Clyde skidded to a stop.
"Is that her in the bushes?" Joe had been ready to leap out when he saw it was not Kit but a raccoon-and his concern for the kit escalated into a sharp fear. The car lights picked out raccoons' masked eyes, an unwelcome gang of midnight predators.
Joe had shouted and shouted for the kit as they moved on between the close-crowding shops and houses. "I think she headed for Hellhag Hill," he had said tightly, hoping she hadn't bolted down into the caves that, as far as he knew, might go clear to the center of the earth. Because the kit could, in her volatile grief, mindlessly run and run and keep running. Even at best of times, the kit was all emotion-and Lucinda and Pedric were her family.
Trying to see out of the slow-moving car, Joe had been weak with nerves by the time they reached Hellhag Hill. Clyde parked along the dropping cliff where the waves slapped and churned below them, set the hand brake, and snatched Joe up again. The minute he opened the door, both man and cat were drenched. The hill humped above them like a bloated black beast. Impatient with human slowness, Joe had leaped from Clyde's arms and raced blindly upward through the forest of wet, blowing grass.
But now, perched on Clyde's shoulder again where he could see better, he tried to identify that faint smear of blackness. Was that the kit, rearing up for a better look down at them? But as he watched, the black speck disappeared, was gone. Now, not a sound from above. Only when Clyde paused again and stood still did they hear one tiny sob.
Rearing up taller against Clyde's head, Joe shouted, "Come down, Kit. Come down now! Right now! I have something to tell you. Something about Lucinda and Pedric." And he leaped down into the tall wet grass and raced ahead of Clyde up the black hill.
Only when they were very near the tumble of boulders on the crest did the kit peer out, crouching and shivering. This was not their fluff-coated, flag-tailed tortoiseshell, their sassy, brightly animated friend. This rain-soaked, forlorn little animal was dull and spent, a miserable ragged beast who, with her wet fur matted to her body, seemed far smaller, far more frail.
"Come here," Joe said, shouldering through the wet grass. "Come now.''''
The kit came to Joe, with her head down, slow and grieving. She looked like the first time Joe had ever seen her, a terrified feral animal afraid of humans, afraid of other cats, afraid of the world, totally alone and without hope. She stood hunched in the grass before him.
Behind Joe, Clyde stood very still. Then in a moment, he took two careful steps toward her. She didn't spin away. Two more steps, and another, and he knelt beside the kit, where she cowered with grief before Joe Grey.
Gently Clyde picked her up, gently he held her. The wind beating at them made her shiver. Unzipping his jacket, Clyde tucked her inside, then zipped it up again. Only her dark, lean little face could be seen. Pitifully the kit looked up at Clyde. "They never drive at night. They would never be driving at night. Why were they out at night on the highway?"
She stared into the wind and up at the stormy sky. "How could your strange human God cause Lucinda and Pedric to be dead? Why would he do that?" She looked at Clyde, and down at Joe Grey. Around them, the black hill rolled away, uncaring. Above them the black sky stormed uncaring and remote. To the vast and incomprehensible elements this small cat's mourning went unheard, her pain unheeded. What possible power, so beyond mortal ken, would bother with this insignificant beast? What power in all the universe would care that she was hurting?
They had started down the hill, Clyde snuggling the kit close, Joe Grey shouldering through the wet grass beside him, when lights appeared on the highway below coming slowly around the curve.
When Clyde and Wilma, Kit and Joe and Dulcie, were all together, sitting in Wilma's car, the kit crawled out from Clyde's jacket. Obediently allowing Wilma to towel her, she was quiet, very still. As Wilma worked, her yellow slicker made crinkling sounds over her soaking pajamas, and her wet boots squelched with water. As the kit began to dry and grow warmer, when her small body wasn't quite as rigid, Wilma said, "I don't know much more than you heard. I can't imagine why they were on the highway at that hour. It's been storming all night up there."
She looked at Clyde. "Sheriff's office called me just before I called you. The accident happened on 101 somewhere north of Ukiah. They had been heading north. A gas truck… apparently hit them on a curve." She looked desolately at Clyde. "Both vehicles rolled and burned. Just burned.. ." Wilma covered her face. "Exploded and burned."
She was quiet for a long time, holding the kit, her face pushed against the little cat. Still the kit was silent. Wilma looked up at last. "There was nothing left. Nothing. The vehicle's license was ripped off in the explosion, went flying with torn pieces of the RV. That's how the sheriff knew who to call." Since Lucinda had sold her house just after she and Pedric were married, the newlyweds had used Wilma's address for all their business, for everything but interest income, which was handled by direct deposit. Wilma faxed their bank statements to them, and sent any urgent papers. Wilma's address had been on the couple's drivers' licenses and on their vehicle registration.
As the five sat in the front seat, close together, dulcie nosed under the towel, into Wilma's arms, snuggling close to the kit. Around the car, the wind eased off, and the rain turned from fitful gusts to a hard, steady downpour. It seemed to Dulcie that fate had, since early in the year, turned a hard and uncaring countenance on their little extended family. First Captain Harper had been set up as a suspected murderer. Then that terrible bomb that came close to killing everyone at Captain Harper and Charlie's wedding. Then during Charlie's gallery party, that man dying. And now this terrible, senseless accident to Kit's human family. She felt lost and grim, she wanted only to be home with Kit, tucked up in Wilma's bed with hot milk and kitty treats, where nothing more could happen.
When Clyde and Joe slid into their own car and headed home, Joe settled unashamedly against Clyde's leg. He felt more like a pet cat tonight, needful of human caring. Not since his days as a stray kitten, sleeping in San Francisco's alleys, had he felt quite so in need of security and a little petting-it was all very well to have a solid record of murder and burglary convictions to his credit, but sometimes a little mothering of the bachelor variety was a nice change. The thought of Lucinda and Pedric gone, forever and irrefutably gone, had left him feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable.
Glancing down at Joe, Clyde laid his hand on Joe's shoulder and scratched his ear.
They'd been home for half an hour, Clyde had toweled Joe dry and used the hair dryer on him, and Joe was half asleep under the covers when Clyde came upstairs bringing with him an aroma that brought Joe straight up, staring.
Clyde set a tray on the bed, right in front of him. Imported sardines? He had to be dreaming. A whole bevy of those little pastrami-on-rye appetizers that Clyde kept stashed in the freezer, now warm from the microwave? He looked at Clyde and looked back at the brimming tray.
Clyde, who had showered and pulled on a robe, set his hot rum drink on the night table and slid into bed, propping the pillows behind him. "So tuck in. What? You're not hungry?"
Joe laid a paw on Clyde's hand. He gave Clyde a whisker rub, then tucked into the feast with a gusto and lack of manners that, tonight, Clyde didn't mention. If Joe slopped on the covers, Clyde didn't seem to care. With the wonder of Clyde's offering, and with the bodily nourishment as well, a wave of well-being surged all through Joe Grey. He began to feel warm all over, feel safe again; began once more to feel strong and invulnerable.
14
In the Getz house, the kit slept safe and warm, tucked in the blankets between Wilma and Dulcie, worn out from her grief, escaping into exhausted oblivion. The bedroom smelled of hot milk and hot cocoa and shortbread cookies, and of the wood fire that had burned down now to a few glowing coals. Outside, the rain had abated, but at four a.m. the cold wind still found its fitful way along the wet streets; wind shook drumbeats of water from the oak trees onto rooftops and car hoods-and on the cold and windy streets, others were about, who cared nothing for the windy cold, who cared only for adventure.