The Cat Who Moved a Mountain

"What happened to the door?" Qwilleran asked.

"Busted." He applied a final coat of stain to a section of railing and then painted the framework around the small glass panes of the door—without using a dropcloth and without a spill or a smear.

"You do good work, Mr. Beechum."

"Don't pay to do bad. See that there chair?" He nodded toward the Queen Anne chair in the foyer. "Legs was busted, but I fixed 'em. Never know they was busted."

That explained Koko's interest in the chair and the French door; one of them had recently varnished legs, and the other had new glass and a coat of fresh paint on the frame. Clever cat! He never missed a thing. He even knew that the tall secretary desk in the living room was supposed to have books in its upper deck.

"Do you live around here?" Qwilleran asked.

Beechum jerked his head to the south. "Yonder on L'il Tater. That there's a real mount'n."

"Big Potato looks pretty good to me."

"Ain't what it was, years back."

"What happened?"

"Folks from down there"—he nodded toward the valley—"they come up here and rooned it, cuttin' down trees, buildin' fancy houses, roonin' the waterfalls. No tellin' what they'll be roonin' nextways. But they won't git L'il Tater iffen we hafta hold 'em off with shotguns!"

"Good for you!" Qwilleran always agreed heartily with anyone he was trying to encourage, and already he envisioned Mr. Beechum as a colorful subject for a column in the Moose County Something. "I've been thinking, Mr. Beechum, that I'd like to have a gazebo built among the trees."

"A what?"

"A small summer house—just a floor and a roof and screens on all four sides. I don't think it would ruin anything."

"Don't need no screens up here. No bugs."

How could Qwilleran explain to this mountain man that the gazebo was for the cats, so they could enjoy the outdoors in safety? "Just the same," he said, "I'd feel more comfortable with screens. Could you build it for me?"

"How big you want?"

"Perhaps ten or twelve feet square."

"Twelve's better. No waste."

"May I pay you in advance for the materials?"

"Ain't no need."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd use that treated lumber that doesn't need painting."

"That's what I'm aimin' to do."

"Good! We're on the same wave length. When can you start, Mr. Beechum?"

"When you be wantin' it?"

"Soon as possible."

The workman raised his green fedora and scratched his head. There was a line of demarcation across his forehead—weatherbeaten tan below, pasty white above. "Mebbe Monday," he said.

"That sounds good."

"Mebbe Wednesday. All depends. Could rain." Beechum started back to the pickup with his paint buckets and brushes.

Accompanying him down the steps Qwilleran took another look at the red pickup with one blue fender and said, "I believe I stopped at your house last night, Mr. Beechum, when I was trying to find my way here. A young woman kindly came to my rescue. I'd like to thank her in some way."

"Don't need no thanks," the man mumbled as he started the reluctant motor.

Qwilleran returned to the house to feed the cats, prepare some coffee for himself, and dress for a shopping trip to Spudsboro. Saying goodbye to the Siamese he inquired, "Will you characters be all right if I go out for a while?" They regarded him with a blank feline stare capable of undermining self-esteem. He knew that look. It meant, Just be sure you come back at dinnertime.

Before descending the twenty-five steps to the parking lot, he stood on the veranda and absorbed the view. Directly below him were treetops and an occasional odd-shaped roof or turquoise swimming pool. In the valley the dome of the courthouse glistened in the sunlight, and a meandering line of trees marked the course of the Yelly-hoo River. Across the river the West Potatoes rose majestically. He snapped a few pictures to send to Polly and then walked down the steps, wondering if his car would start, and if he still had a jigger of gas in the tank, and if one could safely coast down the mountain to a gas station in the valley.

There was no cause for concern; the small car could run on a thimbleful. Maneuvering it around the curves of Hawk's Nest Drive he was thankful for the smooth pavements, the guardrails, and the white and yellow lines. He passed the Wilbank and Lessmore houses and other contemporary dwellings with glass where one would expect walls—and walls where one would expect glass. All had neat, circular drives, blacktopped. In one large area cleared of trees a new house was being built, and a powerful backhoe was gouging out the hillside. At the bottom of the hill the entrance to Hawk's Nest Drive was marked by two stone pylons and a sign: TIPTOP ESTATES . . . PRIVATE ROAD.

Qwilleran filled his gas tank and asked for foolproof directions to Five Points—without shortcuts—and was amazed how easily he found the star-shaped intersection. At the Five Points Cafe he sat in a booth, ordered ham and eggs, and perused the Spudsboro Gazette, in which the headline news was Friday's excessive rain, seven inches in two hours. The river was running high, and the softball field on the west bank was too wet for play. Otherwise, Colin Carmichael's newspaper was similar to the Moose County Something, although it surprised Qwilleran to learn that the "Potato Peelings" column was still being written by Vonda Dudley Wix. She was gushing about Father's Day.

The radio at the restaurant was playing country music and advertising a sale of recliners at a local furniture store, and in an adjoining booth three men were arguing over their coffee.

A voice with a nasal twang said, "I see the damned pickets came crawling out of the woodwork again."

"They're there every Friday afternoon and Saturday," said another man with a high-pitched voice. "They're trying to embarrass the city when the weekend tourists arrive."

"There oughta be a law!"

"Ever hear of freedom of speech, Jerry?" This voice sounded somewhat familiar to Qwilleran. "It's their constitutional right. I'd carry a picket sign myself if I had a legitimate beef. Okay?"

The second speaker said, "The trouble is—things are going so good in this town. Why do they have to make waves?"

"They're a bunch of radicals, that's why!" said Jerry. "That whole crowd on Little Potato is radical to the eyebrows!"

"Oh, come off it, Jerry. Okay?"

"I mean it! Always trying to sabotage progress. Just because they live like bums, they don't want the rest of us to live nice and make a little money."

"Listen, Jerry, there should be a way to live nice without spoiling it for everybody else. Okay? Look what happened to the road up Big Potato! They call it Hawk's Nest Drive and put up a sign to keep people out. That's no private road! That's a secondary county highway, and they can't legally stop anybody from driving up there. When I was a kid, my dad used to drive us to the top of Big Potato where the old inn is, and we'd have picnics at Batata Falls. That was before they dammed it and made it Lake Batata. In those days it was nothing but a dirt road. Then J.J. pulled strings and got it paved at taxpayers' expense, after which they try to call it a private drive. I'm gonna get a picket sign myself one of these days. Okay?"

"Bill's right, Jerry. J.J. started it, and now his cronies are selling timber rights and slashing the forest for a motel or hotel or something. Investors, they call 'em. Not even local people!"

"Whoever they are, it's good for the economy," Jerry insisted. "It creates jobs and brings more people in. You paint more houses, and Bill sells more hot dogs, and I sell more hardware."

"Speaking of hot dogs," Bill said, "I've gotta get back to the store. See you loafers next week—okay?" As he paid for his coffee on the way out, Qwilleran recognized the manager of the Five Points Market and would have relished a few words with him about the Snaggy Creek cutoff, but Bill Treacle slipped out too quickly.