Cat Shining Bright

“You did great,” he said, purring and licking Courtney’s ear. “You’re my big girl. My big, grown-up girl.” And that thought, while it made Courtney smile, sent a sinking feeling right to the middle of Joe’s belly. She was growing up. It seemed like the kittens had just gotten there, tiny little blind things, then soon little balls of fluff. And now look at them, look at his smart, beautiful daughter. All three kittens were growing up too fast, racing toward the time when they would leave home to make their own lives. And Joe Grey followed Courtney back to the living room feeling painfully sad—until he caught Kate’s glance and Charlie’s, and knew that their minds were on Buffin, on the amazement that had happened at Dr. Firetti’s.

Joe wasn’t yet ready to talk about that. Nor, it seemed, did Kate and Charlie want to discuss Buffin’s behavior this morning while Striker was having his paw tended. Maybe because none of them, maybe not even Buffin himself, knew quite what to make of his keen and peculiar interest in Dr. Firetti’s caged patients.

10

It had been just after Charlie walked in on the double murder and then Striker cut his paw, that Buffin discovered a new wonder. An amazement that filled his mind right up.

Charlie had parked her Blazer in front of Dr. Firetti’s clinic, its two older cottages joined into a large complex by the sun dome between. She got out carrying Striker with his bloody, wrapped paw. Kate carried Buffin snug across her shoulder but Joe Grey galloped ahead, a frown of worry in his yellow eyes.

The minute the tech behind the desk saw them and rang for Dr. Firetti, John appeared and took Striker from Charlie. Carrying the wounded kitten gently in his arms, he led them back into one of the examining rooms. The space had cages all around three walls, two long metal tables in the middle, and a counter and sink on the fourth wall beneath bright windows.

On the counter was a shallow round basket lined with a clean towel. Curled up comfortably was red tabby Pan; he looked up at his friends, frowned down at the look on Joe Grey’s face, and watched John Firetti unwrap Striker’s wounded paw. Since Pan’s father died, he spent considerable time in the clinic, he could not abandon the Firettis yet, he could only try to fill the empty place in their lonely household—except when the car thieves were at work, when, in the predawn hours while John and Mary slept, Pan and Kit and Joe Grey stalked the rooftops. Now, seeing the bloody scarf around Striker’s paw, Pan watched intently, his amber eyes filled with questions.

He didn’t leave his basket and approach. He remained where he was, watching as Joe Grey leaped to the metal table where John had unwrapped Striker’s paw. A cart stood beside the table, laid out with alcohol, swabs, bandages, local anesthetic, syringes, and more, an array that, Pan could see, made Joe Grey go queasy, made the gray tomcat’s ears drop and his pupils darken with alarm.

Joe had had his blood drawn once, maybe on this very table, to help save the life of one of the feral cats. He’d almost fainted at the sight of his own blood flowing into the glass tube. Now, he began to feel the same.

A tech had come in to help, a small, dark-haired girl, but John sent her away and told her to shut the door. He asked Charlie to scrub up, at the sink before the windows. Charlie often doctored her own dogs and cats and horses, sometimes under his telephone directions. Once the tech had gone, and humans and cats could talk freely, John wanted to know how Striker had cut his two pads so badly, and on what.

“A metal roof vent,” Joe Grey said, ashamed he’d let that happen.

“You’ll need a tetanus shot,” John told Striker. “You’re lucky not to have cut a tendon.” As he prepared the needle, Joe shut his eyes. For a tough, street-battling tomcat, his fear of a hospital was quite another matter. Joe Grey could whip the biggest German shepherd he’d ever met, but that sharp needle undid him. Young Striker, on the other hand, seemed quite in charge of himself. He hadn’t let out a sound since that one cry, on the rooftop, when he’d cut his paw.

But it was Buffin who was the most interested in the clinic. He gave John a loving look. John winked at him and then for a moment stood watching him as Buffin looked all around the hospital room, his eyes wide, studying with keen interest each cat or small dog in its cage. Some looked sick, some were bandaged, several were asleep.

“You kittens have had all your shots,” John said. “The few cats who are infectious are in a separate ward.” He glanced up at Kate. “You and Buffin want to look around?”