Shirley Murphy - Christmas Cats - A Literary Companion

She got up twice during the night to look into the living room where the cats still slept, curled together. The third time she woke, the cat was up and pacing, staring at the window. Not until it settled down again, did Virgie go back to bed. It was that night while Virgie slept that, across at the jail, Sheriff roused Hector Lee from sleep.

The time, by the jailhouse clock, was three A.M. Before Hector Lee knew what was happening, Sheriff shoved three men into his cell, and slammed and locked the door. Sheriff stood for a minute looking in. "I'm sorry, Hector Lee. You can sure come on out, right now. Can go on home, or over to Virgie's for the night, maybe."

Hector Lee looked at the young, half-drunk, belligerent Worley brothers slumped on the other three bunks. Rod and Jude scowled. Randy Worley was tense and angry, glaring at Hector Lee hungering for a fight. Old Hayden Worley's boys. Mean as snakes. Across the hall, the other two cells held two Worley cousins, and an uncle and a second cousin. Hector Lee looked over his three cellmates, and knew he'd be smart to leave. But, waked up in the middle of the night by this scum, he felt as mean and contrary as the Worleys looked. "I'll stay here, Sheriff."

"Come on out of there, Hector Lee."

Stubbornly Hector Lee sat down on his bedroll. Sheriff gave him a look, touched his side arm as if to force Hector Lee out, but then he scowled and turned away. Randy Worley waited until the sheriff had gone on into his office, then he jerked Hector Lee off his bunk. "You'll sleep on the floor, old man."

"You don't need my bunk, Randy."

Randy stretched out on Hector Lee's bedroll and yawned. Hector Lee jerked him up and got in two hard punches before Randy had him down, beating on him.

He woke on a cot in the sheriffs office, his jaw and eye hurting bad. His side felt like raw meat. When he moved, that pained him so, he hoped a rib weren't broke. He must have moaned, because Sheriff turned in his swivel chair. "How you feel, Hector Lee?"

"I've been better." Shivering, he looked up at the barred office window. The dawn light was cold and gray.

"There's a glass of water there on the file cabinet, Hector Lee. And some aspirin." Sheriff rose and shook out three aspirin for him, handed them to him with the water. Leaning painfully up on one elbow, Hector Lee swallowed them down.

"Try to get some sleep," Sheriff said. "I don't…" The phone rang and he turned back to the desk. Hector Lee rolled over real careful facing the wall where the light wasn't in his eyes, and pulled the blanket up. He meant to go back to sleep but the sheriffs conversation held him listening.

"… plane must have landed around midnight. One of my deputies lives out there but was on duty. Got home around one, the plane was tied down, the field empty. He'd passed the boys' car on the road. He called in, and took off after them. Half an hour before we found them. Not a thing in the car, they've stashed it somewhere. Deputies are out looking. If you have a drug dog free, to send up here…" Sheriff listened, and made a grunting sound in his throat. "Well, hell. Guess that's more important." He listened again, then, "If these punks won't talk, and we don't have the stash by noon I'll call you, see if you can pull a dog off for two or three hours."

He listened, then, "Well, yeah, a lot of farms and open country, but they didn't have time to go far. This isn't a very big town, maybe we'll get lucky."

Sheriffs last words before he hung up the phone were disgust that his jail was full of scum on Christmas Eve morning. Hector Lee was drifting off when the sheriff left the jail. He heard him talking with a deputy, then heard the front door slam. His dreams were filled with the hurts he'd been dealt, and, strangely, with the sweet voices of the Greeley choir—as if the two elements were engaged in some fierce battle. He woke with the sun in his eyes through the barred window, and the Worley boys banging their shoes on the bars shouting for breakfast. A deputy, sitting at the desk, looked around at Hector Lee. His thin black hair was slicked back, pink scalp showing through, his cheeks pink from shaving. "You going on back to your place, Hector Lee? You can't move into the office for the winter," he said, grinning.

Hector Lee didn't answer.

"Calling for more snow. By tonight, temperature'll be down around zero." Deputy watched him. "It's Christmas Eve morning, Hector Lee. You could sleep in Virgie's garage for a few nights, until we can make room in county jail for those punks."

Hector Lee swung off the cot. "You fetching some breakfast for those snakes?" he asked hopefully.

The deputy laughed, and rose. "Ham and eggs?" Hector Lee nodded. He was rolling up his bedroll, and the deputy not back yet with breakfast, when Virgie came for him.

"I need you to come help me, Hector Lee. It's the little cat, the stray. There's a tomcat started hanging around. I'm afraid he's set to kill the kitten. I thought maybe you could… maybe trap it? Or borrow a shotgun? A big, mean-looking tomcat, all scarred up from fighting and killing."

Hector Lee said nothing, just stood looking out the window waiting for the deputy, listening to his stomach growl.

"Hector Lee? I have bacon in the skillet and sourdough pancakes…"

Hector Lee looked at Virgie. Well, he might could go on over there, just for a bit of breakfast.

He followed Virgie through the snow and mud thinking about her good sourdough pancakes slathered with molasses. But he sure didn't want to shoot no tomcat. Heading around behind the library to her cottage, Virgie said, "Gat wanted to go out this morning. Real insistent, guess she wanted to hunt. Herded her kit right out, I couldn't keep them in. Maybe she's back now, she… there," she said, pulling him back.

In the shadows by the door, the cat and kit were crouched and watchful. Hector Lee stood still as Virgie went on up the steps like nothin' was different. But before she could reach for the knob, the cat looked past her at Hector Lee and was gone, her kit beside her. Hitting the end of the porch they disappeared around the side of the house, among the bushes.

Virgie looked back at him helplessly, both of them thinking of the tomcat. He followed her in through the house and sat down at the kitchen table. She cooked his pancakes, distracted, kept looking out the window. Hector said, "Cat won't come, with a stranger here. I'd best…"

"She'll come," Virgie said. "Be patient. Eat your breakfast." She looked at Hector Lee. "Jail's full of those Worleys, Hector Lee. They killed my Muffy. Oh, I hate that family. They're dangerous. And it's too cold for you to go back to your place, you don't want to freeze to death all alone, on Christmas Eve."

Hector Lee grinned at that. Virgie said no more; and before he knew it, they were outside again, bundled up, looking for the mama cat and her kit. "Maybe she'll come to the house while we're gone," Virgie said. "Maybe I can come back alone and get her inside."

Hector Lee followed her wondering what he was doing out in the muddy snow freezing his tail looking for stray cats. "Twice last week," Virgie said, "I saw them go in the garage. You stay here, let me have a look." She went in through the side door and shut it, so the cat wouldn't run out. Hector Lee didn't know what good that would do, the garage door didn't fit tight, you could drag a steer under that door. He stood shivering in the snow, his boots wet, his feet freezing, his mind filled with cold thoughts. How much need a fellow do, just to earn breakfast? He could hear her inside, moving stuff. If them cats were in there, that would chase them out. He waited for near ten minutes, then Virgie opened the door a crack. "Come in quick, they're in here somewhere, I heard a rustling and a little thump."