Shirley Murphy - Cat to the Dogs

She sighed. "This hill gave me back that sense of magic. Gave me back that quality in Shamas that I found so appealing-and that he took away from me."

Pedric gave her an odd look. "This is not the old country, Lucinda. Not the old world, where such tales are a dear part of one's fife. In this modern world, magic-if such ever existed-most surely does not happen."

She looked at him quietly. "That is not how you make me feel, when you tell your stories."

He shook his head, looking around him. "The hill is delightfully wild, but it is only a hill, an ordinary California hillside-probably with poison oak growing beneath us, right where we're sitting."

Lucinda laughed. She looked up at the trailers and RVs. "Which of those is yours, Pedric?"

"The green trailer, there at the end."

"Right at the edge," she said softly. "So that, every morning when you wake, and every night before you sleep, you see not the other trailers, but the open hill dropping away below you." She smiled. "Why did you park just there, where the view must be vast and empty? Don't tell me you're not touched by a sense of otherness about this place?"

He simply smiled.

After a moment, she said, "And why have all these frightened animals come to the hill so suddenly? The strange, wild cats that I feed, and those two thin, uncared-for puppies that Clyde Damen has taken in? Why did they appear all at once? No one abandons that many animals all at one time." She watched him intently.

"I can tell you where the pups came from," the old man said. "All very ordinary. But yon cats," he said, falling into the old speech, "th' cats be a band of strays that wandered here, that's all." He looked hard at her. "You are not imagining th' cats are anything other than common, stray beasties? Why, th' world be full of such, Lucinda."

She laughed at him, and touched his hand.

"Not imagining th' hill be full of burrows?" Pedric persisted. "Not imagining th' bright eyes looking out?" He smiled and raised a shaggy eyebrow.

Pedric's gentle teasing made such a notion seem silly even to Dulcie; though she was certain the hill was not ordinary.

And when Dulcie looked up, the little kit was hunched not a yard away from her, crouched deep in the bushes, peering out, her yellow eyes round and amazed, her fluffy tail twitching with curiosity.

"Maybe I am picturing that old tale of the cats beneath the hillside," Lucinda said to Pedric. "Who is to say what is possible?" She fixed an intense look on the old man. "There is something strange about Hellhag Hill. You will not admit it, but I think you see it. And I am not the only one who has noticed."

"So," Pedric asked softly. "And what about th' yon cat watching us? Th' yon beastie half-hidden in the grass? Is there something strange about that little cat?" Looking into the tangles, he watched Dulcie with interest. He did not see the kit. "Wo'd that little beastie, who is spying on us, rise up and speak to thee as do th' cats in the old tales? Wo'd this cat maybe bid thee good morning?"

He can't see the kit, Dulcie thought. He means me. Why is he staring at me?

Lucinda looked to where Dulcie sat beneath the bushes, and came to kneel there, pulling away the heavy growth.

"What a sweet little cat, curled up in a bed of leaves." She looked up at Pedric. "I believe this is Wilma's cat- my good friend, Wilma. Same dark stripes and peach-colored ears and nose. Yes, the same green eyes. Oh, Wilma would not want her roaming way out here. What brought her out to this wild place? Do you suppose she has followed us?" She reached to pick Dulcie up.

When Dulcie moved away, Lucinda drew back. "This little cat," she said diffidently, "comes to sit on the back fence behind my house. I think she hunts for birds among the maple branches. Sometimes she seems to be looking right into my parlor." She laughed. "Maybe she watches reflections in the glass, the movement of clouds and birds.

"Won't you come out, kitty?" Lucinda asked softly. "It is Wilma's kitty. We won't hurt you. Whatever are you doing up here? Come on out, puss. Puss? Puss?"

Dulcie came out reluctantly. She hated to be called puss. She leaped atop the boulder before Lucinda could pick her up. Stretching, she curled down on the smooth granite, out of Lucinda's reach, and slitted her eyes as if to nap again.

"Come away, Lucinda. The little cat doesn't want to be taken home. Well, there's nothing here to hurt her. You can tell Wilma where you saw her." And he began to ask Lucinda questions about Shamas and their years together.

Lucinda's answers made Dulcie sad. Pedric asked about the sale of the house, but made no comment as to whether he thought Lucinda should sell the old family home. As the two sat talking, watching the sea brighten, the tortoiseshell kit drew closer again to Dulcie, listening to every word. What a nosy little creature she was. What did she make of this conversation? What a bold, inquisitive, interesting scrap of cat fur.

And as both cats eavesdropped on the two humans, up the hill where the trailers and RVs cast their shadows long beneath the rising sun, another watcher sat, looking down, observing Pedric and Lucinda, frowning and tapping his closed fist against his lean, tensed thigh.

"I DON'T want a dog," Charlie told the pup. Hestig looked up at her sadly, pressing against her leg, as she stood at her apartment window sipping her first cup of coffee. Beyond the window, the village rooftops, the library and shops, and the eucalyptus trees that shaded Ocean's wide median, all were muted by the fog, as indistinct as an oriental watercolor. Putting her cup on the table beside her sweet roll, she sat down to her quick breakfast, petting Hestig when he pushed close to her chair and laid his head on her shoulder.

"You know I can't keep you," she said softly. "Or do you just want my breakfast?" She laughed at his sad expression. "The housing arrangement's temporary, my dear. Three or four days, maybe a week, and back you go to Clyde." Already the apartment looked as though Hestig had moved in for good, his folded blanket in the far corner comfortably matted with dog hairs, his water and food bowls taking up most of the floor in the small kitchenette; a huge chewbone occupied the center of the rag rug beside Charlie's cot, his leash and choker lay on the table beside her coffee cup.

She had to admit, his manners were improved without his brother to distract him; he minded her most of the time, was turning into a solemn and loving companion. He was beginning to put on weight, too, his ribs resembling far less an ancient washboard.

But when she imagined keeping him, she shook her head. "Look around you. I'm living in one room, here. No yard, no deck, not even a balcony."

Hestig whined.

"And in case you hadn't noticed, I'm a working girl." She scratched under his chin. "I can't take you on the job. What, tie you to the bumper all day? I can't take you into the houses that I clean and repair." She looked deep into Hestig's brown eyes. "Clyde will find a nice home for you, just you wait and see."

The pup sighed, his eyes sad enough to melt concrete, his black ears drooping. Gently, she touched the thick black scar that ran jagged across the top of his head. "How did that happen? What-or who-struck you so hard as to leave a scar like that?" She stroked the ropy wound. "You must have been very small; you're not very old now, and it takes a while for such a thing to heal."

Hestig's tail whipped so hard it nearly toppled a dinette chair.

"Who would hit a little puppy like that? I'm surprised the blow didn't kill you."

Hestig smiled and wagged and snuggled closer, leaning into her shoulder with all his fifty pounds. She tried to imagine taking him to work with her. Surely, when he grew older and had more training, he would behave with impeccable manners.