Downy earth and pinecones flowered the boy’s nostrils with piquant sweetness, and the impulse of youth beckoned him to stop and scratch his initials into a spongy pile of maple fruits with his walking stick. His companion, the cat, as black as a moonless night, was impelled also by the nature of youth to spring into the seeds and make his own signature, a rampant flurry of swishes and whorls which sent many of the winged fruits sailing skyward then slowly down again as their angelic rotors twirled against the spring air. The boy giggled and sat on his heels, peering down into the pile of seeds and leaves that now covered the cat, seeing nothing more than yellow eyes, black pupils set ablaze with playful madness. He rose quickly in the spirit of the game and skipped further down the path, dragging the stick behind him to taunt the cat into giving chase, which he did. The boy let loose an unrestrained squeal as his companion lurched forward and pawed the stick’s point until the moment settled again into calm and they continued their walk along the riverside.
“I like you, cat,” said the boy.
He remembered something once learned in school. “Mrs. Warren read us a po’m. It was by a man with a mustache and real skinny. It was about a bird…naw, hang on.” His memory jostled the pieces together. “It was another story by the same fella about a cat. Like you.” He thrust his memory further. “I think I’ll call you by his name. His name was Ed. But I like his other name better. You’ll be Poe.”
His lips crafted a smile and he was satisfied that they would be lifelong friends now that he had christened the cat with a name. Poe wandered into the thicket of grass along the path and fell behind as he hurdled over fallen branches and maneuvered around stones and uneven ground. The boy gained distance but slowed before he hiked too far ahead. He ventured back only when Poe, transfixed, began batting at a Black Widow crawling over an arching blade of grass.
“Chkt! Chkt!” The boy sucked air through his teeth to gain the cat’s attention. “Naw, don’t mess with her, Poe! She’ll take the light right outta your day!” He waved his hand and patted his knee. “C’mon, boy! Come with me!”
Poe leaped out of the tall grass and obediently followed, solidifying their companionship. They had met only hours before, when the cat had found the napping boy under the great honey locust and raided his exposed kerchief of wild raspberries. The boy was rescued from dreams by the sandpaper tongue of a stranger, stained with the juices of berries devoured, and was not upset to find his lunch gone despite his waking hunger. He was a sucker for congenial animals as aging young women are suckers for the newborn babes of others, and his belly could be sated by any number of resources growing along his path, so he offered his fingers in friendship and was pleased to see the cat scrape them clean with his course tongue. Poe had closed his eyes and purred comfortably as he worked and the boy was pleasantly distracted from the memory of dreams.
They approached a dock of slipshod craftsmanship jutting into the river’s flow and saw a young man balancing himself on the rickety boards, lowering a rusted pail and tape-sutured fishing pole into a rowboat. The boy and his cat slowed their pace and the boy called out, “Ha’dy!” The young man spun about on the dock, startled, and cried out when his bare foot received the jagged end of a splinter standing erect from a two-by-four. He cursed and took hold of a crooked dock post to balance himself while he examined the wound.
The boy felt rotten that his simple greeting had caused such pain. “Aww, Mister, I’m awful sorry. Di’n’t mean to scare you like that!” He took a step onto the dock and was welcomed with an ancient groan and a shift in alignment as the boards reacted to the new weight requesting support. The rotten wood was precariously close to collapse, and the boy immediately retreated. The young man must have known precisely where to step in order to avoid being thrown into the river.
The young man registered the words but did not look up. He pulled the splinter, just shy of two inches in length, from the fleshy base of his foot and threw it into the water. He then lowered his injured foot into the river to be cleansed, contorting his body slightly while carefully balancing against the post on the dock’s edge. Only then did he raise his eyes to meet those of the boy, his glare swelling with contempt.
The boy was made frightened by the fire breathing at him and he turned to run. “Sorry!” his conscience shouted at the young man’s disdain, and he was off, his feet padding swiftly against the powdered earth of the trail. He ran tirelessly, swerving to avoid the many barriers of the forest and bounding over some, until his mind returned and his nerve cooled. He slowed his pace to a skip and realized he had lost Poe in his flurry to escape. Looking back, he saw nothing, and he became worried.
“Poe!” he hollered at the trees behind. “You there, boy?” Saying this, he became aware that he wasn’t rightly sure whether the cat was indeed a boy. Sure he is, he thought. He is because I want him to be.
The boy called out his name once more, then the muscles of his belly relaxed as the cat rounded a corner and ran to him. The boy scooped him up and cradled him in his hug while the cat purred and fervently licked the sweat from his forehead. “Ooh, Poe!” the boy said. “I’m glad to see you, too.”
As they continued along the path and allowed their hearts to settle, the boy felt a need to explain himself. “I like people, don’t let that runnin’ fool you,” he said. “It’s just sometime folks get weird an’ all, like they’s different from everybody else.” They came upon a stick, thick and clean and straight. The boy didn’t know where he had lost his old walking stick, probably sometime during the run, but he felt this would make a superior replacement. He snatched it up and continued, “I seen folks do silly things, yessir, like they wasn’t people almost. Like they wasn’t just like you an’ me. I guess that’s what makes ‘em human, sure ‘nuff.”
Ahead, two squirrels scuttered across the path playfully and hugged the trunk of a leaning Mulberry. In an instant, Poe crouched close to the ground, the fur on his back raised, his tail frantically brushing the pine behind him like an overworked metronome. He approached the Mulberry as a hunter, his eyes never blinking nor leaving his prey. The squirrels remained still and hung firmly to the base of the tree. The boy saw what was happening and stopped.
“See, just like that, what you’re doing there.” He wagged his finger at the squirrels. “Why you gotta go after them critters? What is it makes you do that?” Poe paid his friend no mind and leaned back against his legs, his body rocking back and forth as his rear claws dug into the earth and prepared to pounce. The boy thought to crack his stick against the ground to distract the cat and send a warning to the squirrels, but he thought better and decided to watch nature act.
The muscles in his legs sprung and Poe shot toward the tree like a round from a carbine. The squirrels had little time to react and soon the cat had the cottonwood tail of one in his grasp. The trapped squirrel bleated fiercely in protest yet held steadfast to the trunk. Poe freed a paw and swung it three times in rapid succession, hitting the squirrel in the side. His mouth was open and ready to strike, ears pinned back to his head. The other squirrel appeared from around the trunk of the tree, its claws loudly scraping the bark as it charged at Poe. It was enough distraction to allow the cat’s prey to escape and scurry with his companion far up the tree until they were hidden by a multitude of broad branches and leaves. Undaunted, Poe’s claws dug into the pockmarked bark and attempted to lift his body up in pursuit. He managed to climb several inches along the leaning tree before physics played against him and failure dawned. He hung to the side, stuck, caught between humility and shame, and exhaled loudly.
His friend was there, lifting his body up gently to relieve the pressure from his claws until they disjoined from the bark, then he was lying comfortably in the arms of the boy, his disheveled fur being smoothed down by light caresses. “That’s okay, Poe,” said the boy. “You done great. Fought just like a pro.”
He kissed the cat’s forehead and relished the sound of the polyphonic purr as it crept slowly from the music box of Poe’s affection.
Later, as the sun loomed over the treetops and threatened darkness, the pair stopped while the boy crouched by the river and gathered water in his cupped hands. He offered it first to the cat and Poe lapped it down, his tongue lashing and curling and back again, three licks, pause, four licks, pause, until he was nourished. Then the boy took some for himself, four handfuls, washing down his supper of apples, and they continued their walk.
“Where would you like to go, kitty?” asked the boy. “Of all the places you ever knew, where would you best like to visit? I guess I should say, of all the places you ever been to, where’d you like to go back? I don’ suppose you know of places you haven’t been.” Or maybe he did, thought the boy. He didn’t know what went on in the mind of a cat and was not prepared to assume.
“I always wanted to go to Californ’a. Mrs. Warren said they had gold there and that folks just went there and picked it right up outta the ground. Holy handbaskets, can you believe it? They just find it lyin’ around in the hills, and nobody there to say they had to give it back.” The boy grinned at the notion. “You could shine it up and keep a pocketful an’ take it into town an’ buy whatever you want and never have to worry ‘bout nothin’! And folks would leave you alone an’ not bother you one bit…they’d like you no matter who you were. Yeah, I wanna go to Californ’a, yessir-ee. We’ll make it someday, you watch. You an’ me.”
Running footsteps approached from the path behind, and the boy looked back to see five young men jogging along. The boy picked Poe up and stepped aside to let them pass.
As they neared, the group of young men started hooting and hollering, jumping and skipping, until they came upon the boy and his cat and stopped. They panted and walked in circles while their hearts recovered. They seemed quite rambunctious and one of them shouted, possibly louder than intended, “Found you, boy!”
The others echoed his sentiment with shouts and whoops.
The boy recognized one of them as the young man from the dock. “Say, it’s you!” he said. “Mister, I sure am sorry about spooking you earlier on—“
“You’re the one who’s spooked, boy!” came the reply. The others laughed, their faces beaming with excitement.
The boy was confused and felt uneasy. He held Poe tighter. “You fellers want a apple?” He reached for his pocket. “I got a extra one here—“
“Shut your mouth, nigger!” said a tall one.
“Boy, you got a knife to cut that apple?” said another one with choppy, uneven hair.
The boy began to tremble. He couldn’t help it. He shook his head and said, “I just eat ‘em whole.”
“Well hang on, I think I might have one for you!” The young man patted down the pockets of his coveralls. “Fellas, I ain’t seem to got mine on me. Any you got a knife on ‘ya?”
The others danced and sang at the invitation. They were riled, sure enough. A redheaded boy with freckles over his nose drew a folding blade from his chest pocket and opened it.
“Sure, I got one!” He handed it to the one from the dock.
“Jus’ look at ‘em, a nigger boy and his nigger cat!” The group really howled at that one.
The boy fought to find his voice, and finally he said, “Really, I din’ mean for you to get that wood in your foot. We passed by some blackberry bushes a little while back, I can go get some for you fellas an’ bring ‘em back!” He said it with great earnest. He thought that abandoning his walking stick to the ground would also appear to be an act of goodwill, so he did.
The young man from the dock slapped the shoulder of his tall friend. “Get me som’a that rope, would’ja?” The tall one reached in a knapsack hanging across his chest and pulled out a cord of hemp. The redhead handed over the pocketknife and he cut a piece off and handed it over.
“Hold ‘im,” said the one from the dock.
Three of them crowded the boy and took his arms. The redhead grabbed Poe by the scruff of his neck and yanked him from the boy’s grasp as the other two pulled the boy’s hands back. Poe madly twisted his head around in a futile attempt to bite the offending hand. The claws of his flailing right paw did make contact with the young man’s arm and dug deep into the flesh. The redhead reacted and let go his grasp, and Poe’s weight brought him down, his buried claws dragging thick red cuts through the arm of his attacker until the cat fell to the ground. The wounded young man cried in pain and kicked at Poe and missed. Poe countered by wrapping his claws around the young man’s ankles and sinking his teeth into the soft tissue around his heel. Again, the redhead cried out and kicked the cat, this time sending Poe flying into a cluster of palmetto plants across the path.
Hurt, Poe did not return to attack. He sat, hidden by the leaves, and watched.
Two held the boy’s hands back and the young man from the dock tied them with enthusiasm enough to cut off the flow of blood. The boy looked pleadingly at the redhead, whose arm was dripping blood onto the ground.
“Please, Mister,” said the boy, his eyes hurt and leaking water, “don’ hurt my friend. He was only tryin’ to help me. He di’n mean nothin’.” He looked around to the young man from the dock. “You can do what you will with me, but don’ hurt my cat. Please.”
The one from the dock snapped his fingers and waved to his tall friend, who came over and handed him the full cord of rope. The others took the signal and became quiet. Working expertly, they soon had the rope tied in a knot around the boy’s neck. The fifth young man, who had remained silent throughout, stood passively close and watched.
The one with the choppy hair grabbed the loose end of the rope and wrapped it around his knuckles. The tall one joined him as the redhead and the young man from the dock raised the boy and carried him to the river’s edge. The boy did not protest, for he knew it was futile.
They threw the boy into the river and the tide carried him until the rope pulled taught. He had never learned to swim and bounced gracelessly through the flow. The cool evening water did little to soothe the rope’s burning hold.
Poe darted out from under the brush and went to the river. He hesitated, putting his paw out to test the water. The redheaded young man bent over and grabbed Poe with both hands and threw him roughly in. Poe submerged for a moment, then managed to get his head above water and soon had been carried by the gentle current to the boy, who still flapped awkwardly against the tide.
Poe’s paw found the boy’s hand and for an instant they touched, until the river carried the cat away and the two friends were together no more.
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