Cat on the Scent

            The cat emerged from the barn and glanced at the deepening night clouds, deciding to hurry back home before the fog got thicker. Two creeks and a medium-sized ridge were the biggest obstacles. She could traverse the four miles in an hour at a trot, faster if she ran. Mrs. Murphy could run four miles with ease. A sound foxhound could run forty miles in a day. Much as she liked running, she was glad she wasn’t a foxhound, or any hound, for that matter. Mrs. Murphy liked dogs but considered them a lower species, for the most part, except for the corgi she lived with, Tucker, who was nearly the equal of a cat. Not that she’d tell Tucker that… Never.

            She trotted away from the magical spot and loped over the long, flat pasture, once an airstrip for Tally Urquhart in her heyday, when she had shocked the residents of central Virginia by flying airplanes. Her disregard for the formalities of marriage did the rest.

            Tally Urquhart was Mim Sanburne’s aunt. Mim had ascended to the rank of undisputed social leader of Crozet once her aunt had relinquished the position twenty years ago. Mrs. Murphy would giggle and say to Mim’s face, “Ah, welcome to the Queen of Quite a Lot.” Since Mim didn’t understand cat, the grande dame wasn’t insulted.

            On the other side of the airfield a rolling expanse of oats just breaking through the earth’s surface undulated down to the first creek.

            At the creek the cat stopped. The clouds lowered; the moisture was palpable. She thought she heard a rumble. Senses razor sharp, she looked in each direction, including overhead. Owls were deadly in conditions like this.

            The rumble grew closer. She climbed a tree—just in case. Out of the clouds overhead two wheels appeared. Mrs. Murphy watched as a single-engine plane touched down, bumped, then rolled toward the barn. It stopped right in front of the massive doors, a quarter of a mile away from Mrs. Murphy.

            A lean figure hopped out of the plane to open the barn doors. The pilot stayed at the controls, and as the doors opened, the plane puttered into the barn. The motor was cut off. Mrs. Murphy saw two figures now, one much taller than the other. She couldn’t make out their features; the collars of their trench coats were turned up and they were half turned away, dueling gusts of wind. As each human braced behind a door and rolled it shut, the heavens opened in a deluge.

            A great fat splat of rain plopped right on Mrs. Murphy’s head. She hated getting wet, but she waited long enough to see the two humans run down the road past the stone houses. In the far distance she thought she heard a motor turn over.

            Irritated that she hadn’t gone down the farm road and therefore might have missed something, she climbed down and ran flat out the entire way home. She could have stayed overnight in the Urquhart barn, but Harry would panic if she woke up and realized Mrs. Murphy wasn’t asleep on the bed.

            By the time she reached her own back porch forty-five minutes later, she was soaked. She pushed through the animal door and shook herself twice in the kitchen, spattering the cabinets, before walking into the bedroom.

            Tucker snored on the floor at the foot of the bed. Pewter snuggled next to Harry. The portly gray cat opened one brilliant green eye as Mrs. Murphy leapt onto the bed.

            “Don’t sleep next to me. You’re all wet.”

            “It was worth it.”

            Both eyes opened. “What’d you get?”

            “Two field mice and one shrew.”

            “Liar.”

            “Why would I make it up?”

            Pewter closed both eyes and flicked her tail over her nose. “Because you have to be the best at everything.”

            The tiger ignored her, crept to the head of the bed, lifted the comforter, and slid under while staying on top of the blanket. If she’d picked up all the covers and gotten on the sheets, Harry might have rolled over and felt the wet sheets and the wet cat. Mrs. Murphy was better off in the middle; and she would dry faster that way, too.

            Pewter said nothing but she heard a muffled “Hee-hee,” before falling asleep again.

            2

            The slanting rays of the afternoon sun spilled across the meadows of Harry’s farm. The hayloft door, wide open, framed a sleeping Mrs. Murphy, flopped on her back, her creamy beige stomach soaking up the sun’s warmth. The cat’s tail gently rocked from side to side as though floating in a pool of sunlight.

            Simon the possum, curled in a gray ball, slept at the mouth of his nest made from old hay bales. A worn curb chain glittered from the recess of his den. Simon liked to carry off shiny objects, ribbons, gloves, even old pieces of newspaper.

            Below, in the barn’s center aisle, Tucker snoozed. Each time she exhaled, a tiny knot of no-see-ums swirled up, then settled down again on her shoulders.