Tailchaser's Song (15 page)

They marched onward with a little more enthusiasm, but at first the gap did not seem to lessen very rapidly; the Tailwend remained just a shimmer on the horizon. The downs had begun to slope toward the river basin, though, and the patches of trees that dotted the surrounding countryside were more widely separated.

On their thirteenth night out of the forest they could finally hear the muted sound of the river across the meadowlands. It was a soothing noise—from this distance very much like that of the creek that ran past Meeting Wall after the spring thaws. Before sleep that night the pair played a game of Stalk-and-Spring, and Fritti laughed for the first time since they had parted company with the First-walkers.

 

They came down the shallow basin to the river’s edge on the morning of the fifteenth day on Gentlerun Downs. The mist hung on the grass, and the sky smelled of rain to come. Approaching Tailwend, which was high on its banks, was like coming down off the plateau into a world of water and cool air.

The rushing, gurgling river had a vitality and energy completely unlike the shy, hidebound forest streams of their home. The Tailwend splashed and laughed, carrying river willows and grass stems along in a rush, only to send them spinning off into quiet eddies along the bank where they would float lazily. Then the river would cat-and-mouse them back into the current and carry them out of sight.

Fritti and Pouncequick played on the banks until the sun rose into the sky above their heads and shone through the mist to chip glimmers off the hurrying water. They took turns swiping at sticks that floated in close to the river’s edge—darting their paws out, daring each other after twigs farther from shore. It was only when Pouncequick, in a moment of riotous abandon, came close to falling in—caught at the last moment by the nape of the neck—that Fritti began to turn his mind to the problem of crossing the wide, energetic Tailwend.

They walked farther upstream, tracing the coves and inlets, and the water sounds became harsher and more percussive. Around a bend in the river’s course they discovered the reason. Here the Tailwend narrowed slightly and lunged past a group of rocks that stood upright in the foaming water like broken teeth. As they drew closer, the top of one of the rocks moved slightly, then turned to look at them with wide eyes.

It was Eatbugs, perched like an owl in midstream.

The Tailwend rushed arid hissed past the mad cat. He stared at the two companions for a moment, then rose to his feet, fur starting out spiky-stiff all over his body. Without a word he teetered in place for a moment, then bounded out to another stone farther into the river. He was looking for the next safe spot to jump to when Fritti called out to him above the roaring of the rapids.

“Eatbugs! Is that really you? It’s Tailchaser and Pouncequick! Do you remember us?”

Eatbugs turned to gaze imperturbably back at them.

“Please come back! Eatbugs!” Fritti raised his voice. “Please cross back over!”

Eatbugs hesitated for a moment, then leaped back to the stone he had left. As the two friends watched, he laboriously made his way back across the river, finally hopping off the last stone onto the grassy bank. Regarding them warily for a moment, Eatbugs crouched at river’s edge.

Finally, recognition seemed to dawn. He appeared to speak, but Fritti could not hear him above the din of the Tailwend, and signaled that the old cat should follow them up the bank.

Some distance from the river, they stopped.

“It’s good to see you again, Eatbugs!” Pouncequick said cheerily. He seemed to have forgotten any fear he had once felt in the presence of the odd, muddy cat.

With a pleased but worried look on his face, Eatbugs walked around the pair, scenting their presence.

“Wurra-wurra-wurra,” he said finally, “it’s the tail waggers, the shinky-shanky ones themselves!” He cocked his head inquisitively. “What brings you little lubbers tip-tipping down to the riverside? Dost come to moisten thy noses? Ah... the real wonder is, how did you escape the burning questions of the demon-cats ? Did you grow wings and fly away? It wouldna be the first time,” he added cryptically.

“What demon-cats?” asked Pouncequick. “We met only the First-walkers, and they were very kind to us.”

“Ach! Ratspatter!” Eatbugs growled and spat. “They start out nice, true enough, but soon they want things, want things—always pressuring a body.”

Fritti did not take Eatbugs’ rambling too seriously. “Well now,” he said, “now that we’re all here, should we walk together for a while? Once across the river, we’re going to be traveling the Sunsnest Plains. We’d admire your company.”

Eatbugs smiled and nodded. “I shall be passing that way,” he assented. “I am following a particularly loud and vociferous star”—he lowered his ears and voice—“but ... I know where it goes to ground for winter!” Pleased at having shared his secret, Eatbugs did a small cross-step and bit lightly upon the ear of Pouncequick, who took it in good spirit.

“Can you lead us across the stream?” Fritti asked. “You seem to know the best rocks.”

“Do chipmunks have fur on their stripey behinds? Of course I can!” said Eatbugs.

 

The terrain changed on the farther shore of the Tailwend. The green-carpeted hills of Gentlerun dwindled and disappeared within the Hour—succeeded only by occasional kitten-hummocks that swelled cautiously up from the waving grass.

Pouncequick and Tailchaser had never seen anything to compare with the plain of Sunsnest. It stretched out and away from them, seemingly endless : a broad, flat ocean of grass and ground-hugging vegetation. It was as flat as nature could fashion, and although the downs rose up behind them, the impression was of walking on a high place. The sky, now flush with the winds and waters of a colder season, hung close above their heads, adding to the sensation. It felt as though they had been raised up onto a vast surface, to be examined by some impersonal force.

Fritti and the kitten were grateful for Eatbugs’ company. After their third and fourth sunrises, the monotonous grandeur of the plains began to make them feel very small and purposeless. Eatbugs, though, was a veritable fountain of distraction, brimming with fragments of strange poems, and favored sayings that applied to nothing.

 

Crouching for rest in the waving grass one afternoon, Pouncequick shyly began to recite a fragment of a poem he was making up about their journey to the Court of Harar. It was awkward and unfinished, but Fritti found it appealing. He was surprised to see that it seemed to make Eatbugs very uncomfortable.

Wishing to spare Pouncequick embarrassment he praised the kitten’s poem, and then turned to Eatbugs to change the subject.

“I’ve been wondering,” Tailchaser began, “why exactly this great flatland is called Sunsnest Plains. I see nothing of a nest about it at all, Eatbugs. Do you know?”

Eatbugs turned his mournful eyes on Tailchaser, and absentmindedly pawed a soiled twist of fur out of his face. “As it happens, little nibbler of Squeaker-toes, I do. I truly do.”

“Well, tell us, please! Is it a song?”

“No, no, not a song, though I suppose it could be.” Eatbugs shook his head sadly. “It is just a thing I remember hearing when I was a kitling, fewer Eyes behind me than little inkum-dinkum here.”

Fritti realized that they knew nothing of Eatbugs’ past. He promised himself to try later to draw the mad, melancholy wanderer out on the subject.

“It is said, it is, by them as should know,” Eatbugs intoned, “that when Meerclar Allmother first opened her bright eyes there was darkness everywhere. The Allmother had the sharpest eyes of all, naturally, but even though she could see, she was chattering, chafing cold. So she thought and thought, for no cat, even the greatest, likes to be cold.

“After a while, an idea came to her. She rubbed her paws together—her great, black paws—and she rubbed them so fast that they struck a spark of sky-fire. She took the spark and lay down on the earth.

“There she lay nurturing it, protecting it with the fur of her body—and it grew. The spark tried to run away as it became larger, but always the Allmother would reach out and catch it, roll-rolling it back across the earth to where it was born.

“It grew, and waxed large and grand, and when she would capture it and roll it back the land would flatten beneath them where they passed. Bigger and rounder and brighter it became, until its presence in the world warmed all the first animals.

“All creatures came and gathered around the young sun, crowding and pushing to get closer ... and no beast would do anything else but lie there in that warmth and bask, until all the world became empty and lifeless except that one spot on the great, flattened plain.

“At this, Meerclar Allmother became angry as bitter weather, and threw the sun up into the sky where it would shine equally over all the world, and the dwellers in the earth dispersed again. There in the sky the sun still shines.

“But still, when the sun has burned and warmed as best it can and begins to tire, Meerclar takes it to her furry breast, where it strengthens again. While she has it, the world is cold for a season.

“And now,” Eatbugs finished, “we are crossing the very spot where the Allmother kept it in its kittenhood, hence the name. Simple as mice for dinner, isn’t it?”

Fritti and Pouncequick agreed that it was.

The next day, near the overture of Unfolding Dark, as the sun of which the mad cat had spoken was settling down into the cloudy west, Eatbugs was again seized by one of his fits.

The company was breast-deep in a swaying sea of grassworks when Eatbugs abruptly sat up, whiskers a jut, and began to mutter.

He did not seem frightened or wary this time, but full of enthusiasm as he muttered: “... There you are. Ha! Lying in the rye, are you? Trickle and tickle beneath my nose, will-you-sir? Ha!”

Tailchaser and Pouncequick sat down to wait, confident that the spell would soon subside, and they could return to journeying.

“Wait! Wait!” cried Eatbugs, and sprang to his feet. “The star! Don’t you hear it flickering? We must be on it, before it sniffs our true colors! Oh, do not let me be too late again! I shall leap the wall!” Suddenly, without warning, Eatbugs was off, calling after the star as if he could see it bounding in front of him. He disappeared into the tall weeds—the companions, dismayed, gave chase. Eatbugs’ speed was too great, though, and soon even his voice had faded from hearing.

They waited in the spot all evening, stomachs impatient with hunger, but he did not return. At last they gave up and went hunting.

The morning found them a party of two again, and they traveled on.

What do they hunt by the glimmering pools of water,
By the round silver Moon, the Pool of Heaven—
In the striped grass, amid the barkless trees—
The stars scattered like the eyes of the beasts
above them!

—
W.J. Turner

 

 

Now the rains set in.

Moving across the broad back of Sunsnest, the cats at first would run for what scant cover they could find. But as shelter became more scarce and rain more frequent, they were forced to resign themselves to wet fur.

Pouncequick caught a cold, and his sniffling began to intrude on Tailchaser’s own private misery. Sometimes the interruption would bring a rush of sympathy for the little cat, and Fritti would strive to say a cheerful word, or give an affectionate nudge. Sometimes, though, he responded to Pouncequick’s illness and smallness with flashes of annoyance that flared, then quickly faded.

One night, when a scared, cold Pouncequick had climbed onto him during a violent thundershower, all the frustration that Tailchaser had been feeling welled up; he pushed the kitten away, swatting him with his paw. As Pouncequick crawled into a thatch of grass, little crying noises shaking his small form, Fritti felt a sudden wave of terror. Pouncequick would die, and leave him alone in this vast, wild land!

Then, realizing what he had done, he went and caught the small cat up by the nape of the neck and brought him back. He licked the kitten all over his wet fur and huddled against him to keep him warm until the rains would cease for a time.

 

 

Several days later, still proceeding with flagging determination, Fritti began to feel that something was following them. After the larger part of the day had passed, the feelings had not departed; they had, in fact, grown stronger. He mentioned this as casually as he could to his young comrade.

“But, Tailchaser,” Pouncequick pointed out, “game-has been awfully scarce lately, and we haven’t had much to eat. Really, I expect you’re just not quite yourself. Who but a couple of madcats would be out and about in this weather?”

It was a canny point, but deep inside Fritti felt that something more than simply lack of mice was acting on his senses.