Cats Triumphant (8 page)

“Go on about your business,” the butcher ordered the rest of the crowd. “We’ll see she doesn’t turn back.”

Dawna led the six townsfolk toward the northern edge of town. Six days’ march would bring her within sight of Marigold Down, and another half day to her father’s home to the northwest.

“Goodbye,” she said, nodding to her escort.

“Good riddance,” the butcher said. As one, the men turned and stumped back toward town.

“Same to you,” Dawna said under her breath. The sooner she shook the dust of Cabbage Town off her feet, the happier she would be. And now to see if her speech had had any results.

It had. As soon as she left the clean, gravel track for the muddy forest path, cats began to appear like magic out of the surrounding undergrowth. The orange cat popped out from beneath a flowering gorse bush with her kittens marching in a file behind her, and claimed the warrior with a cheek-swipe along her boot top. Dawna stopped only long enough to scoop up the little ones and put them in makeshift sling made of a fold of her cloak. The gray cat and the injured black-and-white came running from another hiding place. In all, eighteen cats and a couple dozen half-grown kits would be making the long journey northward with her. As soon as she felt safe stopping she would tie red ribbons around the necks of each to show the people they met that these cats were under her protection. She hoped she wouldn’t run into anyone as thick as the denizens of Cabbage Town.

“Come along,” she said to the cats, setting a light pace once she was out of sight of the town. “We’ve got a long way to go, and I’ve always found a story helps to pass the time. Now, let me tell you about the siege of Valorin…”

The kittens against her chest purred their approval.

Gil couldn’t keep Shadow out of anything. The four-year-old ex-tomcat considered a closed door or any other blocked egress to be a personal challenge and an affront to his feline sensibilities. Although what Great-aunt Erma was speaking about, sitting there at the front of the room in her ancient rocker, could affected Gil’s entire future, he had only half of his attention on her. The other half was fixed on the black cat.

Just as he feared he would, Shadow nudged open the lid of the old coal-box next to the marble fireplace and climbed inside. The lid dropped shut with a bang. Aunt Erma turned a gimlet eye toward the noise and cleared her throat irritatably. Embarrassed, Gil got up to retrieve Shadow. Thank God coal-bins were just for show these days. All he needed was a cat daubing sooty footprints all over the spotless mansion.

“Gilbert Todhunter, are you listening?” Great-aunt Erma asked, turning her wheelchair toward him. She was a deceptively frail-looking old lady with wispy white curls arranged around her narrow head.

“Sorry, Auntie,” Gil said, sitting down. He tried to hold the restless cat still. An almost impossible task, with his cousin Charlotte’s white English bulldog Augustus right behind them, giving him the eye. Charlotte herself was watching Gil. In a room full of cousins, Charlotte was the only one he really worried about. Gil believed the old saw that people and their pets were a lot alike. Certainly he was tall and rangy, with black hair like his cat’s. Charlotte, was short, pale, and stocky, with bowed legs like her dog’s, and tenacity to match. At home in Philadelphia, Charlotte had her own consulting firm. She was an efficiency expert. Gil thought it was probably because she loved telling other people what to do. She had brought Augustus in hopes he could sniff out Great-great-grandpa Todhunter’s scent before anyone else.

“I’m old,” Erma was saying, “and I’ve got all that I need for what time I believe I have left. So, what I mean to do is to choose my successor to the Todhunter fortune, while I’m still alive. I have seen too many family fortunes cut up into small pieces and ruined by squabbling heirs. I hate that. I want the estate to pass down the generations intact. I have no children of my own, so I have invited you, my great-nephews and -nieces to participate in a little contest. The United States government did it once, and now I’m doing it. I’m starting a little land rush, right here in my very own home.

“You could say my grandfather all but invented land speculation. He waited for homesteading settlers to return here from the land rushes, and made them good offers for their stakeholding deeds. Everybody was happy. They got cold, hard cash, and he got land, which looked worthless at the time.” She smiled, and her blue eyes glinted sharply. “At the time. Grandpa knew better. His deals made him very rich. I’ve lived very well on the interest alone. Most of the deeds have never even been exercised, so I left them exactly where Grandpa did. They’re still good, and worth a tidy little fortune. Winner takes all: land, house and money.”

“Where are the deeds?” Charlotte asked, setting her heavy jaw in a way that made her look like Augustus. The twenty or so other cousins leaned forward, avidly.

“Patience, Charlotte,” Erma snapped, her stentorian voice belying her ninety years. She looked around at them all. “You’ll hear the rules, and not one person will leave this room until you do. You may have one companion to assist you, human or otherwise.” The glints lit briefly on Shadow and Augustus. “The deeds are in a small, brass correspondence box hidden somewhere in this house. The contest will be over at nightfall, or when someone finds the box. And it begins...now!” With that, the old woman lifted a starter’s pistol from under the shawl on her lap, and fired it in the air.

At the explosive sound, Shadow rose straight up five feet in the air, tail-hairs spread out like a bottle brush, and shot out of the room. Gil scrambled up after him. The nephews and nieces scattered, leaving Great-aunt Erma sitting alone in her wheelchair, chuckling to herself.

Gil cornered Shadow hiding behind a painted fireplace screen in the study next door, where his cousins Brad and Amy were already searching. The house was sprawling, with more than thirty-five rooms, dating back to the last quarter of the 19
th
century. It had been built at the height of the westward expansion, intended to impress the neighbors, and indulge the old man’s sense of fun. There were secret doors in plenty, some of which led to priest’s holes, others to elaborate underground tunnels, and a few to nowhere at all. When Gil bent to pick him up, Shadow pawed at the back wall of the fireplace. Gil saw a thin line. Shadow had found a door that Gil, who had been in the house hundreds of time since he was a child, had never seen before.

“Good kitty!” Gil said. They were off to a great start.

He dropped to his hands and knees and began to feel his way around the brickwork for a catch. He hoped he would be the one to find the deeds. He urgently needed to find a new place to live. His beloved loft in St. Louis had been condemned and was being torn down to make way for a minimall, and as an impecunious, free-lance commercial artist, he couldn’t afford both a new apartment and a studio. He needed this inheritance.

The whole rear of the fireplace shifted and swung noisily to the left, revealing a dark passageway. The cat sniffed at the musty air that rushed out.

“Gangway!” cried Charlotte. Growling fiercely, Augustus muscled his way into the hearth, scaring Shadow halfway up the chimney. Gil stood up, banging his head on the mantel. While stars danced in his eyes, Charlotte barged past him through the newly opened door.

“Hey, wait!” Gil shouted, but it was too late. He could hear their voices echoing off the tunnel walls like a couple of questing hounds. There was no point in following them. If there was anything down there, they’d get to it first. Better try another prospect.

The echoingly huge kitchens and pantry were overrun with Todhunter cousins who were turning out every cupboard and shelf onto the stone floor. Two of the younger girls had gotten into a flour-fight, and the choking cloud of white filled the room. Shadow sniffed briefly around, checking under the sink, but kept on going out and down the hallway. Gil ran after him. He was counting on the black cat’s instinct for finding the best hiding place, the one the old man had chosen.

Shadow ran up to the green baize door that divided the former servants’ quarters from the main part of the house, and pawed at it. Gil hurried up to open it for him, and the cat scooted through, making for the library. Yes, the library! That would be a good place to try. The thousands of books could easily conceal a small brass box, whether between two of them, or concealed in a cutout cavity. It would appeal to Great-great-grandpa’s sense of humor.

Cousin Scott eyed him suspiciously as the cat and man ran by. He was turning over every picture in the long gallery, looking for a niche or a wall safe. Gil could have saved his younger cousin the trouble. The safe was under the floor of the master bedroom, and it had been empty for years. Cousin Yarra had just tried it, and was stomping around the second floor of the house looking for more hollow places under the floor boards.

Gil flung open the door to the library, and he and Shadow dashed in, only to be confronted by Augustus. The dog marched toward them, a menacing expression on his pushed-in face. Gil backed up until he felt the wall behind him.

Charlotte was already there, pulling book after book off the shelves, then tossing them into a heap on the floor. The Todhunter library consisted of thousands of volumes. Gil was pretty sure they’d been bought by the yard, as many nouveau riche people of the 19
th
century had done, and never read. Charlotte had only covered two shelves so far. Gil counted more than thirty to go.

“Let me help,” he offered.

“No!” she said, fiercely. “Augustus, guard!” The dog shouldered forward like a street tough.

The last step was too much of an invasion of Shadow’s personal space. The cat turned sideways, arched his back, fluffed out his short fur, and showed all his fangs.

“Eeerooooo,” Shadow growled warningly deep in his throat. It was his preliminary war cry. He took a pace forward.

“Mmmruuu-uh?” Augustus mumbled, looking alarmed. He took a pace back.

“Don’t let a
cat
bully you!” Charlotte yelled at the dog, pulling down one book after another. “Guard!” At her command, Augustus waddled forward and planted himself in front of Gil, showing all his teeth. Gil started to move around him, but the bulldog matched him step for step, growling.

“This isn’t fair, Charlotte,” Gil protested.

“All’s fair in love and money,” Charlotte said, tossing aside a priceless 16th century book on herbs. “And this is money. Aunt Erma didn’t say
how
our companions could help us hunt.”

“Shadow, do something,” Gil said. The cat sauntered away, and Gil’s heart sank. Shadow was giving up. Just as Gil was about to cry uncle and cede the turf to Charlotte, Shadow walked up to the shelf next to where she was rooting, inspected it, turned his back insouciantly, and emitted a jet of urine.

“Ugh!” Charlotte exclaimed, jumping away and batting at her trouser leg. “That’s disgusting. Stop him!” Shadow moved on to the next spot that interested him, the floor-length curtains framing the window between two of the bookshelves, and sprayed them, too.

“He’s just marking his territory,” Gil said. He sidled a pace, hoping to elude Augustus. The dog’s attention was no longer on him. He was watching Shadow. Abandoning his guard post, the bulldog strode over to the first shelf, and lifted a leg, marking the spot over Shadow’s. He followed the cat, covering up each new blast of scent with his own. The room started to reek of duelling animals, but, as Charlotte rightly pointed out, this was war. Gil threw himself at the nearest bookshelf and started to pull out fat 19
th
century novels. He had to shift this way and that to avoid the warring dog and cat as he moved on through philosophy, geography, and the sciences.

In less time than he would have thought possible, Gil had shaken out almost all the books on his side. Only one shelf divided him from Charlotte. She kept a grim watch on him out of the corner of her eye as she pulled down the last books on Civil War history. The two of them lunged at the same time for the books on gardening. Charlotte got in there first.

“Mine, Gil,” she said, turning her back on the books to confront her cousin. “I’ll let you visit the old homestead once in a while.” With his superior height, Gil reached over her head for a volume on growing sweet peas on the topmost shelf. Charlotte elbowed him in the stomach. Gil doubled over, sliding to his knees, in time to see Shadow trot out of the room. He took it as an omen, and stumbled up to follow his cat. Augustus watched him retreat with a smug look.

Shadow hadn’t gone far. He was waiting for Gil at the end of the corridor. As soon as the man caught up, the cat trotted through the gallery and into the smoking room.

The cosy, wood-and-leather-paneled chamber was built as a place for the men of the house to lounge around with post-prandial cigars and brandy. A lot of the Todhunter cousins were there, lounging in the big leather chairs under the two-story stained-glass windows or the hunting prints on the walls, or sprawling up on the gallery, drinking up Aunt Erma’s liquor cabinet and eating goodies from the kitchen. Some of them still had flour in their hair. Others were smudged with soot from the chimneys.

“You still at it?” Cousin Scott asked him, around a Corona Corona cigar. “I think the whole thing is a fake. Auntie’s gone senile.”

“I don’t know,” Gil said, casually. He watched Shadow slink around the walls, nuzzling a chair leg here, a panel corner there. He must have liked the scent of the rolling library steps, because he ground first one cheek, then the other against them. “It’s a good story. I sure could use the money.”

“Huh!” said Cousin Yarra, through a mouthful of cheese. “You’d be better off asking the government to re-open the land rushes.”

Gil got tired of waiting for Shadow to give him a clue, and picked him up. Shadow squalled, and kicked loose to run. He heard the derisive laughter from the other cousins as he followed his pet back down the long hallway. Shadow reached the middle of the grand ballroom, and began to prowl nervously back and forth.

“Is it in here?” Gil asked, looking around. The big room had already been thoroughly searched, to judge by the disarray of the little gold chairs that were usually against the wall. The curtains were all askew. The only other thing in the room was the big, silver and rock crystal Austrian chandelier hanging from the ornamented plaster ceiling, and anyone could see nothing was hidden in it. Maybe the other cousins were right. There was no fortune. He was sunk. Bye-bye loft.

“You tricked me, Gilbert Todhunter!” Charlotte cried, charging into the room with Augustus on her heels. “You knew there was nothing in the library. I’ve wasted all that time, and it’s almost sundown! Sic ‘em, Augustus!”