Cat Pay the Devil by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Author:Shirley Rousseau Murphy [Shirley Rousseau Murphy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780061740183
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

21

When Cage Jones grabbed Charlie Harper, the only witness was the white cat—the only witness who could speak of what he had seen in the alleyway and behind the Harper stables. The other animals could not.

It had taken more courage than Cotton thought he possessed to go to that ranch seeking out the tall redheaded woman and ask her for help for the captive human. He had never in his life approached humans except to steal their food in the back alleys where his clowder had sometimes traveled.

But he had once seen Kit speak with the redheaded woman, and that lady had seemed gentle and respectful of his kind, so he’d thought maybe it would be all right. He had heard her promise that if ever his small, wild band should need help, she would come. Cotton remembered.

But now the redheaded lady needed help, perhaps to save her life.

Approaching the ranch, three times he had nearly turned back. But at last, shivering and ducking away from nothing, he had come down through the woods, avoiding the bridle trail, not wanting even to leave paw prints.

When he slipped into the stable, the horses had stared over their stalls at him with only mild interest, but the two big dogs in their closed stall had huffed and sniffed under the door, then had barked and kept barking, and in a moment he heard the door of the house open. When he looked out of the stable, redheaded Charlie Harper was coming across the yard to see what they were barking at. He’d tried to steel himself to speak to her, but he was so frightened he had ducked into the stall that held saddles, shivering, not daring even to peer out—and the next moment he was filled with guilt because his presence had brought her there.

He’d heard a vehicle approach from behind the barn where there was no road, only a horse trail. Little rocks crunching under its wheels. The dogs were barking too loudly for Charlie Harper to hear it stop quietly beyond the closed back door. But Cotton had slipped out of the saddle room’s open window and around to the back, along the side of the barn, concealing himself among the bushes as best he could considering that he was blindingly white and seldom able to hide very well.

Peering around the corner of the barn, he’d watched two men step out of an old rusty vehicle. It was the same strange, rusty car that had been near the house up in the woods beyond the ruins, where the silver-haired woman was tied up.

And these were the same two men he’d seen there, the one bulky as a bull, the other, thin with long brown hair. The two men stank the same, too. Sour sweat, and the whiskey humans drank; Cotton drew back in the bushes as they slipped around the building to the front, where the big doors stood open. Cotton followed.

The minute they saw Charlie in the stable

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