Free Cat Telling Tales by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Page A

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    It was after one o’clock by the time they met Charlie back at the burned house. Billy had managed to corral all seven cats and shut them in the back room of the half-fallen shanty. Slipping in with the carriers, he came out a few minutes later hauling three carriers heavy with cat, then went back for the other two, the plastic cages emitting a chorus of yowls and snarling through the mesh sides. As they loaded them into Charlie’s SUV, Ryan said, “Dr. Firetti wants you to bring them down for shots, and to make sure they’re healthy before we take them up to the ranch.”
    â€œThey’re healthy,” Billy said, bristling. “I don’t want to take them to a vet, they’re already scared half to death.” His thin face was still white with the shock of the morning, with the death of his gran and, now, with an imagined threat to the only other creatures in the world who meant anything to him.
    â€œMy cat goes up to the ranch,” Ryan told him. “So do the cats of our friends. We don’t want them to catch something that your cats might be carrying.”
    â€œSometimes,” Charlie said, “cats can carry a disease that they don’t have themselves, and they can pass it on to others.” Billy looked unconvinced. “Firetti’s a kind man,” Charlie said, “the cats will be fine. I don’t think we’ll need to leave them, just get their shots and bring them home again. Maybe take a little blood for testing, and he can call us later with the results.”
    Billy looked at her for a long time. He’d worked for Max since he was nine, and he trusted both Max and Charlie. At last he nodded, and climbed in the back of the Blazer, crowding in among the cages. Ryan looked in at him through the window. “We’ll clean up a stall, so the cats can settle in. If we turn them loose too soon they’ll hightail it right back down the hill—to the delight of the local coyotes.”
    Joe thought, when Billy and his gran were in residence, the predators might have kept their distance. He imagined Billy and Gran out in the front yard at dusk, maybe throwing rocks at the coyotes’ slinking shadows. He wondered how the old woman’s aim was, with a skin full of whiskey. He watched the SUV head away for Dr. Firetti’s, Billy wedged in among the carriers to keep his little charges calm. The seven cats were a mixed crew, all sizes, all colors, from kitten to codger. Joe knew they’d be fine at the ranch. He hoped Billy would be, too. Though a number of questions gnawed at him as he rode between Ryan and Clyde, in the deli-scented pickup, up the hill to the Harpers’.

7
    T he Harpers’ pastures spread away above the cliff untouched by the fire, the grass green and lush and tall from the winter rains, weaving up into the wire mesh between the white fence rails. The north and south pastures were separated by a narrow gravel drive leading in from the highway to the pale frame house and stable. A big hay barn rose at the rear, stark against the dark pine woods. The old house had started out small and plain but now a tall new great room, all glass and timbers, looked down across the pastures to the falling cliffs and the sea below. Max and Charlie, with happy disregard for convention, had turned the old living room into a new master suite, had converted their old bedroom to Max’s study, and joined the two smaller guest rooms together to give Charlie a spacious new studio.
    Now, the stable’s big sliding doors stood open, allowing the roofed alleyway between the two rows of stalls to catch the ocean breeze. Joe watched Clyde fetch the wheelbarrow from behind the stable, watched him and Ryan wheel the heavy bags of feed from the back stall out to the hay barn, emptying the stall for Billy’s seven cats. He watched Ryan sweep the stall’s hard dirt floor clean of straw and attack the cobwebs along the ceiling,