Cat Bearing Gifts

10

HEAVY FOG HUGGED the coastal highway, slowing the king cab as Clyde negotiated the blind lanes following the dim taillights of the sheriff’s car that led them, both drivers watching for unexpected obstructions in the heavy mist. He and Ryan and the two tomcats were all fidgeting, thinking about Kit alone somewhere on the cliff ahead, her little tortoiseshell face peering out from some stony crevice that could hardly protect her from larger predators, waiting for help to come rescue her. Kit might act brash and brave with her friends but tonight her voice on the phone had been shaky, scared, and uncertain.

“Good thing we have friends in the department,” Joe said, rearing up on the backseat peering out the side window into the rolling mist. “Someone to get us through the roadblock back there. I wouldn’t have wanted to climb up this damnable, fog-blind road ducking falling boulders you can’t even see coming down at you.”

“The rocks have quit falling,” Clyde said. “Ryan and I will be climbing, carrying you and Pan.”

Max Harper had called the Santa Cruz County Sheriff, who had, in turn, alerted his deputies to let them through the barrier down at the foot of the mountain. “Deputy will meet you,” Max had said, “lead you on up.” Now as they climbed above the flatland on the narrow, rising curves, the fog blew and shifted, arms of whiteness blinding and then revealing, playing with their senses, with their perception of place and balance. The streaming wisps made even the two cats giddy. Joe was glad they had the heavy king cab with its reliable four-wheel drive to keep them grounded. The only unsteadiness about the truck was Rock lunging nervously from one side of the backseat to the other, his eager weight rocking the heavy vehicle and, at each lunge, shouldering Joe and Pan aside.

“Settle down,” Ryan told him, “you’ll wear yourself out before you ever start to search.” Rock gave her a sullen look, but he lay down, sighing dramatically, sprawling across the wide seat. Ryan had, long ago, filled the leg space of the backseat with empty boxes, and laid a thin pad over both boxes and seat to make a solid platform, preventing the big dog from losing his balance on the narrow bench. The resultant bed would have accommodated all three animals nicely if Rock wasn’t hogging it all. Joe watched the deputy’s disembodied taillights leading them up through the shifting blanket of white, watched the blurred reflection of their two sets of headlights move along the black cliff in their ethereal, half-blind world. The deputy leading them, plump and baby faced, had told them the wind was stirring higher up the mountain, “Maybe the night’ll clear, make your tracking easier,” but his tone had implied that this venture was nonsense, to bring a tracking dog all the way up here in this weather to find some lost cat. Maybe the fog would clear, Joe thought, but right now they couldn’t even see the edge of the road where it dropped away to the sea; the muffled sound of the waves from far below seemed stealthy and threatening.

But central coast fog was notional, slipping along the base of Molena Point’s coastal hills one moment, rising the next to leave the lowland clear and enfold only the tallest peaks. Many afternoons the cats, hunting across the high meadows, would watch a thin, white scarf of fog creep in from the sea just above the Molena River, down below the hills that rose bright green and clear. And the next time they looked, the fog had expanded to cover all the hills and the sun, hiding the world around them.

Now suddenly Rock leaped up to pace again, and so did the red tomcat, the two shouldering past each other peering out one window and then Joe, too, caught a whiff of coyote mixed with the smell of the sea and of the pine forest. Pan’s ears twitched back and forth, his striped tail lashing as he fretted over Kit, his every movement urging them to hurry. The red tom had traveled this coast, one small cat alone following Highway One from Oregon to Molena Point, he knew the bold beasts that hunted these coastal mountains, he knew the way coyotes tear their prey, and that was not a pleasant picture. He was aware of the bobcats and owls, too, the silent night hunters, and he was frantic for Kit.

Even as Clyde had backed the king cab out of their drive, Max had called them back to tell them that Lucinda and Pedric were safe in the ER, in Santa Cruz, but that both were driving the staff crazy, fussing about their cat. “They’ve refused to have the X-rays and MRIs that were ordered,” he said crossly, “until they know someone’s gone to fetch the damn cat.” Max wasn’t big on cats—though he had grown unusually fond of Joe Grey, brightening at Joe’s presence on his desk or in his bookcase, and not a clue to the cat-sized detective lounging across his reports; to Max Harper the five cats were no more than housecats. “Why the hell did they take that cat with them? Try to control a cat, in a car? Why can’t they have a nice little lap dog that they can keep on a leash?”

Joe imagined the tall, lean chief and Charlie, his redheaded wife, disturbed from an evening at home, tucked up before a warm fire in their hilltop living room maybe with an after-dinner toddy, maybe watching an old movie. The chief didn’t get that many leisurely nights off without some emergency or another breaking in, too often taking him out again into the small hours. Max said, “You think Rock will track that cat?”

“Of course he will,” Ryan said indignantly, “he’s primed for the hunt.”

“Charlie’s making noises like she wants to head for the hospital. We may see you there, or she will,” and he’d clicked off.

They were high up the mountain when, around the next sharp bend, a line of sputtering orange flares broke the thinning fog. The deputy parked beside two more black-and-whites. The landslide loomed beyond, a ragged hill of fallen boulders blocking the highway, the tons of rock lit like a movie set by three spotlights fixed to tall tripods, their blaze picking out broken glass and twisted metal, too, where the wrecked truck and pickup lay tangled together in a deathly heap. Clyde parked beside the patrol car that had led them, both cars backing around so their rear bumpers were against the cliff. The deputy got out of his unit and stepped over to talk with them, his round face pulled into a frown. “Town Car was on this side. It barely slid through, or they’d be dead. Strange what some people will think of, time like that. Worried about a cat.”

He didn’t like bringing civilians up to a crash scene, he didn’t like them tramping around the scene of a wreck, and didn’t like the idea of these people going up the slide area with their dog, didn’t like that at all. Most likely they’d get in trouble, fall down the cliff, and that would complicate matters, but orders were orders. “Well, at least the fog’s lifted,” he said dourly. “There’s a hiking path on up the road another quarter mile. That’ll put you up to the tree line, and bring you back there, right above us. I want you to stay in the woods. You’re not to go down on the slide. Can you control your dog?” He looked doubtfully at Rock, who was huffing at the air, sucking in scent and staring up the tall, rocky cliff. “That cat could have taken off for anywhere. You ever try to catch a scared cat?” he said, backing away from Ryan’s door so she could get out of the truck.

“We’ll find her,” Clyde said mildly. He reached over the seat for his backpack as Ryan strapped on her own heavy pack. Neither Joe nor Pan was in sight. The deputy looked at Rock, and reached a hand for the Weimaraner to sniff. “Nice hound. Trouble is, when that cat sees this big beast it’ll take off like a bat in a windstorm, you never will find it.”

“Dog and cat are friends,” Clyde said, his voice slow and measured. “They eat out of the same supper bowl. Cat’ll be happy to see him.”

The deputy shrugged, unconvinced. “Wreckers and earthmovers’ll be here at daylight. If the wind dies and more fog rolls in, you won’t be able to see your own feet.”

Not until he had moved away did Ryan make a rude face, and she and Clyde grinned at each other. Joe peered out of Clyde’s pack, watching the pudgy officer depart, and from Ryan’s pack Pan uttered a low, angry growl.

Climbing gingerly over the rock pile toward the upper road and the trail, they left the key in the king cab in case the deputies needed to move it. Negotiating the unsteady boulders, they tested every step, moving with infinite care despite Rock’s eager pulling on his lead. Coming down onto the solid macadam again on the other side, past the wrecked trucks, they headed up the two-lane, passing two more sheriff’s cars that had come down from the north. Rock pulled Ryan up the steep grade, straining on his leash. He wasn’t expected to heel, he was working now, heeling and city manners weren’t part of this program. In her left hand Ryan carried the plastic bag with Kit’s scent. Once they’d left the rock slide, they didn’t talk. Clyde swept his beam along the road ahead, lighting their way, while Ryan shone her light up the cliff, cutting back and forth through dried-up vegetation and ragged outcroppings, all of them hoping to see a pair of bright eyes reflecting back from the stony drop. Joe, half smothered in Clyde’s backpack, didn’t like the silence, he didn’t like that there was no distant sound of coyotes yipping to one another, silent coyotes were bad news. Kit had said there were coyotes, he smelled coyotes, and their silence meant they were watching, well aware of them. But worse still, there was no sound from Kit, not the faintest mewl to tell them where she was.

Not likely she’d mewl with the coyotes so close, but I sure wish she would, wish she’d yowl like a banshee. Her silence made him shiver with dread.