Wild Cat
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Wild Cat
Copyright © 2009 by Dandi Daley Mackall. All rights reserved.
Cover and interior photo of horse copyright © by Eric Isselee/Istockphoto. All rights reserved.
Cover photo of cat copyright © by Photodisc/Getty Images. All rights reserved.
Author photo copyright © 2006 by John Maurer of Maurer Photography Studio. All rights reserved.
Designed by Jacqueline L. Nuñez
Edited by Stephanie Voiland
Scripture quotations are taken from the
Holy Bible
, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4143-1270-5
Contents
For Veronica,
my new horse-loving friend in Italy
One
I wish animals could talk.
This is what I’m thinking, watching Hank and Dakota unload eight horses they rescued from Happy Horsey Trail Rides.
Happy Horsey?
There’s nothing happy about these horses. They’re skinny, scarred, scraggly, and scared. If they could talk, their stories would probably tear my heart into little pieces.
“Hank! Can I help?” I shout at him. He’s trying to get a spotted mare to back down the trailer ramp. She stomps one back leg like she’s squishing a snake, then lunges toward the trailer. Her flank is so scabbed over it looks like rough leather.
Hank gets the horse to back halfway down the ramp. I’m about to ask him again if I can help when he yells at me. “Kat! Stay back!”
I don’t usually get to help with the horses. I’m in charge of cats. But I’ve been hoping Hank would make an exception this time. I really want to help these poor horses.
The mare bolts up the ramp again. Hank smooth-talks her. “Come on, gal,” he coaxes. My brother—well, he’ll officially be my brother as soon as my adoption is final—is 16. If that stubborn horse were a junior high or high school girl instead of a horse, she’d come thundering down the ramp fast as you please to follow Hank. Every girl I know in Nice, Illinois, has a crush on Hank.
Midway on the Pinto’s bony rump is a deep brand: HH. Happy Horsey. A jagged scar streaks under the brand like a ghostly underline. I try not to think about how it got there. I wish I could do something to help.
“Quit daydreaming, will you?” Hank shouts. “You’re going to get hurt.” He and the spotted mare match step for step down the ramp, trotting backward when they touch ground. Then they jog off to the pasture, leaving me in a puff of dust.
I move into the barn. It’s a great barn, with stalls in back and a round pen out front that takes up half of the sawdust floor. Everything smells fresh, like the forest. If I were a horse, I’d love it here. In this very barn I touched my first horse, kissed my first cat, and got my first dog bite.
My cat, Kitten, climbs my leg, claws up my back, and settles onto my shoulders, where she curls her scraggly self around my neck. I’m sweaty, so Kitten’s shaggy white fur sticks to me. I don’t mind. Kitten and I go way back. I found her half-dead in a ditch. She was my first rescue.
Kitten rubs her face against my ear. She purrs, and it sounds like a swarm of locusts. Then, just like that, she digs her claws into my shoulder and springs off.
“Kitten!” I scold. But she’s long gone.
Dakota teases me about
Kitten
not being the most creative name in cat history. But since my nickname is Kat, I think “Kitten” is the perfect name for my first rescued cat at Starlight Animal Rescue.
“Look out!” Dakota shouts.
I turn, and I’m nose-to-nose with a scrawny chestnut pony. A wide, raised scar runs the length of his head, splitting it in two. His eyelids sag, and he’s bone thin all over.
“Move, Kat! I’m not kidding!” Dakota tugs on the pony’s lead rope. But she’s leading another horse too, a skinny gray mare who wants to return to the trailer.
I take a couple of steps back from the pony. “Sorry. I just wanted to help.”
“Right now you can help by staying out of the way,” Dakota says. “You could get hurt.” Dakota’s 16, like Hank. She could probably pass for Cherokee—she’s that exotic looking. I love Dakota like a sister, but she worries about me too much. She freaks out if I break a fingernail. Once people learn I’ve got cancer, they treat me like I’m made of glass.
I watch Dakota struggle to keep both horses behind her as she leads them through the barn. “The pony’s limping,” I call to her.
“What?” She starts to turn around. The gray mare tugs sideways, pulling Dakota with her. The poor pony’s nearly jerked off his feet.
Hooves. Not feet.
Okay. So I’m not exactly a horsewoman. But neither was Dakota when Ms. Bean, the social worker, dropped her off at Starlight Animal Rescue. That was only a couple of months ago. Now Hank says he couldn’t get on without her.
I wonder what that would feel like, to know people couldn’t get on without you.
The whole Coolidge family is like one big hall of fame. A doctor, a firefighter, an expert dog trainer, two horse whisperers . . . and me.
“You guys are going to need help with all those horses, you know.” I have to shout so Dakota can hear me. She’s still making her way to the stalls with both horses.
I tag along. “That pony’s favoring his right foreleg, Dakota,” I try again.
“I know. We think it’s a bowed tendon. The vet examined all the horses before we picked them up. Doc Jim said we’ll need to give this one some bute—Butazolodine—until his leg heals.” Dakota has control of the horses again. She frowns at me. “Not so close, Kat.”
I’m trying to study the pony’s forelegs. “His leg doesn’t look bowed to me. Are you sure—?”
“Not now. Okay?” Dakota begs.
“You know,” I say, hustling to keep up with her, “this is the first time we’ve taken on so many horses at once.”
“You and your first times,” Dakota says, shaking her head.
It’s true that I love firsts. First snow of the year. First leaf to turn in autumn. (It hasn’t happened yet.) First robin in spring. The first time Hank called me “little sis.” The first time Kitten purred for me.
Yesterday I heard three cats purr at the same time. I wrote Catman, Hank’s cat-loving cousin, about it. Catman knows more about cats than anybody in the whole world. He’s even making a movie about cats, a documentary. He and Winnie the Horse Gentler run a pet helpline on the Web. I still haven’t met them, even though they’re just a couple of states away, in Ohio. But it’s hard for people with animals to leave home.
“Kat! Did you hear me?” Dakota yells. She’s standing in front of an empty stall, a horse on each side, pulling her in opposite directions. “Will you open the stall door? Please?”
“Oops. Sorry.” I slip in front of her and unlatch the door.
“Thanks.” Dakota leads the gray mare into the stall. The pony tries to follow. “Stay!” Dakota commands.
“Let me take the pony,” I beg.
She hesitates. “I don’t know. You could get stepped on.”
“By the pony? Poor thing’s so skinny, I wouldn’t even feel it if he did step on me,” I joke. “Besides, I won’t get stepped on. Please, Dakota. I really want to help you guys.” I reach over to stroke the pony. His neck twitches like a fly’s landed on it. He sidesteps.
That’s enough for Dakota. “Maybe later. You better ask Popeye and Annie first.” Popeye is my dad, Chester Coolidge, and Annie is my mom. Dakota and I are both fosters, but she doesn’t call them Mom and Dad like I do.
Dakota unsnaps the lead from the gray horse’s halter. The snap startles the pony. He jerks and backs away fast. The rope slips out of Dakota’s hand.
Without thinking, I lunge for the pony’s lead rope, grabbing it in both fists.
The pony bolts. My hands stay glued to the rope. I jerk forward. My feet fly out from under me. The pony takes off up the stallway.
“Kat!” Dakota screams.
I hit the ground hard. My stomach’s a sled as I’m dragged over sawdust.
I hear Dakota’s cries behind me. “Kat! Let go of the rope!”
I see my hands on the rope. But they don’t belong to me. They won’t let go. The pony’s tail slaps my arm. I bounce over something. Dirt sprays my face. I barely feel it. I’m numb. I can’t see. I close my eyes and wonder if I’ll ever see again.
I’ve heard your whole life flashes before you at a time like this. But my life isn’t even a flash. More like a spark. A fizzle. I haven’t done anything with my life.
Fear shoots through my bloodstream. I feel it like the cold ink they inject in me before X-rays.
X-rays. IVs. Tests. Cancer.
That’s how I’m supposed to die.
Not like this.
Two
“Whoa! Whoa, boy!”
I slide to a stop, inches from the pony’s back hooves. My eyes sting when I open them. I shut them fast. The world is spinning as I wait for the pain to catch up with me.
“That’s a good boy.” It’s Hank’s voice I hear, coming from miles away. “Kat, are you okay? Let go of the rope.”
I uncurl my fingers and roll to my side. Fetal position.
It hurts to breathe. I cough. It hurts even more. Everywhere.
Dakota drops to her knees beside me. “Kat? Can you hear me? I’m sorry! I didn’t . . . Are you . . . ?” She’s crying hard.
I want to tell her I’m okay.
Am I?
“She’s bleeding, Hank!” Dakota screams.
“Where’s she bleeding?” Hank demands.
That’s what
I
want to know. I think of opening my eyes and seeing for myself. But I don’t.
“I think it’s just her arms,” Dakota answers. “Or her hands.” She sneezes.
Achoo!
I smell sawdust. I feel it in my nostrils.
Please don’t let me sneeze.
The thought of it makes my sides ache.
Dakota sneezes again.
“Bless you,” I whisper. I’m not sure if I’ve said it out loud or not.
“Kat!” Dakota falls on top of me, hugging me. Then she scoots away, like I’m glass again. “Hank, she blessed my sneeze.” Dakota breaks down into sobs.
Is this the first time I’ve seen her cry?
“Don’t move.” Hank runs toward the stalls, leading the pony behind him. In seconds he’s back. I open my eyes enough to see the tips of his scuffed boots.
“Kat?” Hank says. He squats beside me.
My eyes are watering so much that Hank and Dakota look blurry. “I think I’m okay.”
“Don’t move till you’re sure,” Hank warns. “Can you feel your legs?”
I wiggle one. Then the other.
“Does that mean they’re not broken?” Dakota asks. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. Mud smears her cheeks.
Hank doesn’t answer. He keeps staring at me. “You’re lucky you had jeans on. Try moving your arms.”
I do. My elbows are killing me. Blood trickles down my arms and mixes with sawdust and dirt.
Dakota touches my shoulder. I feel her trembling.
Hank shakes his head. “You just about gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry,” I say.
“I think we should get you inside.” He slides his arms under me.
Dakota gets to her feet. “Hank, are you sure it’s okay to move her?”
Again, Hank ignores her and talks to me. “Let me know if anything hurts too much. Okay?”
I nod. When I do, my hair—my wig—slides to the ground. Dakota picks it up, shakes it out, and sticks it back on. She doesn’t look at me when she does it. They’ve seen me without my wig before, but I can tell we all feel weird about it anyway. Hank acts like he doesn’t see. Chemo doesn’t turn everybody bald, but it did me.
Hank picks me up like I’m a feather.
“I can walk, Hank.” My voice comes out a whisper. Not real convincing.
“Am I carrying you?” Hank asks, striding out of the barn. “You’re so light, I wasn’t sure.”
Hank’s kidding, but he’s not that far off. My kind of cancer messes with my stomach and appetite. I’ll be starting junior high next week, but I still have to shop for clothes in the girls’ department.
Hank hollers over his shoulder, “Dakota, will you put the last horse in the pasture? Give them all grain. And hay for the ones in the barn.”
“No problem,” Dakota says, jogging back to the trailer.
I wanted to help them with the horses. Instead, as usual, I’ve made things harder on everybody.
“Kat!” Dad barrels out of the house and runs at us, faster than I’ve ever seen him move. “Kat! Kat!” he screams.
“Tell him I’m okay.” I know I can’t yell loud enough.
“Dad, she’s okay!” Hank shouts. “She didn’t faint. She just fell in the barn.” He adds under his breath, “And was dragged a few yards.”
I elbow him. It hurts. Me, not him.
Dad lumbers up to us. He’s panting so hard that I’m afraid he’ll have a heart attack. Dad’s a head shorter than Hank and probably 50 pounds heavier. “What happened? How did she fall? I should have been there.” He glances up at the sky and mutters, “Father, thank You for being there.” Then he looks at me, and his eyes double in size. “Your arm!”
Maybe I look worse than I thought. I’ve never seen Dad this upset. Not even when I had that bad reaction to a new medicine. Not even when I threw up all over him in the Nice grocery store the first week I moved here.
“Dad, I’m okay. Really.”
“She can move her arms and legs,” Hank says. He starts walking toward the house again.
“But what happened? How did you fall? Where’d you fall from? Does your head hurt?” Dad’s short legs shuffle alongside us. He reaches out like he wants to carry me himself.
“Dad, I’ve got her,” Hank says, stopping at the house. “Could you get the door?”
“Of course. Yes. The door.” Dad fumbles with the latch. It takes him three tries to get the screen open for us.
“It looks worse than it is,” I tell him. “My elbows are scraped.”
Two of Wes’s rescued dogs slip outside when we come in. Mustard and Ketchup, two of my rescued cats, sneak inside with us.
“Take her upstairs,” Dad says. “I’ll call my Annie.”
“Don’t call Mom,” I beg over Hank’s shoulder, as he takes the stairs two at a time with me. “I’ll be fine until she gets home from the hospital.”
But Dad’s already disappeared into the kitchen to call her.
My mom is an oncologist, a cancer doctor at Nice Hospital. That’s where I saw her for the first time. I was only seven, but I was already collecting firsts. The social worker brought me in for my first radiation treatment. “This is Dr. Annie Coolidge,” she said. I remember thinking that I’d never seen hair that curly. She was short and stout, and she kept losing her pencil. She didn’t look anything like a doctor, but I trusted her from the first minute I saw her.
Hank shoves open my bedroom door and lays me down on the bed, on top of my cat bedspread. “What should I get you? Want some water? Should I turn on your fan?”
I think about asking him to take me off the spread so I don’t get it dirty, but it’s too late anyway. “I’m okay. Thanks, Hank.”
Kitten hops onto the bed and curls up beside me. Her purring motor starts right up.
Dad’s voice rises with the sound of his heavy footsteps on the stairs. “Now, now, my Annie. We can keep Kat comfortable until . . . Of course. . . . I promise. . . . Darling, I said I promise.”
Still holding the phone to his ear, Dad stumbles into my room. “I’m here with her right now. Hank’s taking good care of her and . . . Well, yes, if you want, but . . .” He glances at me. “Your mother would like to talk to you.”
“Sure.” I reach for the phone. “Ouch!” My elbow stings. Dad puts the phone to my ear.
“Kat? Are you okay? Your head. Did you hit your head?” Mom sounds panicked. “What hurts?”
“Mom, I’m okay. Really. I scraped my elbows. It was a stupid accident.”
“I’m leaving the hospital right now. Getting into the van.” I hear the door open. The alarm goes off. “Oh, dear. What did I do?”
I turn to Dad. “Mom set off the alarm again. You better take it.”
Dad takes back the phone and walks Mom through the steps to disarm the alarm system. They were made for each other. I’ve been with Dad when
he
had to call Mom to walk him through this same process.
Dad and Hank do their best to clean up my face and arms. But they’re so afraid of hurting me that they quit the second Dakota joins us.
“Horses are all pastured, stabled, and fed,” Dakota says.
“Thanks, Dakota. Here,” Hank says, tossing her his washcloth. “You take over.”
“Me?” Dakota catches the rag and acts like it’s poison.
“Good idea,” Dad agrees. He sets down his bowl and washcloth and kisses my forehead. “Dakota can help you get out of those jeans. Your mother should be here in a little while. She’ll know what to do. Are you sure you’re not in pain? Are you telling us everything, Kat? Because you—”
“My arms hurt. My hands burn. My knees don’t feel so good. But I’m okay, Dad.”
Hank and Dad close the door after them, and Dakota gets out a nightgown. It takes us 11 minutes to get me into it. I know because I have a cat-shaped clock on my wall next to my cat calendar.
When we’re done, I lie down again, and Dakota sits on the bed with me. She picks up my wig from the floor, where I guess it fell during my struggle with the nightgown.
“Just put it on the bedpost,” I tell her. I’ve never been able to sleep in the thing.
Dakota sets my wig on the bedpost at the foot of my bed and straightens the long blonde hairs. She looks like she’s the one who was dragged behind a horse. Her face is streaked with dirt, and her black hair springs around her head in long, wet clumps.
“I can’t believe your legs aren’t more banged up,” she says. “Your knee’s purple, though. That’s got to hurt.” She touches my right knee.
“Ow!” My whole leg throbs with pain.
“I’m sorry!” Dakota cries, scooting away.
“That’s okay. Guess I banged it up pretty good.”
“You could have been killed.”
My mind flashes back to the barn, to the moment when I thought I was going to die. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to die. Not because I’m scared of dying. I don’t think I am. How can I be scared of being in a place where I can talk to God without other things getting in the way? Whatever heaven’s like, I know it’s better than here. And here is pretty great.
But I know I’m not ready because I haven’t done anything with my life. That’s what I learned in that barn today. I need to do something with my life, like Mom and Dad and Hank do all the time. And I need to do it now.
Knock! Knock!
“Kat! Can I come in?” Dad calls through the door.
“Come in,” I holler back.
He bursts in, waving an envelope. Mustard and Ketchup prance into the room behind him. They don’t jump up on my bed, not with Kitten there.
“Look what came in the—” He stops when his gaze reaches my knees. “Your knee is purple.” He walks closer. “I can’t stand thinking about how much that must hurt.” His eyes fill with tears.
“It’s not so bad,” I say quickly. “You know I bruise easily.” That part’s true. I think it’s because of one of the meds I’m on.
A horn honks outside. Brakes squeal.
“Sounds like Mom’s home,” I say.
Dad runs outside to meet her. In seconds they’re racing up the stairs.
Dakota moves out of the way.
Mom rushes to my bed. “Kat, Kat, Kat,” she mutters, kissing my forehead and cheeks.
“I’m okay,” I manage.
“We’ll just see about that.” She turns to Dad and Dakota. “Everybody out.”
Mom shoos them from my room, then transforms from mother into Dr. Coolidge, oncologist. She opens her doctor’s bag and, for the next 17 minutes, by the cat clock, examines me head to toe.
When she’s done, she sits on the foot of my bed and drops her head into her hands. I know she’s praying. I just hope it’s a thank-You-God prayer and not a how-could-You-let-Kat-be-in-such-bad-shape prayer.
When she looks up, her eyes are red. “God had you in His palm, Kat,” she says quietly.
I grin. I’m thinking of that psalm that talks about stumbling but not falling because God holds your hand. I’ve always pictured a parent holding a little kid’s hand and not letting go when the kid’s feet fly out from under him.
“You know I’ve never been all that fond of horses,” Mom says.
Mom loves all animals, just like the rest of us. She can’t stand to see one suffering or homeless. She patches up cats, dogs, and horses if the vet can’t get here in time. She even brought home a bird with a broken wing once and nursed it back to health.
“When I think of what could have happened to you . . .” Her voice trails off.
I put my hand on her arm. She’s wrapped my right hand in bandages so it looks like I’m a one-gloved boxer. “I’m okay, right?”
She sighs. “Nothing’s broken,” she admits.
Footsteps thunder up the stairs.
“Come on in,” Mom hollers.
Dad enters, and I catch the look he and Mom exchange, full of meaning, like only they can pull off. I think Dad’s asking if I’m really okay and Mom’s saying I am but she was really scared, and now she’s just thanking God it wasn’t worse and Dad’s agreeing with her. But they don’t say anything out loud, and the look lasts only a couple of seconds, by the cat clock.
Then Dad waves his envelope over his head and shouts, “It came!”
“It came?” Mom jumps up from the bed and reaches for the envelope. She opens it and looks inside. “Where’s the letter?”
“Not there?” Dad peeks in for himself. “I must have left it downstairs.”
“Left what downstairs?” I ask.
“I’ll go down and get it.” Dad turns to leave.
“Don’t you dare!” Mom says. “Chester Coolidge, you come back here right this minute and tell me what they said.”
“Two weeks from Saturday,” he declares.
Mom grabs him and dances him around the room.
They’re making even less sense than usual. Maybe I did hit my head after all.
Dakota and Hank appear in the doorway.
