Free Rama the Gypsy Cat by Betsy Byars Page B

through the deserted clay streets, directly to the wharf. There he crouched by an old wooden building, suddenly on guard.
    Ahead on the river a steamboat went by slowly, its paddle turning the water white with foam. The lights from the boat gleamed on the water, and in a moment, waves from the boat’s wake broke on the shore and beneath the wharf.
    But this was not what had caught Rama’s attention. He had just seen something move beside the wharf. He waited. Once he had seen a water rat beneath the wharf, a large brown rat with whiskers longer than his own. He had crept closer, but the water rat had smelled him, then seen him, and dived from the wharf support into the water while Rama was still twenty feet away. And Rama had stood helplessly by while the water rat disappeared around the point.
    Now he waited without moving. The quickening wind made a part in his long thick fur, but beneath, his muscles were tensed and ready.
    He saw the movement again, a soft, easy movement like the passing of a cloud. This was no scurrying movement of a water rat. In the soft dirt, Rama’s paws opened and closed, opened and closed.
    The moon, low now, shone briefly in the last clear spot in the sky, and then the clouds closed in and the moon was hidden. But in that moment Rama had looked piercingly toward the wharf and had seen the form of another cat, and he knew that the cat, at the same moment, had looked up and seen him.
    Slowly the other cat left the wharf and came up the slope to where Rama crouched beside the wooden building. The cat came carefully, warily, and Rama felt his muscles as tight as springs in his body.
    The cat was black and brown, striped like a tiger, but there were white patches on his face and chest, and this was what Rama had first noticed in the darkness. He was a big cat, old and experienced, and there were battle scars on his face. The tip of his left ear was missing. He came steadily, slowly, toward Rama.
    This wharf was his. He was the one who searched the wharf for rats. He was the one who rested on the supports of the wharf on a hot day. He was the one who got fish from the fishermen. He was the one who slept in the very building Rama was crouching against. He had defended his property against all comers, and now he welcomed the prospect of a fight.
    Three feet from Rama, he went into a crouch. He paused there, his eyes staring into Rama’s, and Rama stared directly back. Both were crouched in the same position. The claws of both cats were flexing in and out in readiness for battle.
    The old cat made a noise then, an unreal sound that warned Rama, threatened Rama, a sound that seemed to hang in the air for a long time. He inched closer, still in a crouch. Again he made the sound, and Rama, feeling strong and powerful, uttered the same sound, deep and yet rising high like a strange Indian battle cry.
    They waited, but it was a waiting charged with tension. Each looked for the best moment, for some sign of the other’s weakness.
    Suddenly, without any warning other than the rustling of the trees, rain began to fall. So engrossed were the two cats that neither noticed at first. They remained as they were, poised and ready, with the old cat still inching slowly toward Rama.
    The rain was not to be ignored. It began with big, hard drops that struck both cats like pebbles. They could not stand this for long; and after a moment, as if by mutual consent, they both rose. They circled each other in the rain, moving apart in a widening circle. Then Rama turned and ran for the forest.
    The old cat, with one backward look to make sure Rama was not going to return, entered the old wooden building through a rotted floor board and settled himself on a pile of old feed sacks. He began to lick the raindrops from his fur.
    Rama ran quickly through the town, but when he had left the houses behind, he paused to take shelter in a grove of cottonwood trees. He leaped on the low fork of one tree and settled there, protected