Cat Shining Bright

Max leaned back, smiling. “While it was in the barn a mouse or rat got into it, pulled out the stuffing and dragged that under the Lincoln. It was building a nest under the hood. I’d say a rat, the way it had chewed the car’s electrical wires. So bad that, coming down that rough road, the last bit of wire broke and that’s all it took, the car stopped cold and we had them.”

Juana doubled over laughing. Dallas and the chief sat smiling. As the coffee started to gurgle, Joe Grey curled up tighter to hide his own grin. That rat, he thought, even if she is dead now, even if she did get me and Rock locked up, she ought to get some of the credit for rounding up the last of those no-goods.

27

Kate and Scotty’s small, casual wedding was held at the Damens’ house late Sunday afternoon. But hours before the ceremony, the happy couple was honored with a secret gathering behind the Pamillon mansion. The time was early dawn, the sun’s first orange glow edging the eastern hills, shining into the ancient courtyard where Courtney had first met the feral band. Where Kate had discovered Scotty watching the speaking cats, listening to their tales and in that moment the restraint between the two lovers vanished.

Sunrise glowed on the big boulder where pale Willow sat, the bleached calico leader of the feral band. Feral cats and the little group of four village cats and two kittens gathered before her. Only young Buffin was absent, he would not leave his small patient even for such an important event. Ryan and Clyde, Wilma and Charlie, the Firettis, and the Greenlaws stood close behind the feline celebrants.

Kate and Scotty knelt at the foot of the boulder, so as to be face-to-face with Willow. For a long moment she looked silently at the quiet couple, gentle and thoughtful. She touched her nose to their cheeks in a simple feline benediction, a rare endearment of friendship for humans to receive from the cat community. She put a paw on Scotty’s shoulder, placed her other paw on Kate’s hand. The words she spoke seemed to join their two spirits more closely and to join them securely to the cat family.

May the stars shine bright above you,

May the sun warm you,

And the world hold you softly.

May your thoughts and needs be as one,

For all time,

Your joys and conquests as one,

In this world and forever.

Then all the cats gathered around closer, clowder cats and village cats leaping up on the boulder, purring and caressing and nosing at the couple, rubbing their faces against them. So the Pamillon cats celebrated their acceptance of two people they had come to love, these feral cats who, for long generations, had feared and avoided humans. Now they and their human friends shared a long moment of joyful bonding. But then as the sun rose higher and the golden light spread, the ferals slipped away. They purred a good-bye, offered a last nuzzle, and they were gone. Suddenly the glade was empty, not a clowder cat to be seen.

Kate and Scotty stood a moment, holding hands, then the little party of humans and village cats headed back across the grassy berm to the shelter, the warmth of the ceremony a part of them now as it always would be.

They were in the apartment, the four cats and two kittens on the desk, Kate and Ryan and Wilma making breakfast, when Dulcie said, “Look, where’s Voletta going? How can she drive with her leg all bound up and her stitches still healing?”

In the yard below, Voletta’s dirt-covered pickup was heading across the big yard for the road, Voletta’s tangle of white hair blowing where the window was down. They all watched, cats and humans, until, at a turn in the road the truck disappeared, hidden by eucalyptus trees.

“She’s going to bail Lena out,” Joe said.

Everyone looked at him.

“I guess she made bail, after they arrested her with Rick.”

“Where,” Dulcie said, “would Voletta get enough money for bail?”

“Bail bondsman,” Joe said. “He can meet Voletta at the station, she gives him ten percent of whatever the bail is, and Lena walks. You can bet that old woman isn’t destitute.”

“No, she isn’t,” Kate said. “When I kept raising the offer on the house and land, she didn’t blink an eye. Refused it cool as you please. She’s a Pamillon. As little as the family thinks of her, I’ll bet there’s a trust fund, a nice yearly income.”