Рита Браун - Cat's Eyewitness

Tucker immediately followed.

"Hey!" Pewter yelled at them, then the aroma of beef reached her nostrils. She hightailed it off the wing chair.

Harry placed cooked beef with crunchies and broth in three bowls. Tucker ate a different kind of kibble than the kitties. Dog crunchies usually contain less fat than cat crunchies, which meant if Tucker could filch cat crunchies, she did.

Harry fried herself a small steak while the asparagus heated in a saucepan. Fair wouldn't be coming over tonight. Monday nights he stayed at the clinic, catching up on paperwork. They tried to spend Tuesdays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays together.

Late November and December gave him a breather, as Fair's specialty was equine reproduction. In January and February breeders hit high gear and so did Fair. Thoroughbreds' foaling season overlapped part of breeding season. Foals appeared when they felt like it, like human babies, so Fair endured days with little sleep. The season finally stabilized around the end of March.

Tucker finished first, since she gobbled her food. The cats ate with more decorum, although Pewter sported food bits on her whiskers. This would be followed by a grooming routine that would put a cover girl to shame.

"The cardinal is full of himself because he's the state bird of Virginia." Tucker liked the bird despite his attitude. "Goes to their heads."

"State dog is the foxhound. I don't think it's gone to their heads." Mrs. Murphy liked foxhounds; she generally liked all types of hounds since they are good problem solvers.

"Should be the corgi." Tucker exhibited a small flash of ego.

"Queen Elizabeth has dibs on that." Mrs. Murphy laughed.

"Yeah, Tucker, you belong in Buckingham Palace or Sandringham or wherever." Pewter bit into a delicious warm bit of beef, the fat still on it making it extra sweet to her tongue.

"I do, don't I?" The sturdy animal smiled. "Well, you know the only reason the foxhound won out is because Virginia is the center of foxhunting in America. I mean, it's practically the state sport."

"Yeah," both cats laughed, "and the fox always wins."

Pewter quickly hollered, "Jigs for a bite." Then she stuck her face in Mrs. Murphy's bowl, grabbing a juicy chunk of beef.

"Damn," Mrs. Murphy cussed.

"Hee hee." Pewter chewed with delight.

"I know. I wished I'd said it first."

"Ever notice how a cardinal's beak changes color?" Tucker, observant, edged closer to Pewter's bowl, some food still inside.

"Hey, I see you. Forget it." Pewter growled.

"In case you're full, I'll help you out."

"Tucker, you liar." The gray cat hunched over her bowl.

"The cardinal's beak is black when he's a juvenile; he's grayish brown with color on his wings then. Sometimes people who don't pay attention to birds confuse the young males with females."

"Oh, how can they do that?" Pewter, mouth full, slurred her words. "The female has an orange bill, orange on her crest, and pretty orange-red on her wings and tail. .And she has a blush of color on her light gray breast. Can't miss her."

"Sometimes they're yellowish. There's a lot of color variation. One time I was talking to a female cardinal who was poking around in Harry's rhododendrons and I thought she was a cedar waxwing until I realized she didn't have the black mask." Mrs. Murphy finished her delicious dinner.

"I think what they eat affects their color. What we eat affects the gloss on our coats." Pewter finally gobbled the last mouthful, to Tucker's dismay. "Greedy," she said under her breath.

"Fatty" Tucker fired back.

The cat, lightning-fast, swatted the dog, who scooted backward.

"Ugly. I don't expect my friends to be ugly." Harry flipped her steak in the frying pan.

"It's Tucker's fault."

"Sure." Tucker shrugged. "To change the subject, I think our mother is on the trail again."

"But how would she know? She can't understand what the cardinal is saying." Pewter had already gotten over being angry at Tucker.

"The tears of blood." Mrs. Murphy cleaned her face.

"Huh?" Pewter began her grooming, too.

"She saw the tears of blood. Originally she wanted to go back and double-check, but Brother Frank cooled her with his phone call. Then Susan called and told her Brother Thomas died in front of the statue. Set her off. You know how her mind works." Mrs. Murphy knew her human very well.

"Or doesn't." Pewter moaned. "More treks in the cold."

"You don't have to go," Tucker airily said.

Pewter gave her an icy stare as Harry sat down at the kitchen table.

"We'd better be extra vigilant." Mrs. Murphy leapt onto an empty kitchen chair.

"Is there a state cat of Virginia?" Tucker asked.

"I don't think so." Pewter thought this a terrible oversight.

Virginia license plates carried various messages. Some had a ship with the date 1607, the year Jamestown was founded. Others had a yellow swallowtail butterfly, the state butterfly. Some had a horse on them, others a school logo. Harry's old license plates were simply white with blue letters, but she liked the ones with a cat and dog on them, signifying the driver as an animal lover. Pewter thought there should be a license plate devoted exclusively to cats, using her slimmed-down image, of course.

"How can that be?" Tucker wondered. "If we have a state butterfly, a state flower, a state tree, how can there not be a state cat?"

"Certainly it should be a tiger cat." Mrs. Murphy smiled.

"No, it should be a gray cat just like me." Pewter jumped onto another kitchen chair, peeking over the tabletop.

"I see you and you're not getting one morsel off my plate." Harry squinted at Pewter.

"We want you to start a petition so we can be the state cats." Pewter used her sweetest voice.

"And if we don't get selected—good old everyday cats—then I say we call on all alley cats in the state to descend on the state house, shred furniture, pull out computer plugs, and pee on papers!" Mrs. Murphy gleefully imagined the state house overrun by rioting cats.

"Bet the governor would have a fit and fall in it." Pewter laughed.

"He's seen worse, but this would be a first, a first for the whole nation." Tucker liked the idea.

"You all are chatty." Harry glanced at the newspaper. "Hmm, we still haven't gotten all the money the federal government promised us for security."

The animals as well as Virginia's humans knew if anything went wrong, they'd be on the front line. The image, ever-present in their minds, was the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Also, much of the Revolutionary War was fought in the state as well as sixty percent of the War Between the States.

"Why do people believe their government?" Pewter asked.

"Because they have to believe in something. They get scared without a system. They'll accept a system that doesn't work rather than create a new one; they're lazy. They're like a pack of hounds that way" Mrs. Murphy, a cat and therefore a freethinker, remarked.

"I'm a canine." Tucker tilted her head upward toward the tiger cat.

"Of course, you are," Pewter said soothingly, "but you spend your time with us. Our habits have rubbed off on you."

Mrs. Murphy laughed. "Maybe. But Tucker, it's like this: if you or I are scared there's a real reason—you know, the bobcat has jumped us behind the barn. We fight or run and then we're over it. They carry their fear all the time. It's what makes humans sick, you see. And it's why they have to believe in things that can't be true."

"Like a bunch of men sitting on top of a mountain with no women, no children, and thinking a statue of the Virgin Mary is crying tears of blood." Pewter let her tail hang over the edge of the chair.

"You don't believe in miracles?" Tucker hoped that there were miracles.