Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits (7 page)

While the two arrow holes in my neck healed, I began to think that perhaps it was time for me to see a bit of the world outside of Linesville, Pennsylvania. After all, I’d already been squashed by a thousand pounds of dairy cow and shish kebabed by one of the most dangerous creatures I know—a boy—and I was still two months away from my first birthday. How much more dangerous could the outside world be?

I’ve never been a big fan of the long goodbye, so I strolled out of the barn before the morning milking one fine September day without a look back at my still-sleeping siblings, and headed north. Why north? Simple. I’d heard rumors of a lake so big that you couldn’t see across it, and boats overflowing
with fresh-caught perch and walleye. Lake Erie: it sounded like heaven.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that traveling on paw was for the birds, so to speak. Luckily, I met a grizzled old tabby named Butch—originally from a town in northern Ontario—who introduced me to the world of train travel. Together we hopped a Bessemer & Lake Erie coal train bound for Ashtabula, and we were treated to a meal of canned tuna and slightly sour milk in the caboose by a conductor named Charlie Nockwood—Clarence’s older brother!

When we got to Ashtabula, Butch pointed me in the direction of the piers where the fishing boats docked and sent me on my way with a single piece of advice: “Cats and boats don’t mix, Sam. Hang out all you want and enjoy the fresh fish, but whatever you do, don’t
ever
step aboard one of those death traps. It’s like being in prison, but with a much better chance of drowning. No boats. Promise?”

I promised.

Yes, I broke that promise—but to be fair, it was unintentional. I swear.

The weather had turned unseasonably chilly, and I was sauntering down the pier where the fishermen clean their catch, hoping to snag a few scraps for myself. Through a porthole of a tidy, well-cared-for fishing boat, I spied a kerosene lantern burning brightly. I thought about Butch’s
warning, but I convinced myself that I would go aboard only long enough to warm up, maybe find a little something to eat, and then plant my feet back on terra firma, where cats belong. Besides, the boat was named
Susie G
, and I had a sister Susie. Surely that was a good sign. And so, in a weak moment brought on by the cold and an empty stomach, I leaped from the pier onto the deck. I poked around the companionway for a while, watching and listening for signs of life below deck.

When I was sure the coast was clear, I climbed down the stairs into the cabin, where the smells of fish and mildewed foul-weather gear mingled irresistibly. I searched that boat from bow to stern without turning up so much as a crumb. Cold and discouraged, I curled up next to the kerosene lantern for a short nap before moving on.

The next thing I remember was the sound of feet hitting the deck right above my head and the engine roaring to life. The kerosene lantern must have burned itself out hours earlier because it was icy cold to the touch and I couldn’t stop shivering. Outside the porthole it was still dark, and by the time I was awake enough to get a good look, the
Susie G
was on her way, slipping under the drawbridge and heading out into the lake!

Unsure of how the crew would react to finding a stranger aboard, I shook off the cold and the sleep and searched for
a place to hide until we returned to shore. And I almost succeeded.

Almost.

Above the counter where I had spent the night was a cubbyhole full of canned goods. Someone had left the door open an inch or two, just enough for me to squeeze inside. I crawled into the back corner and wedged myself in place as the
Susie G
began to rock back and forth in the waves. And I would have been fine if the weather had cooperated a little more.

The wind began to pick up the moment we cleared the breakwater in the harbor, and the waves began to grow higher and higher, until they were crashing over the bow and the little
Susie G
was tossed this way and that, over and over. Secure in my cubby, I closed my eyes and prayed that the crew knew what they were doing.

“Nasty out there,” a man’s voice said.

“Nor’easter,” said another. “Three days of this. The fishing will be lousy and the captain will be grouchy.”

Just then the
Susie G
fell off the top of an especially large wave and landed with a shudder, causing all the cans in my cubby to fly toward the door, crashing through it—with me right behind! Down I went in a cascade of soup cans, landing on the back of a crew member who had momentarily lost his footing.

“Hey! What’s going—” he shouted.

“Where did
that
come from?” the other asked, pointing at me.

Before the first one could answer, however, we hit another wave and the last can in the cabinet flew out the open door as if it had been shot from a cannon and hit me square between the eyes. The last thing I saw before everything went black was a bright red label decorated with a tiny fish and the words
Sail On Sardines
.

When I came to, my head was throbbing and it took me a few seconds to remember where I was. A bearded, scruffy man in blue coveralls smiled when I opened my eyes.

“I’ll be darned,” he said. “You’re right, Irv. She’s not dead.”

“Not yet, anyway,” said the other. “Just don’t let Jim see her. He hates cats almost as much as he hates his ex-wife.”

“What should we do with it?”

“Mrrrraaa,” I said.

The second man felt my ribs. “Why don’t you give her some of those sardines? Looks like she hasn’t eaten in a while. You know, she’s sort of
like
a sardine—all skin and bones.”

It seems hard to believe now, but until that moment, I had never even heard of sardines—the Dillys were strictly meat-and-potatoes people. So I watched with fascination as the bearded one twisted the key around and around, finally lifting the lid to reveal the irresistible scent that has haunted
me ever since. He set the tin on the floorboards, and I paused for a moment to savor that delicious smell and then took my first bite of sardine.

It was almost my last, as well.

The two men immediately backed away from me as Jim Elbert, the captain of the
Susie G
, clomped down the companionway stairs. I was too busy inhaling the heady odor of sardine to notice.

“What—in—the—name—of—Sam—Hill—is—going—on?” he demanded. “Who brought that … cat … on my boat? And you’re feeding it my food?”

He didn’t wait for an explanation. Roughly grabbing me by the scruff of the neck, he marched back up the stairs and, without another word, heaved me over the stern of the
Susie G
and into storm-tossed Lake Erie. As I landed with a splash and found myself underwater for the first time in my life, Butch’s words echoed in my head:
Cats and boats don’t mix
.

Another myth about cats is that we’re not good swimmers. Not true. We can swim like crazy when we have to, and being thrown off a boat seven or eight miles from shore is a perfect example of one of those “have to” situations. From the top of a giant wave, I spotted the shore in the distance and started to paddle in that direction. I knew that my making it back to shore was a long shot at best, but I had to give it a try.
I was tired, cold, and hungry—I’d barely gotten one bite of sardines down when my breakfast was so rudely interrupted. I needed another miracle, and I got one.

Okay, maybe
miracle
is too strong a word, but that wooden packing crate that floated past a few minutes later certainly was welcome. I climbed aboard, sunk my claws into the soft wood, and held on for dear life as the wind howled and waves crashed all around me, pushing me toward the shore.

I drifted like that for several hours. The entrance to the harbor was still a long, long way off, and I grew more desperate for a nap by the minute. Midafternoon, the sun finally broke through the clouds, and I spied a sailboat a mile or so out. I watched as the distance between us closed; it was headed right for me. A lone man was on deck, but as he got closer and closer, I realized that he didn’t see me or my crate—in fact, I was pretty sure he was asleep at the tiller!

“Mrrraaa!” I shouted, but the sound was swallowed up by the wind and waves.

As I prepared myself for the collision, the bow of the sailboat dipped way down into the wave I was riding, spearing the crate and lifting it clear of the water with me still somehow (miraculously?) attached. The sound woke the sailor, who left the tiller and rushed forward, snagging me with one hand and pushing the crate away from his boat with the other.

“Hey there, little lady,” he said. “What’s a nice kitty like you doing out on a day like this?”

“Mrrraaa,” I said. “Please, mister, for the love of Pete, just dry me off and give me something to eat.”

He gave me a strange look, and later on I realized that he was probably the first human to hear me. Down in the cabin, he rubbed me dry with a towel and then … well, then he did something really special: he opened a can of sardines for me. They weren’t the Sail On brand, but they weren’t half bad.

His name was Walt, and I probably would have stuck with him if it weren’t for one important fact: he
lived
on that little sailboat, and I had decided that on the topic of cats and boats, Butch was definitely right. And so, when we got to shore, we went our separate ways, with Walt continuing on to Cleveland and points beyond, and me staying on in Ashtabula. I had some unfinished business to take care of.

From the warmth of the drawbridge control tower, I watched as the
Susie G
returned to port three days later. Captain Elbert growled at his crew as they unloaded the paltry catch, and then he snarled some more when they took too long to scrub the decks. Finally, he pulled the main hatch closed and drove away in his beat-up Chevrolet.

Under cover of darkness, I went to work. I had spent the previous day learning a little about boats, you see. I learned
that every boat has valves that are used to let water
into
the boat—for cleaning up, and filling tanks, and so on—and I learned how to open those valves.

You can probably guess how the rest of this story goes.

The next morning, Captain Elbert found the
Susie G
sitting hard on the bottom of the harbor with only her cabin top visible. As he ranted and raved, something on the dock got his attention. A small piece of paper, weighed down by a rock, flapped in the breeze: a Sail On sardines label.

Sam opened his eyes after fifteen minutes of “deep thinking.” He sniffed at the bowl of cream that Clarence had placed next to him, turning up his nose at it.
“All right, let’s start with what we
know.
”

“Looks like Ellie Strasbourg was kidnapped by a traveling salesman,” said Clarence.

“You’re half right,”
Sam grumbled.
“Which is about average for you. I’ll grant you that Ellie Strasbourg has been kidnapped. As for the salesman … are you
sure
this is the only cream they have? Maybe there’s some Jersey cream left over from the last trip.”

Clarence sighed. “Yes, Sam, I’m sure. That’s the only cream on board. Can we please move on? Because somebody certainly wants us to think this salesman’s involved.”

“That’s not the same as knowing, though,”
argued Sam.
“We
know that somebody emptied a salesman’s case in the baggage compartment. And left behind a handkerchief that smells like chloroform, or at least what I suppose chloroform smells like. And that there was a salesman, or someone pretending to be a salesman, in another compartment.”

“Where there was a picture of Ellie and her mother from last fall. And a ransom note,” I added. “Sure looks to me like the salesman did it.”

Ignoring my contribution to the discussion, Sam scratched under his chin with his back leg and moved on to the next topic.
“Henry, where was Ellie when you saw her last?”

“In the club car. I left her there while I ran to the observation car to get my sketchbook. When I got back, she was gone.”

“How long was that?”
Sam asked.

“Only a minute. I was counting, because she said she would wait for exactly one minute.”

“And when you returned and saw that she was gone, what did you do?”

I closed my eyes, remembering. “I talked to a man in the club car for … about ten seconds.”

“What man? What did he look like? What did he say … exactly?”

“Um, he was just a man. He was wearing a suit, a gray suit. He was old, like thirty.”

“Thirty, old! What does that make me? I must be downright ancient,” said Clarence.

“Prehistoric, basically,”
Sam said wryly.

“He teased me about looking for my girlfriend,” I added. “Then he said that Ellie went toward the front of the train. On the way past my mother, I stopped to ask her if she’d seen Ellie, but she didn’t even know her. Then I came straight here.”

“So, in total there were two … maybe three minutes between your last sight of Ellie and when you found me,”
said Sam.
“And when you got here, was the curtain open or closed?”