The Time of The Cat 20

TWENTY

WAITING

Liz and I found that Lexington was smaller than we’d expected and only had a few likely-looking places to stay. We finally settled on an inexpensive motel near Washington and Lee University. Like our previous motel, it had outside access to the rooms, and we were able to sneak Jefferson in with no problem.

We’d agreed to give Rudy a day to gather the necessary equipment, so we loafed around the room and then drove around sightseeing for the majority of the next day. It was a pretty area, but the town was a little too small to make me feel safe. There’s a lot more security in crowded cities than most people think. In a small town, you definitely stand out, while you can simply and easily blend into the crowd in a city. Blending in is made easier by the city dweller’s studied inattentiveness to other people.

Of course, even in a city, there are those that will notice anything out of the ordinary. The biggest danger is that you’ll be too distracted to notice that you’re being hunted since the hunter can also blend into the crowd.

I’d come to rely on Jefferson as a potential early-warning source. He was probably more observant than a watchdog. He seemed to be able to keep an eye on everything that might concern him and, by association, us without looking as if he were actually looking. He would rest his head on his paws, peeping out of slightly slitted eyes from his position on the cargo cover in the back of the Mercedes. He was the perfect picture of contentment, but one that could explode into a fuzzy ball of fury if he saw anything that alarmed him.

We both felt more at ease when we left the city and drove out into a rural area. There were enough cars passing by that we didn’t stand out, but not so many that we couldn’t keep track of if we were followed.

The scenery was pretty, with very steep and forested hills; we saw some wild turkeys in a clearing and several whitetail deer browsing at the edge of the woods next to a farmer’s feedlot. Considering the pressure we were under, it was a relaxing interlude, especially when we found a nice overlook and parked so we could cuddle in the back seat for a few minutes.

We opened the door, chancing that Jefferson was smart enough not to wander off. He slipped out and scratched a hole in some sandy soil in order to do his duty. He kept an alert lookout, wandered around the car for a few minutes, and then meeped to come back in. He had a funny meow when he wanted our attention. Instead of being a simple “meow,” like most cats, he somehow put an elongated “p” on the end of it, so it sounded something like, “MeouPP!”

No one came along, but we were still a little jumpy and eventually headed back to town. By now, it was mid-afternoon, and we went back to our motel to freshen up. I parked across the parking lot from our room, and we sat for several minutes checking out the place. Nothing showed as suspicious and my sixth sense didn’t kick up, so we moved over and parked in front of the room next door to ours and went inside.

The maid had made up the place, but we hadn’t left anything other than what anyone else would leave in a room. Liz had left some small toiletries she had purchased in the drugstore, and I’d hung up a few extra clothes I’d grabbed on the way. These were arranged on the wire hangers in the wall closet. We both guessed that we’d successfully eluded any pursuit, and the Pugs must be scratching their heads if, in fact, their brains were in that part of their anatomy and they actually did that sort of thing.

At supper, in a cafe near the motel, we had a decent country-fried steak with biscuits and white gravy that was a little lumpy. Some cooks just can’t seem to concentrate on the job for a long enough period of time to stir the lumps out effectively. Good gravy takes concentration to make correctly.

There were a few leftover pieces of steak, and they somehow got wrapped in a paper napkin, deposited in Liz’s purse beside her splinter-shooter, and taken back to the car for the cat.

The restaurant had a “No Guns!” sign in the window. Since the splinter-shooter was not exactly a gun in the sense that most humans used the word, we felt that we weren’t violating the owner’s misguided antipathy towards self-defense. Putting up a “No Guns!” sign is just inviting criminally minded individuals to waltz in and rob you. I said to Liz, “It’s about as stupid as wearing a sign on your back that says, ‘Kick Me.’”

I’ve often wondered why people blame inanimate objects for violence. Violence is the exclusive province of living creatures, and it can take all sorts of forms. Guns aren’t necessary to the spirit of the act.