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There were other differences: the dogs always came running whenever the Queen called them. Robert (and he hoped now Latha too) let it be known that he was immune to verbal summons. Whenever the Queen talked to them, the dogs, particularly his sweet old-lady-in-law, would tilt their heads and act as if they were listening. If the Queen tried any of that language-stuff on him, Robert would just yawn in her face. The dogs were always doing things for the Queen, getting her new pets for her birthday and fetching things and even, woo, digging holes for her. In the beginning Robert had brought her a dead mouse but she didn’t like it, so he hadn’t brought her anything since.

And now she wanted them to bring her a man for her eighteenth birthday. Man, a
man.
Right. Big deal. He understood what she needed one for, not to patch the roof or plow the garden but to plow
her
garden, which he himself at one time had attempted in a fumbling roundabout way to do, not knowing she was years short of puberty but driven by his motto, meet up with, mate up with. (When they’d acquired Sparkle for the Queen’s fourteenth, that dazzling hunk of crystal quartz, he’d made at least a shot, albeit futile, at humping it too. Woo.) What was apparently a secret to everyone else—where the hell had ole Pad gone—was no secret to Robert: Robert knew for a fact that ole Pad had gone off in search of ass.

Had they forgotten that it had been Robert who had found Pad in the first place, in a cave down the mountain? That particular cave was a lair for bears, and Pad had wandered off and revisited his childhood home and discovered there a comely sow who quickly made him forget whatever fun he’d had in the Queen’s menagerie.

Robert had watched them balling, enjoying the show without being detected, a thing he was good at. If you needed any skulking done, Robert was your cat. He didn’t have a dog’s nose that could smell a turd a mile away, but he had in the roof of his mouth two little holes that led directly to whatever olfactory power his brain possessed and whenever he held his mouth open to allow the various vapors to congregate inside, he could discriminate among the most subtle pheromones. That, coupled with his limitless territory and his ability to climb trees and go anywhere, made him the perfect snoop, sleuth, tracker,
bloodhound
if you will. So if they wanted to find a man for the Queen, who better to ask?

In fact, unbeknownst to the rest of the stay-at-homes, he had ranged widely all over the countryside and already knew the whereabouts of all the eligible men. That time when they’d all gone out on the bear cub hunt for the Queen’s twelfth, and everybody was perishing of thirst, and Robert himself had complained, Woo, there’s got to be some way to get off this fucking mountain and find a creek, he was actually just pretending, just to conceal his knowledge of the countryside. He’d known damn well how to get off the fucking mountain, in any one of several different directions. Otherwise he’d literally have perished of thirst, because next to ass, water was his favorite thing in all the world. He couldn’t live without it (and he nostalgically remembered swimming in his future mother-in-law’s water dish when he was just a kitten). Frequently during that bear-cub expedition he had sneaked away from the others to a few sources of water known only to him. So all right, he was sneaky. He was born that way. He was also born a loner and didn’t give a shit for the clubbishness of all the Queen’s other critters, including especially this latest, Ged, who you couldn’t even give a friendly poke because she had hard plates all over her pudgy body. And he’d never got along with Sheba; who wants to be friends with a bitching
snake
anyhow? Even though he’d saved her life twice by killing an owl who tried to eat her and again by chasing off a possum (not the same one who became good old Pogo), he resented Sheba for her inroads on his food supply, sometimes beating him to the mice that were his staple food. Come to think of it, he didn’t even like females in general, as a rule, except when he had the hots for them. He liked the
smell
of the Queen, he liked to nuzzle her armpits and lately he was nuts about that warm woodsy Tabu stuff she was wearing, but any kind of strong scent just drove him wild anyway, him who was so wild to begin with.

So, being so unsociable, he didn’t like the idea of this jam session that his brother-in-law Hrolf called to discuss the acquisition of a human male for the Queen’s benefit, but he went anyhow, just to avoid further unpleasantries with his old-lady-in-law.

You don’t fool me, Hreapha said to him. I know that you’ve been around, and you’ve smelled a lot more men than I have.

Yeah, Moms, he replied, but they’re all old farts.

You’re an old fart yourself, she said.

Which was true, maybe. He’d lived at least half of his expected life span, which somehow hadn’t dimmed his libido. The babe Latha had called him a “dirty old cat,” and he didn’t like being thought of as such. But presumably the Queen needed some manflesh that was still fairly fresh, somebody if not her own age at least not a dirty old man, as all of the eligible males Robert had sniffed probably were. This past year the Queen had become so desperate for fresh manflesh that she’d taken up imaginary banging with that fucking
figment
who supposedly lived here. Among his other idiosyncrasies, Robert was the only one of them all who refused to believe in the existence of the so-called
in-habit
, a harebrained notion if ever he’d humped a hare. Sure, Robert had heard the voice, and it always spooked him, it really creeped him out because he couldn’t smell any saliva or halitosis producing the voice, but he was a dogmatic cat and couldn’t accept the idea of invisibility. It might be fun, and it certainly was comforting, but it don’t put no groceries in your belly. Just to try to understand or sympathize with the Queen, Robert had tried to imagine the sexiest possible babe, of his own species, mind you, and he had tried to get it on with her, and it hadn’t worked at all, man. Woo.

So he was glad that “Adam” was excluded from the jam session. Hreapha began the meeting by explaining that they wanted to keep the upcoming birthday gift a secret from the
in-habit
, because in view of the fact that “Adam” had fallen in love with the Queen, and vice versa, it would make the
in-habit
very jealous to know that he was about to be replaced by a real live male. So the jam session was being held at a time and place when the Queen was in her bedroom making out with “Adam” and neither of them would know about the proceedings. Robert didn’t buy this “in love” stuff, whatever it meant, but he was willing to go along with the idea of making sure that an invisible entity remained out of sight.

The meeting is called to order, Hrolf said. First order of business: volunteers for the expedition. I’ll lead it, of course.

Count me out this time, Robert said. He didn’t like speaking in dogtalk, but it was required.

The others all stared at him. Hrolf said, Do you mind telling us why?

I don’t like human men, Robert said.

You’re just jealous, his wife Hroberta put in. You just don’t want any more competition for
her
affection and petting and favor.

No, hon, that isn’t it, his mother-in-law said. Robert doesn’t want to go on the expedition because he doesn’t need to. He already knows where all the men are.

Is that true? Hrolf demanded of him.

He took his time replying. He didn’t like the know-it-all attitude of his mother-in-law, but he was willing to grant that if there was any creature on this earth who did in fact know it all, it was she. Finally he grumbled, Yeah. If the purpose of your foray is just to
find
a man, I could save you the trouble and tell you where all of them are.

Holy cats, Hrolf said. So tell us.

Robert got to his feet. His joints were getting a bit creaky in his early middle-age, and he didn’t relish a long hike anyway. But he had already been to the four little villages or almost-ghost towns that lay to the four points of the compass from this mountain, and he had inspected the few inhabitants of those villages, not one of whom was in the bud of youth, and he could present a catalog, as he now began to do, of all his findings. After he had finished describing to the best of his ability each and every man he had ever beheld, at least those who were not living with women, the members of the jam session discussed each in turn, and they came up with a short list, three of the best, or rather, considering that two of them were drunkards, three of the least undesirable. One was rather handy: the farmer who dwelt at the north foot of the mountain, from whom they had stolen Bess, the cow.

Bess spoke up, as best she could in dogtalk, not her natural tongue. That man is an asswipe, she said. I wouldn’t give him to my worst enemy.

Another of the three lived alone in what had been called a “hotel” in Stay More. Hreapha knew his name to be Larry but knew him to have a severe drinking problem and also to be possibly involved with a neighbor-woman named Sharon.

The third, the only reasonably sober one of the three, although Robert had observed him imbibing too, was a man named George who was in charge of the ham-processing operation in Stay More valley and lived alone at the west foot of Madewell Mountain.

The jam session was being held at Early Bright, to accommodate members who were nocturnal as well as the night sleepers, and as Early Bright changed to Later Bright, the meeting was adjourned so that all the nocturnals could grab a few z’s. The meeting was resumed at Early Dark, and went on until Later Dark, when the night sleepers were beginning to nod off, but a vote was taken and a decision was finally reached: George was the man.

Second order of business, Hrolf declared. How for godsakes do we get George to come up here on the mountain?

Since Hrolf loved to organize and lead expeditions, he suggested a reconnaissance to George’s domicile, and Robert grudgingly agreed to take them there. What became known as the Man-Snatching Crew consisted of Hrolf, Robert, Pogo, Dewey, Ralgrub and three of Ralgrub’s grown sons, Rebbor, Tidnab, and Feiht. The brazen Ged wanted to go too, but her armor slowed her movements. They went not once but several times over the next several weeks, trying to gather as much intelligence as possible about the man, his appearance, his habits, and his movements. In time they knew almost everything about him that was worth knowing, and the more they learned about him the less Robert thought that George would make a desirable addition to the population of Madewell Mountain.

But the Queen’s birthday was coming up in just another week or so and they had to fulfill their commitment. Woo, it wasn’t going to be easy. Robert remembered all too well their acquisition of Bess; how they’d had to open her gate and threaten and cajole her away from the other cows and scare her into climbing the mountain and help her out of a ravine she fell into, where she lay bawling for hours, and, man, like try to get her to understand that she was not going to be harmed but given a chance to live in Paradise. How were they going to persuade George? They couldn’t just bark at him and nip at his heels and get him to climb the mountain.

George had a pick-up truck with a rifle mounted in the rear-view window, and he often drove that pick-up all over the back roads of the countryside. And it was one of those powerful machines that could climb the most rugged trail. Like Robert, George was in early middle-age, muscular but pot-bellied, a not unkindly face but not handsome either, never seen without a billed cap on his head, bearing an image of a redbird, a cap in which he even slept. He reminded Robert too strongly of Sugrue Alan. The Man-Snatching Crew, in their study of his movements, determined when they could expect that he might be driving along the road that passed the entrance to the winding trail on the north side of Madewell Mountain.

Ralgrub and her sons, true to their assbackward names, stole the contents of a case of whiskey from the Queen’s storeroom, and under the cover of darkness positioned the contents at intervals away from the house, a bottle every so hither and yon left standing upright along a route from the house to the end of the North Way trail, a total of twelve bottles.

Then, on or around the Queen’s birthday, Dewey, a magnificent buck with a rack of antlers having a dozen points, would be positioned strategically at the point where the North Way trail met the road at the foot of the mountain. It was going to be tricky, man. Dewey said he’d sacrifice his life if necessary for the Queen’s birthday.

The idea was that George would come riding along, spot Dewey and take off after him. Dewey would head up the mountain trail as fast as his legs could carry him. George would not stop to load his gun but would keep driving in pursuit of Dewey, all the way to the top, where he would discover, just as Dewey disappeared into the woods, the first of the twelve bottles of good booze. George would take the edge off his disappointment at losing Dewey by sampling the fine whisky. At that point Ralgrub herself would sneak up behind him, snatch that prized cap off his head and run with it toward the second bottle of whiskey, where she would deposit it atop the bottle. George would find the second bottle, drink therefrom, replace the cap on his head, drink some more, and one of the other raccoons, Rebbor, Tidnab, or Feiht, would grab the cap off his head and take it on to the third bottle. And so on, on up the path that led to the house. It was assumed, or hoped, that by the time he reached the house, George would be completely docile, if not totally sloshed, and would not object to becoming a birthday present for the Queen.

It is an ingenious strategy, but Robert, although he is proud of his contributions to the planning of it, is skeptical that it will work. And sure enough, as he takes his supervisory position at the foot of the trail on the afternoon of the appointed day, things begin to go haywire. For one thing, the whole motherfucking tense switches from past to present, a sure sign that expectations are either getting out of hand or else are so supercharged you can’t tell your ass hair from your whiskers. He tests it: he turns this way and that, he shakes his head. No mistake, he’s caught tight in the present. Hey Hrolf buddy, he calls to his companion, did you notice? Are we now in the
now?
You know, the
present
tense?