“I didn’t cut the lock! Where would I get a saw! What did I do, cut the lock and then tie myself up?” Maria glared at Luis until she saw a spark of uncertainty. “Get out of here, Luis! Give us some peace! That was not a pleasant experience. There’s not an ounce of sympathy in you.” Putting her arm around Estrella, she peered down into the old woman’s face as if afraid her abuela would collapse from fear and shock. “Go away, Luis, and leave her alone. You’ve done enough harm.”
Luis turned away, muttering, and left them. Maria shut the bedroom door and leaned against it. She was amazed that she’d stood up to Luis.
It was the man who had come in the window and freed the cats, it was his boldness that had given her the strength to face Luis like that. Imagine, that man going to so much trouble to save a cage full of cats. Why would he do that? Maybe, Maria thought, therewassomething valuable about those cats. Or could it be, she wondered, that there really was such gentle goodness in the world that a man would risk his own safety to free the miserable beasts?
She could hear Luis and Tommie arguing out in the hall, then the front door slammed. She heard them tramping around the house through the bushes as the beams of their flashlights careened across the blinds. “Run, cats!” Maria whispered. “Run!”
At last they heard Luis’s defeated swearing, heard his car doors slam, heard the car start and peel out into the street. As if they’d gone to search elsewhere. That made them both laugh, that Luis thought they could find terrified cats running scared out in the night.
But Abuela touched her rosary and closed her eyes, her lips moving. And Maria prayed, too, prayed for that good man. Then she crawled back into bed and lay imagining those cats racing free, far away from Luis. And she smiled.
�My tree house,” Kit said, scorching up the thick trunk of the oak tree ahead of the three ragged-looking escapees. “My house, where you can hide and rest.”
Willow and Coyote paused on the threshold, looking in at Kit, taking in the snug shelter. But Cotton pushed right in past them, bold and curious.
There were no cushions yet on the cedar floor, but the pile of dry oak leaves that had drifted into the corner of the cozy, square room provided a soft, warm bed. There was no ladder leading up the thick trunk of the oak to alert a human to the presence of the little house hidden high among the leaves. And though the cedar walls broke the wind, providing welcome warmth, there was nothing to confine them. The three open windows and open door offered easy escape in all directions.
Yawning, their stomachs full of kippers and smoked salmon, of imported cheeses, shrimp salad, and rare roast beef from the alley behind George Jolly’s Deli, the three escapees curled up among the leaves in purring contentment. They were deep down into the most welcome sleep when a lone car woke them, slowing on the street below and pulling to the curb.
“Clyde’s car!” Kit hissed, peering out the door as Dulcie and Joe leaped out and looked immediately up into the tree. “Wake up,” she hissed. “Run!” This was not the time to be found though the three ferals so badly needed rest. Kit, herself, did not want to be found; but she didn’t want to think about why she didn’t. Clyde was getting out.
Swiftly she led the ferals out the window and into the next oak tree, and the next and the next until at last far away they scrambled down to a distant yard. And they ran.
Maybe Joe and Dulcie didn’t hear us, Kit thought. When they go up in the tree house-which they would surely do-maybe they won’t smell us. The ferals, coming through the village gardens, had rubbed against and rolled on every strongly scented bush they could find, to hide their own scent that was so strong and ugly after that stinking cage. So maybe Joe and Dulcie would discover only a windy miasma of garden smells that could easily have blown in from the surrounding yards, and no smell at all of cats.
Maybe.
But now they were safely away, hiding among the far houses, and Kit looked back to her treetop.
There was Dulcie looking out.
But with the tree house empty, surely they would leave soon. She thought she would make up to them later, for their useless search.
And it was there in her heart, what she meant to do. The thrill had been there all along, waiting inside her. The wild free days from her kittenhood. Forgetting all the hunger and cold and pain of that time, she remembered only that unfettered running, traveling on and on across the empty hills running with the ferals. Those wild and giddy feelings filled her right up; and with her little entourage, Kit leaped away through the dark gardens mad with pleasure, heading for the far hills.
In the treehouse, though Joe and Dulcie could smell the medley of scents the cats had collected on their fur, those aromas did not hide completely the sour stink of caged cats. They could smell, too, that Kit had led the cats here by way of Jolly’s alley, could detect a faint but delectable melange of salmon and fine cheeses. Dulcie, looking down into the dark gardens, felt incredibly hurt. “Why did she leave? Why did she lead them away?” She looked at Joe, sad and worried.
“They’ll be watching us,” Joe said.
“But why�?”
“Kit doesn’t want to be found, Dulcie. Kit is having a lark.”
“But she knows we would worry.”
“Best thing we can do is leave her alone, let those cats get on with their escape and their own lives. Then,” he said, “Kit will come home.” He wished he believed that.
“Will she? She isn’t� She won’t�”
“The kit,” Joe said, “will do exactly what she wants to do. We can’t change her. She’s crazy with the excitement of the rescue, she feels big and powerful, invincible. These are her old clowder mates, Dulcie.” His yellow eyes burned. “We can’t run her life. Let her be, and she’ll come home.” But he looked away and licked his paw, hoping he was right.
“If she doesn’t�” Dulcie said miserably, “if she goes off with them�”
Joe just looked at her. “There is nothing we can do. The kit must decide this for herself.” And he turned away and left the tree house, backing swiftly down the oak with clinging claws and leaping into Clyde’s car.
Reluctantly Dulcie followed, silent and worrying. What would they tell Lucinda, tell Pedric? That Kit had been there and gone again, that she didn’t want to be found? What could they tell the old couple that would not break their hearts?
Dulcie knew that Joe was right. Kit had a powerful wild streak, a crazy headlong hunger for freedom, and they could only let her be.
But Kit hadchosento live with Lucinda and Pedric because she loved them. Now, would she at last return to them?
I’m worrying too soon. She isn’t gone yet, not for good. She’s only leading the ferals through the village, showing them the best way, how to avoid heavy traffic. If Joe and I try to force her back now, we would only bully her. We can’t force her to be safe and loved, we can only trust in her judgment. And miserably Dulcie curled up on the cold seat of the car, ignoring Joe and Clyde. She remained lost and sad as Clyde carried her into Wilma’s house and put her in Wilma’s arms.
For a long time after Dulcie went to sleep beside Wilma, beneath the flowered quilt, Wilma lay in the warm glow from the bedroom fire, not reading the book she held but seeing the ferals and Kit racing away through the chill wind.
“Something in Kit’s eyes,” Dulcie had said. “When Clyde freed us and Kit went out that window, when she turned and looked back at me, something so wild-that look she gets�” And Dulcie had sighed, and hidden her face in the crook of Wilma’s elbow. Then later, just before she slept, Dulcie had roused and looked up at her. “I would miss her so. I don’t want her togoback.” And long after Dulcie did sleep, long after Wilma put her book on the night table and switched off the lamp and curled up around Dulcie, still she kept seeing Kit out there running in the night beside those untamed, joyous cats.