Cat Bearing Gifts

14

THEY’RE SURE TO stop us,” Ryan told Clyde as they entered the hospital from the covered walkway. She avoided looking directly at the two guards in dark uniforms who watched them from within, through the wide glass doors. “We look like a couple of tramps, with our dirty backpacks, look like we’re up to no good.” Their wrinkled, stained clothes smelled of sweat and of dog, of gunpowder and maybe of coyote, too, to a discerning nose, maybe even the scent of animal blood. “And my mop looks like a Brillo pad,” she said, pushing back her dark hair where it clung, frizzled into tight curls from their night in the fog. “Not to mention how your backpack is bulging. Be still, Kit,” she muttered, leaning close to the pack, afraid the guards would see it move and want to investigate, would paw through the pack and find Kit staring up at them or scrambling to bolt away.

But no one bothered them, they received only a bored glance from the two uniformed men who were deep in conversation, totally uninterested in what they might be carrying inside with them. Maybe they looked too tired and limp to be bringing in a bomb, to be smuggling in anything that would take much effort. Or maybe Santa Cruz Dominican hadn’t had any problems yet with bomb threats or petty vandalism, as the bigger city hospitals were experiencing.

But when they reached the emergency room, down an open flight of stairs, that area was more secure. The ER’s doors were locked, they had to give a nurse their names, and provide Lucinda’s and Pedric’s names, and wait for another nurse to lead them in through the heavy double doors. The short, pillow-shaped woman in green scrubs escorted them past the inner nurses’ station and on past rows of small, glass-walled rooms not much larger than a walk-in closet, some with the curtains closed, some open so they glimpsed patients within, sleeping or looking forlornly back at them. Lucinda’s glass doors stood open, the canvas curtain drawn halfway across, the lights dimmed down to only a soft glow. Wilma Getz and a lean, dark-haired nurse in scrubs stood one at each side of her bed, frowning as if they’d been arguing. Lucinda lay awake, scowling, but she seemed groggy, too. She smiled vaguely at Ryan and Clyde. “Kate and Charlie were here,” she said. “Gone down to Pedric.” And almost at once she dropped into sleep again. The cast and bandage on her left arm looked heavy and uncomfortable. Her right arm lay across a red windbreaker, holding it possessively. Wilma stood beside her, holding the red jacket, too, keeping it firmly in place as the nurse reached to remove it, apparently not for the first time. At Wilma’s angry glare, she paused and drew her hand back. Wilma’s gray ponytail was awry; she looked as if she’d pulled on her jeans and navy sweatshirt while climbing straight out of bed. But she looked, even so, not a woman to defy, with that steady and uncompromising gaze. Wilma had intimidated her parolees for thirty years, until she’d retired from the federal court system. She didn’t tolerate patronizing behavior from a person committed to easing the suffering of others, particularly of helpless patients.

“Lucinda wants the jacket near her,” Wilma said. “She says it smells of pine trees, and of the hills of our village. What harm, if it comforts her?” Her stubborn grasp on the jacket, and Lucinda’s own protective arm across it, even in sleep, didn’t hide adequately the little mound beneath but, confronted by Wilma, and now with Clyde and Ryan’s presence, the dark, sour woman seemed reluctant to push the matter. She smiled woodenly at the Damens, shook her head as if there were little she could do about unreasonable patients or visitors, and turned away leaving the jacket in place.

Moving to Lucinda’s bed, Ryan reached beneath the jacket, speaking softly to Dulcie, smiling up at Wilma.

Wilma grinned back at her. “Lucinda thinks Kit’s cuddled next to her. She’s much more peaceful since Dulcie slipped into bed with her. If the nurses will just leave us alone.”

“The best therapy,” Clyde said, slinging his pack off, resting it on the edge of the bed. “But there’s no need for a stand-in now.” And Kit peered out at them, her green eyes bright.

“Oh,” Wilma said, reaching for her, pausing to glance out the door and then leaning to hug her. “Oh, you’re all right, you’re safe.” She hugged Kit, squeezing almost too hard. “Pedric’s been asking and asking for you, they’ve been so upset. That’s made the doctor upset, he doesn’t want Pedric stressed.”

Ryan moved to the glass door and pulled it closed. She stood a moment looking out to the big, center island of counters and desks from which the nurses and doctors and orderlies could see into all the rooms. Only the canvas curtain offered privacy. When she closed that, too, leaving only a crack to look out, Kit slipped from the backpack, her dark coat stark against the white cover.

“Hurry,” Ryan said, “she’s coming back.” Kit didn’t crawl under with Dulcie, but returned to the depths of the canvas pack.

“Come on,” Clyde said, slinging her over his shoulder. “We’ll look in on Pedric. What time does the shift change, when does that nurse leave?”

“Twelve, I think,” Wilma said, glancing at her watch. The clock above Lucinda’s bed had almost reached eleven. Clyde and Ryan moved on out with their stowaway, leaving Lucinda sleeping happily with Dulcie as surrogate, and Wilma standing guard.

“How many cats,” Clyde whispered, moving down past the nurses’ station to the other side of the big, open square, “how many cats can you smuggle in, before you have Security in your face?”

“They let therapy dogs in,” Ryan said softly. “If the cats wore those same little therapy coats, maybe . . .”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Don’t even think about it. This is dicey enough.”

“What would they do if they caught us?”

He laughed. “What could they do? Two innocent little cats? At least we don’t have to worry about Joe and Pan.” They’d left the two tomcats in the king cab, both solemnly promising not to open the door, not to set foot outside, had left them pacing back and forth past Rock, who lay curled up asleep. Having completed his night’s work, the silver Weimaraner didn’t mean to be kept awake by a couple of edgy tomcats.

“I just hope those two are as good as their word,” Clyde said.

“And how good is that?” she said nervously.

PEDRIC’S ROOM WAS brightly lit, the overhead fluorescents turned up high as if the softer lights of evening would too easily lull the patient to sleep when, with a concussion, he must be kept awake. Charlie and Kate sat crowded into folding chairs that they’d jammed between the wall and Pedric’s bed. His head was wrapped in a thick white bandage. His thin, lined face was painted with black-and-blue marks down the right side and around his eye where Vic had hit him with the tire iron, bruises that made him look like a dignified clown halfway through applying his makeup. A young, redheaded nurse was fluffing his pillows, he was talking softly to her, the look on his face intense. Whatever he was saying made her uncomfortable. She turned away as Ryan and Clyde entered, bending to adjust the height of the bed. She glanced up embarrassedly at them and at Charlie and Kate, her face flushed, and silently fled the room. Behind her, Charlie and Kate exchanged a look of amusement.

“What?” Ryan said when she’d gone. “Pedric, what were you saying? You weren’t coming on to her?” she said, laughing.

Pedric looked puzzled. “I was talking about the old country, the old myths, the old Celtic tales. I told her she looked like the princess from under the hill, but I guess she didn’t understand. I guess I made her nervous.” He looked vaguely up at them. “I guess if you’re not into mythology, that might sound a bit strange?”

Charlie pushed back her red hair, where a loose strand had caught on her shoulder. “You got her attention, all right. Maybe nurses aren’t into folklore. Maybe, when you work in a world of discipline and hard facts, slipping away into imaginary places can be unsettling.” Though for Charlie that wasn’t the case; she seemed, in her paintings and her imaginative writing, to live comfortably in both realms.

But Pedric’s attention was on Clyde’s backpack, which had begun to wriggle. When he saw Kit’s bright eyes peering out through the mesh his face broke into a smile, he raised his arms to her as she struggled to get out to him. She was about to leap down beside him when another nurse, a blond, shapely woman, started across from the nursing station and Kit ducked down again. She was stone-still as the nurse entered. Her name tag said HALLIE EVERS. She opened the glass door wide, and opened the curtain.

“You can visit,” she said, looking sternly at the four of them. “But not so many at once. One, maybe two if you’re quiet. We don’t want him excited, though we do need to keep him awake. We need to do that calmly, do you understand? Dr. Pindle will be in shortly. Are you all relatives of Mr. Greenlaw?”

“We’re good friends,” Clyde said. “The Greenlaws have no relatives. We came to do whatever we can for them.”

She frowned. “He’s been talking strangely, going on about some kind of fairy tale, about harpies and dragons as if they were real,” she said doubtfully. “Maybe the concussion has stirred up some childhood fancy.”

Kate hid a smile. Charlie frowned, looking down at her hands.

“That’s not surprising,” Ryan said, giving Nurse Evers her most beguiling smile. “Pedric’s a folklorist, that’s his profession. He studies the old, classical myths and folktales, he has an impressive collection of ancient literature, he tells wonderful stories. You should visit with him sometime, if you’re interested in such things. But you’re right,” she said, her green eyes wide and innocent. “Four of us is too many, all at once.” She turned to Pedric. “We’ll take turns visiting, then, seeing that you don’t sleep,” she said gently.

Kate grinned at Charlie and rose, and the two of them left, highly amused by Nurse Evers.

“We’ll be quieter,” Ryan told the nurse. “How long must he be kept awake?” Still smiling, she stepped back, easing against Clyde.

“Until the doctor has done an evaluation,” Nurse Evers said, “possibly longer, depending on what is found. Dr. Pindle will give you that information. Mr. Greenlaw’s hurt his knee badly, as well. He seems to want to wait for treatment on that until he returns home to his own doctors. He’s very vague, most likely due to the concussion. The doctor may want to talk with you about that.” All this as if Pedric were not in the room with them or as if he didn’t hear or understand her. “Vague, and then he’ll start in again on those strange stories.”

Clyde pretended to adjust his backpack, where Kit had begun to wriggle with impatience.

“He seems able to remember only fragments of the accident, but that’s to be expected. He remembers more distant . . . things. I suppose,” she said doubtfully, “if these stories are his profession, I expect he would remember those.” She gave them a brighter smile as if to humor them, and she left abruptly, leaving the door and curtain wide open behind her. Returning to the nurses’ station, she moved directly to a computer where she sat facing them, keeping them in view.

Ryan moved to the door, smiled across at Nurse Evers, then closed the door and drew the canvas curtain. She turned to the bed, where Clyde had lowered the backpack and opened it. Kit’s black-and-brown ears emerged. As her little tilted nose pushed up over the edge of the pack, Pedric reached in to her, such joy in the older man’s face that Ryan had to wipe her eyes and Clyde turned away embarrassed by his own emotion. Quickly Pedric lifted the sheet and Kit crept under, tucking down so close to him that when he’d covered her again, she was barely a lump in the thin white blanket.

“After the wreck,” he whispered, “where did you go? Where were you when they found you?”

“Above the landslide,” Kit said softly. “Rock and Joe and Pan found me and Ryan and Clyde right behind them and Ryan had her revolver, one shot at that coyote that was trying to dig me out of the rocks, and that mother died, serves him right, trying to eat a poor little cat, and those other two ran like hell and then Pan was there and, oh my . . .” She stopped talking, purring so loudly that anyone passing might have heard her. But then, suddenly yawning, she went quiet beneath the blanket, all worn out. Snuggling deeper against Pedric’s side, she drifted off into a deep and healing sleep—while Pedric, longing for sleep, for a forbidden nap of his own, lay watching over her, as their friends stood guard.