Cat Shout for Joy (23 page)

Behind the retreating van Clyde turned back to the house, ignoring questioning stares. Approaching the front door, where Max, Scotty, Mike, and Lindsey stood, he didn't want to talk and didn't want to know what they were thinking. Joe's behavior and his own were too strange. “Cats,” Clyde said with disgust, shouldering past them, coming in the house, putting his arm around Ryan.

Ryan smiled, and before anyone could ask questions, she led Clyde away to set out the desserts and make a fresh pot of coffee.

Lucinda and Pedric had risen and headed for the living room behind the Firettis. Kate followed as, behind them, Clyde said casually to those around him, “John's off to deliver Dulcie's kittens. Wilma—­Wilma's been a bit nervous.”

From the mantel, Pan sat watching the action, cutting his eyes at Kit as she leaped up beside him. Kit wanted to be with Dulcie. Her look at Pan said,
Shall we?
She knew John didn't want a crowd. Birth was a private business. And he didn't want other cats' germs near the kittens.
But
we haven't been around other cats—­ Oh! Except the ferals, up in the hills. And John's ferals at the beach.

But they've had their shots. And John always changes his shoes when he gets back in the van, changes his lab coat and cleans his hands.

She thought about Dulcie in labor and hurting. She told herself they'd keep out of the way, that they'd stay outdoors, she just wanted to
be
there. She looked at Pan, edgy and nervous. The fascination of Dulcie's miracle made her shiver. Pan frowned back at her but then reluctantly he rose. Together they dropped from the mantel and fled out the open door.

 

34

D
ulcie paced the
living room back and forth, past the flickering hearth, past the couch where Wilma was pretending to read. She could feel Wilma watching her and trying not to worry. She moved from room to room, padded into the kitchen, sniffed at the nice custard Wilma had set out, and turned her face away. She drank from her bowl, but only a few laps. There were no pains yet, but her restlessness was intolerable. She wanted to crawl into her new kittening box, and she didn't want to be confined in there. She wanted to creep into the farthest corner of the house under the darkest bed, but when she did that, she backed out again. She wanted to be near Wilma, but then Wilma's lap was too warm. She wanted Wilma to come to the kittening box with her, but she didn't want anyone there at all. This should be a lonely vigil, only her kittens should share the coming moments, she wanted to be alone to bring them into the world, yet she didn't want to be alone.

The kittening box Wilma had set up in the bedroom, beside her own bed, was sturdy and splendid. It was constructed from a heavy packing carton uncontaminated by grocery store insecticides. Wilma had cut a smooth little door at one corner arranged so a draft wouldn't blow in. She had made a lid for the top, which could be lifted off to clean the box. A nice thick bed of newspapers lined the bottom. Papers that Dulcie wanted to rip up, that she intended soon to tear apart, she could feel the urge itching in her pads; papers that would be thrown away after the birthing and would be replaced by a warm blanket.

There were clean soft towels stacked outside the box, that John Firetti had asked Wilma to provide. Everything was ready. But as perfect as was her nest, Dulcie couldn't stop creeping into dark corners, turning around and around and then hurrying out again into space and light—­and then returning to her box. She didn't know what she wanted; she was eager and scared. She felt ravenous, but the sight of food made her ill. She wanted Joe Grey, but she didn't want him until the ordeal was over. Where was he, why wasn't he there with her? She returned to the kitchen, longing to race outside, but Wilma, after futile attempts to reason with her, had fetched the electric drill and screwed her cat door closed.

And now suddenly as she paced and fussed, the front doorbell rang. Wilma picked her up to keep her from running out. She opened the door to the Firettis, they stepped in quickly, and Mary deftly shut the door behind them. Even a sentient, speaking cat could behave foolishly when she was about to give birth. The minute Dulcie saw John, she relaxed. The minute Joe Grey wound in behind John's ankles, Dulcie hissed and spat at him. Why was she behaving like this?

She let John take her from Wilma's arms; as she laid her head against him, trust in the good doctor filled her. She quit spitting at Joe and she felt easier. It was then that Charlie arrived. Dulcie heard the Blazer pulling up, heard the kitchen door open and close. Charlie came through the house, reached gently to stroke Dulcie, then put her arm around Wilma. “I thought you might like a little more moral support?”

Wilma smiled and hugged her niece. At their feet Joe Grey was quiet, watching their friends gathered around Dulcie. Dulcie didn't want to spit at him now. And now, for a moment, a brightness filled the room, glowing around them, and she could hear Misto's whisper, the faintest breath,
You will be all right, the babies are strong, they will be just fine.
The glow hung a moment, then was gone, Misto's warm, familiar voice gone. But his love remained.

I
n Wilma's bedroom,
John lifted Dulcie down into the kittening box. She settled at once, she didn't fight him, she didn't try to run away now. She put a paw up, she wanted him near, she didn't want him to leave her. John waited, sitting on a low bedroom chair beside the box. She felt restless but then lay quiet. Her purr rumbled stronger, a purr of anticipation and of fear waiting for the pains that would come. She heard from the living room a bold scratching at the door, heard the door open, heard Kit's mewl, Wilma's voice and then Pan's, and she was glad they were there: a loving entourage waiting—­filled with kindness but leaving her to her privacy.

It was a long time before the first pain hit her, then soon another, and another. Soon they were coming faster than John had told her they would. She murmured once. Another pain and she strained and mewled softly. She cried loudly only once, pushing hard when the pains were sharpest. The rhythm of the contractions carried her as if on a huge wave, soon so close together she thought she couldn't breathe; this first kitten was eager, was clamoring to get out.

In the living room where Charlie held Joe Grey, he tried to leap away when he heard Dulcie cry, tried to go to her. Charlie grabbed the nape of his neck. “Don't, Joe. Don't go in and upset her, let her be, John is with her.” She scowled down at him. “You have to be patient.”

He didn't feel
patient,
he wanted to be with Dulcie. He hissed at Charlie and raised a bristling paw. She held him hard, held him until he eased off and settled once more on her lap, only faintly snarling. Dulcie was hurting. His lady was in there crying out and maybe in danger. Birthing kittens was frightening and perilous, why hadn't he realized that? He butted his head against Charlie, shaken with fear.

Across the room Kit and Pan snuggled close to Wilma in her soft chair, Kit shivering but Pan stoic and calm, hoping to calm his own lady. They heard Dulcie's whimpers and her single yowl, they watched Joe Grey flinch and strike at Charlie, saw Charlie's green eyes widen as she settled him once more. They heard the back door open, watched Kate and the Greenlaws slip through. Dulcie's patient but nervous attendants filled the living room, looking quietly at each other, waiting. These were not ordinary kittens, these were miracle kittens, and their friends waited nervously.

Only Ryan and Clyde were absent. How could they leave their guests to attend such an ordinary occurrence as the birth of kittens? So many folks had already rushed out. The Damens didn't need more puzzled questions—­but Joe Grey wished they were there. Clyde to bolster his courage, Ryan, like Charlie, to soothe and mother him.

“Sometimes,” Charlie said, stroking him, “it's harder on the father.”

Joe Grey glared up at her. How could that be true?

“Do you remember,” Charlie asked him, “how proud you were when Dulcie told you? Proud and shy and excited?”

Joe remembered.
“Kittens?”
he'd cried.
“Our kittens
?
”
He remembered backing away from Dulcie, perplexed and amazed, racing away across the rooftops, then flying around her, skidding nose to nose with her.
“Kittens?”

I
t was late
evening. The three kittens had been born safe and strong. Dulcie had cleaned them up and was resting, the tiny little ones nursing against her when Joe Grey slipped into the room. John Firetti, kneeling over the box, looked up and nodded.

“Come, Joe Grey. Come see your babies.” John and Mary and Wilma had just cleaned the kittening box, Mary sliding the soiled newspapers out from under as John and Wilma gently lifted Dulcie and the kittens. Deftly Mary had slipped a thick warm blanket in, and John had settled mother and babies back onto their nest. Joe Grey entered warily, nearly electrified with shyness.

He crept up onto Wilma's bed where he could look down into the box. He crouched there very still, looking at their new family. He was, for an instant, fearful of how he might respond. He was too aware of the ancient instinct of some tomcats to ravage their own young. Would this age-­old urge surface in him now, would emotions he detested hit him suddenly? Looking down into the box, he was ready to turn and run before he hurt his tiny, helpless babies.

But no. Watching Dulcie and their three beautiful kittens, Joe Grey knew only wonder.

Only when Dulcie lifted her eyes to him did he see for an instant the female's equally primitive response, the inborn ferocity of a mother cat to protect her young. But then her look softened, her gaze matched his own contentment. They looked at each other and at their babies, and they knew they had made a fine family. Three kittens so beautiful that Joe couldn't resist slipping carefully down next to the box, next to the door where he could reach his nose in, could breathe in their sweet kitten scent.

“
Courtney,” Dulcie said, licking the swirl-­marked calico female. Joe thought about names for the two boys but nothing seemed to fit; the two pale buff kittens were still so small, how could one know what kind of cats they would be?

Lucinda and Pedric and Kate slipped into the bedroom, having removed their shoes. They looked down into the box at the three tiny kittens and pronounced them the most beautiful babies ever born. Charlie was enchanted by them. She came again the next morning wearing freshly laundered jeans and shirt, removing her shoes outside the back door, washing her hands at the kitchen sink. Not until the kittens had their several shots would the “germ vigil,” as Wilma called it, ease off and the little family be free from isolation. John Firetti, indeed, worried over the rare little newborns.

Now everyone, humans and cats, would wait impatiently the two weeks or more for the kittens' eyes and ears to open, for their curiosity to brighten. Wait for them to crowd to the door of their kitten box, peering out, for the boy kittens to reach for the wider world. Courtney needed no encouragement; she was already pawing at every new stir of air, mewling at every small change that occurred around her.

The next days, while the friends waited to hear more than kittenish meows, to know if the kittens
would
speak, Joe Grey prowled restlessly between his new family and MPPD: a doting father, but still a nervous hunter, as alert as were the police for some clue to Tekla's next move, for law enforcement somewhere on the East Coast to pick up her trail, to arrest and confine her.

 

35

T
ekla's left arm
and side hurt bad from where the car had hit the tree. Maybe she was only bruised, or maybe she'd cracked a rib. Fighting the “borrowed” Honda back to the narrow dirt road, getting it on solid ground again and easing out of there in the wind and blowing rain, she slipped the loaded revolver from her purse into her jacket pocket. She was still nervous over the automatic's disappearing, back in Molena Point. She and Sam had fought all the way across the country about that, too. Either Sam or Arnold was lying, or both were. Why would Sam move the gun? To use it as evidence, to prove that
she'd
killed Ben Stonewell? If the cops picked them up, did he mean to turn it over, with her prints on it, get himself off the hook?

There'd been no one else in the house to take it after she'd put it in her suitcase. Had he stashed it in the garage somewhere? If he had, sure as hell, the cops would find it. She didn't understand what he was up to, and that scared her. She'd wondered if, that night in that first out-­of-­the-­way motel, somehow a maid had slipped in, gone through their bags, and taken the gun. That didn't seem likely; they'd left only long enough for a quick burger, and she'd locked her bag. The other gun, the Magnum that was now in her pocket, hadn't been taken.

But all across the country, Sam had been losing his nerve. Whining, getting cold feet, not wanting to go on with this, wanting to leave the last jurors they
could
reach. Just let them go free, after all his earlier talk about getting even. His malingering had delayed them, too, pulling off the highway early, sleeping in late, not wanting to get started.

After she shot Ben, she'd wiped off her prints, but then she'd handled the gun briefly again when she packed it. That missing gun scared her bad. What the hell had Sam done?

When the tornado hit, she'd been lucky to get out of there, the whole room caved in around her. Lucky to
find
her purse with the Magnum safe inside. The .357 was heavy, but with the automatic gone, it would have to do. With that mess back there, the twisting wind picking up the roof, she knew Sam and Arnold were dead. How could she go to look when the fallen roof covered the entire dock, when everything it had hit was underwater. All she could do was run.

She was terrified when she found their car outside the room smashed beyond use, the wall of the building crushing it. She was lucky to nearly fall over that dead woman, that's what saved her. Rooting around under the woman's body where she could see a leather strap, digging out the woman's purse, that was luck, finding those car keys. Beeping the car, hoping
it
wasn't crushed, she'd found it and gotten out of there fast. You had to live right to have luck like that—­but then on the dark dirt road when she hit that tree, skidded off the road, she thought she was done for. Jammed in tight against the steering wheel, she'd hurt bad. Cops with their lights and sirens careening by in the dark never even saw her, not that she wanted to be found.

Strange that once she'd left the destroyed motel, had passed maybe half a mile of wrecked cottages and fallen trees stacked like broken toothpicks, that was the end of the damage. Nothing more had been hit. That's where the road turned away from the lake and climbed. Was that how these tornadoes worked? Ran along between the hills, hit in just the low places?

Now, using the penlight in her purse and the local map, she followed the back roads to the next small town. It hadn't been hit, either, just a little wind damage, an awning torn. Dinky little burg, one dumpy motel right out of some old movie. She checked into a room, she had no choice. She hurt real bad and it was too dark to move on with what she meant to do. She couldn't afford to get stuck on those back roads at night, lost trying to get away afterward.

At the front desk she paid with cash. The bearded fat man didn't blink an eye, just gave her change. The room was ancient. Scarred wood furniture, worn-­out bedspread, limp drapes. She finished the bag of chips she'd bought at the last gas station. Her side felt like fire. Was it going to keep getting worse?

She took four Tylenols, didn't undress, just fell into bed. She slept most of the night. She woke before dawn, sick with hurting. When she stripped and looked in the mirror her whole side was purple, a vast, tender bruise. Sure as hell her ribs were cracked, maybe broken. She didn't need this, she didn't want to move on Meredith Wilson in this condition.

Picking up the phone, she cajoled the bearded, overweight rube at the front desk into sending her up some breakfast. What she got was stale cold cereal with milk that was about to go sour, and a cup of lukewarm coffee. She ate, took four more pain pills, crawled back in bed and slept.

She stayed in the fusty room a week, hurting bad, sure her ribs were broken. She didn't want to see some doctor. Toward the end of the week the pain began to ease, and the bruises were fading. She lived on stale cereal and stale cheese sandwiches. On the eighth day she hauled herself out of bed, sick of the place, sick of the food. It was late morning, later than she'd meant to start, but she couldn't stand waiting any longer. Making sure she had the map, she headed out, paid the rest of her bill with cash. She stopped at a burger place for takeout, first hot food she'd had in a week.

None of the narrow back roads were marked, most of them dirt with patches of gravel, walled in by thick timber tangled with bushes and vines. She had to guess which road, none were marked. Only once in a while did a small, faded sign appear, but with names she couldn't find on the local map. Twice she came to dead ends and had to turn around. It was early yet, but the woods were growing dim; this was taking longer than she'd planned. She didn't want to get on toward evening out here, get lost in the pitch-­dark. She wanted to find the woman, do what she came for, and get back to civilization.

Meredith Wilson was the first of the jurors who had left the city after the two accidents. She didn't know whether it was because of the accidents. Her friend from the court, who'd gotten the sealed jury list for her, ­said for sure the Wilson woman was going back to Georgia to be with her sick father; Meredith Wilson had told her all about it. A jury clerk could get real friendly with the jury, bringing them sandwiches and coffee and all. Her friend Denise Ripley, they went way back, they'd been in high school together, in the city. Denise had worked for the Clerk of the Court for years—­she had not only given Tekla the jury list and their addresses, she'd passed along other useful information, including several ­people headed for Molena Point, maybe for a few days' getaway after the stress of the trial.

She'd found out more about those ­people, first in the city itself, talking to their neighbors, checking mailboxes. That's why it took so long from the time Herbert was sentenced and sent to San Quentin until she went into action. Took time, finding out how best to get at each of those righ­teous jurors who had sentenced her son to die—­die for a pitiful weakness that Herbert himself couldn't help and that no one knew how to cure.

On these narrow dirt roads trying to follow the map, it seemed like she'd been driving forever; and now the road itself was beginning to darken as the sun dropped behind the trees. The sky was clouding over again, too. She didn't like this. But she was too far now to turn back.

When she came to the next fork, she could see a small sign. When she brightened the headlights, a thrill touched her: the hand-­carved letters read wilson. This was it. She wasn't lost. Far ahead through the pine woods, scruffy open fields still held evening light. She turned off the headlights, moved on up the dirt road. She could smell the stink of chicken houses, smell them before she saw them. Bumping along, she came to the turnoff that led, maybe a quarter mile, to the long rows of corrugated metal buildings rusted and sour with chicken dirt. A cottage stood between the road and the metal structures, its two front windows faintly lit, enough to light her way—­a raw wooden shack with a weedy vegetable garden along one side. A wide front porch ran across the front, complete with rocking chairs. She could smell woodsmoke and could smell meat frying. Before turning into the long dirt drive she paused at the mailbox.

The name and numbers were nearly invisible. robert clive wilson. She pulled along the rutted drive to a small stand of red-­leaved trees. She decided the ground was hard enough that she wouldn't get stuck. Carefully she backed into the shadows between the spindly trunks. She didn't get out of the car but sat waiting for full dark. Finding the house cheered her, had put her back in charge again. She sat watching the windows as darkness closed in, feeling the car rock when the wind picked up. She'd say she was looking for a Timmie Lee Baker. Any name would do, she'd say she was lost. She could repeat road names from the map and from the few nearly illegible signs; that was all she needed to get her foot in the door. When it was dark enough and with the wind pushing at her back, she stepped out of the car, the loaded .357 heavy in her jacket pocket as she approached the house.