The Cat Who Moved a Mountain

CHAPTER 18

"We're trapped!" Qwilleran said to the cats after hearing the news of the Batata washout. "It could be days before we get out of here! And we don't have a phone, water, refrigeration, or even a cup of coffee! Don't sit there blinking! What shall we do?"

Then he remembered the old logging trail down the outside of the mountain. It emerged from the forest onto the highway north of town, beyond the golf course and near the airport. "Okay, we're going out the back way. Fasten your seat belts!"

There was no way of knowing what had happened to the Lessmores, or their house, or their place of business, but after reaching Pickax there would be time enough to return the keys and explain his sudden departure to Dolly, Sabrina, Colin, and Chrysalis. In his hurry he abandoned most of his purchases, having lost interest in the objects bought so impulsively at Potato Cove. Only the five bat-wing capes went into his luggage. Even his box of secondhand books was left behind with the exception of The Magic Mountain, and there was no point in taking the expensive turkey roaster that the cats had declined to use.

The Siamese were silent while Qwilleran packed the trunk of the car and placed their carrier on the backseat. Soon he headed for the trail that Chrysalis had shown him. In passing the gazebo he stopped to admire Dewey Beechum's handiwork: a handsome hexagonal structure that the cats would never use. It had a cedar shake roof and a cupola and carved wood brackets supporting the roof between the six screened panels. There was one puzzling detail, and Qwilleran left the car to walk over and confirm his suspicions. No door! There was no way to get into the thing! He could imagine Beechum removing his moldy green hat to scratch his head while saying, "Y'didn't let on as how y'wanted a door."

The logging trail was hardly more than a set of tire tracks between the trees, and as long as he stayed in the muddy ruts, Qwilleran thought, it would be navigable. The trail wound in and out, up and down, back and forth—always descending—but the lower the altitude, the muddier the tracks, enough so that he became alarmed. He gripped the steering wheel and hoped for the best. Despite the swerving and jolting, there was not a sound from the backseat; that in itself was ominous. The small car bounced in and out of ruts and wheeled successfully through large puddles until a misleading depression in the road swallowed the wheels, and the car sank axle-deep in the mire.

Qwilleran gunned the motor and spun the wheels; the second-hand, three-year-old, four-cylinder, two-tone green sedan would move neither forward nor backward. It only sank deeper. Stunned by this new misfortune, Qwilleran sat behind the steering wheel and felt his throat tightening and his face burning. Why? Why? Why, he asked himself, did I ever come to the Potatoes?

He considered leaving the car and slogging the two miles back to Tiptop through slimy clay that would be shin-deep—lugging the cat carrier, slipping and falling and dropping it. And if he stayed in the car, what would happen? No one in Spudsboro would know that he had left Tiptop. No one would miss him. No one would come searching for him. Worse yet, no one ever used this route!

Occasionally he heard the chop-chop of the helicopter, but that was scant help; trees arching over the trail provided complete camouflage.

The Siamese had been mercifully silent during this crisis, and once more he considered struggling back to Tiptop, leaving them in the car until he could return with help, but the phones were out of order. How would he make his plight known? He leaned forward with his arms circling the steering wheel and his head on his arms, in an effort to think logically, yet nothing even remotely resembling a solution occurred to him.

"Yow!" said Koko, for the first time that day.

Qwilleran ignored him.

"YOW!" the cat repeated in a louder voice. It was not complaint nor rebuke nor expression of sympathy. It was a cry of excitement.

Qwilleran looked up and caught a glimpse of a moving vehicle approaching through the trees. It was lurching slowly up the hill—a rusty red pickup with one blue fender, the body of the truck riding high over the wheels. It stopped inches away from his front bumper, and Chrysalis leaned out of the driver's window.

"Where are you going?" she called out.

"Nowhere! I'm stuck!"

She jumped out of the truck cab, wading through the mud in rubber boots that reached above her knees. "I was going up to Tiptop to see if you were all right. I heard about the washout on the radio and thought you'd be marooned."

"I was, and I should have stayed that way," Qwilleran said, "but there's a serious emergency at home. I need to get there in a hurry. If you'll be good enough to drive me to the airport, I'll rent a car."

"Perhaps I could haul you out and tow you down," she suggested.

"Around these sharp turns? No thanks!" From where he sat in his stalled car he could see a thousand-foot drop down the mountain. "Let me put my luggage and the cats in your truck and leave the car here."

"Do you have boots? The mud's over a foot deep here."

"I'll take off my shoes and roll up my pants."

With his shoes hanging around his neck and his socks in his pocket, he transferred the baggage. The cat carrier went on the seat between them.

"Nice cats," Chrysalis said. "Siamese?"

"Yes. They're good companions and very smart."

"Yow!" said Koko.

"He knows we're talking about him," Qwilleran explained. "His vocabulary is limited, but he expresses himself well."

She said, "Don't worry about tracking mud into the cab; we've got enough dirt in this thing to grow strawberries. When we get to Bear Crossing, there's a stream where you can wash your feet and put on your shoes." She backed the truck down the trail and around two hairpin turns before crashing through underbrush to make a U-turn.

"You handle this swamp buggy like a stunt driver," he said with admiration.

"This old crate will go anywhere, and it's a lot more fun than the school bus!" She was a different person since hearing about the arrest of a suspect, and Qwilleran almost regretted that he was leaving. "When are you coming back to the Potatoes?" she asked.

"Probably never. I'm needed at home. I've checked out of Tiptop, and if you can haul my car out of the mud, you're welcome to keep it. I'll give you the keys and send you the title." Before Chrysalis could adequately splutter her surprise and thanks, he changed the subject. "Were you surprised to hear about the washout?"

"Not really. We always knew it would happen someday. Too bad, though. Damage is already estimated at ten million, according to the latest on the radio. I hope no one got hurt, but it'll be a miracle if they didn't. The air is so full of disaster news that they haven't mentioned any more about the suspect. I wonder who it is. I wonder how they found out. I wonder how soon Forest will be coming home."

"George Barter of Hasselrich, Bennett & Barter can probably expedite things for you. He planned to fly down here Monday."

"I hope he's bringing boots," she said.

"The disaster may delay his visit—I'm sure it's being reported on national news—but when he arrives, he'll have some good news. The Klingenschoen Foundation wants to establish a conservancy to save Little Potato. They'll buy any property that's for sale, to insure that it's never commercially developed. Some Taters may opt to sell and retain lifetime rights to live on the property. And the price paid will be fair. No gouging."

"I can't believe this!" Chrysalis said. "I've heard about the conservancy idea, but I never dreamed it would happen to Li'l Tater! Was it your suggestion, Qwill? We're so lucky that you came to the Potatoes! How can we thank you?"

"In the mountains we aim to be good neighbors," he said.

"Yow!" was the affirmation from the carrier.

Later, driving away from the airport in a rental car, Qwilleran tried to organize his ambivalent feelings about the Potatoes. So much rain! So much corruption and prejudice! And yet he had never seen so many rainbows . . . witnessed such dramatic skies . . . felt such magic in the mountain air! Too much had happened in one week. One week? To Qwilleran it seemed like a year! Time became distorted in the mountains. Look what happened to Rip Van Winkle!

He and the Siamese again spent a night at the Mountain Charm Motel, famed for its uncomfortable beds and country-style fripperies. Despite its shortcomings, it was the only hostelry in the area that welcomed pets. After dinner he turned on the television, minus the sound, to keep Koko and Yum Yum entertained. It was a nature program, and they huddled together at the foot of one lumpy bed, staring at the screen, while Qwilleran lounged on the other lumpy bed, trying to read the newspaper. His mind could not focus on world news. Unanswered questions plagued him: What really triggered Wilson Wix's heart attack? Did Robert Lessmore's investment firm promote the Hot Potato Fund? Was Yates Penney a baker from Akron or a federal agent?

Then he reflected, If Koko had not found that key behind the painting and that door behind the secretary desk, Forest Beechum would be spending the rest of his life in prison. Did Koko know what he was doing? Or was he simply on the scent of a postage stamp and a dog's mattress? As for finding the key, was Koko pursuing his hobby of tilting pictures? Or did he know that something was not where it should be?

Though Qwilleran found it difficult to rationalize Ko-ko's behavior, he could understand why Sherry had hidden the key as she did. Were not women prone to hide things in the sugar bowl, behind the clock, under the carpet, or in their underclothing? Sherry wanted no unauthorized person in her male parent's office until she could find time to examine, and possibly burn, his personal papers.

Picking up The Magic Mountain, Qwilleran thought a good read would relax his mind, but he was unable to find his place. Yum Yum not only untied shoelaces; she stole bookmarks.

Either Koko lost interest in the mating rituals of Brazilian beetles, or he knew he was on Qwilleran's mind. With a stretch and a yawn he deserted the tube and hopped onto the other bed, saying a cheerful "Yow!"

"Yow indeed!" Qwilleran said. "Is that all you have to say? When you sniffed the label on the sherry bottle, were you getting high on the adhesive? Or were you trying to tell me something? And all the time you were wallowing on the floor in front of the Fitzwallow huntboard, you knew there was something of interest underneath it. Was it the dog's toys? Or the ash-blond hairball?"

Koko's large black eyes—black in the dim lamplight of the motel—were brimming with concentration, and Qwil-leran told himself, He's trying to transmit a thought; I must relax; I must be receptive.

Koko was concentrating, however, on a spider crawling up the wall, and after springing at it and knocking it down, he ate it.

"Disgusting!" Qwilleran said and went back to his own thoughts, recalling his incredible week in the Potatoes: getting lost in the woods, the unpleasant episode at the golf club, the horrifying accident at the waterfall, the pain and incapacitation that resulted, the washout and the prospect of being marooned on Tiptop, the ordeal on the muddy trail . . .

"I don't know why I came to the damned Potatoes in the first place! Do you know, Koko?" Then he answered his own question. He remembered the party celebrating his inheritance ... all those good friends ... all that mediocre food . . . someone suggesting the Potato Mountains for a vacation . . . himself jumping at the idea and pursuing it like a fool, persevering against odds, agreeing to pay $1,000 a week for a white elephant. Why? What attracted him? How could he explain his stubborn resolve?

Koko was watching him with twitching whiskers, and Qwilleran put a hand to his own moustache. Slowly the cat rose from his lounging position on the bed. He arched his back and stiffened his tail and pranced, stiff-legged, around the mattress. Qwilleran watched the performance and wondered what it was supposed to convey, if anything.

Round and round Koko paraded until Qwilleran recalled the revolving circle on top of Little Potato—the silent marchers with lanterns, believing in the power of thought and fervently willing their kinsman to be returned to them.

No! he thought. How could their influence be felt in Pickax, many hundreds of miles away? "Impossible!" he said aloud, and yet he stroked his moustache with a heavy hand, and as he pondered the cosmic conundrum, Koko caught another spider.