Below them, Lucinda was sprawled, and Wilma crawling on hands and knees to reach her-and still the earth shook and rocked them, the hardest, longest surge the cats had ever known. Clinging tight to the traitorous earth, they refused to be dislodged; fear held them, as fear freezes a hunted rabbit, turning it mindless and numb.
Then all was still.
The earth was still.
They stood up, watched Wilma rise and lift Lucinda to sit against a boulder. The only movement in all the world, then, seemed the pounding of the sea beating through their paws.
And the tortoiseshell kit, who, before this day, had hidden each rime Lucinda brought food, who had never shown herself to any human, padded down the hill.
She stood looking at Lucinda, her round yellow eyes fixed fiercely on Lucinda’s frightened face.
Lucinda’s eyes widened.
Wilma remained very still. Joe and Dulcie were still.
Lucinda asked,“Are you all right, kitten?”
The waif purred, her thin sides vibrating. She stepped closer.
Lucinda put out her hand.“The quake didn’t hurt you? Poor, poor kitten.”
The kit tilted her little face in a question. She moved closer still, her long bushy tail and thick pantaloons comical on that thin little body. Lucinda said later that her black-and-brown-mottled coat was as beautiful as hand-dyed silk. The kit went to Lucinda and rubbed against her hand.
And Dulcie, watching, felt a sharp jealousy stab through her.Oh,she thought,Idon’t want you to go to Lucinda. I want you to come to me.
But what a selfish thought. What’s the matter with me?
The kitten had turned, was staring at Dulcie. The expression on her little streaked face changed suddenly, from joy to alarm. And she fled. She was gone, flying down the hill, vanishing in the long grass.
“Oh,” Lucinda said. “Why did she run? What did I do to frighten her?”
But behind Lucinda, Wilma looked accusingly at Dulcie. And Dulcie hung her head: something in her expression or in her body language had told the kit her thoughts, as surely as if she had spoken.
Lucinda looked after the kit with longing.“Such a tiny little mite. And all alone. So thin and frail.”
Wilma helped Lucinda to stand up and brush off, and supported her until she was steady on her feet. She picked up the picnic things, and as they started down the hill again, Wilma looked up sternly at Joe and Dulcie.
“Come on, you two.”
Chastened, Dulcie followed her. Joe, watching them, fell into line. Lucinda seemed too shaken by the quake and by her encounter with the little wild cat to wonder at Joe and Dulcie’s willingness to trot obediently home beside Wilma.
Reaching the village, they found shopkeepers and customers standing in the streets among broken glass, broken shingles, shattered roof tiles. The cats could see no fallen walls, no buildings that looked badly damaged-only one small section of broken wall where a bay window jutted over the street. Bricks had fallen out, but the window glass itself was still in place.
Everyone on the street was talking at once, giving each other advice, recounting what life-threatening objects had fallen narrowly missing them. Wilma, glancing down at the cats, led her little entourage quickly across Ocean’s grassy median, away from the crowd and debris. Lucinda remained quiet. Not until they were half a block from her house did she make any sound.
Stopping suddenly and staring ahead, she let out a startled gasp.
Lucinda’s Victorian home stood solidly enough. But her entire parlor seemed to have been removed, by the quake, onto the front lawn. Delicate settees and little tables stood about in little groups. A circle of needlepoint dining chairs accommodated eight Greenlaw women chatting and taking their ease.
As they approached, Dirken and his cousin Joey emerged from the house carrying the dining table. Behind them, three of the bigger Greenlaw children appeared, hauling out cans of food, stacks of plates, and a potful of silverware-whether to prepare an emergency meal or to cart away Lucinda’s possessions wasn’t clear. Beside the drive, a mattress lay tilted against a tree, and at the edge of the lawn, a pile of bedding and pillows beckoned to the tired and weary.
Lucinda approached stiffly-and suddenly she flew at Dirken. He dropped the table as her fists pounded his chest.
“What have you done, Dirken? What is this about! What are you doing!”
“There was an earthquake, Aunt Lucinda.” Dirken put his arm around her. “A terrible jolt. I’m so glad you’re all right.”
Lucinda slapped his arm away.“All of this, because of anearthquake?”
“Yes, Aunt Lucinda. One has to?”
“Take it back. All of it. Every piece. Do it now, Dirken.Take it back inside.”
“But you can’t stay in the house when there’s been?”
Her faded eyes flashed.“Wipe the grass off the feet of the furniture before you put it on the carpet. And place it properly, just as I had it. What on earth did you think you were doing?”
Dirken didn’t move. “You don’t understand about these things, Aunt Lucinda. It’s dangerous to stay inside during a quake. You have to move outdoors. The house could fall on you.”
She fixed Dirken with a gaze that would petrify jungle beasts.“Youare outside, Dirken. I am outside. My furniture does not need to be outside. If my possessions are crushed by a quake, that is none of your concern. Take it back. You are not camping on my lawn like a pack of ragtag?” She paused for a long, awkward moment. “Like ragtag hoboes,” she shouted, her eyes blazing at him.
Dulcie twitched her whiskers, her ears up, her eyes bright. She liked Lucinda better when she took command, when she wasn’t playing doormat. “But what is that?” she whispered to Joe, looking past the furniture to where Clyde’s two pups lay, behind the Victorian settee, chewing on something white and limp.
The cats trotted over.
The pups smiled, delighted to see them, then growled to warn them off their treasure. It was strange, Dulcie thought, that the only cat they feared was that tiny waif up on Hellhag Hill.
Dodging Selig, she swiped out with a swift paw and hauled the rectangular piece of canvas away from them. It was as heavy as a buck rabbit, and wet from their chewing: a big canvas bag with a drawstring top.
It smelled most interesting. The cats sniffed at it, and smiled.
They could see, behind the pups, broken concrete scattered from a wide crack in the foundation, where the bag must have lain, just beneath the fireplace.
Driving the pups out of the way with hisses and slaps, Joe pawed the canvas bag open. Dulcie stuck her head in.
The bag was empty, but the cloth smelled of old, musty money.
So the Greenlaw menhadbeen searching for money. How very prosaic. No one buried money anymore.
Except, perhaps, someone who didn’t like the IRS,she thought, smiling. The cats were still sniffing the bag when Joe nudged Dulcie, and she looked up at a crowd of trousered legs surrounding them, and a ring of broad Irish faces, all intent on the empty bag.
All seven Greenlaw men swung down, snatching at the bag. Dirken was quickest, jerking it away.
He pulled open the bag and peered in, then looked around the lawn as if expecting to see scattered greenbacks blowing across the grass like summer leaves.
The men were all staring at the empty bag and shuffling their feet when Lucinda pushed between them, put out her hand, and took it from Dirken.
“Were you expecting something more, Dirken? Were you expecting the bag to contain something you’ve been looking for?”
She didn’t wait for his answer. She turned and walked away, folding the bag neatly into a square, as if she were folding freshly washed linen. A huge silence lay behind her.
Only slowly did the Greenlaw men disperse, moving away, bewildered. Even the pups were subdued, trotting from one solemn figure to another, then away again when no one paid attention to them.