Her words made Misto laugh. “Your children will grow up on poetry,” he told her. “Poetry and,” he said, looking at Joe Grey, “maybe on cop work, too.”
The old cat settled back, and he told them a final tale. He held close his guardians of love. They waited together for his final moment, for the instant when he would step away from them into his next great journey. Misto painted for them, now, realms he would again travel; he gave them views down upon the earth, deep into ancient lands as if those times were again alive. He showed Joe and Dulcie moments from their kittens’ own pasts, each experience a tangle of puzzles.
Slyly Misto showed Joe Grey the tomcat’s past lives that Joe did not remember and didn’t want to remember. At Joe’s dismay, Misto laughed.
To Joe, those faraway moments, if they had ever really existed, were gone and done, not part of life here and now. Life was in the moment and that was as it should be.
But for Dulcie and Kit and Pan, the glimpses Misto gave them into kinder realms beyond earthly evil, that promise was a valued gift, and the cats reached their paws close around him. They held Misto, snuggled with him as he dozed in a light and easy sleep. It was later in the small hours of morning that they woke.
28
Misto died before dawn. It was just after four, the witching hour, the hour when restless human sleepers wake filled with unsettling thoughts, when restless felines rise and stretch bright eyed and hit the bedroom floor or the cold ground, ready to prowl, that secret and exciting hour that all cats welcome, knowing adventure waits.
Misto woke fully from last night’s gentle sleep. Beside him, Pan and Kit and Joe and Dulcie still slept, deep under, curled close around him. Misto smiled at the dear cats, guardians of his frail body and of his restless spirit. John and Mary lay on the bed dozing near them, but when Misto woke, they woke. All four cats woke, startled.
It was time.
Misto lifted his head and looked at John; his look said the pain had returned and it was very bad. His look said that now he wanted help. It was time.
John Firetti rose, and with care and tenderness he prepared the shot that would bring a cessation of pain, that would bring peace. Tenderly he administered the medication and, leaning down, he kissed Misto’s forehead and ears. Mary leaned close over the other cats, kissing Misto’s face.
In seconds he was gone.
Now, in this world, Misto slept deep and forever, but beyond this world a brightness glowed. They all could see it, they watched Misto’s spirit rise up, they could feel his passing, they saw his golden form as delicate as gauze above them. He was, for a moment, a clear light above them, and then he was gone. To another place.
They sat with him for some time. No one moved or spoke. From far away they felt his spirit caress them, and an echo of his thoughts drifted back to them: Do not grieve, I am with you. You have lives to live, wrongs to right before you complete your journey. You have kittens to raise,his voice said with a smile, before you move on to the next adventure.
As dawn began to color the sky, John and Mary rose. They fetched the little casket that John had prepared, with its carved designs of flowers and trees and its silk liner. They laid Misto within, and John said a prayer for him.
In the living room Wilma rose from the couch where she had dozed. They carried Misto in his small casket to his resting place, which Mary had prepared in the garden. The morning was chill, barely light, the sky streaked with trails of dark clouds and the first hints of sunrise shining through; it was the kind of morning Misto liked best.
The humans knelt. John uncovered the grave he had dug, set among its five granite boulders. The cats crept close and sat quietly. It was then that Kate appeared and, behind her, silent and close together, came Ryan and Clyde, and Charlie. Ryan took Wilma’s hand. Both wiped away tears.
John laid Misto’s casket in the flower-lined grave between the granite boulders. They patted the earth down, each hand and each paw adding a benediction.
When the grave was covered, each mourner said a few words, then Mary planted primroses over the little mound. As they turned away, weeping, in Dulcie’s head the words of a poem began. The first few words of an ode to Misto, a bright caress that would be a long time in the making, but would speak for all of them.
Golden spirit, you reach down
Your ghostly paw to touch the earth you love
To touch the sea
To stroke the lakes and rivers . . .
29
It was later that morning that Max Harper received a third call on the BOL for Tekla and Sam Bleak. All three reports were from California Highway Patrol. Max hadn’t had much description to put out, no make or model, no year, no license number. Just an older brown SUV, faded and dirty. One responder thought it might be an older Chevy. None caught the license number, the plates were smeared with dirt. In one response the car carried three occupants. In the others, only two people were visible. It annoyed him that the snitch hadn’t gotten a better handle on the car, hadn’t found a way to follow it. But then, Max hadn’t been there to witness the action; maybe the car had vanished too fast. The positive part was, in all three calls the car was moving east, heading now through Nevada.
This same morning, in Anchorage, the Greenlaws parted from Mike and Lindsey Flannery, watched them take off in a light plane for a few more days of fishing north of Anchorage. The Greenlaws spent the morning comfortably before the Inn’s fireplace. Their flexible schedule and their several side trips aboard small ferries had been exciting, but they were tired out, they missed Kit, they worried about her—it was time to go home.
And it was much earlier that morning that, up at the new shelter construction, Kate Osborne ended up crying in the arms of Ryan’s uncle Scott, her tears drenching Scotty’s red beard. Kate wasn’t sure how this had happened. Scotty wasn’t sure what Kate was crying about. He knew she was grieving for Ben. He knew that the Firettis’ old yellow cat had died, that Ryan and Billy were sad about him, too.
But no one could tell Scotty how deep the grieving went, no one could tell him Misto’s story. In Scotty’s arms, she didn’t try to stop the tears; she just let herself weep.
She was well aware that Joe Grey and Ryan were glancing in their direction, trying not to show their interest in this sudden tenderness—but did they have to stare?
When she had arrived at the shelter site, parking beside Ryan’s red king cab, Scotty had looked up from where he was installing a window. He had paused in his work, watching her approach, had looked hard at her, at her tear-blotched face. She had headed on back into the building, but he’d stopped her.
“Kate?”
She’d turned, looking at him in spite of her tears. He’d switched off the drill, laid it down and, as natural as the shining of the sun, he’d put his arms around her, had held her, let her cry against him. Across the yard Joe Grey, draped over Ryan’s shoulder, watched the couple until Ryan politely walked away to disappear behind the building.
“When did this start?” she asked the tomcat. “It’s just this week that I’ve noticed.”
Joe shrugged. “How do I know when it started? You put Scotty up here working on the shelter, and Kate is here all the time. How can he work around Kate Osborne and not be aware of her, she’s a knockout.”
Ryan looked at him. She said nothing. She moved farther back among the raw wooden beams and posts behind the main building. Sunlight warmed the plastered block walls of the shelter and warmed the three outdoor enclosures—these open-air spaces would be living quarters for dozens of feral cats who would not want to be shut inside. Wild-living cats that CatFriends would neuter, give their shots, and turn loose again in their own colonies.
Ryan said, “If Scotty and Kate get serious, that does present problems.”