Shirley Murphy - Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

“That could be Dr. Firetti,” Dulcie said. “The man who fed the cats, he’s fed them for years. He’s our doctor. He feeds the strays and traps and, pardon the expression, neuters them, gives them their shots and turns them loose again.”

“He didn’t neuter me,” Misto said. “He couldn’t trap me. I remember the traps, like wire cages. When he set them, I always hid from him. I was only small when a woman began to feed me, she came every day until we were friends. And then she took me away; I made my home with her until she died. She died very young, she was fine one day, and then an ambulance was there, it took her away and I never saw her again. And then I was on my own,” Misto said sadly.

“And you came here because you remembered this village, and because those prisoners talked about us,” Kit said, her ears sharply forward.

Misto’s ears and whiskers were down, his thin tail curled around him. “It’s hard to get old among strangers. Hard, when there’s no one else like you, no other speaking cat, no one who understands.”

“And your family?” Dulcie said. The hammering below and the scurries of wind among the dry oaks masked their whispers.

“My mate and I were happy, we had three fine, half-grown kits when she disappeared. I searched for her for a year, I found tufts of her fur near some spent bullets. If she was dead, I never found her body, and at last I gave up.

“I raised the kits, they were good hunters. But then in a garden near our den they took up with a family of children, and all three decided to stay. I didn’t want another human family, I wasn’t done roaming. They were grown and on their own, and I left them.”

“You’ve traveled all over?” Joe said, wondering how that would be, to live that vagabond life.

“I traveled for months, but then returned there, I was lonely for my young ones. But they were gone, the family was gone. I looked for a long time but I never found them. At last I moved on again, and I kept moving, always traveling. I didn’t find my children, and I met no more of our own kind.”

Misto looked from one to the other. “Do you know how it feels to think you’re the only cat within hundreds of miles like you, the only cat who can understand human speech, who could speak to a person if you chose?”

They all three knew how that felt, they knew that frightened loneliness. That was how Dulcie and Joe had met, when each thought there was no other cat like them. They remembered well the wild thrill, when they discovered each other.

Only Kit had never experienced that particular kind of loneliness, for she had grown up among a band of speaking cats. Kit knew loneliness of a different kind, shunned by the others like herself, an orphaned kitten, an outsider, tagging along behind a feral band that didn’t want her, eating the few scraps they left, trying not to starve. She wasn’t born of their group, she was a speaking cat but she wasn’t one of them, and she was driven off again and again, a little kitten who did indeed understand loneliness.

“And then,” Misto said, “there at the prison when I learned there were other speaking cats nearby? Of course I came to find you.” He smiled, such an open, delighted smile that Joe had to trust the old cat. “When I saw that blue vintage T-Bird pull into the prison yard on visiting day, I guessed that had to be Jared Colletto’s car, and I took a chance. Victor was always bragging about that car, how his brother kept it in factory-new condition, how Jared was okay in most ways but he was real prissy when it came to that T-Bird. When I saw that car, I thought, how many vintage blue T-Birds could there be? And here I am.”

“Did you live inside the prison?” Dulcie said. “How could …?”

Misto shook his head. “I lived in the open fields among a band of ferals—or at least people called them feral. Many were dumped cats who’d once had homes. Others were truly feral, born wild and their ancestors wild before them. I was the only speaking cat, though I never spoke to them.” The old cat licked his paw. “One of the guards put out food for us, at a side entrance. He’d pet us and talk to us. I wanted badly to talk to him, but of course I didn’t. He was a kind man, he was my friend.

“Some of the prisoners were kind, too. Some saved food for us, leftovers from their meals, they’d slip food to us in the prison yard. We could get into the fenced exercise yard, and even into the prison itself if we were quick, but you had to be wary, we weren’t allowed in there.”

“Weren’t you afraid?” Kit said. “Won’t those men hurt cats?”

“Most of them liked us, they liked having an animal around, to pet and talk to. We stayed away from the threatening ones, the reaching, hard-eyed, cold or spacey guys. Or the guys who were too gentle and smarmy and tried too hard to lure us close.”

Below them, Benny and Lori emerged from the cottage carrying a big trash can between them. Misto said, “Lori’s pa was nice, we were friends. As much as you can be friends, when you can’t talk together. He talked about Lori, he described her so well that I knew her at once. Long shiny brown hair, big brown eyes and little tilted nose. He said she worked for a contractor, and he was proud of that.” Misto twitched a whisker. “There’s a lot of regret in that man, the kind of regret and hindsight that traps a human, that can eat on a person and make him miserable.”

Lori and Benny emptied the trash can, tipping it high into the Dumpster, the carpet scraps and dust cascading out. After they put the can on the back porch, Benny continued to follow Lori, as clingy as a puppy. As if, Joe thought, the kid hadn’t had many young friends in his short life. He thought about the hit-and-run, about the danger to Benny, and about the stabbing of Jack Reed and the possible threat to Lori, and he was glad Rock was there watching the two of them with that keen, proprietary gaze. He just hoped Rock’s attention, and the vigilance of the people around the children, would be enough to protect these two from harm.

32

FIVE DAYS BEFORE Christmas, Jack Reed was transferred from Salinas Valley Hospital back to the state prison at Soledad, riding in a prison car accompanied by two guards. He was settled, not in the open infirmary, but by himself in a secure room until Victor Colletto and the other two inmates who’d attacked him had been transferred out. The room was plain, with bland beige walls and a locked, barred door. He welcomed the isolation; it beat the open infirmary, crowded among complaining, bad-tempered men with their own ills and medicines and body functions, and no nicety of canvas curtains between them as in a civilian hospital. He was processed and checked in, and the prison doc looked him over. Dr. Ralph Flaggan was a tall, meaty man with a round, baby-smooth face and a closed, superior attitude that could have put Jack off, until he thought about the men this guy had to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

“Your wounds are healing well, Jack. You’re out of danger, provided there are no setbacks. Another two weeks, you should be ready to return to the general population. I don’t want you out there until you can hold your own. We’ll transfer you to the ward once Colletto is gone.”

“Tomorrow’s a visiting day,” Jack said. “If my little girl wants to come, can I see her?”

“You’ll go to the secure visiting room in a wheelchair,” Flaggan said. “The warden has notified her guardian that you’re back in the prison.” This would not be the family visiting room, but a secure cubicle, again with a glass between them, where they could speak only by phone, every word subject to prison monitoring. Now, within the confining metal bars of his narrow bed he had nothing to do but think. He didn’t feel like reading any of the dog-eared magazines the prison supplied; instead he lay worrying about Lori, increasingly afraid someone would try to hurt her as Vic Colletto had hurt him. Colletto was mean, his angry attack just a small indication of his vindictiveness. Jack thought Vic hadn’t been put with more violent men because he was young, wasn’t a gang member, and this was his first time in prison. Colletto’s hatred of Jack stemmed from two years ago, when Jack had fired him.