Shirley Murphy - The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana

Brad Falon had returned to Rome after his prison time, escaping a dirty piece of business out in L.A., running from the law before the land scam he’d been involved in was uncovered. Now, he was too near again to Sammie, in that small town, was too interested in Sammie and in her mother and was a threat to them both.

Except that now, in Georgia, Morgan Blake was home again, he was out of the navy and back with his little family. Becky and the child need no longer face Falon alone, and that satisfied and eased Misto.

But Lee was alone, and just now he needed Misto. The ghost cat did not mean to leave Fontana as the dark spirit sought to own him. And in Misto’s dreams, the connection between Lee and Falon and Sammie was building closer, their lives slowly drawing together, incident by twisted incident, toward a final and life-changing event that would shape the future of all three.

Only just before dawn did the cat stir from his dreams, and leave Lee, slipping out into the fading night to wander the dim ranch yard and then to stroll in through the bunkhouses observing the sleeping workers, their clothes and possessions strewn everywhere among the jumble of cots, a far less organized scene than a cell full of regimented prisoners. The breath of the sleeping men smelled strongly of chiles and garlic. He wandered and looked, amusing himself and then moved outside again where he chased half a dozen chickens, sending them flapping and squawking in panic; then he headed for the back door of the ranch house where, if he were lucky, Jake Ellson might have set out a bowlful of milk for the half dozen farm cats. The rancher had seemed pleased when he glimpsed a new mouser on the property, maybe a wanderer, maybe a drop-off, as often occurred in the open country. Misto, during his stay, meant to catch and leave a few fat mice on the porch, just to prove his prowess.

Yes, this morning there was milk. He lapped the bowl clean before the other cats got to it, and then looked up at the kitchen window, catching glimpses of Jake as he prepared his breakfast; the boss seemed to prefer quiet in the morning to that of a crowd of noisy braceros .

It was Friday, the end of Lee’s third day on the job, that Ramon Delgado came roaring into the ranch yard in his big white Cadillac, kicking up dust, and Lee got a look at the two canvas cash bags that contained the ranch’s weekly payroll, and then soon at the money itself. At enough cash to set him up real nice. And this payroll, to be doled out to more than a hundred men, was only one of four among the Delgado holdings.

The day was still hot as hell though the sun had already dropped behind the hills as they headed in from the fields. Lee had pulled into the ranch yard, the last in the long line of trucks, hot and sweaty after twelve hours of driving. He felt beat down to nothing, it took the last of his energy to get out of the truck, turn in his tally to Jake, walk across the dusty yard to his cabin and ease himself down on the top step, trying to get a full breath. The job itself wasn’t hard physical work, driving the truck back and forth. Even the heat was to his liking—until it got too damned hot. But it was the stress of dealing with a few quarrelling braceros that would tighten up his lungs. He sat sucking air, slowly calming himself, watching the five other foremen stride across to their cabins, three gringos and two Mexican men, all brown from the sun and seeming comfortable in the heat, all of them at least a generation younger than Lee.

Well, he wasn’t letting on how beat he was, he needed the job, and he liked it here. He had plans here, he didn’t mean to move on until he was loaded with cash, and ready. But right now his shirt and pants stuck to him wringing wet, and his feet were swollen inside his boots. His eyes burned from the glare of the fields, from rows of broad melon leaves reflecting back the beating sun, and from sun bouncing off the hood of the truck. He was parched, dog tired, and his temper boiling from a run-in with the boy he’d picked for straw boss.

From the first morning, Lee had to work at establishing his authority. These men had different ways than the men he’d worked with at McNeil, and he was even rusty with the farm equipment. On that first morning, heading out of the ranch yard before daylight, driving a truck for the first time in years, following the line of trucks, he’d jerked the clutch so bad that the men, jammed into the truck bed, laughed and hooted and shouted good-natured Spanish obscenities at him. They’d eased along a dirt lane and sharply up the side of a levee to a thin track at the top, the old truck straining, then moving on fast through the darkness to keep up with the others. The thin ridge dropped steeply on both sides. The truck rocked and heaved as the field hands horsed around laughing and cuffing each other, thinking nothing of the drop, not giving a damn if they went over. Lee crouched over the wheel gripping hard with both hands, hoping to keep it on the narrow track. As the sky began to turn red, sunrise soon staining the fields, he could see an occasional turnoff angling down the bank on his left. On his right, almost directly under him, a concrete ditch surged with fast black water from the Colorado. He was mighty glad when he saw his own flag marker, ahead in the field below.

As he angled down off the levee, the rising dust from the trucks ahead filled his mouth and nose, dust crept into his lungs so thick that soon he was retching and gagging, coughing up specks of blood. Well, hell, maybe the emphysema would finish him right there in the stinking truck, and who would even care?

He slowed along the edge of the melon field and the men began piling out, lurching the truck harder, landing at a run to keep their balance beside the slow-moving vehicle, men peeling off into the melon rows. They got to work fast when they were picking on their own time, were paid by how much they could harvest. They didn’t look up from their work as the sun lifted, as the sky slowly bleached to white and the rising heat slicked sweat across their bare backs. They stopped only to drink from the six water coolers that were wired to the back of the truck, then got to work again. Lee, driving along feeling the truck jolt as they loaded the melons, couldn’t escape the sun’s reflection from the fields and from the truck’s hood and dashboard. The temperature inside the cab, even with the windows open, must be a hundred and thirty. He wished this were a horse operation instead of a farm, wished he were doing a job he cared about, something he could put his mind to.

By midmorning he’d pulled off his shirt. He felt cooked through. He grew bored with keeping tally on the pickers, marking down their loads as they dumped them into the truck bed. By noon the water coolers were empty and the truck riding low on its axles, its bed piled high with its first load of cantaloupes. Going back in for the noon meal, the men rode on the outside, clinging to the slats, their voices irritable now with heat and hunger, exploding in fast Spanish arguments, and the heavy, sweet smell of the cantaloupes sickened Lee. If he were twenty years younger, maybe he wouldn’t mind this routine. At his age, with the emphysema flaring up, working all day in this damnable heat wasn’t going to cut it for long. Where the hell had he gotten the notion that the hot desert was just what he longed for? It was early that afternoon when, observing the men at work, he picked out a straw boss to run interference for him.

Tony Valdez was a squarely built kid in his early twenties, with an easy way about him. Maybe too easy, but he looked like he could handle the men, and that was what Lee wanted. Valdez worked stripped to the waist, the silver cross hanging around his neck swinging as he bent to cut the fruit from the vines. Lee saw no prison tattoos on his sun-browned skin, and no sullenness in his face. “I’ll pay you two dollars a day extra,” he’d told Tony. “You’ll keep the arguments down, and help me with the tally.”