Shirley Murphy: Cat Striking Back

Leaping from the roof down onto the high garden wall and again to the top of the cold barbecue grill, he dropped to the paving beside Ryan’s big silver Weimaraner. The sleek, handsome dog lay stretched out on the rain-damp bricks, soaking up the brightening sun. Lying down beside Rock, Joe rolled over, presenting his own belly to the warm glow. Rock huffed at him in greeting, and with an inquisitive nose began to smell Joe’s four extended paws, sniffing the mouse smells, the rat and rabbit smells, maybe a hint of kitten smell, and the heady scents of the wild hills. The big dog gave Joe a look that said, Why can’t I run free like you? Sighing, he rolled over and drifted into a light sleep-with one ear cocked for the first sound of plates being set on the table. Joe watched Ryan as she crossed the patio to finish planting a flat of begonias, gently tucking the little, delicate nursery flowers into the rich earth of a raised container, an occupation that, again, seemed out of character for the dark-haired, green-eyed beauty. He was far more used to seeing her running a heavy Skilsaw or dipping her trowel into a bucket of plaster, wearing jeans and muddy boots instead of a flowered housecoat.

Rock woke the minute Clyde began dishing up. Casting Joe a look of urgency, he trotted across the bricks to stand expectantly beside the redwood table, his chin on its corner, his eyes never leaving the kitchen window. They watched Clyde push through the screen door backward, letting it slam. Turning, he descended the steps bearing a huge tray laden with plates piled with pancakes, eggs, sausages, and all the fixings. As Clyde laid out their breakfast, Ryan moved to the barbecue sink to wash the dark earth from her hands. As she and Clyde took their places at the table, Joe leaped to the end of Ryan’s bench where, now, he and Rock stood shoulder to shoulder sniffing the good smells and drooling with equal greed-he watched Ryan turn away, hiding a grin.

IT AMUSED RYAN greatly that Joe Grey and Rock looked like mismatched twins, their sleek gray coats exactly the same color, their eyes the same pale yellow. And, a source of gentle humor, Joe Grey’s tail was docked to the same jaunty length as Rock’s, both tails sticking straight up when the animals were happy.

In Rock’s case, the short tail was the correct style for a Weimaraner. Joe’s shortened appendage, however, had been the result of a kittenhood accident when a drunk had stepped on his tail and broken it. Clyde had found the sick and feverish kitten in a San Francisco gutter, had rushed him to the vet where the infected part of the tail was amputated, and then had taken Joe home to nurse him back to health with antibiotics, love, and plenty of rare filet. The two hadn’t been parted since.

But what tickled Ryan the most about the similarity between the two was that dog and cat were so very alike in spirit. Rock’s wild, defiant, adventuresome view of the world had enchanted her from the moment she first encountered the valuable but abandoned stray. And then when she’d met Joe, his attitude, even before she discovered that the cat could speak to her, had been just as bold and brash. The big difference, of course, was that only the tomcat had use of the English language.

When she’d first suspected Joe’s ability to speak, when she’d finally convinced herself that this impossibility had to be true, and then when they’d had their first conversation, that had been a time of spine-tingling amazement, an experience from which she was sure she would never quite recover. And surely she’d never be the same after her first conversation with Joe and Dulcie and Kit all together, an impossible communication between their two species that had left her with permanent goose bumps.

But, while Rock didn’t speak, while her good dog knew only command words and hand signals, knew the names of the humans he loved, and the names of everyday items that she and Clyde had taught him or that he had absorbed on his own, the Weimaraner was so clever and such a quick study that he didn’t need to talk to her. Body language was enough; they understood each other very well. The trouble with Rock was, he was often too clever. He knew how to climb a six-foot chain-link fence as skillfully as any cat. And with only one afternoon’s training, he had learned to track a scent trail on command. For most dogs, reliable and unfaltering tracking skills took many months of training.

The fact that Joe Grey himself had taught Rock, that Rock had not learned from her own slow teaching but under the skilled tutelage of the gray tomcat, had impressed her considerably. She didn’t know whether she was more proud of Rock for his quick mastering of the valuable tracking skills, or of Joe for the clever patience with which he’d tutored the big Weimaraner.

Serving the animals’ plates, she set them on the bench, side by side. Dog and cat exchanged a glance of understanding that neither would steal from the other, and dived into their breakfasts. The issue of gourmet rights had been settled some time back, Joe laying down the rules with teeth and claws, and Rock with a gentle but insistent growl. Rock didn’t seem to mind that his breakfast was mostly kibble, with sausage and egg crumbled in for flavor, while Joe was treated to exactly the same fare as the humans.

On the other side of Ryan, the white cat hopped up silently, her gentle eyes on Ryan as she lifted one soft paw. Crowded onto the bench, against Ryan’s leg, she looked up trustingly, knowing that her own small bite of the human’s breakfast was forthcoming. It saddened Ryan that the other two Damen cats, who had been far up in years, had succumbed to separate illnesses not a month apart, shortly after she and Clyde were married-saddened her, and stirred her, that the two lifelong friends had gone within weeks of each other. As if somehow deciding, with their mysterious feline connection, that their closeness in life would not be broken by death, that they would move on into the next world together.

She glanced across the patio to the high back wall, its white-plaster surface still shaded from the rising sun. In the shadow at its base marched the little row of graves: two markers for the cats, two markers for their two departed canine friends, each marble plaque attesting to an urn of ashes buried beneath. Scrappy. Fluffy. Barney. Rube.

Barney, the golden retriever, had died before Ryan and Clyde met. Rube, the black Lab, had died just this last year. Ryan had suffered with Clyde over Rube’s illness, had tried to comfort Clyde and Joe when the vet put Rube to sleep. Afterward, she had tried to comfort the little white cat. She had held Snowball for hours, talking to her, trying to soothe her over the loss of her doggy companion. With Rube gone, Ryan herself seemed to take Rube’s place in nurturing Snowball; the white cat came to her far more often even than she sought out Clyde or Joe for tenderness and reassurance.

As they all tucked into breakfast, there was near silence at the picnic table. Only the scrape of a fork on a plate, Rock’s eager slurping, the occasional car passing out front on the street and, from half a mile away, the rhythmic pounding of the sea against the cliffs and sandy shore. When the animals had licked their plates clean, Clyde looked across the table at Joe.

“I have an announcement.”

Joe looked back warily, his claws involuntarily stiffening at the implication of some portentous, and probably unwelcome, decision. Whatever was coming, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.

Ryan, watching the two of them, was both uneasy and amused by the tomcat’s possibly well-founded suspicions. She was still wondering herself if Clyde ’s decision had been a wise one. This particular resolution would be life changing for Clyde. Another big adjustment even after bringing a wife into the household-and that meant one more upset in the tomcat’s life. Ordinary cats didn’t like change. In that respect, she thought that speaking cats weren’t so different.