Salvage Yard - Chapter 2

First Row: Skunky, Big Kitty and Dozer
Second Row: Orange Kitty, Raccoon and Chickadee, and Little Kitty
In Back: The Man

C h a p t e r   2

“Dozer? What does it mean?” asked Skunky.

“Honestly, I don't know,” said Dozer, “but he has a metal animal he calls his 'bulldozer'.” It is strong and can push a whole snow bank into the creek. So I think it means 'strong'.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Skunky.

“I know!” said Dozer pridefully.

“That is by FAR it the silliest thing I have EVER heard,” said a voice coming toward them from the woods. It was Orange Kitty. Dozer growled a bit, but then went back to smiling. “He named you after a metal animal? Animals should have animal names that fit what they are. Metal animals aren't even animals. They are machines and tools. Some make loud noises and move around but they are controlled by the man. And tools are the worst things there are....”

“Why would you say that?” Dozer asked, furrowing his big wrinkled brow.

“They are worse than boots. The man wears a boot on his foot, but his tools can take off OUR feet.” He sat down and they all looked at the part of his leg where his own foot had been taken off. “We'd be better off without the man and his tools.”

Skunky felt bad for Orange Kitty. He looked down at the ground.

But, Little Kitty looked up... “Shhhhh!” she said.

“Houah?!” Dozer blurted, cocking his head so fast he ear flipped over it.

“Listen...” said Little Kitty.

They all went silent.

A beautiful sound like a tiny flute played two notes, then waited, then played two notes again.

“Chickadee!” yelled Dozer. “She's back, she's back!”

“Who?” asked Skunky.

“Chickadee! She's my friend I met her last year. She is the wisest of all the animals. She will tell you things...”

“Things?” Skunky couldn't resist. And Orange Kitty rolled his eyes.

“She knows about the world. She has been outside the yard; WAY outside.” Dozer smiled and got up on his feet. He turned around and around in place, and wagged his tiny stub of a tail.

“Nothing more pathetic than an excited dog,” Orange Kitty grumbled.

“Ruff! Rufff! Waahooo! Chickadee, Chickadee!” Dozer ran over to the edge of the woods. “Chickadee??” He peered back at the others. “I hope she remembers me?”

“She sounds like a bird,” said Little Kitty. “And birds make eggs. And they're both...yum!”

“NO!” barked Dozer, “She isn't for eating and neither are her eggs!”

“Silly dog, all birds are for eating,” teased Orange Kitty.

In the trees there was a fluttering and the flute-like whistle. The two notes pierced the air again. They repeated, but none of the animals could see exactly where they were coming from. Soon though they realized it was in the southern direction.

The sun was almost to mid point in the day, so looking up toward the south was difficult. Shapes moved. Twigs moved. Was it the wind, or was it a bird? None of them could tell. The song was quite close now. Two notes, so skillfully played... and unlike other sounds that, when repeated, grow tiresome and boring, this one seemed brand new each time it was sung.

Then little kitty saw the bird first. “THERE! A flash of blue! Oh, I've eaten their eggs before. They are delicious; small enough that you don't even have to roll them around first...” She pointed her head at an old dead maple tree branch.

“NO, Little Kitty! Don't tease her. She is a wise, wise animal!” Dozer growled, under his breath.

Little Kitty wasn't hungry anyway. She had caught a mole earlier that morning, but she enjoyed teasing Dozer. “So you say...” She turned to Orange Kitty, who licked his lips and then winked, and she smiled back at him with her eyes.

Then the bird's song changed. And it came from a different direction. It was lower in pitch and almost as beautiful. Chickadee would sing her high song, and the echo would come back from behind this curious group as a slightly different song. The cats looked at each other.

The two cats looked intrigued.

Dozer, seeing this, said, “NO!!! That's her mate!”

“Gonna be hard to resist BOTH birds, Dozer,” said Orange Kitty, teasing the dog mercilessly.

Skunky giggled and laid down.

Then there was another sound in the woods. Like footfalls. All the animals stiffened. Chickadee flew down to the fence. “I'm not worried about cats. I have a protector, meet Raccoon,” she said.

Then, as if on cue, a very large raccoon walked out of the woods and stood in front of the group. Chickadee flew down and landed on his head.

The cats jumped back and hissed out of pure instinct. Skunky just laid there and smiled in his own way.

“Ha!” said Dozer, smiling wider.

“I have seen much and have much to tell you about the outside world,” claimed Chickadee as she rocked back and forth on the raccoon. Her mate finally caught up and landed above them on the fence.

The cats relaxed a bit, and Orange Kitty spoke up, “OK. We're listening...?”

Just then a call rang out from way up near the house at the front of the yard, “Dozer!!”

Dozer shook his head. “No! Oh...” he looked sad. “It's the man. I have to go. Oh....”

“Dozer!!!!!” yelled the man.

Dozer paced back and forth weighing his options. “I HAVE to go or he'll punish me...”

“It's OK Dozer,” reassured Chickadee, “I will be around for awhile. You come back as soon as you can and I'll tell you what I've learned since last year.”

Dozer pulled back his lips again into a brief smile, then galloped off toward the man's voice. “Dozer, you useless sack of bones!! Get up here!”

“I wonder where Big Kitty is?” pondered Little Kitty. “I haven't seen him for a couple of days. He'd enjoy all of this.”

“Just as well,” said Orange Kitty. “He'd only pick on me anyway.”

Skunky was getting very sleepy. He dreamily surveyed the yard for a nice place to take a long nap. He slowly rose to his little feet and yawned. “I...” he yawned again, “I'm gonna find a place to sleep for a while. Oh...” he looked at the bird on Raccoon's head. “Nice to meet you Chickadee I'm looking forward to your stories.” Then he waddled off behind the fence.

Chickadee's mate signaled that it was time to begin building their nest and Chickadee nodded her head. She flew up beside him on the fence. They touched beaks and then took off into the air.

Raccoon turned in silence and walked back into the woods.

“Alright,” said Orange Kitty, “I'm hungry, looking at that bird. I'm gonna go find myself a big fat vole.”

After he had shuffled off, only Little Kitty remained, reviewing all that had occurred in her mind. She was wanted a snack too, but she had a different plan. She rose and walked in the direction Dozer had gone.

When she got to the front yard she saw Dozer outside eating his food but now chained to his house. He growled and then smiled as she walked by.

In a well-practiced move, she stepped up onto a board that sat cockeyed against the back window of the man's house. In one fluid strike she jumped up over a bucket that sat precariously on the board and then up further onto the window sill of the house.

Inside the man was sitting at his table right in front of her. She'd watched him many times from this vantage point, eating his food. She knew the garbage was right out in back of the house. He kept it there until the morning. And she had frequently helped herself to his scraps.

He drank coffee from a mug and heavily clinked his plate with a fork as he devoured his bacon and eggs. There was a loud ringing—the phone. She jumped and then settled back on her perch.

“Yeah!” said the man grabbing the receiver. “Yeah we can do that. I'll give ya fifty bucks for it, IF what you do is worth it.” Glancing up he spied Little Kitty's black and white face pushed up against the glass of the back window. “Shoo!!!” he yelled at her. “No...no...” he said into the phone, “It's that cat in my window.”

Little Kitty was nonplussed, but her mouth was watering, wondering what he might put out back.

“OK, I'll see you around three PM...” he said into the phone. “Darn animals!” he shouted. “They're a bunch of lazy do-nothings! FREELOADAHS! They 'spect to get somethin' for nothin'!! OK, yah,” he looked back down at his plate while he spoke. “So, like I said, three PM? OK...” and he hung up the phone.

With a look that took her breath away for a moment, he pointed at her. “I'm gonna get ya cat...count on it!”

She jumped down off of the outside sill, and ran over to hide under the woodpile, waiting to see what he would leave in the garbage. But he never opened the back door.

Instead, she heard a door slam out front, and she hunkered down.

Around the corner he came with a large plastic box that had little bars on its side. He looked back and forth. He seemed to look right at her, but she realized he didn't see her nestled next to a large log.

Then he set about propping up the lid of the box with a stick that he tied a string to. He ran the string over to the back window of the house.

It was about noon and the air temperature was higher than she'd felt it in a long time. She loved it when spring would come. She couldn't remember how many springs she'd seen but they always meant that summer wouldn't be far behind. And summer was the easiest time of year. There would be plenty of voles, even the occasional mouse too. She watched the man doing strange things inside the house and almost became hypnotized by his movements.

He would trip over something and curse. Then he'd tie a knot and chuckle. Little Kitty hadn't the foggiest idea what he was up to. All she could think about was how nice it would be to have some of those eggs he had been enjoying.

He got done with his project and clapped his hands with a large smile on his face. He looked around. “Oh kitty? Little kitty???” came his voice outside. She heard the door close also in the front of the house again. She was surprised that he knew her name!

He marched back around the side of the house to the back with a plateful of leftover eggs.. Fascinated by this weird behavior, she decided to stick around for a few minutes more.

He placed them right inside the front of the plastic box, then turned and rushed back around to the front doorway. She heard that door slam a final time.

Could her luck be any better? Within moments she smelled the rich buttery fragrance of cooked eggs, and licked her chops. “Mmmmmmm.... I'm gonna eat well today.”

She thought it was odd to suddenly then see the man's face in the back window, with his eyes darting back and forth, scanning the yard.

But she knew he could not get out there fast enough to keep her from reaching those delicious eggs. So she slowly, painstakingly crept out from the woodpile. He immediately saw her and smiled.

The air was still and it was as if all the trees were holding their breaths. She crouched toward the plate of eggs with her tail down almost touching the ground. She made her way forward toward them, then stopped. There was warm sun on back and her stomach growled...

Ever so slowly she inched forward, all the while looking at the man in the window then back at the eggs. He just sat there and smiled.

Something seemed out of place somehow, but she couldn't put her paw on it. She went down through the list of things that could go wrong, but only smelled eggs at the end of that list. Boldly she stood up and simply walked to the plate. She rested on her stomach and began to eat the eggs.

They were delicious; everything she had wanted. Her appetite grew stronger as the taste permeated her senses. She closed her eyes and enjoyed every bite. As she worked her way around the dish, she had to step up and inside the box, and that's when it happened.

SLAM!

The lid came down in front of her face so fast that she jumped back. She swiveled around expecting somehow to run out the back of the box, but it was a solid wall of plastic.

Panic poured out into her consciousness. How could she have been so stupid? The man had laid a trap! And she fell for it! No egg was worth this. In a moment of desperate reflection, she realized it would have been better to be free and hungry than to be trapped and well-fed.

She heard the man's boots approaching in the muddy, snowy grass. She cried out as loud as she could. She hissed and spit. When he bent down to look into the box she charged at him but ran up against the little bars on the lid.

About twenty feet away, Orange Kitty ran up and hid next to a pile of metal to see what was going on. He realized immediately that Little Kitty was in BIG trouble. Why would the man do this? Yes, he'd chased the cats away before. He'd even made a big sound from a shiny stick pointed up in the air, but a trap? Never.

Little Kitty whined and cried. But Orange Kitty could do nothing. He sank down on his stomach and just watched.

The man cut the string that had been attached to the back window with his knife and lifted up the box by the handle on top. He went around the corner of the house.

Orange Kitty ran as fast as his three legs would propel him up to where the box had been. He faintly smelled the eggs, and shook his head. Being careful with his timing, he then ran up to the foundation of the house peaked around and corner.

The front door slammed and Orange Kitty saw that the man had left the box with Little Kitty right on the front porch. He got up his courage and made his way up to the lid.

Inside, Little Kitty was shaking with fear and balled up against the back of the box. “You're trapped!” said Orange Kitty.

“Yeah! I know.” Little Kitty looked even smaller than usual.

“I don't know what to do.” Orange Kitty came up close to the little bars.

“I don't either,” she said.

“I'll bet that Raccoon could get you out, he has hands just like the man.”

There was a loud stomp inside the house. But Orange Kitty was brave and he only shrunk back for a moment and then came back to the box. Little Kitty walked up to the front of the inside space and looked directly at Orange Kitty. “I...I can't eeeeven think.”

“I'll do what I can,” said Orange Kitty, and after looking back and forth, he disappeared back around the corner into the back yard.

“Tthankk you...” Little Kitty said softly to herself.