Swamp Cat Part 1

Swamp Cat.

by James Arthur Kjelgaard.

1

EXILED

The sound came to Frosty as a mere vibration that hummed about the fine hairs in his inner ears and set his whiskers to tingling. About to leap from the shelf on which he crouched and resume the boisterous play with his two brothers, he remained where he was and strained for a repet.i.tion of the noise. He knew only that it was. Before he could continue playing, he must know what it was.

On the chaff-littered floor of the shed in which they lived, Frosty's brothers engaged in a mock war. They slapped and bit each other, but their claws were sheathed and needle-sharp baby teeth did not penetrate the skin. Breaking, they raced pell-mell across the shed. So nearly alike that no casual observer could have seen any difference between the pair, one gray kitten stretched full-length behind a little heap of chaff and waited in this cunning ambush for the other to venture near.

They too would have stopped playing if they had been aware of the noise, but only Frosty knew it because only his senses were keen enough to detect it. However, more than just superior powers of perception set him apart from the kittens on the floor.

The mother of the three, beloved pet of the household, was a medium-sized gray cat that had never done much of anything except doze in the suns.h.i.+ne in summer, lie beside the stove in winter, rub against the legs of the various members of the family when she was pleased, sulk when she was not, and somewhat indifferently carry on various affairs which no cat ever considers the business of any human. Their father was a huge black-and-white old tom. A confirmed wanderer and unregenerate adventurer, he bore as many battle scars as any soldier ever carried.

Smart and crafty, he had never offered allegiance to anything save his own wanderl.u.s.t and he feared nothing.

From point of lineage or breeding, neither the gray mother nor the black-and-white old tom were distinguished by anything special. Products of generations of cats that had been allowed to wander where they would and breed as they pleased, in local parlance, they were just common cats.

It was a misnomer, though, because there is no such thing as a common cat. Perhaps because they were a little nearer the source of things, the ancient peoples who brought cats from the wilderness to their firesides understood this perfectly. They knew that cats are proud. They applauded their intelligence, warmed to their complex characters, marveled at their temperaments and tried eagerly to fathom that unfathomable mystery, so that they might understand why cats were as they were.

Failing, they accepted their failure with wisdom.

They could not understand cats any more than they could understand why gold glittered or precious jewels sparkled, but they did not have to know why a flawless diamond or ruby came about in order to appreciate it. They bowed to perfection and they acknowledged the perfection of cats by making them their equals, or even their superiors. Cats had first choice at their own tables, and whole villages walked in the funeral procession when a cat died. They made cats the companions of kings, and it was death to the commoner who hurt or even touched one.

They put cats in their temples and wors.h.i.+pped them; many a figure which meant a G.o.d to these ancient peoples wore the head of a cat on the body of a man.

Some part of what had impressed these ancients was evident in Frosty as he lay on the shelf and waited for the sound to repeat itself, so he could identify it. Though he gave his entire being to the task at hand, his was not the strained tension of a dog that concentrates completely on just one thing. Rather than fret toward the source of the sound, it was as though Frosty had opened an invisible door which not only could but must let the source become one with him.

Blood brother to the two kittens on the floor, Frosty was a third bigger than they. But the lithe slimness of his mother had tempered the blocky proportions of his father, so that he combined size with strength and fluid grace. His basic fur was jet black, but single white hairs were so scattered through it that he looked as though he were sprinkled with h.o.a.rfrost. His eyes were remarkable, and somehow seemed to reflect the acc.u.mulated wisdom of all cats since the first.

A split second after the first tremor, the noise came again, a tiny bit louder, and thereafter resolved itself into a pattern of rhythmic noises. A horse was coming, and because the tremors strengthened with each step it took. Frosty knew that it was coming toward the shed.

Finally becoming aware of the sound, the gray kittens stopped playing until they too could identify it. Frosty's eyes sparkled mischievously.

He had been born with a quivering b.u.mp of curiosity that stopped throbbing only when it was satisfied, and it was satisfied only when Frosty knew at all times exactly what lay about him. His nose was relatively dull, but his eyes and ears verged on the marvelous, so he interpreted the world keenly through sight and hearing. But once he was sure, as he was now sure that he heard a horse, he need concern himself no longer because, from this point on, that part of his brain which worked automatically would take over and tell him what the horse was doing.

Imps of mischief continued to dance in Frosty's eyes. Having just detected the sound, his brothers must now identify it. Trying to do so was occupying all their attention and there would never be a better chance to take them off guard. Frosty launched himself from the shelf.

It was a kitten's leap, propelled by a kitten's muscles, but there was still something breath-taking, almost unreal, about it. No blind jump, every nerve and muscle in Frosty's body was at all times under perfect control. He landed exactly where he had planned on landing, astride his two brothers, and the three kittens tumbled over and over on the floor.

Even while he parried paw or fangs, or inflicted playful blows of his own, that part of his brain which had taken over for Frosty kept him informed of the horse's progress. There was no need to stop playing and give the horse undivided attention. Horses, in a cat's opinion, were big, clumsy and uninteresting. The horse stopped near the house to which the shed belonged and a man whose voice Frosty did not recognize called,

"Halloo the house!"

The door opened and the mistress of the place answered, "h.e.l.lo, Luke.

Just a minute."

When the house door opened, at once the two gray kittens broke off playing and padded to the shed's door. They stood before it, voicing little mews of antic.i.p.ation and so eager that their heads alternately raised and dipped, then turned, as though on swivels. Their tails were straight and pink tongues flicked out.

Though he did not hide his interest, Frosty stayed well back from the shed door. He knew as well as his two brothers did that the saucers of milk and occasional pile of table sc.r.a.ps upon which all three kittens fed came from the house and that the woman always brought them. But Frosty possessed in full a quality which his brothers had only in part.

Frosty's heritage, in great measure, came from his renegade father.

Incapable of fearing anything, he was sufficient unto himself and he'd known that from the first day he'd opened his eyes and looked around the shed. There was not and never would be a situation with which he could not cope or a foe from whom he would run in panic. His self-confidence was almost as vast as his curiosity. He would stand alone, or with kindred spirits. Never would he place himself at the mercy of, or pay homage to, one who was not kindred.

He liked the woman. She was unfailingly kind and gentle. She knew exactly how to pet him and she--a small point--brought his food. But he would not, as the gray kittens did, unbend so far as to meet her at the door. She was not his superior.

The woman spoke again and there was a little question in her voice. "Mr.

Harris isn't here now, Luke, but I suppose it's all right for you to take them?"

"It's all right, Miz Harris." The man's voice was curiously flat and toneless. "I tol' the Mister I'd get 'em today."

"Well--" The woman still doubted. "How much did he promise you?"

"Two dollars, Miz Harris."

"All right. I'll pay you. They're in here."

She pulled the shed door open and Frosty looked out to see his mistress standing beside a lean hillman, dressed in sun-faded blue trousers that, somehow, were kept from falling down by frayed galluses draped over a torn s.h.i.+rt. The man's hair needed cutting and ragged sideburns strayed down either cheek, to meet beneath his chin. His face was hatchet like, its distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic being a pair of pale blue eyes. He held the reins of a skittish-looking brown horse that wore a good saddle.

Frosty stayed where he was, instinctively flattening himself so that he lay a little nearer the floor. Tails erect, eyes happy, pleased purrs filling the shed, the two gray kittens arched against their mistress'

feet. She knelt and took one in either hand.

"Oh, the dears! I hate to see them go!"

"Kind o' hard," the man said, "to keep so many cats in town."

"It's impossible," she sighed. "Can you wait a while? It lacks an hour to their feeding time, but maybe I should feed them before they go?"

"Now don't you fret," he rea.s.sured her. "In two hours I'll have 'em up at my place, an' anybody in the hills'll tell you Luke Trull's critters don't starve. They'll eat plenty."

"I hope so. How are you going to carry them?"

"If you'll just hold Queenie--"

He handed the horse's reins to her, took a gunny sack from beneath his s.h.i.+rt, plopped the two surprised gray kittens into it and advanced on Frosty. Unafraid, but always willing to temper valor with discretion, Frosty waited until he was near enough to swoop, then darted into a cracked piece of tile pipe that lay in the shed. Luke Trull said,

"This'n ain't friendly."

"No," Mrs. Harris admitted, "he isn't like the others."

"Makes no diffe'nce. We can use him, an' his wildness might pay off up in the hills."

Frosty readied himself. The three-foot length of tile was not merely the best but almost the only hiding place in the shed. If he was found out here, he'd have no choice except fighting. Luke Trull's hand crept like an unwieldy snake into the hollow tile and Frosty struck with unsheathed claws. The man gritted,

"Why, ya leetle--!"

"What's wrong?" the woman asked anxiously.

"The leetle--! He bit me!"