The Catswold Portal

She had crossed a cut field through heavy stubble. In the center was a small trash dump, and as she explored the rubble for food she smelled the rat in a half-buried wooden crate. The crate smelled of celery and of spoiled meat. The rat was a big male, old and rough coated. He had survived dogs, and had killed his share of kittens. Deep inside the barrel, he had heard her coming a long way off, but he hadn’t bothered to hide himself. Now he crouched, listening to her approach, staring out at her.

The cat circled the crate, watching the gleam of his red eyes. She moved to the entry, to block him from running out. She crouched, tensed to spring, ready for him.

When after a moment he didn’t run, she moved in.

She was close to the rat when he charged. She dodged and lashed at him. He swerved and clamped his teeth on her paw, biting clear through. He hung on as the cat thrashed and fought, and gnawed her paw brutally. Then before she could bite him he loosed her, dodged, and leaped at her throat, biting deep. She struck at him with her claws, then sank her teeth in his flank, trying to pull him off her throat.

The rat had miscalculated his distance; he had only the skin of her throat, not the jugular. She managed to jerk him free, tearing a piece of skin from her throat. She shook him, swinging him, and in her terror she hit him again and again against the sides of the barrel.

The rat went limp. She turned it loose, to lick at her wounded paw. The rat came to life, leaping straight into her face. She clawed at it and tore it away. Enraged, she grabbed it by the neck and bit and gnawed until it died.

After it was dead she thrashed it against the crate floor, heaving and shaking it.

She ate the rat, then licked her wounded paw. There was nothing of Melissa apparent in the little beast; she was all cat, learning to care for herself. Yet somewhere within the little calico, too deep to be sensed by animal instincts, breathed another presence. Within the little cat something waited poised, watching, learning.

Her hunger eased, the calico left the dump and headed south.

It took her ten days to cover the miles Vrech had covered in a few hours. The country remained open, with tall grass, occasional trees, and scattered farm houses and shacks. At first she hunted, but as her wounded paw grew painful and bloated with infection, she began to search out the easy pickings at garbage cans and dumps. Twice near dumps, half-wild farm cats attacked her. The first time, she ran. The second time, she fought the two females. She came away bitten and hurting, but she had taken her share of the garbage. Her hurting foot made it hard to run fast enough to avoid dogs, but the scattered trees gave her refuge beyond a dog’s domain. She learned to stay near the trees if she scented or heard a pack of dogs. At one promising garbage dump she faced a family of raccoons, and when the big male charged her she fled. It was the next morning that she approached a salt water inlet on the outskirts of a town.

Houseboats and fishing boats were tied up along the banks. Somewhere a radio played music, but she had learned that this kind of sound didn’t threaten her. She smelled human waste from the houseboats, and she smelled food cooking. Beside a dock, she smelled fish offal. Very hungry, she approached the fish cleanings, prepared for a feast.

She did not see at first the three big female cats who were already maneuvering for position over the fish, snatching at it, snarling and striking at one another. With the music playing, she didn’t hear them. One cat was heavy with kittens, the other two were in nursing condition. Left alone they would have shared the food out in their usual desperate way. Now they froze, staring at the intruder, hissing at her and threatening with low growls. But the calico, as she traveled, had grown bolder: these were only cats, not dogs. She approached them, stalking stiff-legged.

A female’s ear twitched. A tail dropped, and all three crouched.

The three attacked her together. They had her down, clawing and biting her when a little girl, fishing at the other end of the dock, threw a bait bucket at them.

The three cats fled. The calico fled, too, limping, her swollen right front paw sending shooting pains up her leg. Running, she stopped often to lick the lump that had formed as each day the abscess grew larger and more painful.

Five days after the rat bit her she came to the outskirts of a town. Her white parts were dirty now, her white chest matted with grit and road oil. And, cowed by the pain in her foot and by fear, she carried her ears and her tail low.