Carrying the bundle between them, much as a bomb squad might carry a package of TNT, they fought open the back door and ran across the dark, concrete yard to the back sheds.
At the trap, Florie Mae snatched off the bungie cord. She held the spring-loaded door open as Martha shoved the cat in.
"Now!" Martha hissed. The bundle was through. Florie Mae released the door as Martha jerked her hands away. It snapped closed scraping their fingers. The bundle within heaved and thrashed.
"He's choking. He can't breathe."
Martha looked at her. "Do you care?"
Florie Mae got a bamboo stick that she used in the nursery, shoved it through into the cage, and worked at the burlap. Inside, her red robe, mixed up with the burlap, was already in shreds and still ripping. She was still pulling at the burlap when it flew apart and the tomcat burst out tumbling, spitting, panting for air.
Martha knelt, watching him, as Florie Mae headed back inside the store, sick at heart, fearing what she would find.
She knelt over the box, touching and stroking the kittens.
She could see no blood and no wounds. The kittens were all lively and feisty, nosing at their mothers. Goldie and Blackie lay among them licking their babies madly, turning from one kit to the next, and back again. Only the mother cats' own blood stained the healthy kits, and there was blood on the box where they had struggled back in, after the fight. Goldie had a long gash down her neck, and one ear was torn. Blackie had a four-inch square of skin off her shoulder, and was lame where the tom had bitten her, his teeth going deep into her leg.
At four in the morning, an hour before dawn, Martha and Florie Mae left the veterinary's office carrying Blackie and Goldie. The two mother cats were shaved and sutured, but both were alert. The town of Greeley might be small and backwoods, but Dr. Mackay used the latest methods. The inhalent anesthetic he had give the mama cats had worn off almost at once, and there would be no trace to get into their systems, to mix with their milk. The doctor had wiped the two cats down with damp cloths, to take away the smell of the tomcat and of the medications. Florie Mae put the mamas right in the kitten box, in the camper shell of Martha's pickup. They had carried the box into the store, behind the counter, and were watching the hungry babies nursing when Martha's cell phone rang.
Martha lifted the phone from her jacket pocket. "Who would call at this hour?"
"Your mother?"
She answered, listening for a moment and glancing at Florie Mae. "Hold on. Hold on a minute." She covered the speaker. "It's Mrs. McPherson." Martha turned on the speaker so Florie Mae could hear. "Slow down, Mrs. McPherson. When did you see her last?"
Florie Mae went icy. Had Idola McPherson disappeared? Redheaded Idola was the youngest of the girls they'd run with in high school. But Mrs. McPherson was saying, "I'm sure it's Rebecca's cat. That white and gold one, a big gold spot on her side. Your mother said she's missing and you been looking for her, Martha. Well I just saw that cat, out around where Albern's been fixing our road. Nearly all white, with a gold circle on her left side? Oh, it's Rebecca's cat, she's always there in the garden or the house when Leatha Duncan has our church group."
"Where's the cat now? Can Idola help you catch her?"
"She was right here in my garden trying to eat with our cats, trying to eat their food, but they run her off. Likely she's still around, maybe in among them downed trees that Albern took out."
"I'll be there in half an hour," Martha said. "Can you try to feed her? Maybe she'll come to you, maybe you can take her inside? Maybe Idola and Rick could help you?"
"Idola's still asleep. Rick's off helping his cousin move, down in Habersham County. And I have to be to work, you know how busy we are on the weekend. I'll wake Idola. Maybe we can get the cat inside, shut her in before I leave." Mrs. McPherson had worked at the savings bank ever since Idola's father died, five years back, when Idola was fifteen. They stayed open all day on Saturday, that brought in a lot of business. Saturday, as in the old days, was a time to come into town.
Martha flipped the phone closed. The McPherson place was the other side of town and half way up the mountain, overlooking Goose Lake, a little man-made lake with a few cabins around it. "Why would Nugget go way up there, so far from home? Seems impossible she'd go up there, she's never strayed like that."
Florie Mae and Martha looked at each other. Both thinking the same. Thinking how Goldie would go to Florie Mae when Florie Mae felt sick or had a little tiff with James. How Goldie always found Florie Mae when she was hurting. Thinking how Nugget had done the same with Rebecca. Ever since she was a kitten, how she would curl up with Rebecca when Rebecca was sick or felt bad. How Nugget was always there, when Rebecca maybe needed to cry. They looked at each other, and neither said a word. Florie Mae shivered.
Together they loaded the caged tomcat into the camper shell of Martha's pickup, keeping the big trap covered with towels.
"I'll just drop him off," Martha said, swinging into the cab. "Dr. Mackay probably didn't go back to bed after we woke him." John Mackay lived next door to the clinic. "Drop the cat off, then go up the mountain to McPherson's. I'll call you, let you know if I find Nugget."
"It's Saturday."
Martha looked blank. Then, "Oh. Kids' fishing day."
Once a year the rifle and hunting club of Greeley, which consisted of nearly every man in town, stocked Cody Creek with rainbow trout, rounded up all available fishing poles, and conducted a special fishing day for Greeley's children. There would be a picnic, and there would be pictures in the paper the following week of the children holding up trout near as big as they were. Dr. Mackay was part of the committee to help stock the stream. The men did that first thing Saturday morning so the fish would be hungry but wouldn't travel away too far. Dr. Mackay always helped haul the picnic tables and chairs over from the church, too, and set them up.
"Well if he's already left, if he can't do it this morning, I'll just keep the cat in the truck, take him back later. I can shove in some food, and one of those drip water things. That cat's caused enough trouble. He can stand being in the truck for a while, long as he has plenty of air."
"I hope James gets back," Florie Mae said. "Bobbie Lee'll have a face as long as a skinned donkey, his daddy misses fishing day." Fishing day was a much anticipated outing in Greeley. The women brought casseroles and salads and cakes, and some of the men barbequed hamburgers and hotdogs. Harkin's Feed and Garden would close for the occasion, and James had bought Bobbie Lee his own brand-new bamboo pole. Bobbie Lee talked about nothing else. He had dug up a whole can full of fat worms by himself, and he'd be mighty hurt, his daddy didn't get home—if he had to go fishing with his mama. Lacie June thought trout would be something like Granny's rag dolls that she could play with, though they had tried to tell her different.
Martha said, "I'll come right on over to Cody Creek from the lake, so you'll know if I found Nugget. Or I'll phone—you take your cell phone."
Florie Mae nodded.
"So strange," Martha repeated, "that the cat would go way up there." Swinging into her pickup, she left, heading back to Dr. Mackay—to put that tomcat out of commission, at least in the kitten department.
Florie Mae stood watching her drive away, then went to bury the white kitten. Fetching a shovel, she dug a tiny grave at the far edge of the lot beneath a climbing pink rosebush that would flower and smell sweet all summer. She laid the kitten in, covered it, and put a flat rock over. Then she went back into the store and sat down behind the counter again, beside the kitten box.
She'd have some doctoring to do, salve to rub on their sewn-up wounds, maybe special food to fix, to get them to eat. The two cats made her feel shaky, the way they'd protected their babies. Leaning down, she kissed each one on top her sweet head.