Shirley Murphy - Cat to the Dogs

For such a little thing, she had a huge, demanding cry. Leaping to the top of a boulder, she faced the trailers and bawled.

She mewed and cried until a light went on, then another light, spilling into the night like a yellow river. A woman shouted at her to shut up. A door burst open, and a man ran out, hefting a shoe. Then another man, swinging a hunk of firewood; he heaved it at her, and she dodged. Yowling twice more, she fled down the hill behind the thin man who had hurt Pedric.

Down swiftly past the dead man. There, the thin man ran across the dark highway and down again, down the steeper cliff. She was close behind him; humans were so slow. At the edge of the cliff he lifted his hand, she saw the rock and smelled the blood, the rock that had killed the big man, watched him heave the rock away into the sea.

Rain came again, beating into her face. Above her, up the hill, car lights were racing among the trailers. A siren screamed, and men shouted.

She followed the thin man up again, across the road and up the hill, and watched him vanish among the trailers. But in a minute he was back, pushing in among the crowd, crying out with surprise, and then with pain and anger, a mourning cry that, to the little kit's ears, was as fake as the kitten-mewl of a seagull.

Galloping up the hill through the dark, she drew as close as she could to the killer and tried to catch his scent, but she could not; too many humans were crowded all together. Before, when she had followed him downhill, she had smelled only the dead man's blood.

Frightened and puzzled at humans, the little cat went down to the dark, empty cave and sat hunched in its yawning mouth, looking out, watching the moving reflections of lights from above, and on the road below. Despite the shouting, she dozed, mewling in her sleep. She woke fearful.

Alone on the hill, she waited. It was her nature to wait, to expect something better to happen. Ragged and starving, bone-thin, outcast by her own kind and without any reason to hope, the small kit was filled with hope.

She thought of the hills her clowder had come from, hills like this one, dripping wet in the rain but, in the sunshine, bright with yellow grass, sweet and rustling above endless, sunstruck sea, and she was filled with hope. She believed that no matter what trouble came, all would be well again if only one waited and watched-and moved swiftly with a fast paw at the right moment.

Closing her round yellow eyes, she dozed. When next she woke, two shadows approached her, padding up through the dark wet grass; two pairs of long, gleaming eyes silvered by the pale sky, two pairs of eyes, watching her.

Joe and Dulcie studied two round yellow eyes peering out at them from the black and dripping grass. They could see no more than the eyes, disembodied in the blackness-until the shadows re-formed themselves, turning into mottled black-and-brown fur.

The waif stepped delicately forward through the sodden grass. She was so thin that the sea wind should have blown her tumbling across the hill. Her narrow little face was all black-and-brown smudges. Her expression was not the innocent look of a normal kitten, but brighter and more intelligent, more lively and knowing than any ordinary cat. Dulcie lifted her paw, enchanted; this kit was like them. Not for an instant did she doubt the wonder she sensed in this small kitten.

But the kit made Joe uneasy.

The two experiences he'd had with cats of their own kind had badly shaken him. First, Kate Osborne, whose skill at shapeshifting had left him nervous and unsettled: to know a human woman who could become a cat, deeply disturbed him. And then Azrael, that other like themselves, black, lecherous, lording it over them, coming onto Dulcie all testosterone and gleaming claws.

Now here was this ragged kitten. Like them. And frightening in her wide-eyed yearning-but before Joe Grey knew what had happened, he had reached a protecting paw to scoop the little kit close to him. Before he knew what he was doing, he was washing her smudgy face.

She had a little, tilted nose, a dish face. How boldly she rubbed against his leg, purring so hard that the ragged rhythm shook her thin body, and shook him, too.

Dulcie came close and licked her face, purring.

But around them, hidden in the night, Joe could sense the clowder of wild cats creeping close, could sense their anger as stealthily they moved closer through the dark wet grass, the wild beasts watching them-as if they did not want the kitten to be with outsiders. The darkness around them felt brittle with feline rage.

Joe stood up tall in the night, glaring into the darkness, daring the beasts to so much as hiss at them.

He caught a startled gleam, but it was quickly gone. He scowled and leered, then licked the kitten's face.

Dulcie said to the kit, "A man was killed tonight."

The kit's eyes widened, she looked up at Dulcie and twitched her long, wet tail. "How did you know to speak to me?"

Dulcie smiled. "I knew. A man was killed tonight, kit, and another man was hurt. Did you see? Can you show us who did this?"

The kit's yellow eyes grew wide. "I saw," she said softly. "I was hunting mice, and I saw."

"Was it someone from the trailers?" Dulcie glanced up the dark hill. "Someone who came from there?" She looked deeply at the kit, her green eyes kind and without guile. "Can you take us to that man? Can you show us his smell?"

The kit looked at Dulcie a long time. Twice she cut her eyes around at their unseen observers. She hissed at them and glowered as Joe had done.

At last she led Joe and Dulcie uphill, passing through the invisible cats. Passing a low growl, and snarls. Beside her, Joe Grey thundered and rumbled. No cat moved to strike them.

Up through the matted wet grass, their paws sodden, then splashing through the mud under the trailers. All the trailers were dark above them; no human was abroad now. Only the scents lingered, human stinks riding on the damp air. The kit sniffed and prowled, trying to sort them out. But no cat on earth could have sorted those smells.

"Do you know his smell?" asked Dulcie. "If one could sort anything, would you know it?"

"No," the kit said. "When I followed him, I could only smell blood."

They stood in the sopping mud between the grease-coated wheels, their wet fur clinging to their shivering bodies. "Which trailer?" Dulcie said. "Where did he come from?"

"He came out from between them. There." She cocked her ears toward the trailers. "I didn't see where exactly. I heard a door shut, then there he was." Again the kit moved away. They followed her.

"Somewhere here," she said, scenting at the wheels and at shoe prints all filled with water. But she could find no certain trail.

"We'll come back," Dulcie told her, "when this tangle of stinks blows away and when the rain is gone. Maybe then…?"

"Maybe," said the kit. "Maybe I will see him again, and I can learn his smell. I will watch. I will follow him, and I will find his scent. If the others… if they don't chase me away for being with you, for talking to you."

Joe Grey leaped down to the boulders and looked around him. He could feel the clowder watching.

"If any cat," he growled, "any ragged mangy vermin among you touches this kit, if any moldy creature among you does this kit harm, you will all of you wish you had never come to this hill. You will all die, slowly and painfully, by the force of my claws."

His eyes blazed into night. "I have your scents. I will track you wherever you go, and I will leave you bleeding and immobile. I will watch the gulls swoop down, to pick meat from your living bones."

The kit pressed close to Dulcie. "If they try to hurt me, I will go deep in the cave. They won't come there; they fear the cave. They long for it, they want to go where it leads, but they fear it." She looked brightly at Dulcie. "I will find the man who hurt Pedric. I will find him, and I will lead you to him."