2. THE CAT, THE DEVIL, THE LAST ESCAPE
1
THE CAT PROWLED the prison rooftops invisible to human eyes, a ghost cat, a spirit cat unseen by anyone living. He could make himself visible when he chose but that wasn?t often. A big, rangy tomcat, long and lank, his golden ears ragged from past battles during his earthly lives. Now, floating free between those lives, his mission was keen as he searched for his quarry, for his dark and indestructible adversary.
Padding across the shingles he paused at a noise from the walk below, dropped to a predator?s stalk and slipped to the edge, to peer over.
But it was only a guard passing between the buildings with a pair of inmates, the men?s shadows cast tall by the lowering sun. The shadow that Misto sought was not among them. When, in the softening light, some unease made the men glance up to the roofline they saw only wind-scattered leaves dancing across the shingles.
The men moved on and so did the ghost cat, scanning the walks below him, alert for that errant shade, for the demon that, unlike the cat himself, harbored no trace of goodness. For the wraith that haunted his human companion, that tormented Lee Fontana. In the windows of the prison offices warped reflections moved about as prison staff finished up for the day. He heard the casual click of a door closing but not a stealthy sound. Across the roofs the prairie wind scudded, tickling through his fur, turning him suddenly so giddy that he ran in circles, tail lashing, his yellow eyes gleaming. He played and raced unseen until the light shifted, far clouds dimmed the dropping sun and, sobering, the cat turned steady again and watchful.
Away at the far reaches of the prison grounds the vegetable gardens shone bright green in the sun?s last rays. Ears sharp forward, he surveyed the dim corridors between the young fruit trees that the prisoners tended, but nothing stirred there, he saw no foreign presence. Tail twitching, he looked up past the gardens, out past the prison wall to the blowing wheat that rolled to the horizon. The ghost cat had, earlier in the day, sailed weightless on the wheat?s flowing crest, diving and somersaulting, giddy with play, forgetting his quarry as he reveled in his ghostly powers, in his weightless and windblown freedom. Now he could see nothing spectral waiting there within that golden pelt. Nor did anything unwelcome move among the farm buildings or within the fenced paddocks where the cows and sheep browsed, casting their own docile shadows. The animals remained content, nothing evil lingered among them. They would know, the animals always knew.
The scent of the farm beasts, carried on the wind, comforted the ghost cat. Their warmth and familiarity, their steady and incorruptible innocence were as balm to Misto?s restless nature. He turned away only when the stink of the prison pig farm reached him; he wheeled away then, his lips drawn back in a flehmen grin of disgust.
Galloping across the roofs, he paused to study the lighted factory windows where the inmates produced clothing and shoes and furniture. Nothing seemed amiss within those busy rooms, only the usual whine of machines, the pounding of hammers, and warped movement beyond the glass as the men went about their work. He watched for a few moments more, his ears down to keep out the wind, then headed for the roof of the hospital. There he settled on the shingles, his paws tucked under, to wait for his human cellmate, for crusty old Lee Fontana to finish his daily session with the prison doctor and return to his solitary cell.
But even here, peering down through the hospital windows, still Misto watched for the dark presence that had followed Lee these many years, intent on his destruction. Had followed Lee long before he was transferred here to Springfield Federal Prison. The dark spirit that had followed him across the country from California and, months earlier, had shadowed him as he departed McNeil Island Federal Prison on parole, had followed Lee down the coast of Washington State and Oregon, down into California?s southern desert. Tenacious and devious, hell?s spirit sought to possess and destroy the vulnerable old man, in a vendetta that ranged back three generations of Lee?s family. Back to the time of Lee?s grandpappy, when train robber Russell Dobbs, late in the last century, made a wager withthe devil and won it.
Satan didn?t take kindly to defeat, he hadn?t liked losing that bargain. Russell Dobbs, having miraculously bested the devil at his own game, had brashly stirred Lucifer?s rage. The curse Satan laid on Dobbs?s heirs led the dark spirit, long after Dobbs?s own death, to return again and again into Lee?slife attempting, with each visit, to suck away Lee?s soul, to establish final victory.
So far Lucifer had not won the battle. Often enough he had masterfully tempted Lee, but still he could not possess him. Always, one way or another, Lee resisted. When recently in the California desert Lee had outmaneuvered Satan so stubbornly in a clashing of wills that the devil had drawn back, the cat thought Lee had won at last, he thought that was the end of the devil?s harassment, that Lee would face the haunt no more.
This was not the case. Fairness means nothing to Satan, the devil keeps his own rules. Though there in the desert Lee had clearly bested Lucifer, the wraith wasn?t done with him. The ghost cat had fought beside Lee, as much as one small catcan defy hell?s forces; sometimes they had watched Satan falter, but the battle was far from ended.
The yellow tom had been with Lee for all this present ghostly interval between his earthbound lives, but he had known Lee far longer. Misto had known Lee Fontana before the cat?s previous life ended. The two of them, both loners, had been close at McNeil Island. Misto, the boldest of the motley collection of cats that roamed the prison grounds, had moved as he pleased within the compound, strolling the dining room, demanding food from the friendlier inmates, slipping inand out of the cells as he chose. Though most of the time he remained in Lee?s company, spending his days on the prison farm where Lee had worked as a trustee caring for the milk cows and chickens and sheep, a job Lee much preferred to working indoors in prison industries, where dust and sawdustfrom the machinery irritated his sick lungs.
When, at McNeil, Misto died from the quick but painful complications of old age, Lee, one of the guards, and a cortege of prisoners had buried him outside the prison wall. But even during the ceremony, before the first shovelful of earth tumbled down on his carefully wrapped body, Misto?s spirit had risen up from that somber grave light and free. Riding the breeze above two dozen mourners he had watched his own funeral and listened to his friends? rough eulogies, and the ghost cat had smiled, touched by the men?s awkward sentiment.
As ghost he had remained on McNeil with Lee until Lee was paroled. The old man might be a thief and a train robber, but Misto saw something more. He saw a vulnerability in Lee Fontana, a tenderness that Lee, all his life, had tried to conceal. The ghost cat saw qualities within the old convict that made him purr, that kept him close, determined to shield Lee from the fate the dark prince held in store for the crusty old train robber. When Lee was paroled, Misto followed him off the island. Balanced invisibly on the rail of the prison launch that carried them across Puget Sound, amused by the icy spray in his face, the ghost cat raced along the rail as the boat plied the rough, deep waters drawing near to the small town of Steilacoom, to the railway stop where Lee would board his train for California.
Once Lee was settled on the southbound train, claiming a long bench seat for himself, the ghost cat had moved invisibly through the rocking cars staring up at the passengers and nosing into their lunch bags. But soon enough he had returned to Lee to curl up beside him on the cracked leather seat. It was a long journey. Misto had napped close to Lee but then, when he grew bored, he would drift up through the iron roof to ride atop the train; galloping the length of the racing cars in the gusting wind, Misto was part of the wind. As ghost, the small spirit was far more frivolous than ever he had been as a living, earthbound tomcat.