Cat pay the devil, p.20
Cat Pay the Devil, page 20
Twin beams like lasers cut the blackness, catching Cage with a shock of light; he loomed out of the dark, diving for the Jeep, blinded by light, then dropped down behind the fender, taking cover as he reached beneath his jacket. Eddie had ducked down on the other side; Charlie saw the top of his head, his cap moving as he began to circle, to get behind her.
Standing up in the Jeep, she braced herself against the dash, the stock of the gun jammed hard into her shoulder, her stomach flipping as she tried to hold steady, to keep her hands from shaking.
When Wilma ran down the dark road, looking for the nearest patrol car, the two cats didn’t follow her, but had leaped away, in the opposite direction. She prayed for their safety; she could never have made them come with her, she’d only have wasted precious time. Running, searching for the first dark vehicle, she thought she’d spent half her life saying prayers for those three cats. Ahead, she saw a dark shape that had to be a patrol car; she stopped when a dark-clad figure stepped out, and she caught the glint of a handgun, stood with her hands out away from her sides, waiting. “It’s Wilma Getz,” she said softly. “Don’t shine a light, they’ll see you. Max is coming on horseback. And Charlie…” She caught a flash of the officer’s badge, the line of his dark uniform, the tilt of a familiar jaw. “Is that Jimmie? Jimmie McFarland?”
“Yes, ma’m.” Young Jimmie’s soft, bright voice sounded truly glad to hear her. She paused when a second officer emerged, stepping around from the far side of the unit, and she saw the broad curve of Brennan’s belly.
“Fill us in,” Brennan said quietly, staring up into the unbroken dark of the old estate. “How many men? And where? Where’s Max? He called us from the trail. Where does it come out?”
“To the left, above the Jeep,” Wilma said, taking Brennan’s hand and pointing with it to where the Jeep stood.
“Get in the unit and stay there,” Brennan said, and he and McFarland moved away. She wanted to go back into the ruins, but knew she would only hinder them. She slipped into the hot squad car and had hardly pulled the door to, making no sound, when far up among the rubble a pair of lights flashed. Headlights. Someone was in the Jeep.
The diffused gleam of the Jeep’s lights washing out across the ruins cast into stark silhouette the broken walls and gnarled oaks-and the small shapes of the feral cats, one poised atop a ragged tower, a pale cat padding across the sharp slant of a collapsed roof, and a stark white cat treading the top of a wall high under the stars. All watched the scene below. Curiosity, anger, and fear filled them. Then along the wall, two more cats appeared, dark creatures, rearing up, a pair of yellow eyes and a pair of green catching the light. Kit and Dulcie, fearful and intent, watched as Charlie stood up in the Jeep, her shotgun leveled behind the light-and as Cage Jones lunged to grab her.
Standing in the Jeep, her back to the dark where Max was approaching, the stock of the shotgun jammed against her shoulder, Charlie swallowed. “Stop, Cage. Stop now!”
Cage laughed. “Gun ain’t loaded, missy. And it’d be double-aught bird-if the gun was loaded. It ain’t.”
“Want to find out?”
Cage laughed again and lunged for her. She fired. He staggered and fell back, and grabbed the fender, bent double, rocking the Jeep. She felt Eddie’s weight rock it in the other direction and she spun around. He ducked, and disappeared beyond the light, then she heard him running in the blackness. She didn’t dare fire where she couldn’t see. Eddie was gone, pounding away as Cage clung to the Jeep, his face a mass of blood that turned her stomach. Slowly he slid down the fender, clutching it with bloody hands.
She waited for him to fall, but suddenly he twisted up again, righted himself and came up over the fender straight at her. She fired again, point-blank. He went down. This time, he stayed down.
How strange, the way that shot had echoed. Too loud and with an unnatural thunder, not like the first round.
But now the night was so still, only the echo of the shots ringing, the blackness unbroken except for the acid path of the headlights, beneath which Cage Jones lay crumpled.
Holding the gun at ready, knowing he couldn’t be a threat now but alert in case he was, she swung out of the Jeep.
He lay writhing in a way that sickened her. Where was Eddie? Her shots had stopped Cage from slipping up on Max in the dark, but where was Eddie Sears?
She heard no sound of running. And, now, she did not hear the horses. “Eddie’s out there,” she shouted. “Cage is down. Eddie ran.”
But the shots had warned Max. Somewhere in the dark, he was ready.
She didn’t think Eddie Sears would go after Max, not alone. Eddie was a coward, and this wasn’t Eddie’s battle. He’d be crazy to shoot at a cop. But still she stood scanning the night, watching for a dark figure slipping back toward the riders. She was thinking maybe she was stupid to think Max would be caught off guard, when Max said, behind her, “Thanks, Charlie.”
His hand brushed hers as he shone a light on Cage; he knelt with his gun on Cage, checking his breathing and searching him for a weapon. Then, standing again, he switched on his radio. “Need a medic for Jones. Eddie Sears ran.” He looked at Charlie. “Is he armed?”
“He didn’t fire at me, but…I don’t know.”
He relayed that information, and then he held her close, warm, so warm. He smelled of male sweat and horse and gunpowder. She lay her head against him and only now knew how weak she felt, how scared.
“It’s all right,” he said, stroking her hair and shining his torch into the night, searching-and watching Cage.
And then McFarland and Brennan were there; they took charge of Cage. Other lights moved through the night, throwing looming shadows as officers searched for Eddie Sears. She heard the horses behind her and then Bucky loomed over her, and beside him her own Redwing-and then out of the darkness Rock leaped at her, the silver hound all over her, wagging and whining, jerking the long lead rope that Ryan held.
Ryan sat Redwing, looking down at Charlie, holding Rock’s rope, and holding Bucky’s reins. In the glancing reflection of the headlights, Ryan had that long-suffering look on her face as Rock made a fool of himself.
“He tracked you,” Ryan said.
Charlie looked at her. “You’ve never trained him.”
Ryan shrugged. “He tracked you.”
Max said, “Where’s Wilma?”
“She’s all right, she went…” She nodded toward where the patrol cars were parked. Lights were flashing now, men running, dark shadows dodging among the ruins as if someone had spotted Eddie Sears.
Max was on the radio. “Wilma down there?”
“I’m here,” Wilma said.
Max handed Charlie the radio. She nearly dropped it. “You all right? Where are you?”
“In a nice comfortable squad car drinking someone’s leftover coffee and starving to death. Are you all right? What was the firing?”
“I…I shot Cage Jones. He…Could we talk about it later? I’m beginning to feel…” Charlie swallowed. “I think I need to…”
“Later,” Wilma said, and the radio went silent. Charlie listened to the sounds of running feet and rocks being dislodged and the faint, harsh mumble of the radios as officers searched for Sears; she prayed that no one else would be hurt. Max looked down at her and, with the back of his hand, wiped the tears from her face. She wondered why she was crying. Max put his arms around her, and it was all right, everything was all right.
28
F rom atop a crumbling wall, the five cats watched dark-clad cops scour the ruins, shining their lights into caves and crevices, talking to one another in those low, machine voices. They saw, farther up the hill, Max Harper kiss Charlie, and then Charlie mounted the big buckskin-the horses were nervous from the shooting, sidestepping, and fussing. Charlie rode away into the woods with the other woman to calm the frightened mounts, the cats thought. Willow and Cotton and Coyote understood that; they needed comforting, too. The three sat close together, gently grooming one another.
They had done things tonight that were not natural to them, had participated in frightening events foreign to their world, and now they needed one another. But they were warm with satisfaction, too. Cage Jones had gotten what he deserved, and that made them purr. But beside the three ferals, Dulcie and Kit were tense with excitement, watching the action as if eager to leap into the fray, convinced that, with cops all over, Eddie Sears would soon be caught, too.
“Like a mouse in a tin can,” Kit said. And Willow and Cotton smiled. In the ferals’ wild and threatened lives, retribution was highly valued-and suddenly Eddie Sears appeared from out of nowhere running straight at them, racing for their wall, dodging, searching for a place to hide, and the cops were nearly on him. The three ferals slunk down, ready to vanish. But Dulcie and Kit crouched, with blazing eyes, their ears back, their tails lashing as Eddie veered along the wall looking for a way through-and the two cats flew at him: twin trajectories hitting him hard, raking him harder. Emboldened, the other three followed. Eddie Sears, covered with enraged and clawing cats, ran screaming, batting futilely at the slashing beasts.
“Don’t shoot,” Wilma shouted, swinging out of the squad car and running up the road. Maybe no one heard her; there were officers all over, converging on Sears. “Don’t shoot,” she cried, “he’s not alone!”
“What is that?” McFarland hissed, throwing his light on something wild and screaming that rode Sears’s shoulder, raking his face. McFarland dove at Sears’s legs, hit him low and hard and dropped him. As Sears went down, the beast that covered him seemed to break into separate parts and vanish, exploding away in the dark.
McFarland knelt, cuffing Sears’s hands behind him. What the hell was that? He shone his light into Sears’s face. It was clawed and bloodied. McFarland shivered and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, stiff.
He was securing Sears’s legs when he glanced up and saw Wilma standing over them. She looked at him, looked at Sears. She said nothing, just turned and headed away, back toward the squad car. McFarland knelt atop Sears, watching her, amused by the shadow of a grin that she couldn’t hide. Then Brennan joined him, and they got Sears to his feet. “What was that?” Brennan said. Around them in the night, officers were gathering, their lights coming down out of the ruins. “What the hell was that?”
No one knew, or maybe didn’t want to say what they thought they had seen. Until rookie Eleanor Sand arrived. “I think,” she said, “it was cats.”
“Cats?” the men looked at her, and laughed. “Cats, Sandy? What kind of cats? Sandy, girl, you’ve lost it.”
“I think there are feral cats up here,” she said. “I’ve been up here, seen them. Domestic cats gone wild.”
“Sandy, no cat would do what we just saw.”
“What kind of cats would…?”
“They’d have to be rabid to do that.”
Eleanor laughed. “No. Those cats act all right, usually. But they stay away from people. Maybe tonight, with all the confusion, they felt threatened.”
It was then that Charlie rode up on the buckskin. “I think Eleanor’s right,” she said softly. “Maybe tonight, with all the excitement, everyone running, the lights…” She looked around at the circle of unbelieving cops. “If those feral females were protecting kittens, as wild as they are, they’d attack anything.”
The men stared at her and shook their heads.
“Wild cats with kittens…I’ve read that cats in wild colonies birth their kittens all at one time. And that they will band together to protect them.” Charlie shrugged. “Maybe Sears, running like that, got too near their lair.” Turning Bucky, she headed back up toward the woods, her joy in retribution equally as fierce as that of the five little cats.
Her only disappointment was that, entering the woods where Ryan sat astride Redwing, she could tell her nothing of what had really happened, she could share none of the wonder with Ryan. Nor could she, she thought sadly, share this with Max.
Dulcie and Kit listened to the ambulance come screaming, they watched as the rescue vehicle slowed and made its way through the estate, watched the medics get to work on Cage Jones.
Ought to let him die, Dulcie thought as she fled for the squad car and Wilma. She glanced behind her once, to the broken wall where Kit sat with the three ferals, all of them smiling. Then heading down the road, Dulcie leaped in through the passenger-side window, into Wilma’s arms, snuggling with her and purring so loudly that Wilma smiled.
But after a while, Dulcie said, “You’re hurting, aren’t you? I can tell, the way you sit. I bet you’re all bruises.” Dulcie quit purring and laid her ears back. “Hurting, and all alone, while Cage Jones is being patched up and pampered and covered with a warm blanket and given a sedative for pain.”
Wilma laughed. “I’m not alone, I have you. I could use something for my headache. A whiskey and a rare steak would fix that.”
“Makes my fur bristle to think of all the tax money the state of California is going to spend, making that man comfortable.”
“That, Dulcie, is the way it works.”
“Money that could be used to clean up our house, which he trashed. Why spend money on that scum?”
“Only in a dictatorship,” Wilma said, “would Jones be left to die unattended.”
“Maybe so, but that’s all he deserves. Well, I’m only a cat. I don’t have to think like a human. Maybe cats cut a sharper line between good and evil.”
“Maybe,” Wilma said, stroking Dulcie’s ear. “Maybe cats should rule the world.”
The traffic was light considering what this freeway usually handled. By nine forty-five the late work traffic had dispersed. Beyond Clyde’s open window the worst heat had abated, and the night was warm and soft; the heavy Lexus SUV provided a ride so smooth and silent that a guy could go to sleep, Clyde thought. Not like the vintage cars he restored, that let you know their engines were running. The way he babied them, his engines always purred-but louder and with more character. Tonight, he could have used a bit of engine growl to keep him alert. He didn’t even have Joe’s acerbic conversation. In the open-top carrier on the seat beside him, the tomcat slept deeply, his soft snoring rivaling the smooth rhythm of the Lexus. It had been a long day for the tomcat.
From Dulcie’s frantic phone call to the station saying that Wilma was gone, from the moment Joe raced to her house, and then their hasty trip to Gilroy; from Joe’s sleuthing in the discount shops, to playing dumb for Detective Davis, all that on top of the village murders that the gray cat had fussed over for days, Joe was done in. In the car after supper, looking out from the carrier, his last words had been that he’d catch a few winks, a small restorative nap to recharge the batteries, then be rarin’ to go again.
The calm evening drive would be peacefully restorative for Clyde, too, if he hadn’t been strung tight with concern for Wilma and for Charlie. Not in the mood for local radio or a CD, his mind was filled with a succession of scenes that ran by him like clips from old movies. Wilma the first time he ever saw her, when he was eight and Wilma in her twenties, the day her family moved in next door to him, Wilma in jeans and an old T-shirt, her long blond hair tied back, working alongside the two men her folks had hired to unload the rented truck. The tall blonde carrying in big cardboard boxes marked “kitchen,” “bathroom,” “Wilma’s room,” all the rooms of the house. Clyde’s mother had said they were probably paying the moving men by the hour, so everyone helped. Times were hard then for many families, certainly for his own folks.
A memory of Wilma playing baseball with the little kids, in the street, Wilma hitting a home run over the neighbor’s garage; they never did find the ball. Wilma making Christmas cookies in the shape of cowboy hats and horses for him; she was always so beautiful, her blond hair so clean and bright. Long years later, when it turned gray, she didn’t dye it like other women, she enjoyed that silver mane. Wilma taking him to San Francisco for the weekend when he was twelve, to the zoo, to Fisherman’s Wharf for cracked crab and sourdough. And the trip through the San Francisco PD because she knew the chief.
And then when Charlie had first come to stay with Wilma after she’d quit her job in the city, packed up her belongings in cardboard boxes, driven down to start a new life in the village. First time he ever saw Charlie she was lying on her back underneath the van, changing the oil in her old blue van, swearing when oil dripped in her eye.
For a long time he’d thought he was in love with Charlie. Maybe he had been. It had hurt bad when suddenly Charlie and Max were a pair, no hints, no working up to it that he’d noticed. They’d been training Clyde’s unmanageable Great Dane puppies for him, up at Max’s ranch, working the two on obedience where there was room for them to run.
It was a situation that neither Charlie nor Max had planned, Clyde was sure of that. It just happened. After Charlie told him, he’d never let either of them know how much it hurt.
