Black Cat and the Accidental Angel (Black Cat Mysteries Book 3) (19 page)

He pulled his ears back. “Have you forgotten already? Because, tomorrow your
person
is coming to take you away from me, forever.” He gulped. Was that a bit too sarcastic? Probably!

“Really? I don’t think so. But, don’t ask me how I know, dear.”

“What is that supposed to mean? You’re saying that just to make me feel better.”

“Trust me, I know.”

He opened his mouth to ask more questions, when voices down by the river caught his attention. “Who’s that?”

She shrugged, stood and started running toward the river. Clearly, there shouldn’t be anyone down there. John and Cindy were both still ogling the chicks.

Black Cat pushed past Angel before they came within sight of the river, creeping through the bushes, as soundlessly as possible. Mr. Skimmer and another man stood in the river with metal pans. They filled the pans with dirt from the embankment and swished them around, spilling water out with each rotation until the pans were empty. Then, they dropped in another couple of handfuls of soil from the riverbank.

Angel’s hackles rose. “What are they doing?”

As Black Cat watched the men in the river, the scene faded and another river took its place…another time. As though in a dream, he saw the beautiful lady and the tall blond man.

The man stands in the river wearing long rubber boots, holding a metal pan. The little girl with bouncing curls sits on the riverbank nearby, playing with a black and white cat. The lady takes sandwiches from a basket. The man swishes the metal pan around and around, spilling out the water. When the pan is empty, leaving only grains of sand, he pulls out a tiny rock. ‘Hey, look! It’s a gold nugget. That’s what I’m talking about. This one alone is worth $300.’

The figures in his mind disappeared and the voices in his dream became the water rushing down the stream.

Angel’s voice… “Are you okay? You had the strangest look on your face.”

“I was remembering. I saw myself with a little girl and her parents. Her daddy found gold in the dirt.” Black Cat looked back toward the men in the water. “Angel. There’s gold in John’s creek. That’s why Mr. Skimmer wants John’s property! He knows about the gold.”

Angel’s mouth twitched up on the corner. “
Ah!
It’s all beginning to make sense now.”

“If John knew, he could pan the gold and save his ranch.”

She shrugged. “That’s going to be a fine trick. How are we supposed to tell him? Come on, let’s get back. The babies will be awake and hungry.” She scampered along the path toward the house.

Black Cat turned and looked back at the two figures, stealing gold from John’s creek. Had the greed for gold made Mr. Skimmer do unspeakable things? Even try to kill a man and his child?

A shiver traveled down his spine. He followed Angel back to the babies, waiting for their mother, back to John, who didn’t know the answer to his prayers lay scattered in the river, and back to the last few hours he would spend with Angel.

The kittens waddled around the room that afternoon, playing with a wadded-up aluminum ball. They stumbled around the blanket, knocking the shiny toy around and falling over every fourth or fifth step.

Cindy pulled a feather in front of the yet-to-be-named tortoiseshell sister. The kitten chased it, knocking it left and right. She’d be a mighty hunter one day, like her old man.

John showed Cindy how to shove the kittens’ noses into a bowl of milk. They sputtered and stepped in the bowl, and then the ancestors’ memories kicked in and they knew to lap the milk. They were so cute, their faces smeared with milk mustaches and milk up to their knees. They’d lap the milk and sneeze, and the sneeze would knock them off their feet. Then the little darlings would sit and lick the milk off each other’s faces. Before long, they were licking a front foot and drawing it across their own faces. How quickly the ancestor’s lessons became part of their own rituals.

God bless those ancestors who shared their memories with kittens so they recall the process of bathing before they’re even a month old.

Angel finished up their baths and in no time, with tummies round and hard, the kittens were all fast asleep.
Maybe I should have helped with the baths?

Muffins lay with her feet in the air with Rambo’s head resting on her belly.

Black Cat’s heart ached as he stared at his family and soaked up every moment of the happy afternoon. It was the last day they’d spend together and these memories had to last a lifetime.

He lay awake on the couch that night, watching his family sleep. He could only remember the littlest bit of his former life. What happy days had come and gone, without leaving an imprint on his mind? The image of his family burned into his brain. He could never forget these happy quiet moments.

The moon passed overhead, casting long shadows across the yard and the bird enclosure. All too soon, the sky brightened and turned pink as the sun rose in the east, casting patches of sunshine down through the pine trees and warming the air around the little house in the woods.
Why
c
an’t it stay dark just a little longer?

“Mrs. Stubblefield is due around noon.” John looked at his watch. “We should straighten up the living room a bit.”

Cindy hung her head and carried her doll and her sweater to her room. She’d promised not to raise a fuss, but she wasn’t going to be happy about Angel leaving, in spite of her promise to John.

Black Cat sat in the windowsill, staring at the driveway. Mrs. Stubblefield wasn’t going to take him. No point hoping. She wanted Angel, but she wasn’t interested in a stray black and white tomcat.
I’m glad Angel has found her family. Really, I am. Will I ever go home again?

All too soon, the crunch of tires in the driveway announced the arrival of Angel’s
person
.

John went out to meet her in the yard, opened her car door and shook hands.

Mrs. Stubblefield had grey frizzy hair and wore a pink tee shirt with
Miss Boopkins
scrawled
across the front. She handed John a pink cat carrier with lace around the door and a big red bow tied on top.
Miss Boopkins
was
emblazoned across the side in script matching the lettering across her pendulous breasts.

Cindy knelt on the blanket and pulled Angel and the babies into her lap. Her lip quivered as she waited for the inevitable
.

Black Cat hovered beside her and growled, fighting the urge to tackle the woman when she came through the door. He wanted to fight for his family until his dying breath…but he knew he couldn’t. He had to put on a cheerful face for Angel and Cindy’s sake. A bloody cat fight to the death wouldn’t change anything. And, it wouldn’t make Angel’s departure any easier for anyone.

His heart seized as the front door squeaked open.

Black Cat froze, facing the moment he dreaded, his heart pounding like a pile driver.

John followed Mrs. Stubblefield inside and set the huge pink cat carrier on the floor.

Mrs. Stubblefield strode across the room, her face wreathed in smiles. She leaned over the blanket.

The old witch! How dare she look so happy, when his heart was breaking?

Angel looked up into Mrs. Stubblefield’s face. Their eyes met.

Mrs. Stubblefield scrunched up her face and burst into tears. Tears of joy?

It was too much. Black Cat tried to be brave; he tried to hold it together.
I can’t watch. If I stay another minute, I’m apt to bite her.

He sprinted out the door and over to the woodpile, where he’d gone the day he heard about the kittens. He’d thought on that day, there couldn’t be a more miserable cat in the entire state of California. He was wrong. The pain of that day couldn’t compare to the agony today. Suicidal thoughts one minute, and homicidal thoughts the next, raged within his breast.
I can’t go on living if I lose her. I’ll kill the old battle-axe before I let her take Angel. No. I’ll kill myself. No
…
her
…

Cindy shrieked.

His head jerked. So much for Cindy’s promise not to throw a fit.

The door opened and Cindy dashed out onto the porch. “Black Cat. Come quick. Here kitty, kitty. Come back. I have something to tell you.”

Yeah, right
. As if he needed a lecture on etiquette and civility while he watched Mrs. Stubblefield pop Angel into that trumped up Gypsy wagon she called a cat carrier. He flew off the woodpile, out past the Emu enclosure and skidded to a stop at the edge of the vineyard. He couldn’t do this.

Didn’t I learn my lesson that day when the mama took Angel away? I can’t let her and the babies go like this. No matter how much it hurts, I have to say good-bye and wish them a happy life. I have to tell her one more time how much I love her.

He slunk back across the yard, a broken defeated soul. His belly dragged through the yard gathering pine needles that clung to his fur and dropped off as he crossed the porch.

He skulked through the front door, his head hanging.

Mrs. Stubblefield sat on the blanket with Cindy, cooing over the second unnamed cream-colored kitten.

John smiled from across the room.

What’s going on here? How dare they look so happy? Way too much jocularity in my moment of misery.

“Oh, there you are, Black Cat.” Cindy’s face lit up like the light at the railroad crossing. “Come and meet Mrs. Stubblefield. Angel isn’t her cat after all, but she wants to take the little cream sister home with her. Isn’t that wonderful?” A beam of sunshine shimmered through the window, casting a spear of light across Angel’s smug face.
Not her cat? Do I hear a choir of angels singing?
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Angel turned toward Black Cat. She dipped her head and blinked, as if to say, “I told you so…”

Mrs. Stubblefield stroked the cream baby across her cheek. “I think I’ll call you…Miss Bubblekins… Yes, dats dust what I’ll call you.”

Black Cat shuddered. A whisker twitched. Who would think that I would welcome the day a daughter of mine should go through life with the name of Miss Bubblekins…but the kitten wound her toes in and out and mouthed an appreciative silent meow. She liked it!

And Mrs. Stubblefield? Any woman who would wear a tee shirt with her cat’s name spread across her boobs couldn’t be all bad. It looked as if…Miss Bubblekins…had bewitched an unsuspecting victim…
er
…prospective doting owner, which, after all, is the hope of any mother and father cat.

“Can I take her today? I promise to make sure she gets enough to eat.” Mrs. Stubblefield had no intention of letting the kitten go.

“I don’t know.” John shook his head. “She only started to drink from a bowl yesterday. She hasn’t had her shots.”

“If I have to, I’ll get up every two hours and feed her with an eyedropper. Please! And I’ll take her to the vet tomorrow and get all her shots. I promise.”

“Okay. Cindy, come and say good-bye. Miss Bubblekins is going home with Mrs. Stubblefield.”

They all kissed the baby good-bye and wished her well.

Within minutes, Mrs. Stubblefield’s car shot down the driveway before John could change his mind, the pink carrier shoved in the back seat and Miss Bubblekins cuddled in her lap.

That afternoon, John took Cindy to the vineyard.

Black Cat snuggled with Angel on the blanket with Rambo, Muffins and the yet-to-be-named tortoiseshell kitten.

“I know she’s going to a good home, but I’m a little sad to see her go so young.” Angel’s eyes sparkled. “I thought I’d have more time to get her on the right track.”

“I have to agree.” Black Cat patted her foot with his paw. “But, this is the way it’s meant to be. It’s our job to give them life, teach them right from wrong, make sure they pay attention to their ancestors’ wisdom, and kiss them good-bye. That’s what we do. You don’t have any regrets, do you?”

Angel sighed, her whiskers twitching. “I guess not. Though, I do regret her name is
Miss Bubblekins
.”

Black Cat rolled over, four feet in the air, showing off his magnificent white tummy. He chuckled. “I do regret calling her cat carrier a trumped up Gypsy wagon.”

Angel glared at him. “You didn’t!”

“I did, but I have to admit, she was kind of cute, sitting in the carrier with all the lace and the red ribbons around the door.”

“She looked awfully little in there.”

Angel looked through the window into the now empty yard where only a few moments before, Mrs. Stubblefield’s car had zoomed down the driveway, carrying her baby away forever. She dragged the other kittens closer to her heart.

Are those tears in my Angel’s eyes? Cats aren’t supposed to cry. Or am I looking through my own tears. It’s hard to say.