Dewey's Nine Lives

But nature is fickle: Sometimes, you’re the cat; sometimes, you’re the vole. One night in Granite Falls, Bill was throwing out the garbage when he heard several coyotes yelping at each other nearby. He saw movement, a coyote’s tail in the shadows, and then he saw Spooky. The cat was suspended in the air, sort of dancing on the noses of four coyotes as they snapped their jaws at him. Bill grabbed his ax, yelled, “Spooky!” as loud as he could, and started sprinting toward the fight. Spooky kept dancing, pushing off their faces and leaping out of reach, but just as help arrived, a coyote clamped his jaws firmly around Spooky’s face and started to drag him away. Bill lifted his ax and yelled, and the coyote dropped his meal and ran into the forest. Spooky sprang up and ran the other way, into the house. When Bill got inside, Spooky was curled on his favorite pillow in a pool of blood. Bill rushed him to the vet. He had a deep gash and a broken jaw, but after a few weeks of a liquid diet, he recovered completely. Despite the coyote’s bite, Spooky still had a lust for life and that gorgeous Egyptian face.

In Darrington, Washington, a shambling lumber town north-east of Seattle on the edge of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, it was a bear. Bill’s house that year was right on the Sauk River, and every day, the bear would amble through the yard to the river, catch a salmon, sit down near the bank, and eat it. And every day, Spooky would sneak through the bear’s legs, snatch a piece of salmon, and keep running. The bear would take a lazy swipe with his paw but with little conviction. Spooky was always long gone. Then one day, as Bill watched out the kitchen window, the bear caught the fish. Spooky slipped between his legs to steal a bite. The bear took a lazy swing with his paw. But this time the piece of salmon Spooky grabbed was still stuck to the bone. It jerked him to a stop and spun him around. The bear’s paw caught him flush in the side and flung him thirty feet through the air, over some bushes and into the neighbor’s yard.

Bill was crushed. He thought, That’s it. Spooky’s done. Once that bear leaves, I’m gonna have to go over there and find his body.

Two minutes later, Spooky came trotting in through the hole in the screen door. He had three broken ribs and a big gash on his side, but he still had that piece of salmon hanging out of the side of his mouth.

That was Spooky. He was a fiercely loyal friend. But he was also the kind of cat that would stalk a squirrel down the branch of a forty-foot tree and risk his life again and again to steal fish from a bear. And he was tough. There seemed to be no wound—self-inflicted or otherwise—that could keep him down. Spooky might try anything—ride a goose, put a snake in the bed, taunt a bear—but Bill could rest assured about one thing: He would always come back.

Until one day, he didn’t.

It was the 1990s. The economy was in a funk. After eight years, Bill had given up his job caring for the terminally ill. The emotional toll of saying good-bye to so many people had worn him down. So he went back to his old work as a mechanic, first in the airline industry and then, after another round of layoffs, for a boat hull manufacturer. One Friday, the owner came into the factory and said, “Business is bad. Really bad. As of Monday, everyone with a beard is fired.” Absurd. But also serious. The owner hated beards, and in Washington, you apparently can get fired if the boss doesn’t like the way you part your hair.

Bill went home and struggled all weekend with his decision. He had been badly wounded in Vietnam. He spent three months in the hospital with an injury he still won’t talk about. When the bandages finally came off, he looked in the mirror and saw a full beard. He didn’t want anything more to do with the army, and the army didn’t want anything more to do with him, but Bill Bezanson loved that beard. For more than twenty years, he had never shaved it off. Not once. And, he decided, he wouldn’t start now. Not for a boat braising job. On Monday morning, he was fired. Over his beard! Everyone who had shaved was laid off within the month anyway.

A few nights later, Bill started talking with the bartender at the local Elks club, explaining his situation, and she offered him her house for a few months. She was leaving for the summer and needed someone to feed her goats. Two days later, Bill, Spooky, and Zippo moved into a nice new home in northwestern Washington. Two days after that, the woman was back. She’d gotten into a fight with the man she was going to visit; she wasn’t going away for the summer after all; Bill and his cats had to scram.