Cat On The Scent

55

The high sun shone over central Virginia. Each leaf, a bride in spring green, smiled at the radiant afternoon light. The trumpet vines opened their orange flowers. Bumblebees appeared in squadrons. Honeybees, decimated by a fatal mite, buzzed but in reduced numbers.

Harry, dazed that her friend had been shot, worked hard but her mind kept returning to yesterday's sight of the cats driving the car with Tucker down in the well. She knew that any animal recognizes injury and pain in any other animal. What was remarkable was that they brought the bleeding man to her. They drove him right in front of her.

Each time she envisioned Murphy and Pewter, both with their paws on the steering wheel, she'd get the shakes.

Living close to nature, Harry was better connected to reality than many people. Now she had to face the depth of her ignorance. She had credited her animal friends with human traits. She'd insulted them. By masking their true natures with human characteristics, she missed what was unique about each species. It was entirely possible that Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, along with Tucker, operated at another level of intelligence than she did. It was also possible that theirs was higher but not measurable by human standards.

Harry was being humbled by life in its myriad forms.