The Cat Who Went Underground

CHAPTER 4.

THE WHINING OF an electric saw and the sharp blows of a hammer interrupted Qwilleran’s sleep on Tuesday morning. He looked at his bedside clock with one eye open; it was only six-thirty. He was a late riser by preference, but he realized that the carpenter was on the job and the beach steps were being built.

He pulled on a warmup suit and went out to the top of the dune.

There was a light blue pickup in the clearing-one of five thousand of that color in Moose County according to his private estimate. This one was distinguished by a cartoon on the cab door: a screeching, wing-flapping chicken. On the door handle hung a softball jacket: red with white lettering that spelled out COTTLE ROOSTERS. Lumber was stacked in the clearing, and a table-saw was set up. The carpenter himself was halfway down the sandbank working at top speed, driving home each nail with three economical strokes of the hammer. Bang bang bang.

“Morning,” said Qwilleran sleepily when: the hammering stopped.

The young man looked up from his work. “Hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“Not at all,” said Qwilleran with amiable sarcasm. “] always get up at six o’clock and run a few miles before breakfast.”

The humor was lost on the carpenter. “That’s good foi you,” he said. “Oh, I forgot-I’m Clem Cottle.” He scrambled up the sandbank, holding out a calloused hand.

He was one of five thousand big, healthy, young blond fellows in Moose County-again a private estimate. “Youi face looks familiar,” Qwilleran said.

“Sometimes I help out behind the bar at the Shipwreck.” Clem wasted no time on conversation, but returned to building the steps.

“What kind of wood are you using?” The lumber had a greenish tint like the bilious light that had seeped into the cabin in the middle of the night.

“It’s treated so it doesn’t have to be painted. Everybody’s using this now.”

Bang bang bang.

As one who could smash a finger with the first blow, Qwilleran watched the carpenter with admiration. Every nail went in straight, in the right place, with an economy of movement. “You’re a real pro! Where did you learn to do that?”

“My dad taught me everything.” Bang bang bang. “I’m building a house for myself.

I’m getting married in October.”

“I was sorry to hear about the fire. That must have been a devastating experience.”

Clem stopped hammering and looked up at Qwilleran. “I hope I never have to live through anything like that again,” he said grimly. “I woke up in the middle of the night and thought my room was on fire. The walls were red! The sky was red!

The volunteers came out from Mooseville and some other towns, but it was too late.”

“What will your father do now?”

Clem shrugged. “Start all over again.”

“Would you care for a cup of coffee or a soft drink?”

“No, thanks. Too early for a break yet.” Bang bang bang.

Qwilleran prepared coffee for himself and astounded the Siamese by serving their breakfast two hours ahead of schedule-a, can of boned chicken topped with a spoonful of jellied consomme. Unable to believe their rare good fortune, they pranced in exultant circles, yikking and yowling.

“You deserve this,” he told them. “You’ve had a disturbing vacation so far …

leaks, plumbers, crazy lights in the night, and now that noisy carpenter!” He watched them devour their food. They seemed to enjoy an audience; there were times when Yum Yum refused to eat unless he stood by, and it gave him pleasure to observe them crouching over the plate with businesslike tails flat on the floor, ears and whiskers swept back, heads jerking and snapping as they maneuvered the food in their mouths. When he offered them a few nuggets of Mildred’s cereal for dessert, Koko rose on his hind legs in anticipation.

Qwilleran was so intent on studying his companions that the telephone startled him. It was Mildred’s excited voice on the phone. “Qwill, have you heard the news?”

“I haven’t turned on the radio,” he said. “What happened? Did a flying saucer splash down in front of the Northern Lights Hotel? Probably needed a few repairs at Glinko’s garage.”

“You’re being funny this morning, Qwill! Well, listen to this: Roger called me a couple of minutes ago. Captain Phlogg was found dead in his shop!”

“Poor fool finally drank himself to death. The chamber of commerce will be distraught. Who found the body?”

“A Mooseville officer making the rounds at midnight. He saw a light inside the shop and the door open. The captain was slumped in his chair. But here’s the chief reason I’m calling,” she said. “His dog has been howling all night. Do you think I should go over and feed it?”

“Do you want to lose an arm? I suggest you call the sheriff. I wonder if the old guy has any relatives around here.”

“Not according to Roger. I wonder what will happen.”

“The state will bury him and search for heirs and assets. Do you think he had money stashed away? You never know about miserly eccentrics … Well, anyway, Mildred, you’d better call the sheriff about the dog. It’s good of you to be concerned.’”

Qwilleran hung up the receiver gently, thinking warm thoughts about his kind, considerate neighbor … and wondering why he had received no long letter from Polly Duncan.

On the dune, where construction was nearing completion, he said to Clem, “Would you be interested in building an addition to this cabin?”

Clem appraised the weathered logs. “You’d never match that old logwork.”

“I’m aware of that, but I’d settle for board-and-batten with the proper stain.”

“And the old foundation is fieldstone. The last stone mason died two years ago.

You’d have to have concrete block under the new part.”

“No objection.”

“How would you connect the old and the new?”

Qwilleran showed him the sketches, with the new wing right-angled to the cabin, and a door cut through into the back hall. Clem took them to his truck, figured costs, and presented an estimate in writing.

He said, “You’re outside the village limits, so you won’t need a permit. I mean, you’re supposed to have one, but nobody ever does. So I could start digging for the footings tomorrow and pour them the next day. They’ll set over the weekend.”

“I’ll give you a deposit.”

“Forget it! I’ve got credit at the lumberyard. The Cottles have been here since 1872.”

“One question,” Qwilleran said. “Do you know anything about carpenter ants?

They’re getting into the porch posts.”

“Just get a bug bomb and spray “em good,” Clem advised.

After the blue truck with the frantic chicken on the door had pulled away, Qwilleran recalled the transaction with satisfaction. The bill for the steps had been reasonable, and Clem had accepted a check with no hemming and hawing about cash. The young man was not only honest and skilled but remarkably industrious.

He worked on his father’s farm, moonlighted at the Shipwreck Tavern, and was building himself a house. Now Qwilleran was inclined to discount the alarmist gossip about building problems. Lyle Compton had called the dune-dwellers a giddy bunch, and their chitchat about UFOs and horoscopes confirmed that opinion. It had been a mistake to believe their cocktail conversation about underground builders.

On the whole he was feeling so elated about the latest turn of events that he agreed to act as a judge for the Fourth of July parade when someone called him from the county building in Pickax. It was a civic chore he ordinarily would have sidestepped, but the caller was a woman with a voice like Polly Duncan’s.

She said that the county wide parade would be held in Mooseville and Mildred Hanstable had agreed to be a judge, with a third yet to be announced. She said that Qwilleran’s name on the panel of judges would add greatly to the prestige of the event. She added that she always read “Straight from the Qwill Pen” and it was the best thing in the paper. Grooming his moustache modestly, Qwilleran agreed to help judge the floats on the Fourth of July.

For lunch he went into town to the Northern Lights Hotel, and as he walked through the lobby he recognized something out of the corner of his eye. It was the picture of a young man. The hotel had a quaint custom of announcing social news on a glorified bulletin board in the lobby. A gilt frame and some ribbons and artificial flowers were intended to glamorize the display. Qwilleran usually walked past quickly with averted eyes, but this time he stopped for a closer look. A photo of a young couple was displayed with a neatly printed card reading, “Mr. and Mrs. Warren Wimsey announce the engagement of their daughter, Maryellen, to Clem Cottle, son of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Cottle, all of Black Creek. An October wedding is planned.” Clem was stiffly posed in a collar and tie. The girl looked wholesome and intelligent and country-pretty.

Wimsey! The name was familiar to Qwilleran. There were dozens of Wimseys, Goodwinters, Trevelyans, and Cuttle-brinks in the slim directory of Moose County telephone subscribers. Families had a tendency to stay in the area for generations, and the annual family reunions were attended by a hundred members of the clan, or even more. In the cities where Qwilleran had lived and worked, such family get-togethers were unheard of, and he thought, Ah! Another idea for the “Qwill Pen.”

After lunch he walked to Huggins Hardware to buy insect spray as Clem had suggested. It was a brilliant summer day, and Main Street was teeming with tourists, always distinguishable from the locals by their clothing, speech, and attitude. The young vacationers were as boisterous and as naked as the law would allow. The middle-aged tourists from the city stared at the natives with amused superiority. Busloads of white-haired day-trippers followed tour guides in and out of the shipwreck museum and gazed obediently at a certain spot in the lake where, they were told, a shipful of gold bullion had sunk a” hundred years ago and was still there! Qwilleran made another mental note for his column.

The hardware merchant was taking advantage of the traffic by displaying minnow pails, beach balls, bicycles, and life preservers on the sidewalk.

Qwilleran, in his present elevated mood, had a taste for adventure. “How much for a lightweight ten-speed, Cecil?” he asked.

“Where do you plan to ride, Mr. Q? The traffic is murder on the highway this summer. You’d be better off to get a trail bike and stick to the dirt roads.

Much safer!”

“They look like the clunkers I pedaled when I was delivering newspapers.’”

“Just take one out and try it, Mr. Q. You won’t be disappointed. Head for the riverbank,” Cecil Huggins advised. “Go out Sandpit Road half a mile and then get off the asphalt onto Dumpy Road till it dead-ends at Hogback. If you cut across the fields to the river, there’s a dandy trail there. Be careful of mudslides.

That’s where Buddy Yarrow slipped in.”

The seat and handlebars were adjusted to Qwilleran’s six feet two, and he set out on Cecil’s proposed route. He had to admit that the bike negotiated the uneven terrain in exhilarating fashion. Leaping over ruts and roots and washouts, he felt like an intrepid twelve-year-old, and there were no trucks, no electric signs, no whiffs of carbon monoxide.

Dumpy Road was a benighted colony of substandard housing, but it led to the bank of the Ittibittiwassee, which bubbled into eddying bays and babbled on the pebbles like Tennyson’s brook. To Qwilleran all was enchantment: the splash and gurgle of the rapids; the willows weeping over the water’s edge; the wildflowers, birds, and scurrying animals that he could not identify, never having bothered to learn about nature. He envied the country-smart locals who rescued bear cubs and built their own houses. They were descendents of the pioneers who had settled this north country, chopping down trees to build their log cabins and picking wild herbs to make their own medicines. Qwilleran wondered what they did about spider bites in the old days. Much of his biking was done standing up on the pedals.

Around each bend there was another surprise: a deer having a drink; a solitary fisherman in waders; something sleek, brown and flat-tailed, swimming and diving. There was one discordant note: Ahead he could see a jumble of junk marring the natural beauty of the riverbank-a series of boxlike structures built of chickenwire and scrap lumber. He dismounted and wheeled his bike cautiously closer. They were ramshackle cages. In one of them an animal was sleeping, rolled up in a ball; it looked like a fox. In another enclosure some tiny “creatures with striped backs were chasing each other and climbing over a wheel that rotated. An old bathtub sunk in the ground was filled with rainwater, and ducks waddled in and out of their pool.

It was obviously Joanna’s zoo, and Qwilleran hoped she was not there. Her house-no better than a large box with windows, perched on concrete blocks-fronted on the dirt road called Hogback, and it was surrounded by plumbing fixtures. Broken or rusted sinks, toilets, oil tanks, and water heaters were dotted about the yard like tombstones in a plumbing graveyard. To add to the funereal effect there was a row of wooden crosses marking small graves.

He was contemplating these crosses when a van careened down Hogback Road in a cloud of dust. It jerked to a stop, and Joanna jumped out.

“I was biking on the riverbank and saw your interesting zoo,” he explained, unhappy to be caught prowling about her property.

“Didja see my chipmunks?” she asked with more spirit than she usually mustered.

“I built “em an exercise wheel.”

“What do you feed them?” he asked in a lame attempt to show intelligent interest.

“Sunflower seeds and acorns. You should see “em sit up and eat and wash their face. Wanna hold one? They like being stroked.”

“No, thanks,” he said. “Anything that eats acorns probably has very sharp teeth.

What happens to them in winter?”

“I give “em straw, and they sleep a lot.”

“Those crosses-are they graves?”

“That’s where I buried the bear cubs. The woodchuck, too. And some chipmunks.”

Appraising the yardful of retired fixtures, he asked, “What made you decide to be a plumber, Joanna?”

“My daddy showed me how to do all that kind of stuff, so I took a test and got my license.” She saw Qwilleran looking at her house. “Someday I’m gonna get somebody to build me a real house, when I get enough money. Wanna beer?”

“No, thanks. I borrowed this bike, and if I don’t return it soon, the sheriff will come gunning for me. What’s the quickest way back to Mooseville?”

She pointed down Hogback Road, and he rode off through the dirt ruts at top speed, gripping the handlebars, concentrating on his balance, certain that she was watching, hoping he would not take an embarrassing header.

The following days were eventful for both Qwilleran and the Siamese. Clem Cottle and his younger brother staked out the new east wing and went to work with shovels, digging like madmen, then building wooden forms. The next morning the cement mixer truck rumbled into the clearing, and the two young men ran back and forth trundling wheelbarrows filled with wet concrete. Yum Yum hid under the sofa, and even brave Koko retired discreetly under a bunk in the guestroom, slinking out to peek once in a while.

Qwilleran went for another ride on his new bike, this time taking a back road to an abandoned nineteenth-century cemetery that he had visited two years before.

To his surprise the vandalized tombstones had been restored, the weeds were under control, and there was hardly a beer can to be seen. A new sign announced: PIONEER CEMETERY. NO PICNICS. He suspected the preservation program had been instigated by the tireless Mildred Hanstable, and he telephoned her when he returned home.

“Hi, Qwill!” she said in her exuberant style. “I saw you but riding on one of those funny-looking bikes.”

“I am now a demon on wheels,” he replied. “The terror of the countryside. I visited the old cemetery. Who’s been cleaning it up?’”

“The student history clubs. They’re restoring all the abandoned cemeteries and cataloguing the family graveyards around the county. The early settlers used to bury their dead on their own land, you know, and the sites are protected by law, but first they have to know where they are.”

Another idea for the “Qwill Pen,” he thought. “I understand you’re one of the judges for the parade. How about dinner afterward? At the Fish Tank.’”

“I’d love it!” she said. “Their navy grog is fabulous, and I always need a stiff drink after a Moose County parade. How did you like the cereal?”

“It’s delicious,” he said, speaking for the others. “Great wonders come out of your kitchen, Mildred. And another great wonder: I’ve found a carpenter without resorting to the underground.”

“Who?”

“Clem Cottle from Black Creek.”

“You’re lucky!” Mildred said. “Clem is a good carpenter and a fine young man.

He’s marrying Maryellen Wimsey, and she used to be in my art classes. She’s a lovely girl.”

During the next few days Maryellen drove into the clearing daily at noon in a small yellow car, bringing a hot lunch and staying long enough to pick up stray nails and stack the scraps of wood in tidy heaps.

Clem reported for work every morning at six-thirty- sometimes with his younger brother, but more often alone. He laid the foundation blocks, installed the basic drainage, put in the joists and subfloor, and started the framing.

There were other visitors besides Maryellen. Dune-dwellers who had never cared to walk on the beach suddenly began to take exercise. Attracted by the sounds of industry or compelled by curiosity or driven by envy, they strolled casually past the cabin, waved to Qwilleran on the porch, and climbed the new wooden steps to check the carpenter’s progress. Mildred Hanstable and Sue Urbank were the first visitors, applauding Qwilleran’s good fortune in finding a decent builder. Mildred brought him another tub of cereal.

Leo Urbank robbed valuable time from his golf game to inspect the new structure, predicting that it would never be completed. “Take it from me,” he warned.

“They’re hot at the beginning, but they drop out halfway through.”

The Comptons were unexpected callers. Lisa Compton was a jogger who regularly pounded the shoreline in a green warm-up suit, but her husband considered the beach solely as a place to smoke a cigar. Yet, there he was, plodding through the sand and climbing the steps.

“When the guy finishes your place,” he said, “maybe he could come over and work on our garage.”

“I’ll line him up for you,” Qwilleran said. “I suppose you know Clem Cottle.”

“Oh, sure,” said the superintendent. “We had thirteen Cottles going through the school system at one time. Clem was the brightest. Too bad he didn’t go to college for more than two years. But they were all conscientious-all good stock.

I wish I could say the same for all the old families. There’s a lot of inbreeding in a tight community like this.”

One evening John and Vicki Bushland sauntered down the beach to take pictures of the sunset, and Qwilleran invited them to view the spectacle from the screened porch, minus mosquitoes. “Where’s your studio?” he asked them.

“In Lockmaster. It’s been there for eighty years.”

“I’m not familiar with that town.”

“It’s sixty miles southwest of here-a county seat like Pickax, only bigger,”

Bushy said.

“What kind of work do you do?”

“The usual: portraits, weddings, club groups. When my grandfather started the business he photographed a lot of funerals. At the cemetery they’d open the coffin and prop it up on end, with the mourners gathered around the corpse. You can still see those gruesome group pictures in family albums. He was a great guy, my grandfather. He took two kinds of pictures-what he called vertical-up-and-down and horizontal-sideways.”

Qwilleran asked, “Do you shoot animals?”

“A few. Some people want their kids taken with the family pooch.”

“How about cats?”

“Lockmaster isn’t big on cats,” said the photographer. ”” Mostly dogs and horses.”

“But cats make wonderful models,” said Vicki. “They never strike a pose that isn’t photogenic.”

Qwilleran huffed lightly into his moustache. “I dispute that. Every time I think I’m getting a good snapshot, my cats yawn or turn into pretzels, and nothing is less picturesque than a cat’s gullet or his backside.”

Knowing they were being discussed, the Siamese sauntered onto the porch and posed as a couple-Yum Yum sprawled in a languid posture with chin on paw and ears tilted forward; Koko sitting tall with tail curved gracefully around haunches.

“See what I mean?” cried Vicki.

“Look at those highlights!” said Bushy as he raised the camera to his eye, but before he could snap the picture, both cats dissolved in a blur of fur and were gone. Challenged, he said, “I’d like to get those two characters in my studio and work with them. Could you bring them down to Lockmaster?”

“I don’t see why not,” Qwilleran said. “They’re good travelers.”

“You could bring them down some evening when the studio’s closed, and I could spend time with them. Just give me a ring.” He gave Qwilleran his business card.

“I’d like to enter them in a calendar competition.”

Not all the visitors were dune-dwellers during those exciting days of construction activity. One afternoon Joanna’s van pulled into the clearing.

“Whatcha doin” over there?” she asked.

“Building an addition to the cabin,” Qwilleran said.

She stared at it wordlessly for a while. “No more leaks?” she said finally. • “So far, so good.”

“Did you find my lipstick?”

“I beg your pardon?” Qwilleran said.

“My lipstick. I thought maybe it rolled out of my pocket when I was here.”

“I haven’t seen it,” he said, noting that her face had the original washed-out appearance.

“It could be under the house.”

“Feel free to have a look, but don’t let Koko go down there.”

Joanna went indoors, and the trap door slammed twice. She returned, looking disappointed. “I’ll hafta buy another.”

After she had left, Qwilleran wondered why she had waited so long to ask about her missing lipstick. Was it simply an excuse to pay a social call? He felt sorry for the girl-so plain, and with so few advantages. But he was not going to take her to lunch! He had lunched his doctor and his interior designer, but Joanna was getting a ten-dollar tip for every plumbing job; she could buy her own lunch.

By July third the roof trusses had been erected, and the roof boards were in place. Clem had been working fast. “Trying to get it under cover before it rains,” he explained when he collected his tools on Thursday night.

“Are you taking a long holiday weekend?” Qwilleran asked him. “Can’t afford to. I’ll be here bright and early Saturday, but tomorrow I’ll be in the parade. The boss at the Shipwreck came up with a good idea, and I said I’d do it.”

“Are you riding on a float?”

“Nothing like that,” said the young man with a wide grin. “I’m just gonna walk down the middle of the street. Then after the parade there’s a softball game-Roosters against the state prison team. If you like ballgames, you oughta come and see us play.”

Qwilleran liked the young carpenter, and he gave him a parting salute as the Frantic Chicken drove away. It was prophetic. That was the last time he ever saw Clem Cottle.