Ellen Datlow - Tails of Wonder and Imagination

But Natty isn’t there. I lift up my cart to see if he’s squashed underneath it. Then I see him galloping down the road, his leash dragging. If there was a tree anywhere near he’d be up in it.

I should have known. Cats are fast. They hardly ever get hurt.

I leave my cart in the ditch and run down the road after him. Next thing here’s the doctor’s car right beside me.

“Get in. I’ll help you catch it.”

It , he says!

I run into the ditch again. And then beyond, into the brush.

The doctor gives up and drives off.

The old man is waiting for me back beside my cart.

“Cats come back,” he says.

Nice of him to say so, but we’re not anywhere for a cat to come back to.

How will Natty get along without me? And out here in the middle of nowhere.

This changes everything.

“What we’ll do,” the old man says, speaking slowly and calmly and in that raspy voice of his. “We’ll go on a little bit farther and stop where we think he might have run to, and then we’ll stay put until we find him.”

He gives me an apple. I haven’t had one in a long time, but I can’t swallow. I take one bite and give the apple back. I know it’s valuable.

That man has all sorts of things I didn’t know he had. He gets out a little camping stove and makes me tea. I do feel better after that. At least I have more energy to go looking for Natty.

We go down the road a bit farther, calling out. Nothing here but desert. There won’t be anything for Natty to drink. And I worry about that leash dragging behind him. And what about hawks?

Every now and then I step off the road and look around. I look into the shadows. By now Natty’s a desert cat and knows that it’s cooler under things in the shade.

If there’s a disaster I want to face it with Natty, and if I escape it, I don’t want to escape without Natty.

Maybe this is the disaster. At least it’s my disaster.

When we settle down for the night, I sleep a bit away from the old man in case Natty is afraid of him. I open a can of cat food and leave it near me. I can’t eat my share of it. I feel too bad. I also leave a cup of water. I wonder what sort of creature I’ll attract that I don’t want. Do rattlesnakes like cat food?

Maybe Natty is dead already. There’s always coyotes.

The man and I set up a kind of camp. Just our bundles and his stove and pan. And branch out from there. It’s several yards off the road and behind an old tumbled-down wall. Probably the remains of an old stage coach change-of-horses stop. He hasn’t set up his tent. No need. It never rains out here.

He not only has apples but carrots, too. Kind of dried out but still good. But I can’t eat.

We wander around calling, kitty, kitty, kitty. We look under every bush. I hope Natty’s good at catching lizards. There are a lot of them. Except he’s got that leash holding him back.

The doctor drives back and forth twice a day. He must live in the next town from the hospital. He stops now and then and calls out to us that he just wants to help. Once he yells out that at least we’re hidden behind that old wall. What does he mean by that?

If he really wanted to help he could bring us some bottles of water. We won’t be able to stay here much longer.

But the old man says he’ll trot back to that town—and he does mean trot—to bring back some water. He’ll use my cart because it’s lighter. And then we can stay here longer.

After he leaves, I spend the morning in the usual way, calling and looking in the shadows for a dead or dying cat.

And then, that afternoon, it rains. A hard rain. First I think it’s the disaster but it isn’t. I rush out in it calling kitty, kitty, kitty. I’m sopping but I don’t care. Only later do I remember to put out cups and the old man’s frying pan to collect water.

Then it stops raining and then suddenly flowers! As far as the eye can see—not mud but flowers.

I walk out in it. It smells wonderful. And here’s a whole mass of little luminous blue butterflies. I never knew such a thing could be.

Have I been wrong about the disaster all this time? Is it to be something beautiful instead of something bad? A disaster of flowers?

But then I feel a sharp twinge in my feet as if to remind me I’m wrong and there’s a big disaster out there just waiting to come down on us all.

I search the sky again.

Except now I don’t care. I yell, “Come on tsunami! Come flood and fire, tornado and meteorites.”

Nothing happens.

Then I hear the old man coming back. He’s whistling. You just can’t help it what with all this beauty. He sees me and waves. Calls out, “I have tomatoes and peaches!” It’s as if he knew they were things I haven’t had since I started on the journey to escape.

But I sit down in the middle of the flowers and start to cry. So many good things and I don’t even care.

He sees I won’t be able to eat for a while. He puts everything behind our wall and then comes out into the flowers and butterflies—carefully, trying to avoid stepping on flowers—and sits beside me.

After a bit I take a good look at him… a better look than before.

He sits hugging one knee. He’s wearing shorts. His legs are hairy, stringy, and knobby, but strong looking. His big hat partly hides his face, but I already know he’s an ugly man and needs a shave. His teeth stick out and his chin recedes, his nose has a bump in the middle, but all of a sudden he looks beautiful. Like Natty. Natty’s not a handsome cat but I’ve never seen one I like better.

I say, “Thank you.”

He nods—a series of nods, as if, “Yes, yes, yes,” and then shakes his head the other way as if, “It’s not important.”

I wonder what his name is.

I think to reach out and touch his knee—to say something nice but here comes the doctor, his silver car is parked right across from our wall.

He walks toward us, tramping on flowers. Scattering butterflies. He has a bandage on his hand where Natty scratched him.

“I thought you’d be gone on by now. Or at least gone for help.”

Oh my God, he has Natty’s red leather leash. He’s slapping it against his thigh. Then he hands it to me. “Here’s your leash.”

We’ve been looking and calling ourselves hoarse and he’s had Natty all this time. Or at least he knows where he is. I can just see it, the doctor driving down the road and seeing that red leash and tricking Natty some way. Or, more likely, the leash hooked on a prickly blackbrush.

I grab it and start whipping him with it. He’s not ready. He falls backwards into flowers and I keep on lashing at him.

Long as I’m winning, the old man stands there watching, but when the doctor gets up and hits me one good slap and knocks me over, the old man grabs him from behind and holds him. He’s shorter than the doctor but you can see in his stringy arms, very strong.

I’m thinking: My old man.

The doctor says, “It’s….” ( It’s again) “…at the pound back in Wilkerville. Unless it’s dead. They don’t keep them very long.”

I don’t even grab a water bottle. I start running—back down the road.

The doctor yells, “Don’t be dumb.”

We’re maybe only seven or eight miles from town and days and days of walking and pushing my cart have made me strong, too. I run on and on.