Рита Браун - Cat's Eyewitness

"Yes."

Tucker wormed her way under the fence, digging out snow. She finally made it and tore after the cats. "I'll get you."

Both cats puffed up, standing sideways. "Die, dog!" They spit.

Tucker roared past them, a spray of snow splashing both cats in the face. Their whiskers drooped a bit with the debris.

They shook themselves to run after Tucker, though it was harder for them because of the varying snow depths. They persevered.

"Tucker! Mrs. Murphy! Pewter!" Harry called in vain.

"Don't even think about it." Susan put her hand on Harry's forearm, the fabric of her parka crinkling.

"I won't." Harry was considering climbing the fence.

The animals gleefully frolicked. They enjoyed many opportunities to play at home, but Harry's discomfort added to the moment. They paused, hearing buzzards lift up to circle overhead. As it was deer season, a few irresponsible hunters had left carcasses. Most dressed the deer where they dropped. Deer season was feast time for vultures.

Before they knew it, the animals came upon the statue, snow swirling about her, frozen blood on her cheeks. They stopped in their tracks.

There, kneeling in the snow, hands clasped in prayer and resting on the boulder base, no gloves, hood over his head, was one of the brothers.

"Shh," Tucker respectfully ordered the cats.

Mrs. Murphy lifted her nose, followed by Tucker, then Pewter. In the deep cold, the mercury hung at eighteen degrees Fahrenheit; at this altitude, they couldn't smell a thing. That was the problem. A live human at normal body temperature would emanate scent.

The three cautiously crept forward. Tucker sniffed the back of the thick gray robe, white with snow, as white as the wool mantle worn with the robes.

Mrs. Murphy circled around, as did Pewter. Both cats stiffened, jumping back.

The brother's eye sockets were filled with snow. Snow had collected at his neckline, covering halfway up his face. His face, though, remained uplifted to that of the Blessed Virgin Mother, who looked down, her own face lined with snow.

"He's frozen stiff!" Pewter finally could breathe. "A human frozen fish stick!"

Mrs. Murphy stepped forward boldly as Tucker came around. "I can't make out his features."

"Even if you could, we might not know him. There are many of the brothers we don't see," Tucker spoke quietly. "The ones who work in the shops and talk to us are hand picked."

"Why would anyone come out in bitter cold—and he's been here awhile"— Pewter's dark whiskers swept forward and then back—"to kneel and pray? This is beyond devotion. Why would the Virgin Mary want someone to suffer like that? No." The gray cat shook her head, snowflakes flying off like white confetti.

"Maybe he had big sins to expiate." Tucker couldn't believe her eyes.

"Mmm, whatever they were, they had to do with humans. They never pray for forgiveness for what they do to us." A bitter note crept into Mrs. Murphy's voice. "Humans think only of themselves."

"Not Mom. Not Fair." Tucker stoutly defended his beloved Harry and her ex-husband.

"That's true," Mrs. Murphy agreed.

Pewter sat in the snow, her fur fluffing up. "It's hateful cold. Let's go back. There's nothing we can do for this one. Maybe he's found Mother Mary."

"We ought to check for tracks," Tucker sagely noted. "In case there's more than one pair."

The three fanned out, soon returning to the frozen corpse.

"Tucker, there's so much wind and snow this high. The statue's on the highest point here. If there had been someone else, the tracks are covered, which makes me believe he's been here since the middle of the night," Mrs. Murphy said.

"Why did we look for tracks, anyway?" Pewter realized she'd cooperated without putting up a fuss or demanding a reason.

"Maybe he didn't die in prayer," Tucker simply replied.

"Or maybe he died with a little help," Mrs. Murphy added, finding the sight of those snow-filled eyes creepy.

"Absurd. Who would want to kill a praying monk?" Pewter again shook off the snow.

"Maybe I should bark and get someone up here."

"The buildings are down that hill. The brothers can't hear you, and if Mother can, you'll only make her frantic." Mrs. Murphy started down the hill, dropping into deep snow here and there.

Tucker pushed in front of her. "I'll go first. You and Pewter can follow in my wake." She put her head down, pressing forward as the wind suddenly gusted out of the northwest.

Pewter grumbled from the rear, "I still can't imagine going out in the middle of a snowy night to pray in front of a statue, even if she does have blood on her face."

"On her hands." Mrs. Murphy fired back, then corrected herself. "No. Not Virgin Mary She is love."

"He froze to death in prayer or had a heart attack or something. We've all been around Harry too much. She can't resist a mystery. She's still trying to find out who had Charlie Ashcraft's first illegitimate child almost twenty years ago. She's rubbing off on us." Pewter laughed at her friends and herself.

"You're right. The brothers will eventually find whoever that is, then there will be a burial and prayer service. That will be the end of it." Tucker dropped over snow-covered stones.

"Yeah. Who would want to kill a monk? They don't have anything to steal." Pewter could hear Harry calling faintly in the distance. They'd traveled farther than she remembered.

"Like I said, the service will be in the paper and we'll know who it was and that will be the end of it." Tucker, too, heard Harry. "Murph, you're not saying anything."

"I don't think that will be the end of it. This is the beginning." The tiger felt the snow turn to tiny ice bits between her toes. She wanted to hurry back to the truck. She wished the strange, uneasy sensation washing over her would ebb away, a sensation deepened by the sound of wings passing overhead, the snow so thick she couldn't see the buzzards. "Buzzards' luck," she thought to herself.

11

Not necessarily." Rev. Herb Jones's gravelly voice had a hypnotic effect on people.

"I've become a cynic, I fear." Alicia's lustrous eyes, filled with warmth, focused on Herb.

They'd run into each other at Pet Food Discounters. Alicia was buying toys and pigs' ears for Maxwell, while Herb carried flats of special cat food for his two cats. He'd placed them on the counter, then walked to the toy section for some furry fake mice, when he bumped into Alicia.

The subject of the "miracle" came up and Alicia asked if Herb thought this might be a scam.

"Your line of work taught you not to trust." Herb placed his hand on Alicia's shoulder, feeling a pleasurable twinge when he did so. No man was immune to her beauty.

"And your line of work taught you the reverse." She smiled at him.

He reached for the furry mice with pink ears, little black noses, little beady eyes, the tail a dyed bit of thin leather. "I'll ponder that, Alicia. I have learned to trust God in His infinite wisdom, but I don't know that I always trust man—or should I say people?" He blushed. "Words change, you know. I'm beyond being politically correct. I, uh, well, I still think it's proper to open the door for a lady."

"So do I." Her laughter sounded like a harp's glissando. "But, now, Herb, do you think I'm a hard-edged feminist and will take offense if you use 'man' to mean humankind?" His eyebrows raised and she continued. "I won't take offense, but I will take note." Now her eyebrows raised. "So long as 'man' is the measure of all things, women will be shortchanged. I guarantee you that."

"Point well taken." He rubbed the fur on the mousies. "Antonia Fraser wrote a book some years ago. I wish I could remember the title but it was about men being the measure of all things in the seventeenth century, I believe. Quite good. I like her work even if I have forgotten the title."