One does worry so about one’s fur babies. Perhaps if I had more cats, I would fret less about the one, but I doubt it.

Anyway, my dear Abner (Abilene, Kansas for short) didn’t come in last night. He has been a little bit unsettled lately by the firecrackers going off in the neighborhood, and yesterday, the loudspeaker that reaches the entire town of Craig kept booming out, “This is a test of the emergency warning system. This is only a test.” Every time it sounded off Abner would look around to try to locate the source of the sound, and would also look for a place to hide where he would not be trapped when the owner of the voice came looking for him.

Last night, I had let him out to go be a cat, hopefully in my back yard and no one else’s, and he didn’t come back by the time I was ready for bed. I opened the various windows and doors, called, etc, but he was still not home when I went to bed.

Usually when he does this, we will find him the next morning poised to make a run for the front door as soon as someone opens it.

Not so this morning. I repeated my ritual summonings from the night before, to no avail. I went across the street to the trailer/apartments and checked each one. (He loves to visit all those places, and often sneaks in when no one is looking.) Again, no sign.

(My sister Mary hates that expression, “no sign” of him. She realizes that in the bad old days, a “sign” of a bear was probably a track or a poop. However, these days, either you see your cat, or your friend, or whoever, or you don’t.)

I digress.

Anyway, I wracked my brain. The night before I had heard no caterwauling, no pop of a pellet gun, no screeching of brakes. . .so he was probably fine. But where was he? Occasionally a charity group comes through to trap, neuter, and release (TNR) feral cats. They will immediately release a cat with a collar, but we haven’t gotten around to getting that collar. He is so handsome and sleek; I fear that the collar will detract from his looks. . .

I further digress. In any case, the TNR folks had left town several weeks prior, so that’s a non-issue. Had any of the neighbors been quietly glaring at me recently? Ah the rabbit hole of low-grade paranoia!

My husband, who was flying in from Ketchikan, called about then, and I followed through with my plan to pick him up at the float plane dock. I jumped in the car, started the engine. . .and noticed a movement at my right elbow. You guessed it. Abner, having spent the night in my car, and led by his cautious nose, was emerging from his hiding place. I recalled having gone outside before I went to bed to roll up the windows, thus trapping him inside. Why didn’t he speak up? He was obviously watching from the shadows as I sealed him in; perhaps he could have shouted, “For the love of god, Montressor!” or something of that ilk.

Anyway, he wouldn’t let me lift him out of the car. He crawled back under the seat, locked himself in with all twenty claws and maybe also his teeth, and wouldn’t budge until I opened the door all the way and backed off.

He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, so I won’t tease him.

**************

For your further edification:

Free spay neuter clinics that will come to you: Good Fix (greatergood.org)

There are about a million links for versions of the old song “The Cat Came Back”. Here’s one: The Cat Came Back – Camp Songs – Kids Songs – Children’s Songs by The Learning Station – YouTube

The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Cask of Amontillado, by Edgar Allan Poe