Rama the Gypsy Cat (2 page)

He waited until the rain stopped and then he made his way to the gypsy camp. No one was stirring yet, but Rama was too restless to wait beneath the wagon. He skirted the wet ashes of the campfire and jumped up onto the little window-ledge at the back of the gypsy woman’s wagon. He drew his claws down the side of the window and mewed loudly.

After a moment he did it again, and this time the gypsy woman came and opened the door for him.

“Eh, what’s wrong with you? You wake an old woman from a good sleep? Come in, come in.” Wrapped in a long woolen shawl, she waited while he ran into the wagon, pausing to rub himself against her skirt.

“This is no morning for cats and gypsies,” said the woman, “eh, my friend?”

Rama leaped onto a chest piled high with pillows in the corner of the wagon. He kneaded the pillows with his paws until they were satisfactorily arranged and then he settled himself. Within minutes he was asleep.

When he awoke, the gypsy woman was up, eating her breakfast. She was having two large biscuits left over from her evening meal, and she was dipping these in coffee.

Rama stretched, lifting his back high in the air, and then he moved to the door of the wagon. He was suddenly restless. Awakening, he had remembered the strange cat, and he was eager to confront him again. At the door he mewed and looked up at the gypsy woman. Always she opened the door for him at once, but today she did not.

“No, my friend,” she said. “We leave this place today, and I do not want to lose you. Stay in the warm wagon and tonight, when we camp, there will be new forests, eh?”

Arching his back, Rama rubbed against her, and then he rose and rubbed his head against her like a tiny goat. The gypsy woman had a scrap of meat she had saved, and now she set it on a tin plate and gave it to him. She watched him as he ate.

Although the meat was good, Rama stopped eating after a few bites and went back to the door. He mewed and looked up at the gypsy woman. Again he mewed, growing impatient that she did not understand him. He mewed louder.

The gypsy woman picked him up and put him back on the chest in the corner of the wagon.

“Sleep, Rama,” she said, “and dream of new lands”—she smiled—“while I dream of new fortunes to tell, and many gold coins, eh?”

But Rama jumped at once from the chest and moved again to the door. Now the urge was growing still stronger in him to face the strange cat, to test himself, but the gypsy woman was firm.

“Not today, Rama, not today.”

She drew a shawl about her shoulders and left the wagon, taking care that Rama was closed inside. In the pale dawn, the gypsy camp was coming to life and all the wagons were being prepared to move out. The camp was strangely quiet despite the noises of departure, for everyone was too busy to talk and the cold air had made them all eager to depart. They were lovers of the sun and the warm breezes.

Unaided, the gypsy woman hitched her horse to the wagon, and then she sat on the seat of her wagon, pulling her shawl more carefully about her shoulders. Still chilled, she jumped quickly from her wagon and walked around to the back and entered. It would be a long day and already her shoulders felt tightened with the cold. She took her heaviest shawl from the bed—it also served as a blanket—and draped it over her head. Then, in a swirl of skirts and shawls, she stepped down from the wagon. She did not notice that Rama, at the same moment, had leaped to the ground and run into the brush beside the wagon.

She climbed again to the seat, and with her shawl tight about her, she waited for the other wagons to get ready. As she waited, she thought of Rama and smiled, not knowing he was now moving steadily away from the wagon.

She had a great fondness for the cat. “Rama the gypsy,” she said to herself. “He is well named.”

Long ago, when the gypsy woman had been a little girl with long dark braids that swung about her shoulders like whips, her grandmother had told her a story about a prince named Rama. The brave and honorable prince had spent fourteen years in wanderings and adventures after being banished from his home. The gypsy woman had remembered the story all these long years, and when she found the cat, she had named him Rama, for he, too, had a heart for wandering and adventure.

Had she known he was now leaving, she would have jumped to the ground and called him back in her deep voice, refusing to start her wagon until he was safely inside again. But she thought him settled comfortably on the chest, by now asleep.

The first wagon moved from the clearing to the small rutted road, and the gypsy woman with a jiggle of her reins, set her wagon in motion also. Slowly, with no sun to brighten their leaving, the gypsies moved down the road, around the bend, and out of sight.

A
PIERCING COLD HAD
come just after the rain, but Rama, intent on a meeting with the strange cat, moved steadily toward the wharf. Now, in the daylight, he moved with caution. Rama had learned from experience that strangers would pick him up, for cats were not a common thing in that region, and many a farmer and farm wife wanted a cat to keep the barn free of mice. Children were the worst threat. They would grab him in tight, possessive hands, and sometimes it was necessary to give them a feel of his sharp claws to gain his freedom.

He came upon the wharf a different way this time, moving carefully and slowly along the river bank. He paused beside an old boat and crouched there to wait. He was an animal of great patience when time was his only hindrance, and now he stayed there without moving for hours. He was hungry, for he had eaten only a tiny portion of the meat the gypsy woman had given him, and his stomach was empty.

He was so still that he appeared to be sleeping, yet through his half-closed eyelids, he searched the area of the wharf, waiting for another glimpse of the cat.

At the wharf two men were loading a raft with barrels and sacks, preparing to move down the river. Their shouts were carried by the wind to where Rama crouched, and once, when the smaller man dropped a barrel on his foot and shouted with pain, Rama tensed and opened his eyes wide. Then he looked away. The men were not what he was waiting to see.

It was just before noon when the cat appeared. Rama saw him first on top of the riverbank beside the men’s wagon. He was licking his paws carefully. As the men approached to take another load from the wagon, he would stop licking his paws and crouch, ready to run if they bothered him. When the men moved back to the raft, he would resume licking his paws. He did not see Rama, who blended in like a shadow with the gray of the old wooden boat.

In the shelter of the boat Rama continued to watch. Now all thoughts of hunger had fled, all thoughts of the cold wind. The strange cat occupied his mind with a completeness that only an animal can know. His muscles were tight and ready, and from time to time his tail whipped eagerly in the wind.

The men finished their loading and drove away in the wagon. As they drove off, the cat turned and walked toward the old building. This was the moment Rama had awaited. Carefully he moved from the shelter of the boat to an old log that had been washed up on the bank. He paused there for a moment, then he ran up the bank and stopped, again in a crouch. Sensing danger, the old cat turned. He saw Rama and his ears flattened, his yellow eyes slitted.

Without a sound, he circled Rama warily. Rama turned, too, and the two cats faced each other. Now both knew that it was to be a fight to the death.

Rama made a sound, warning the old cat, and the old cat took up the sound, drawing it out until the wind carried it away. He moved closer to Rama. Then both were still, waiting.

Abruptly, without any warning, the old cat lashed out with his sharp claws and caught Rama across the cheek. In a blaze of fury, Rama struck back. He felt his claws digging into the cheek of the old cat, catching the flesh. The cat pulled back and then struck again at Rama. This time his front legs were wrapped around Rama’s head and his teeth dug into the side of Rama’s neck.

Both cats lost their footing and rolled over on the ground, locked together in battle. Rama’s hind legs thumped against the old cat’s stomach, pushing him away, and he turned and sank his teeth into the old cat’s shoulder.

Again they rolled, and the old cat was on top of Rama, heedless of the pain in his own shoulder. He ducked his head, and grabbed Rama by the throat.

Rama now knew with a terrible certainty that he was in a dangerous position. In a burst of extra strength, he wrenched himself free and ran, the old cat right behind him.

If Rama had run directly back down the bank and into the brush, he could possibly have saved himself, but he was confused. The fight had been sudden and terrifying, and now he was not sure of his directions. In his confusion, he ran toward the old building, and after a second’s hesitation, slipped through the rotten floor board into the old warehouse.

Instantly he knew his mistake. This was the old cat’s sleeping place—his nose told him that. And here, in this familiar place, the old cat would have added advantages. Rama hid behind a wooden box and waited.

Flesh hung from his throat where the cat had bitten and torn, and the pain, as well as the fear, made Rama frantic. He saw the old cat enter the warehouse. Although he wished to hide himself, a low cry of fear and warning came from his throat, rising in the stillness. At once, slowly and evenly, the old cat began to move in Rama’s direction. He had tested Rama, and he knew his own strength was greater.

At the edge of the box, when he could see Rama, he paused in a crouch, his claws open and ready. He opened his mouth, but the sound he made was low, so low Rama could barely hear it. He moved closer.

In a flash, truly desperate now, Rama lashed out. His claws ran down the left side of the old cat’s face, and the cat cried out in pain. In that moment, Rama rushed around the cat, slipped through the hole in the floorboards, and ran. The cat was behind him, intent on killing him, and Rama knew it.

He ran down the bank, onto the raft the men had loaded, and leaped for one of the pilings of the wharf. But the pilings were slick and still wet with the rain. His claws held him for a moment, and his tremendous fear gave him strength to pull himself up the piling, slick though it was. As he reached the top, however, his claws suddenly slipped and he fell backward. He struck his shoulder and head on one of the barrels, a sickening, shattering blow, and then he slipped, unconscious, between the barrel and the grain sacks. There he lay without moving.

The old cat came carefully forward. Ignoring the blood that was dripping from his own face, he looked down at Rama. Rama did not move.

Slowly, the old cat began to lick his paw and front leg and draw it over his wounded face. He did this again and again, all the while looking down at Rama. And all the while Rama did not move.

T
HE OLD CAT HEARD
the men returning to the raft. So he left Rama and, skirting the men cautiously, ran back to the warehouse.

“You gonna have a cold trip,” the small man said.

The other man agreed with a nod of his head. He was tall and thin and his shoulders were slightly stooped beneath his deerskin shirt. Without speaking, he untied the rope from the wharf piling, stepped onto the raft, and took up the pole.

“Bess and me thank you for your trouble,” he said, letting the pole slip into the water.

“I wish there was more we could do to help out. You and Bess and the boy could stay the winter with us. You know that.”

The tall man nodded. “We’ll be all right.” Wielding the pole, pushing with all his strength against the river bottom, he moved out into the mainstream of the river. He lifted one hand in farewell to the man on the shore and then steered the raft around the point and out of sight.

As he lifted the pole from the water, his eyes were dark with concern. A week ago the barn containing all the supplies for his family’s winter had burned, and he had had to make this unexpected trip up the river for more supplies.

The banks of the river slipped by quickly, but the man did not notice the hills that rose golden and tall on either side of him. He continued to stare at the water.

Again, in his mind, he smelled the odor of smoke as he had on that terrible night. In his mind he saw himself running out of the cabin, carrying water from the well and throwing it on the fire. But the fire was firmly caught, and nothing could stop it and save the precious supplies.

“I got the cow out, Pa,” his son had said.

He had put his hand on his son’s head and ruffled his hair. That was his way of praising the boy. And then he had turned to his wife and said, “I reckon I’ll have to go up the river for supplies.”

At dawn he had set out. The sight of the smoldering ashes—the ruins of all they had worked for during the year—had sickened him in the light of day, but he had said evenly, “I’ll see you in a week,” and started up the river.

Now he poled the raft closer to shore and sat wearily on the largest of the three barrels. He looked at the bank and judged that the raft was moving about four miles an hour. This meant that it would take him eight hours to reach his home, a log cabin on the left bank of the river. He steered the raft around a tree branch that rose like a black arch from the grayish water.

Behind him, although the man did not know this, Rama stirred once. Blood ran in a thin stream from the wound in his throat and lay like crimson yarn against his white fur. His eyelids blinked once; his eyes focused on a gray world that had no meaning for him; and he lost consciousness again.

It was dark when the man reached his home. He was fortunate in having the moonlight to guide him, and when he saw the cabin set on a rise in the trees, he called: “Hollo—oo!”

At once his son came running down the bank with a lantern. “We was waiting up for you, Pa. We ain’t been to bed at all.”

He put his hand on his son’s head for a moment. His eyes, lined with fatigue, softened and then he said, “Well, gimme a hand. We got to get this stuff up to the cabin.”

“Yeah, Pa.”

“Your ma all right?”