucky to have it. When at last his breathing came easier, and when they were all inside the garage and the digging was louder, as if maybe more than one man was working, he slipped down the hill, staying under the cover of the descending cypress trees, and crouched just above the garage to listen. But then, hunkered among the prickly foliage, he had to wait until the digging eased enough so he could hear.

They were talking about the roof. Soon the three came out again, forcing him to melt back deeper into the stickery shadows. They stood turned away from him, looking up at the tile roof.

The redheaded man must be the foreman. He said the new tiles would be delivered by the end of the week. That made the woman frown. “First of the week is supposed to be clear, between rains. Can't they get them here Tuesday? I'll give them a call Monday morning.” The way she talked, you'd think she was the boss on the job. Well, you wouldn't catch
him
working for a woman.

But when she said, “If the gravel and cement are on schedule, we can pour before lunch. This'll be finished easily, Monday afternoon,” a nervous excitement filled him. They were going to dump gravel in the hole and then pour cement, and he had to have a look in there, had to see what could be her grave.

He wondered how they could get a gravel truck in under that low roof. Maybe they'd have to dump it on the driveway and wheelbarrow it in? Seemed like that would take all day. He hoped not. If this
was
the place he wanted, then he wanted to see it done quickly, before they discovered anything amiss. He wanted to be finished with it so he could head on up the coast.

Head up the coast alone,
he thought with a sudden jolt. His hands began to sweat, and he wiped them on his jeans, tried to concentrate on the business at hand.

The man and woman got back in the roadster and headed away, down the hills. Inside the garage the others kept working, and he settled in among the cypress trees for a long wait, listening to the digging and thinking about her, thinking about the jobs they'd pulled—feeling shaky again.

It was maybe an hour later when two Latino men appeared from the garage and got into the smaller pickup. The redheaded man came out, swung into the bigger pickup and activated the garage door to close it. As the two trucks took off down the hill, he realized that fog was rolling in, it hung low and dense over the village already hiding the rooftops and the sea beyond.

He waited awhile after they'd gone, then returned to the car. He fetched a few small tools from the glove compartment, leaving the shovel on the floor of the backseat, and went down to have a look. Moving around the side of the garage to try the pedestrian door, he crossed the line of fresh dirt where they'd dug along that side. Maybe they'd buried a pipe there. Pausing, he looked up the hill that rose just a few feet from the side of the garage. Maybe
they'd laid a pipe to carry away the runoff, as if a deluge of water came down here during heavy rains. Was that the reason for the drain in the garage, to carry away the runoff from the hill? Curious, he walked around to the back of the house where the hill dropped steeply away.

He was surprised to find another whole floor down there. A daylight basement visible only as you went around the side. It had large windows facing the drop, a smaller window on the side where he stood. When he pressed his face to the glass he saw that the room was finished inside, a big room, plastered and painted white.

But along the bottom of the walls ran a brown stain maybe two feet high where muddy water had come in. And the carpet had been taken up, too, he could see the tack holes in the water-stained, warped plywood. This lower floor had flooded bad, so that
was
what the drain was about. He wondered what would happen if the drain didn't work, if the house flooded again after all this added cost and labor. Wondered who would pay for that. Well, he guessed the woman contractor would, if that's what she was. If it didn't flood, he guessed she'd make a nice piece of cash off this one.

He wondered what would happen to the body if the drain flooded. But with rock and cement holding it down, what could happen? And, he thought hopefully, maybe the contractor knew what she was doing after all.

Returning to the side door of the garage, he fished out his lock picks and got to work. It took him maybe ten minutes, finessing the tumblers, to slide back the bolt and slip inside, locking the door behind him. He stood looking at the drain.

Damned hole was big enough to bury an army. It spanned the width of the double garage just inside the rear wall, running some twenty feet. It was maybe three feet wide and deeper than a man was tall. If this
was
a drain, there'd been a hell of a flood here. Why would anyone waste their time on a house that flooded like that?

But with prices what they were on the California coast, maybe this made sense. The dirt at the bottom of the pit was roughly raked, and a series of four-inch-wide plastic pipes had been laid the full length, disappearing into the earth at either end. He imagined them running underground, connecting to drainpipes that would stick out of the lower hill to dump the runoff. The whole thing seemed like a huge project, more than the heaviest rain could ever require.

There was a window in the opposite wall, over the connections for a washer and dryer. He could as well have come in through there; the window might have been easier to jimmy. But it was not as private, being visible from the street. He saw that he needn't have brought the shovel. They had left all their tools, shovels, rakes. Two electric saws sat on the littered worktable along with empty drink cans, packs of gum, and a wadded-up lunch bag. Down in the pit, an extension ladder had been left in place. Already set up for him, he thought, smiling.

This was exactly what he'd been looking for; he could have spent the rest of the night searching the empty hills and found nothing anywhere nearly as good. These people had dug her grave for him, and now, once he'd finished his part of the project, once the gravel was in and the concrete
poured, the body would never be found. She'd have not only a grave but a gigantic and tamper-proof crypt, which, he assured himself, not even a flood would disturb.

Moving to the garage window, he looked out at the empty street and on down the hills where the fog was growing thicker, climbing up past him now into the valleys above. He liked the fog, had always felt safe moving silently through the heavy mist. By nightfall the whole area would be socked in, muffling the sounds of his digging. No cars appeared on the narrow roads, no movement except far down the hill, where an elderly couple was walking along with canes. Most likely they'd soon turn back toward the village or move on to one of the far houses, wherever they came from. With the fog closing in, as evening fell it would be cold, too. The couple sat down on a low stone wall and a small dog jumped up beside them. Strange-looking dog. He watched it uneasily—it moved like a cat. But of course cats didn't go for walks. Turning away from the window, he fetched a pair of coveralls a workman had left hanging on a nail in the wall, folded them inside out to avoid the mud, and, using them as a pillow, he sat down on the cold cement floor opposite the window. Making himself as comfortable as he could, with his back to the wall, he settled in to wait for full dark, congratulating himself that soon she'd be tucked away where no one,
no one,
would find her.

His story that she'd left him while they were on vacation, that they'd had a fight and she'd just taken off, who'd know the difference? They had no children, no close relatives, no one who'd have reason to disbelieve him or to
start checking, to follow up on what he told them. By the time anyone noticed a smell in the garage or along the downstairs wall, if anyone ever did, he'd be long gone where no one would find him. Looking across at the fog-shrouded window, he took comfort from the weight of the mist against the glass. It made him feel hidden where nothing could find him, nothing could slip up on him.

L
UCINDA AND
P
EDRIC
Greenlaw paused in their steep climb to sit down on the stone wall where they so often rested. They had ascended at a lively pace, employing their carved walking sticks to help them up the rocky ground. At eighty-something, though the couple was lean and spry, a little help from a good stout cane didn't hurt. Below them the fog had rolled in fast over the village rooftops; above them it blew in dense scarves toward the upper hills and fingered into the narrow valleys. They sat enjoying the misty evening, unaware of anything strange or threatening among the few scattered hillside houses—though neither hiker was unprepared for surprises. Pedric had grown up well aware of human nature. And Lucinda, though her life had been more sheltered, had learned quickly, when the couple had been kidnapped last year, how to take care of herself.

As for their companion, the tortoiseshell cat didn't worry much about life's dangers, Kit met trouble with her
sharp claws and her strong teeth or, if she must, by escaping into the treetops. In between, she enjoyed every moment. Coming up the path she had raced ahead lashing her fluffy tail, enjoying the world with every ounce of her wild little soul. Now, leaping to the wall beside Lucinda, she stood watching fog transform the hills and valleys—but she was looking for someone, too. Looking intently up among the hills though she said nothing to her companions. She watched and watched, and suddenly she saw her—a speck so small, so pale within the mist that at first Kit thought it was only a stone.

The two humans, watching where she looked, frowned in puzzlement. “What?” Lucinda said softly. The old woman stared for some minutes before she made out a pale little cat poised high among the fog-shrouded boulders. “Oh!” she said, seeing Kit's excitement. “Who is that?”

Kit glanced at her housemate but didn't answer, she didn't know quite how to explain. Coming up the hills she had sensed the buff-colored cat somewhere up there above them, or maybe she'd only wished the little waif would be there. Now she'd appeared from out of nowhere, just as Kit had hoped.

Kit didn't know what drew her to the pale cat. She knew the young feline was Sage's mate or soon would be, but this had nothing to do with Sage. In this small cat Kit saw her younger self looking back at her, in a wild and curious mirror image, and Kit wanted to talk with her. She wanted, perhaps foolishly, to be friends. This cat was feral, they lived in two different worlds, and Kit knew it
would be best to leave the matter alone. But she wouldn't, she was too curious.

 

T
ANSY HAD BEEN
on the hills since before dawn, at first hunting with Sage—that was when she'd seen the three cats hunting lower down in the hills and had seen the tortoiseshell one. She knew about Kit from the other clowder cats, knew how Kit had escaped the clowder and run away from the leader Stone Eye. Stone Eye was dead now and the clowder was free again, but Kit hadn't returned.

It was the other cats' talk about Kit and how she lived among humans that helped Tansy remember that she, herself, had not always been with the clowder, that once she had lived with humans. She had been very small when, as a kitten, she'd been thrown away by humans.

Before that terrible time, she'd known a good life chasing dust mice under the furniture; digging her claws into the bright, thick rugs; and swinging on the curtains though she got scolded for that. Little as she was, she had slipped away sometimes into the neighbors' gardens, and even ventured blocks away where the shops began and looked at all the wonders in the bright windows. And once, when the woman wasn't watching her, she had climbed right up a stickery vine to the roof where she could look down on all the world. When she lived with humans she had slept on a soft blanket and awakened to good smells in the warm house, and at suppertime the woman always gave her some of what they ate, even when the man complained—but
then the man and woman had a fight over her; the man called her dirty and said she made him sneeze. He yelled at the woman, and the woman cried, and even though Tansy was just a little kitten, the man grabbed her and held her too tight to get free, and he shut her in a box. When the woman tried to stop him, he hit her so hard she fell.

Closing the box tight, he'd put it in his car. She remembered the engine roaring and the car moving sickeningly, and though she clawed and screamed, she couldn't fight hard enough to break free. He drove a long way up into the hills, until she could smell fresh grass and eucalyptus trees, and there he'd stopped and put the box out on the ground and then driven away, leaving her alone there shut inside the box. She mewled and cried, but he didn't come back and no one answered her; she'd heard no sound but the roar of the car growing fainter until it was gone.

It took her a very long time to tear through the cardboard. When at last she could stick her nose out, panting, she gulped fresh air. She was very thirsty. It took longer, then, to make the hole big enough so she could crawl through, but at last she was out. She had huddled against the box, weak and frightened.

She had hidden among some boulders until dawn, then had wandered uncertainly. She wasn't sure how long she was alone, but several nights came and went. She caught and ate some beetles, and drank muddy water from a ditch. And then one morning, just as the sun was coming to warm her, a pale calico female found her, and that good cat had washed her and warmed her and had hunted mice to feed her.

She had gone with Willow to live in the clowder, and that was where she began to talk. She had never dared speak among humans, though she had understood them. In the clowder there was no one to think her strange and different—everyone talked. Clowder life had helped her to forget the cardboard box and the human who had betrayed her; clowder life made her forget for a little while the rich world of humans that was so full of excitement and color and music and soft beds and delicious things to eat.

But then as she grew older, the wonder of that life began to fill her dreams. She would wake thinking about bright store windows and high rooftops, and she began to long for that world. It was not many months until she found the courage to leave the clowder and make her way down the hills and into the village again. The time was early spring. She had gone where there were tall gardens to play in, in the yards of humans. She had let a human discover her, she had made up to the woman shamelessly, rolling over and purring.

She had lived with that human and then with another, lived among humans in half a dozen houses; but each time she found a home, someone would move or go away for many days and forget to feed her. Then another couple “took her in,” as they called it. The woman was nice, but then the man had moved away, and then the woman left, too. Left her there alone and, heartbroken, she had crept away from that house and left the village and returned to the dull but safe life of the clowder, to a world without fickle humans.

But she knew humans weren't all alike, and soon she again missed that life. She missed the places of humans, she missed the excitement and color and always something new to intrigue her. Sage didn't like her to miss those things. He'd told her to forget the human world, just as he'd told the tortoiseshell cat to forget it. Sage called the human world wicked, he wanted her to forget her dreams, he said a cat had no business with dreams. This morning when he saw her watching Kit, he'd said she must stay away from those village cats. He said she must obey him, and they'd argued and fought. She said she wasn't his slave, and at last he'd stalked away scowling, his ears back, turning to look at her coldly. That was when she'd fled from him, had raced down the hills to an abandoned barn she knew of. She'd stayed there prowling the empty barn and lashing her tail, wishing the tortoiseshell would find her.

But the barn and the hills had remained empty. She'd stayed there all day. She'd had a nice nap and then caught four fat mice. She was royally feasting on mouse when a yellow car came bumping down the narrow road that wound through the hills, and a dark-haired man and a beautiful, dark-haired woman got out to wander through the barn and outbuildings. She'd hidden from them, but she'd seen another man following them; he stopped his car high above them, beneath thick trees, and sat looking. He was a mean-faced man; he watched the couple the way a coyote watches a little cat.

When the couple left at last in the yellow car, she was sure they didn't know he was there in the trees above them, or that again he followed them.

She'd sat for a long time in the old barn, licking up the last of the mice and feeling uneasy, wondering what that was all about. And then when she'd scrambled up onto the roof of the barn, she'd seen the yellow car parked farther down the hills. She didn't see the white car, but she looked at the big pile of dirt in that yard and the blue blanket over the roof and she was so interested and curious that she'd trotted down to have a look.

The time was late afternoon. She knew it would be dark when she got home and Sage would be angry, and she didn't care. She'd sat concealed in the tall grass thinking that maybe she wouldn't go home at all. There was a narrow canyon between the hill she was on and the place where the house stood, and another hill rose to its right, dense with heavy, dark trees. The man and woman had gotten out of the yellow car and were talking to a redheaded man. She was watching them when she glanced up the hill and saw the white car hidden there among the trees. The mean-faced man had gotten out and stood watching them in a way that made her fur crawl.

It was much later when the yellow car went away. She stayed where she was, waiting and watching as that man came down the hill and walked around the house and looked in, then went in the garage. He was in there for a long time, it was becoming dusk and the fog was settling in over the hills and still he hadn't come out. As she looked down the hill again, past the house, she saw a tall, thin couple coming up the road—and there was Kit, racing ahead of them.

She watched as the couple sat down on the stone wall and the tortoiseshell leaped up beside them. Kit stood
very still, looking up the hills, looking straight at her. Tansy reared up, too, so Kit would see her. What would it hurt to go down there? What harm to sniff noses, and talk a little? What harm would that do? She and Kit looked through the fog at each other, and looked and looked, and suddenly they were running, Kit streaking up the hill and Tansy pelting down, both cats running so fast their hind paws crossed beneath their front paws like racing rabbits.

They met nearly head-on, skidding to a stop in the wet grass of the steep hill. At first, neither spoke. Kit's yellow eyes were wide, and she was laughing; they both were laughing, and Tansy knew she'd found a friend.