After some time, I felt Big Kitten halt. I turned and looked at her. She was sitting down, regarding me with light-colored eyes. Though we were now far away from the angry men, I wanted to keep going, keep making progress toward Lucas. When I took a few steps and looked over my shoulder, she trotted a little bit in a slightly different direction, then stopped. She looked toward where she seemed to want to go, then turned to me with what felt like expectation.
Big Kitten was an afraid kitty. She needed my help. When I was in danger, Mother Cat protected me, and now I felt a powerful pull to protect this kitten.
She seemed to sense that I would follow her, so she moved off. I went after her, startled by how nimbly she could pick her way through rocks and other barriers.
Before long we came to a place under some trees that was heavily redolent with the scent of the large mother cat. And there was something else rising to my nose: blood and meat. Buried in the grass and dirt was the nearly intact remains of a deer, a deer with odors of the Big Kitten and the dead mother cat on it.
I did not understand any of this, but I knew I was hungry, and I greedily bit into the kill. After a time, making no noise at all, Big Kitten also began to feed.
*
That night, when I lay down on some grasses, Big Kitten came right up to me and sniffed my face. I licked her, which made her tense, but when I set my head down on the ground she relaxed very cautiously, still sniffing, exploring me up and down my length. I held myself motionless, allowing the examination. She began to purr, and I knew what she was going to do before she did it: rub the top of her head against me, just as my kitty siblings had done. Eventually she curled up against my side, and I felt the fear leave her body.
This was similar to sleeping with my head on Mack’s chest when we did Go to Work. I was providing comfort, not to a person, but to a baby kitten with a dead mother.
Lucas took care of cats. He fed them. I would look after this kitten.
I believed that this was something Lucas would want me to do.
*
Big Kitten and I spent several days with the kill, eating as much of it as we could. When we weren’t eating, we were playing. Big Kitten like to pounce on me and I liked to knock her on her back and mouth her head until she would twist and dash away. She also slept much of the day but was oddly alert and awake as the sun was going down and I was looking to curl up for the night. She would pad silently off into the trees and one time astonished me by returning with a small rodent that we shared.
When a restless urge to get moving overtook me, Big Kitten followed. She did not seem to like the human smells on the trail and preferred to slink along in what cover she could find, disappearing from view for large amounts of the day. I could smell her, though, and knew she was never too far away. When I could no longer precisely detect where she was, I would wait for her and eventually she would catch up.
I knew I would be able to cover more ground if I were not so concerned about Big Kitten’s welfare, but I felt compelled to make sure she was safe.
When we were just two days away from the kill site, I felt the hunger gnawing at my insides. I was concerned for Big Kitten—how would I feed her?
Late on the third day, I had stopped for water and decided to lie down and wait for Big Kitten to join me. She eventually emerged from behind some rocks a few moments after I smelled her hiding there. She lowered her head to the small pool, lapping silently. Cats apparently don’t enjoy drinking very much. A dog goes after water with elation, making lots of noise.
The scent of blood touched my nose and I lifted my head, startled. I began drooling and moved without hesitation toward the delicious fragrance. Big Kitten followed me but did not seem to smell what I smelled.
And then I saw a fox. It moved quietly but in its jaws carried a limp rabbit—the source of the blood. The fox seemed unaware I was behind it. It was running, but the weight of its kill slowed it down.
The fox saw me at the same time Big Kitten was alerted to its presence. For a moment all three of us were frozen. Then, with a surge of speed that surprised me, Big Kitten dashed forward. We both gave chase to the fox, but she swiftly pulled away from me. The fox leaped nimbly over fallen trees and abruptly changed direction, trying to get away. But Big Kitten was soon right on top of the fox, who dropped the rabbit and fled.
Big Kitten stopped her pursuit to sniff at the abandoned prey, and I joined her. We fed on the fox’s kill together, as if we were a pack, Big Kitten and I.
*
Hunger was with us constantly as we made our way toward Lucas. I knew this meant I needed humans, who had all the good food. Fortunately the summer seemed to be drawing people up into the mountains, and where they stopped, they would eat. I could easily follow my nose to these campsites, though Big Kitten shied away the moment she smelled people.
One day a family was sitting at a wooden table while a fire burned in a metal kettle held off the ground by thin legs. A man set a large piece of meat into this kettle, and the immediate explosion of cooking aroma nearly sent me into a swoon. The man turned toward the people at the table, not paying attention, and I bolted out of the woods, carefully snatched the meat without burning myself, and ran back. The only person to see me was a little baby in a plastic chair who kicked his legs but didn’t say anything.
I expected to feel like a bad dog, but I did not. I was hunting. I shared the meal with my kitten companion.
Another day a man was standing in a stream and on the shore was a sack full of wet fish. I picked up the whole bag. He did yell at me, not saying bad dog, but using words I did not understand yet nonetheless communicated a lot of anger. He also pursued me, his boots crunching the dirt and rocks. I could barely lift the satchel full of fish but I kept going, and eventually the man, panting, fell behind and then stopped. He was still yelling.
Big Kitten and I ate all of the fish.
Much of the time when my nose led me to people, they had departed from the area. I learned that the closer a picnic table was to a road, the more likely I would find a metal bin with food remains. I became very proficient at climbing in the barrel or knocking it over, picking through paper and plastic to retrieve the morsels people had left there. Often this meant leaving the trail far behind, hiding from cars until I came across someplace I could successfully scavenge. Big Kitten never accompanied me, but would be waiting when I returned.
The first time I was able to locate sandwich pieces in a bin, I gobbled them down, my starving belly making my decisions for me. I gorged on other foods, too, but did not locate anything to take back to Big Kitten.
When I approached her, feeling guilty, she came over and sniffed my mouth. Then she did something unexpected: she licked my lips, and after a moment I brought up a portion of what I had wolfed down.