One-Eyed Cat (8 page)

Ned leaned against a chair, feeling sleepy. “The snakes will sleep all winter,” he said softly, “in their rocky palaces.”

His father smiled and reached across the table and clasped his hand.

“I like the things you say, Ned,” Papa remarked.

Ned felt for a moment the way he had last July 4th when he'd slid into the lake where Papa had taken him for a swim before the Waterville Fourth of July Parade, and the water hadn't been too warm or too cold, and he'd discovered he could swim nearly as fast as a waterbug. Or the way he'd felt one evening when he'd been sitting on the porch after supper, reading, and Papa had surprised him with a china dish full of peach ice cream he'd churned up himself with fresh peaches and thick cream. Papa had sat on the step while Ned ate, and Ned looked at his profile, sharp and clear like a profile on a coin you brought to a shine by rubbing it on a carpet. The twilight had been so soft after the heat of the day, and the air had been full of the scent of peaches.

Then Ned shuddered.

“You can hurt an animal by accident, can't you?”

“Indeed, you can, Ned. I've run over a nation of possums, I'm afraid. They're blinded by the headlamps of the car, and I always see them too late.”

“That's a relief,” Ned said. Papa laughed. He knew Ned was imitating him. He often said,
that's a relief,
when the roof didn't leak during a rainfall, or when the well filled up with especially fine-tasting water or when he felt he'd preached a good sermon.

When Ned left the kitchen to go upstairs and do his homework, he didn't feel so lighthearted. A thought had slid into his mind: what if you
half-knew
you were hurting something that was alive? And how could you only half-know something?

Mrs. Scallop passed him on the stairs, whispering, “Lamb chops tonight.”

The rain began, and fell steady and hard for hours and then, from up the river, came a sound like a distant cannon. By that time, Ned was in bed, reading about Robin Hood outwitting the Sheriff of Nottingham. The cannon drew closer, the claps of thunder louder. Lightning struck. It sounded so near that Ned knew it would soon be time to go down to the central hall. Ever since he could remember, Papa had come to get him during the storms that raged in the valley. No matter what time it was, when Ned heard the immense, rending sound of lightning striking the earth, he knew Papa would soon be at his door, saying, “Quick, Ned. Come downstairs. Hurry! Pull a sweater over your pajamas.”

Ned understood that they had to be downstairs near the front door in case the house was struck and caught on fire. Papa didn't quite trust the new lightning rods. No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than his father's voice called out, “Ned!”

He ran out into the hall. As he passed his study, he heard the violent tapping of the maple branches against the window. Papa was carrying his mother toward the head of the stairs. The blanket he had wrapped her in trailed on the floor and Ned grabbed up its edge so his father wouldn't trip over it. For an instant, as a flash of blue-white light came through the window at the landing, he saw himself and Papa and Mama in the pier glass. Her hair hung down across his father's arm; her long twisted fingers clung to Papa's old alpaca jacket. Papa's eyes were dark, mysterious patches. His own face was a glimmer of white, his bare foot a splash of white floating just above the floor. Then the dark came back and they all vanished.

He heard Mrs. Scallop clumping down the back stairs. Mama's wheelchair was already near the front door. Papa had lit the kerosene lamp and placed it on a table that stood below the large painting of the Hudson Valley that showed how it had looked before all the villages and towns had grown up along the river, even before West Point had been established. The painting was filled with sunlight and with silence.

Mrs. Scallop appeared at the kitchen door dragging a chair. “I don't want to be in anyone's way,” she announced, and Papa said, “Sit anywhere you like,” as he arranged the blanket over Mama's knees.

The wind blew, the thunder rumbled, lightning lit up the sky. Ned felt as if the house were heaving and the porch lifting up like a prow, as though the house had turned into a great ship tossed by waves. Yet he never felt so safe as he did, sitting with his mother and father, during such a storm, listening to his father count the seconds between the claps of thunder, hearing his mother recall other storms and how wild they had been.

“Pity the poor creatures outdoors on a night like this,” said Mrs. Scallop. “I can't help thinking about them … not lucky like us with shelter, a roof over our heads.”

“Quite right, Mrs. Scallop,” Papa said absently.

But Mama said, “I don't know that I'd agree with you, Mrs. Scallop. I imagine it could be wonderful to be out on such a night, right in the middle of all that noise and rain, not crouching inside a stuffy room like scared mice.”

Mrs. Scallop made no reply. Ned saw her cast a glance at his mother then look down at the scraps of cloth in her lap, which she was braiding together. She didn't seem to need light for the work she did.

For once, Ned was on her side. It wouldn't be wonderful to be outdoors if you'd lost your balance, and couldn't see.

It wouldn't be wonderful, he thought, to be out in a storm if you were a one-eyed cat.

IV

The Cat

The storm swept away the last of the summer. Within a week of it, the tawny meadow grasses had grown dun colored and the trees stood black and bare as bones against the blue sky. One morning it was so chilly, the children could see their breaths, ghostly vapor that disappeared almost at once, and that made Evelyn laugh and cry out, “Look! Look, when I breathe!”

When Janet emerged from her path to join the others on their way to school, she announced that her cat had had kittens. “Their tiny eyes are closed and they could fit right inside your hand except you can't hold them yet, and they're so sweet!” she said.

Billy let out a whoop. “Itty-bitty kitty!” he bellowed, and smacked one hand against the other, then made two guns with his index fingers. “Boom! Boom! That's what I'd do to itty-bitty kitties!” he shouted.

“One has a patch over her eye,” Janet said. “Just like a little pirate. That's what I'm calling her—Pirate.”

“You can't call a she-cat Pirate,” scoffed Billy. Janet completely ignored him.

“Do you know the woods are full of wild cats?” Ned asked.

“I wouldn't be surprised,” Evelyn said, absently pulling at a piece of wool in her thick brown sweater.

“You'll unravel yourself,” Janet warned her.

Evelyn's shoes were caked with dried mud and the hem was out of her dress. Janet was as neat as a new pine cone, but Evelyn looked like she was about to fall apart. They liked each other a good deal, Ned knew, and they often had peculiar dreamy conversations with each other that made no sense at all. Usually, Ned liked to listen to them, but since the night of the big storm the only subject which held interest for him was cats.

“You mean—you wouldn't be surprised because you've seen one?” he asked Evelyn.

“Six kittens,” Janet said, “one right after the other. I saw them being born.”

“Ugh!” exclaimed Evelyn.

“If I saw a wild cat, I'd chase it until I treed it,” cried Billy. “Then I'd get a stick or something, or a stone, and I'd go—
bang
!”

“Did you? Did you see one?” asked Ned.

“I think I did,” Evelyn said, picking a tiny fragment of eggshell out of her hair. “Now look at that!” she exclaimed. “I wonder where it ever came from.”

“The cat,” Ned reminded her. “Tell me about the cat.”

“At nightfall,” she said. “Probably after a chicken. I didn't pay much attention. I saw old Sport run right out to the end of his chain like a fish trying to get off the hook, and he was barking and I thought I saw a cat. But it could've been something else.”

“Boom!” yelled Billy, racing past Janet. She clenched her fist and shook it at him. He giggled as if he was being tickled. She set off down the road after him, and Billy laughed so hard Ned thought he might fall down. People liked each other in strange ways, Ned had decided.

He turned to Evelyn, who trudged along beside him watching her own breath come and go.

“I wonder how they can live, the wild cats, I mean.”

“They catch things, mice and like that,” Evelyn replied. “They're good hunters.”

“What if they're sick?”

“I
hate
writing poems!” Evelyn exclaimed. “Did Miss Jefferson give your class that assignment? To write a Thanksgiving poem?”

“What if a cat got hit by a branch?”

Evelyn punched him in the arm. “Stop talking about cats,” she demanded. “You're as bad as Billy. I don't know nothing about cats. However, I know about chickens.”

However
was a word Evelyn had taken to using lately and she threw it in whenever she could.

“Was it gray? the cat you saw?”

“Ned Wallis!” she shouted.

“All right, all right …”

“Please give me an idea about the poem,” she said in her usual voice.

“Write about pumpkins. Write about all the babies in your family getting together and chasing a turkey through the forest.”

“You're making fun of me however,” she said.

“Evelyn, will you tell me if you see the cat again? I think I might know that cat.”

They had reached the state road. He saw Billy and Janet already entering the yard next to the red brick school.

“I might,” said Evelyn and raced ahead of him. He stood alone for a few minutes worrying about the hours ahead of him, wondering how he would be able to concentrate on his lessons. “Concentrate,” Miss Jefferson was always saying to him. What he would have liked to do was go back up the dirt road to the stone house and open a window and climb in and wander through the rooms. He sighed and began crossing the road slowly until he heard the second bell ring. Then he ran the rest of the way to school.

“Do birds ever drown in the rain?” he asked Mr. Scully one day.

“I don't believe so.”

Ned thought he didn't sound sure. “What about raccoons? Can they drown?”

“I never heard of that,” said Mr. Scully. “You have to remember you're talking about wild creatures. They have their ways—although they live and die just like all of us do.”

“What about the cats you told me about? In the woods?”

“I don't recall that. But if you say so, I must have told you. My memory isn't a bit reliable. This morning, Ned, long before you were up, I was standing here just staring at my old wood stove. I simply couldn't remember how to go about making a fire. After a long while, the memory came back—as you can see.”

A line of red outlined the door of the stove, and the griddle plate on top of it glowed with the heat. It was a good fire, Ned knew; it had been ripening all day long. Mr. Scully would keep the parlor door closed for most of the winter to conserve heat, he'd told Ned. But he didn't mind that, he'd said. As he got older, he liked smaller and smaller spaces.

“I used to have a dog,” the old man said, rubbing his hands together. “I've had cats, too, but I was more partial to doggies. He was called Malthus. Of course, when Doris was little, we had puppies now and then, and she liked them, but it was Malthus I loved. By then, Doris was all grown up. I learned how nice it is to watch an animal instead of pouncing on it and hugging it every minute, covering up its nature with your own. Malthus liked cats a great deal. He'd wag his tail as soon as he saw one. There was something pleasing to me about that … a great big dog amused by a creature so different from itself.”

“Like Billy and Janet,” murmured Ned.

“I guess so,” said the old man. Ned knew he hadn't understood but he didn't mind. That happened a lot lately, and Ned had concluded that he and Mr. Scully were each telling themselves different stories like two people traveling along different roads. Every now and then their roads crossed.

Mr. Scully poured out their tea, then added a few drops of rum to his from his little bottle. He stared down at his cup broodingly. Ned guessed he was thinking about Doris so far away across the whole country. He'd brought Mr. Scully a post card from his mailbox this afternoon. It was from Doris. It was a picture of the Cascade Mountains, the same card she'd already sent her father three times.

“I'd better go get some more wood in,” Ned said.

“I can tell by the draft there's a cold, cold wind,” said Mr. Scully with a touch of sadness. “All right, Ned. Bring in some wood.” He closed his eyes and leaned back in his rocking chair that had a faded quilted cushion Mrs. Scully had made years before. Ned knew she'd made it because Mr. Scully had told him so. It was the first time he'd ever referred to his wife. The only other thing Ned knew about her was that she had died when Doris was still a young girl. Papa had told him that, saying Mrs. Scully had been a very silent woman.

The yard looked much worse than it had in the hot weather when everything had been green and underbrush had covered the rusting tools, and wild honeysuckle had drifted across the roofs of the shed and the outhouse.

The old quilt on top of the icebox was still damp from the big storm. Ned touched the lumps of quilt stuffing which looked like leftover oatmeal. He ducked inside the shed and at once heard a scrabbling sound. Out from behind a pile of kindling streaked a cat, its belly close to the ground. Ned's heart pounded. He ran out from the shed. The cat was already down by the outhouse looking back to where Ned was standing. It was the cat with one eye. It shook its head several times and sniffed the air, then it trotted off down the hill toward the state road.

Ned saw a bowl half filled with bread crusts on the ground. The cat must have been eating when he'd startled it by coming into the shed. He grabbed up an armful of wood and returned to the kitchen.