Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Moved A Montain

Qwilleran called the Pickax police chief at his home. "Andy, I'm sorry to bother you. Do you know about the prowler on Goodwinter Boulevard tonight?"

"Just happened to pick it up on my radio on the way from the lodge meeting. Campbell responded. No trace.

The prowler was after Polly. He was waiting for her when she came home."

"Where are you?" Brodie asked.

Tm still in the Potato Mountains, but I'm leaving for Pickax tomorrow. This worries me, Andy. Polly's connection with me is well known around the county — around Lockmaster County, too. I'm a prime prospect for a ransom demand."

"You're talking about . . . kidnapping? We've never had a kidnap case in a hundred years!"

"Things are changing. Outsiders are coming in, and you can expect more incidents. I'll be home Tuesday. What can you do about it in the meantime?"

"We'll step up the patrols on Goodwinter, and I'll talk to Polly tomorrow — see that she gets a ride to work. We don't want to lose a good librarian!"

After the two calls to Pickax, Qwilleran paced the floor anxiously, and the roaring of the wind added to his agitation. Soon the nightly downpour started, hitting the veranda roofs and the upstairs windows like hailstones. Before retiring, he packed for the journey and assembled his luggage in the foyer. The Siamese were nervous, and he allowed them to stay in his room. They promptly fell asleep, but the events of the day churned in his mind.

Sometime in the middle of the night, as he was tossing restlessly and listening to the wind and rain, a sudden, deafening roar drowned out all other sounds. It was like a locomotive crashing into the side of the house, like a jet shearing off the mountaintop, like an earthquake, a tornado, and a tidal wave! He turned the switch on his bedside lamp, but the power was off. Gradually the booming pandemonium receded into the distance, and he ventured downstairs with the bedside flashlight and even stepped out onto the veranda. Nothing seemed to be damaged, but there was an unearthly moaning on the mountain.

Somehow he made it through the night, trying the radio on batteries from time to time, but the local station never transmitted after midnight. When he finally managed to catch a few hours' sleep, he was aroused by the fitful behavior of the Siamese, pouncing on and off the bed. The sheriffs helicopter was circling the mountain.

Once more he tried the radio and found the station on emergency programming. Along with directives, warnings, and pleas for volunteers, there was this repeated announcement:

"Big Potato Mountain and parts of Spudsboro have been declared a disaster area, following the collapse of Lake Batata Dam early this morning. The dam burst at 3:45 A.M., dumping tons of water down the mountainside, washing out sections of Hawk's Nest Drive, and destroying homes on the drive as well as certain commercial buildings on Center Street and at Five Points. The Yelly-hoo River, already overflowing its banks, has been swollen by the rush of water from the artificial lake, and it is now feared that debris carried down the mountainside will collect in the Yellyhoo south of town and dam the rampaging flood water from the north. Residents on both sides of the river are being evacuated. The power has failed in most of the county, and most subscribers are without telephone service. The hospital, municipal buildings, and communications centers are operating on emergency generators. At this hour there is no report on casualties. The sheriff's helicopter is searching for survivors. Stand by for further information."

CHAPTER 18

"We're trapped!" Qwilleran said to the cats after hearing the news of the Batata washout. "It could be days before we get out of here! And we don't have a phone, water, refrigeration, or even a cup of coffee! Don't sit there blinking! What shall we do?"

Then he remembered the old logging trail down the outside of the mountain. It emerged from the forest onto the highway north of town, beyond the golf course and near the airport. "Okay, we're going out the back way. Fasten your seat belts!"

There was no way of knowing what had happened to the Lessmores, or their house, or their place of business, but after reaching Pickax there would be time enough to return the keys and explain his sudden departure to Dolly, Sabrina, Colin, and Chrysalis. In his hurry he abandoned most of his purchases, having lost interest in the objects bought so impulsively at Potato Cove. Only the five bat-wing capes went into his luggage. Even his box of secondhand books was left behind with the exception of The Magic Mountain, and there was no point in taking the expensive turkey roaster that the cats had declined to use.

The Siamese were silent while Qwilleran packed the trunk of the car and placed their carrier on the backseat. Soon he headed for the trail that Chrysalis had shown him. In passing the gazebo he stopped to admire Dewey Beechum's handiwork: a handsome hexagonal structure that the cats would never use. It had a cedar shake roof and a cupola and carved wood brackets supporting the roof between the six screened panels. There was one puzzling detail, and Qwilleran left the car to walk over and confirm his suspicions. No door! There was no way to get into the thing! He could imagine Beechum removing his moldy green hat to scratch his head while saying, "Y'didn't let on as how y'wanted a door."

The logging trail was hardly more than a set of tire tracks between the trees, and as long as he stayed in the muddy ruts, Qwilleran thought, it would be navigable. The trail wound in and out, up and down, back and forth—always descending—but the lower the altitude, the muddier the tracks, enough so that he became alarmed. He gripped the steering wheel and hoped for the best. Despite the swerving and jolting, there was not a sound from the backseat; that in itself was ominous. The small car bounced in and out of ruts and wheeled successfully through large puddles until a misleading depression in the road swallowed the wheels, and the car sank axle-deep in the mire.

Qwilleran gunned the motor and spun the wheels; the second-hand, three-year-old, four-cylinder, two-tone green sedan would move neither forward nor backward. It only sank deeper. Stunned by this new misfortune, Qwilleran sat behind the steering wheel and felt his throat tightening and his face burning. Why? Why? Why, he asked himself, did I ever come to the Potatoes?

He considered leaving the car and slogging the two miles back to Tiptop through slimy clay that would be shin-deep—lugging the cat carrier, slipping and falling and dropping it. And if he stayed in the car, what would happen? No one in Spudsboro would know that he had left Tiptop. No one would miss him. No one would come searching for him. Worse yet, no one ever used this route!

Occasionally he heard the chop-chop of the helicopter, but that was scant help; trees arching over the trail provided complete camouflage.

The Siamese had been mercifully silent during this crisis, and once more he considered struggling back to Tiptop, leaving them in the car until he could return with help, but the phones were out of order. How would he make his plight known? He leaned forward with his arms circling the steering wheel and his head on his arms, in an effort to think logically, yet nothing even remotely resembling a solution occurred to him.

"Yow!" said Koko, for the first time that day.

Qwilleran ignored him.