Лилиан Браун: The Cat Who Went Up The Creek

“Well, for your information, you’re going anyway,” Qwilleran told them.

Yum Yum, the gentle little female, squeezed her eyes noncommittally. Koko, the lordly male, who knew his name was really Kao K’o Kung, slapped the floor with his tail. When their midday snack was placed in the feeding station, they ignored it until Qwilleran was out of the room.

In the afternoon he reported to the art center, where he was to help judge best of show in a new exhibit opening Sunday. They would be self-portraits by local artists. He would be first to admit he knew nothing about art, but he knew it was his name they wanted on the judges’ panel—not his expertise. The manager of the art center had swiveled her eyes at him; Barb Ogilvie had a talent for using her eyeballs to get what she wanted. She had neglected to tell him that the portraitists were all third-graders.

“The purpose of this event,” she explained to the assembled judges, “is to introduce the art center to families who might not otherwise come here. They will be voting for their favorite and having punch and cookies. We hope to make friends.”

The judges’ choice as best-of-show was a portrait of a blond girl in a pink dress, done in pastels.

Barb said to Qwilleran, “Will you attend the opening?”

“Sorry. I’ll be in Black Creek on assignment, but I think it would be nice if you’d have dinner with me sometime afterward—at the Nutcracker Inn.” One of his chief pleasures was taking someone—anyone—to dinner at a good restaurant.

“I’d love it!” she cried, swiveling her eyes. No one ever said no to Qwilleran’s dinner invitations.

So far, so good, Qwilleran thought. Now came the hard part: relocating two opinionated cats who disliked a change of address. His strategy would be one of stealth, carried out in three separate operations.

First, while waiting for Andy, he took the Siamese to the screened gazebo overlooking the garden. Nature’s night noises would steal their attention from activity in the barnyard, where two bikes were being lashed to the interior of a van.

At 10:00 P.M. Andrew Brodie arrived at the barn—a big burly Scot with the authority of a police chief and the swagger of a bagpiper. He was both. “So where you goin’ this time?” he demanded.

“Black Creek—staying at the Nutcracker Inn, scrounging material for the column.”

“What’ll you do with the cats?”

“Take them along.” Qwilleran was setting out a cheese board with Cheddar, smoked Gouda and Stilton. Andy liked to sit at the snack bar and cut chunks and slices for himself. “Your daughter did a great job of refurbishing that old building, Andy.”

“Yep, it was pretty much of a dump.”

“It’ll be in a national magazine next month, and I hear Fran is getting offers from Chicago and elsewhere.”

“Yep, she’s doin’ all right.” Brodie said it ruefully, and Qwilleran recalled that he was talking to a typical old north-country father who considered a career less desirable than family life. He changed the subject. “Andy, did you know old Gus Limburger?”

“Sure did! He was a crazy old codger. He went around asking women to marry him and run his mansion like a boarding house. He asked young and old, ugly and pretty, married and single. We had so many complaints, we threatened to charge him with disturbing the peace.” Andy slapped his thigh and hooted. “Lois Inchpot chased him out of her restaurant with a rolling pin! That was after he came back from living in Germany for a while. I was working for the sheriff then, and the Limburger mansion was one of our regular stops on patrol. A real estate office paid the taxes and kept the grass cut, and we reported vandalism to them. People called it a haunted house. That was twenty-thirty years ago. . . . Ever meet old Gus?”

“I tried to interview him but he was too eccentric. He sat on the porch, throwing stones at stray dogs, and he was chasing a dog when he tripped over a loose brick in the front steps. The fall killed him.”

“Everybody was surprised to learn he had a daughter in Germany. I bet she was only too glad to sell everything to the K Fund.”

“Freshen your drink, Andy?” Qwilleran asked.

“A wee dram. . . . Say, d’you know Doc Abernethy? Lives in Black Creek. Pediatrician. Takes care of my grandkids.”

Soberly Qwilleran said, “No, I don’t know him. I take my family to the vet.”

His guest dismissed that remark with a grunt. “Doc has a story to tell that changed his life.”

“From what to what?”

“You look him up and ask him. He tells a good story—and all true, he swears.”

“He writes a good letter to the editor,” Qwilleran admitted.

“Good citizen. Gets involved.” The chief looked at his watch, and drained his glass. “Gotta pick m’wife up at the church.”

His departure ushered in the second stage of Qwilleran’s strategy. He brought the cats in from the gazebo, half-drugged with nocturnal lights, and then he gave them a larger-than-usual bedtime snack. They staggered up the ramp to the third balcony, and Qwilleran put a wildlife video (without the sound) on their VCR. Yum Yum was asleep before he closed the door, and Koko was swaying noticeably in front of the screen.

Congratulating himself, Qwilleran spent the next hour in feverish but silent activity—padding around in house slippers, packing luggage and boxes, quietly opening and closing doors and drawers, being careful not to drop anything.

Everything was going as planned. The chief had promised to keep an eye on the barn in his absence. Three weeks’ needs for man and cats were successfully stacked inside the kitchen door, ready for a pre-breakfast getaway, when Qwilleran turned off the lights and went to his suite on the first balcony. Before he could open the door, his ears were assaulted by a prolonged, high-decibel howl in two-part harmony from the upper precincts. He cringed. It seemed to say, You can’t fool us, you chump!

There was nothing more he could do or say; they would have to howl until their batteries ran down. Then it occurred to him to reread a chapter in a book he was writing. A collection of Moose County legends, it was to be titled Short & Tall Tales.

THE LEGEND OF THE RUBBISH HEAP

In the mid-nineteenth century, when Moose County was beginning to boom, it was a Gold Rush without the gold. There were veins of coal to be mined, forests to be lumbered, granite to be quarried, land to be developed, fortunes to be made. It would become the richest county in the state.

In 1859 two penniless youths from Germany arrived by schooner, by way of Canada. On setting foot on the foreign soil, they looked this way and that to get their bearings, and both saw it at the same time! A piece of paper money in a rubbish heap! Without stopping to inquire its value, they tore it in half to signify their partnership. It would be share and share alike from then on.

Their names were Otto Wilhelm Limburger and Karl Gustav Klingenschoen. They were fifteen years old.

Labor was needed. They hired on as carpenters, worked long hours, obeyed orders, learned everything they could, used their wits, watched for opportunities, took chances, borrowed wisely, cheated a little, and finally launched a venture of their own.

By the time they were in their thirties, Otto and Karl dominated the food-and-shelter industry. They owned all the rooming houses, eating places and travelers’ inns along the shoreline. Only then did they marry: Otto, a God-fearing woman named Gretchen; Karl, a fun-loving woman nicknamed Minnie. At the double wedding the friends pledged to name their children after each other. They hoped for boys, but girls could be named Karla and Wilhelmina. Thus the two families became even more entwined . . . until rumors about Karl’s wife started drifting back from the waterfront. When Karl denied the slander, Otto trusted him.