The Cat Who Went Up the Creek

chapter eight

It was their first night in the cabin by the creek.

Qwilleran placed the cats’ blue cushion on one bunk. They settled down contentedly, while he retired to the other bunk. Sometime during the night, the arrangement changed; in the morning Qwilleran was sharing his pillow with Yum Yum, and Koko was snuggled into the crook of his knee. So began . . . A Day in the Life of the Richest Man in the Northeast Central United States.

First, he fed the cats and policed their commode.

Next, he phoned the florist in Pickax and ordered an opening-night bouquet to be delivered to Hannah Hawley’s cabin. “Something dramatic—with a few leaves—but none of that wispy stuff that florists love,” he specified. In accord with theatre custom, the card was to read “Break a leg tonight!” He wished no signature. “Let her figure it out!”

Then he walked up the hill for breakfast at the inn, taking his Friday column to be faxed.

Nick Bamba said, “I’ll put it on the machine right away, Qwill.”

“Not so fast! The deadline is noon. If it arrives early, some itchy-fingered editor with a blue pencil will get the urge to change a few words. It’s better for the copy to arrive when they’re beginning to worry about the thousand-word hole on page two. . . . How’s Lori, Nick?”

“Jumping for joy, now that Mrs. Truffle has moved out.”

It flashed through Qwilleran’s mind that Mrs. Truffle had cast the dark shadow over the inn—not the ill-fated Elsa Limburger. He asked, “Who are the quiet people in Cabin Two?”

“The Thompsons. She’s recuperating from an illness. He goes out deep-sea fishing on the charter boats every day. They get big lake trout and have it cleaned, frozen and shipped to one’s home address. At least, he says that’s the way it works. . . . Here’s another postcard, Qwill.”

It was a view of the Governor’s Palace at Colonial Williamsburg. Qwilleran dropped it in his pocket with a show of apathy. “What’s today’s breakfast special, Nick?”

“Frittata with Italian sauce. Very good!”

“As an old friend, would you tell me it was good if it wasn’t?” Qwilleran asked to tease him.

“If you don’t like it, send it back to the kitchen, and you can have corn flakes on the house!”

In the dining room Qwilleran cast a quick glance at Polly’s postcard:

Dear Qwill—The antique dealer took us to lunch today. Charming man. Called home. Cats not eating well. Could you drop in and cheer them up?

Love, Polly

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. Polly’s male cat had only recently learned to tolerate him, and Black Creek was halfway across the county from Indian Village, where Brutus and Catta lived, but . . .

The server came to take his order, and he asked about the breakfast special.

She shuffled her feet and looked dubious. “Well . . . my last customer thought the sausage was too spicy, and the one before that said the frittata was dry, but that was only their opinion.”

Qwilleran had ham and eggs and left her the usual twenty percent plus something extra for honesty.

Back in Cabin Five, he phoned the official historian for Moose County. Homer Tibbitt, a nonagenarian, lived with his wife, a young eighty-eight, in a retirement village, the Ittibittiwassee Estates.

Rhoda answered the phone and said, “Speak of the devil! . . . We were just talking about you at breakfast. Homer’s having his after-breakfast nap right now—”

“Who’s that? Who’s that?” came a high-pitched voice in the background.

“The media,” she said as she handed Homer the cordless phone.

Affably the two men exchanged derogatory remarks.

“You old rascal! How come you take a nap in the middle of the morning?”

“You sneaky pup! Calling my wife when you think I’m asleep!”

“How do you like this weather?”

“What do I know about weather? She won’t let me go out.”

“I hear your knee replacement was a big success, Homer.”

“So good I’m thinking of having my funny bone replaced, if you’re the donor.”

Only after the required banter did Qwilleran pose the question: Has Moose County ever had a gold rush?

“Well . . .” Homer mused as he retrieved pertinent facts, “there was a Poor Man’s Gold Rush in the nineteenth century before they discovered the real gold: coal and lumber; that’s where the fortunes were made.

“In my own lifetime there’s been periodic hysteria over a gold strike, but it never amounted to anything. If you ask me, there’s more cold cash buried in coffee cans in people’s backyards than was ever—”

Rhoda snatched the phone. “Ask Mr. MacMurchie. He used to sell sluice boxes and panning equipment.”

Homer snatched it back again. “Ask Thornton Haggis. He used to take his boys panning.”

Without delay Qwilleran phoned the retired stonecutter and made an appointment for lunch. Thornton was one of the most savvy natives he had met since coming to the north country. Thorn, as he was called, had attended a university Down Below, majoring in art history before returning to manage the family’s monument works. After retirement he plunged into volunteer work—helping at the art center, assisting the sheriff’s department in spotting brush fires, and now playing the role of saloonkeeper in the forthcoming reenactment. It came as no surprise to Qwilleran that Thorn had been a gold prospector.

They agreed to meet at the Nasty Pasty in Mooseville; only a restaurant serving the best pasties in the county could risk such a name. Meanwhile, Qwilleran and the Siamese sat on the screened porch and enjoyed the sylvan quiet.

Koko chattered at an occasional squirrel who had come too close to his turf and pointed his ears toward the creek when he heard quacking. Qwilleran quickly harnessed him and took him for a shoulder-ride down to the water’s edge. Two ducks were gliding serenely followed by nine ducklings (he counted them) in perfect formation, the entire company turning left or right like a drill team.

A man’s voice said, “Only the females quack; the males go cluck-cluck.” It was Doyle Underhill from Cabin Three. “Is this the cat that got rid of Mrs. Truffle? We should give him a medal.”

The photographer was heading for the boat shed with his camera. “Do you like canoeing, Qwill? You’re welcome to come with me any time.”

“Unfortunately, Doyle, I had a traumatic experience while paddling along the shore of the big lake. A sudden offshore breeze spun the prow around to the north, and I was on my way to Canada a hundred miles away. There was nothing I knew to do until a sepulchral voice from nowhere told me to back-paddle. I made it safely back to shore but lost my taste for canoeing.”

“Sounds supernatural.”

“No, it was only my neighbor on the beach, a retired police chief with a bullhorn. . . . How’s the shooting up the creek?”

“Great! The other day I photographed a huge owl, taking off over my head like a bomber.”

“What do you do with your photos?”

“Sell a few to magazines and photo services.”

“Do you know about the photography show opening Sunday at the Pickax art center? They’re having a reception for the artist, John Bushland.”

“I see his byline all the time! He’s super! I didn’t know he lived around here.”

“You and Wendy should go and meet him, between two and five o’clock. He likes to be called Bushy because he’s losing his hair.”

“We’ll go. Thanks for the tip. Too bad you don’t like canoeing, Qwill. When I’m paddling up this creek I really feel one with nature.”

A few minutes later he was paddling quietly upstream without disturbing the ducks.

When Qwilleran arrived at the Nasty Pasty in Mooseville, Thornton Haggis was waiting in a corner booth, his generous shock of snow-white hair making him instantly visible.

“I see your wife hasn’t let you go to the barber recently.” Qwilleran said, pursuing their usual joke.

“I let her win the battle this time. I’m playing the saloonkeeper in the reenactment, and they think white hair will make the character look like a wholesome father figure.”

“How did you get involved?”

“Funny thing. When my boys were teens, they hated history. Now they’re two grown men with families and an active sand-and-gravel business, and they were the first to join the re-enactors. They talked me into it.”

The two men ordered the café’s famous pasty. Thornton said, “I like it because they make the crust with vegetable oil in the new way instead of lard in the old way, and they dice the meat up the old way instead of grinding it in the new way. They use local potatoes and season the filling with sage and onion and a little butter.”

“Is cooking one of your many skills, Thorn?”

“No, but I like to read cookbooks.”

“Homer tells me you used to go gold prospecting, Thorn.”

“That’s when my boys were about ten and twelve years old. After that, they got interested in soccer and girls, but for one summer, panning for gold was good, clean, family fun. We found a few crumbs, which we had imbedded in plastic for key rings. I still use mine.”

“Where did you go digging—or panning?”

“In what is now the Black Forest Conservancy—and off limits to prospectors. But in those days, you could cut down trees, camp out, shoot deer in season and rabbits all year round. It was called the Black Forest because of the black bears that made their habitat there, but the only one I ever saw is the stuffed specimen at the Black Bear Café. Nowadays, if you were dumb enough to shoot a bear, they’d shoot you and stuff you.”

“The pasties were served, and Qwilleran asked him more questions. “How did you know where to dig for gold?”

“Everyone knew. There was an old belief that three veins of gold ran under the Black Creek, and every generation got excited about it. Then, when no one struck it rich, it would die down until another old codger starting telling stories.”

Forks were not served, and the pasties required two hands and one’s full attention.

Then Qwilleran said, “Should I know about the brawl at the Hotel Booze?”

“It isn’t all rough stuff,” Thornton said. “There’s laughing, kidding around, singing, jigging, and a lot of boasting. Roger MacGillivray has done a pile of research and is coaching them on the slang of the period.”

“Is there a script?”

“It’s all ad lib, but each team has been doing its act over and over again.”

“Do guns figure in the show?”

“It wasn’t a gun culture. Fisticuffs! In the lumber camps, fighting and drinking were forbidden. The bosses preserved law and order with their fists. However, in the sawdust towns the saloonkeeper would be likely to have a gun for business reasons.”

“Do you know some of the lingo?” Qwilleran asked.

Thornton did. That man knew everything. “We’ve given our members a glossary of slang terms that were common in those days. I’ve brought you a copy.”

Qwilleran glanced at it. If a man was “sluiced,” he was killed. If he had “smallpox,” he’d been in a fight and had been stomped by caulks—the steel pins loggers wore on their boots to keep from slipping off logs. If a lumberjack was “gonna get m’teeth fixed,” he was going to visit a prostitute. There were other expressions, too, all equally colorful.

Thornton said, “When you see the show, bear in mind that lumberjacks in 1860 were young men in their teens and early twenties. One camp had a cook who was only twelve years old. . . . And they lived dangerously. They were killed by falling trees, drowned while riding logs down a rushing stream, and maimed by runaway saw blades in the mills. Undertakers couldn’t make the pine boxes fast enough!”

“Is that why they drank themselves silly on Saturday night?” Qwilleran asked.

“And learned to take death lightly. My great-grandfather cut names and epitaphs on gravestones at two bits a word. If the victim had no money in his pocket, his buddies chipped in to buy him a headstone with the kind of raffish epitaph he would have liked.

“This will explain the finale of the reenactment when you see it. Some of the audience will be disturbed.”

“What is the finale?”

“Wait and see,” Thornton said.

alt="[image]"/>Before leaving the parking lot of the Nasty Pasty, Qwilleran phoned his attorney’s office. G. Allen Barter was his representative in all matters pertaining to the Klingenschoen Foundation, sparing him trips to Chicago, board meetings and routine decisions. The two men were in complete accord about the goals and policies of the K Fund.

Qwilleran said, “I suppose you have Saturdays off, unlike us overworked columnists.”

“I thought you were on vacation, Qwill. When I read your column today, I assumed the squirrels had written it for you!”

“Don’t be too surprised. They’re smarter than you think.”

“Do you have something in mind for Saturday?” Barter asked.

“Yes. Lunch at the Nutcracker Inn. They have the best Reuben sandwich this side of the Hudson River.”

“Good! Do I dare inquire of your ulterior motive?”

“I’d like some information on the Black Forest Conservancy.”

“Shall I bring the files?”

“Only those between your ears, Bart.”

Before leaving for the opera Friday night, Qwilleran played the video that Hannah had lent him. He was familiar with the plot, characters and songs, but it refreshed his memory. Koko was duly impressed, yowling—in either pleasure or pain—at the rousing opening number: Oh it is a glorious thing to be a pirate king! Yum Yum expressed her boredom by sitting with her back to the screen and twitching her ears.

No opening night on Broadway could surpass in excitement the event that took place in the auditorium of the Mooseland high school. Everyone dressed for a very special occasion, a few in long dresses and dinner jackets. The lobby was conversational bedlam, since everyone knew someone in the cast: relative, friend, neighbor, coworker, customer, patient or parishioner.

The parking lot was jammed, and Qwilleran used his press card in order to park with the dignitaries and handicapped. The lobby was teeming with showgoers too excited to go to their seats. Qwilleran pushed through the crowd, nodding and saluting.

At a table in the lobby, orders were being taken for pirate socks, knee-high and tri-colored, with proceeds to underwrite the choral club expenses. The socks, it was predicted, would become the tourist fad of the year.

He also indulged in his favorite vice, eavesdropping:

“I always love the pirates! They’re so friendly!”

“I love the policemen. They’re so good-hearted and a little timid.”

“There’s Elizabeth Hart. Where’s Derek Cuttlebrink? They’re always together.”

“There’s Dr. Prelligate with that interior designer.”

“Don’t look now, but the man with a moustache is Mr. Q.”

As he walked down the aisle to the fifth row, he wished Polly were there; she knew the opera by heart. He wondered who would be sitting next to him—that is, if Cathy had been able to give his ticket away. To his surprise it was Cathy herself.

“I’ve never seen an opera, and I decided it would be part of my education.”

“This isn’t Pagliacci or Tosca, you know. It’s a musical farce. Do you appreciate farce?”

“I don’t know. What is it exactly?”

She was frank and eager to learn, and he admired her for that. “It’s a comedy in which ridiculous elements are treated seriously. Prepare to suspend your disbelief, your common sense, and even your sanity.”

“It sounds like fun,” she said soberly. “What’s it about?”

“Do you know Penzance?”

“I don’t think so.”

He had to talk fast. The orchestra members were looking expectant. Latecomers were rushing to their seats. “It’s a town on the coast of England, once a hangout for pirates. A youth named Frederick, who was supposed to be apprenticed to a pilot, was mistakenly apprenticed to pirates, because his baby-sitter was hearing-impaired. Now, at the age of twenty-one, he is being released from his contract. His baby-sitter, who had been so embarrassed that she went into piratical service with him, also quits and tags along after her young master. Her role is sung by Hannah Hawley, who is living in one of the Nutcracker cabins.”

“Mrs. Hawley was written up in your column this week!” Cathy exclaimed. “I’d love to see her doll house things.”

Uncle Louie, as the conductor was affectionately known, came to the podium as the lights dimmed and bowed to the audience with a mischievous smile. Then he turned, rapped twice with his baton, raised both arms, and plunged the orchestra into the overture. The frenzied opening bars had the audience smiling as they settled in for three hours of bouncy music, a few romantic melodies, witty lyrics, and a madcap plot . . . all except Cathy. She was not sure what to expect or how to react.

The curtain rose on a rollicking band of pirates on the beach at Penzance, celebrating Frederick’s release. All wore red bandannas on their heads—and striped knee socks hand-knitted for the occasion. Ruth-poor-Ruth, their maid-of-all-work, was padded and costumed to look dumpy and dowdy.

“Is that Mrs. Hawley?” Cathy whispered.

Her solo explaining her mistake was delivered with full-throated verve and conviction, and applause brought down the house—not only because the house was filled with Hawleys and Scottens.

Another favorite was the stuffy major general with his over-trimmed uniform and wooden-soldier gait. His patter song, delivered with the speed of an automatic weapon, also delighted the audience. His beautiful daughters (twelve members of the women’s chorus) fluttered about the beach in long dresses, hats and gloves. One of them, a lyric soprano, fell in love with the ex-pirate, a romantic tenor. So far, so good. Qwilleran glanced at Cathy; she was sitting there solemnly, being educated.

Then the problems arose. The other pirates (twelve members of the men’s chorus) wanted to marry the major general’s daughters. At the same time, an error in reading the fine print of Frederick’s contract had released him too soon. And the major general told a heinous lie as the curtain fell on Act One.

These were all twists of plot that sent a happy audience to the lobby for a glass of punch during intermission.

Qwilleran said, “I’m going to the lobby. Would you like to stretch?” He avoided asking her what she thought of the opera, so far. Instead, he said, “Roger MacGillivray tells me you’re going to be a dance hall girl in the reenactment. How did you get involved?”

“My boyfriend is playing one of the river-drivers. They came down from French Canada to ride the logs downstream in spring. He teaches romance languages at the high school, so he’ll speak French. They wear red sashes and red knitted caps.”

“What do the dance hall girls do?”

“Hang around the saloon, and the customers say ‘chip, chip’ to us. That’s the 1860 equivalent of the wolf whistle.”

Before he could comment, the Abernethys appeared, and he introduced her as “Cathy of the Nutcracker staff,” adding, “Sorry, Cathy, I don’t know your last name.”

“Hooper, of the Trawnto Beach Hoopers.”

Brightly Nell said, “My name was Cooper, from the Purple Point Coopers. My cousin married a Hooper.”

“That was my aunt, and I was flower girl. That was the wedding where the cake exploded!” With difficulty, she suppressed giggles.

Nell was overwhelmed with mirth. “It was supposed to shoot off fireworks, but it backfired! The tablecloth caught fire and my cousin poured champagne punch on it!”

“Everyone was screaming!”

“The bride’s mother fainted!”

The two women were rocking with laughter, and the two men looked at each other and shook their heads.

Nell regained her composure enough to explain, “The Pickax Picayune headlined it ‘Hooper-Cooper Nuptials’ and didn’t say a word about the explosion. Now, whenever there’s a big wedding, we call it a real Hooper-Cooper!”

Qwilleran said, “Why don’t I find this event funny?”

The women said in unison, “Because you weren’t there!”

The lights blinked, summoning the audience back to their seats. As they moved toward the auditorium, Nell said, “Don’t forget the MCCC luncheon, Qwill.”

“Are you having fireworks?” he asked. He wanted to inquire about her connection with MCCC, but this was not the appropriate time.

As he and Cathy waited for the lights to dim and for Uncle Louie to return to the podium, she asked, “What happens in the second act?”

“Deceit, vengeance, intrigue, and a happy ending. The pirates battle the cops, who win on a technicality.” He handed her the lyrics in booklet form. “Take these home and read them, and you’ll appreciate W. S. Gilbert’s freewheeling way with rhyme. Who else would rhyme lot of news with hypotenuse?”

“Thank you. Shall I return it?”

“No. It’s part of your education.”

When the last triumphant chorus ended, the hall exploded in applause, cheers and whistles.

Cathy was glad that the pirates turned out to be decent after all.

“That’s Gilbert and Sullivan,” Qwilleran said.

“I loved their socks!”

She thought the policemen in their brass buttons and bobby hats were adorable. “But I felt so sorry for Ruth-poor-Ruth!”

“Don’t waste your tears. At the end she went off with the police chief and was winking at the audience.”

Hannah Hawley was the hit of the show—and not just because the auditorium was packed with Hawleys and Scottens.

Arriving at the cabin, Qwilleran could hear the Howling Chorus even as he put the key in the door. He realized it was not exactly delight at seeing him; it was a reminder that their elevenses were overdue. Automatically, he scanned the premises for catly mischief, just as Nick Bamba scanned a vacated guest room for missing lightbulbs and dripping hot water faucets. There were no shredded newspapers or disarranged pens and pencils, but two items had been pushed off the shelf over the sofa: Hannah’s video of Pirates and Bruce’s copy of Black Walnut. The latter reminded him there were some black walnut cookies in the refrigerator, and he brewed a cup of coffee.