What We Found

It was getting near sunset this evening when I told Allen I was going to walk the trails in our field. He'd just taken the mower down there and they were fresh-cut. He decided to come along and so did the dogs.

About a third of the way down, we heard Uno, one of our cats wailing, trying to find us. We stopped and called to him and he came bounding to us through the weeds. He's just a beautiful black and white cat. He was just a kitten when we first moved here. We used to walk the field then, too, with his mother, an all black cat, and other strays that we adopted.

I picked Uno up and carried him, which is what he wanted. He frequently follows us to the mailbox for the same purpose. He will keep cutting in front of us until we give him a ride back to the house. He brother, Dozer, was like this, too.

Allen used to pick Dozer up and put him inside the hood of his jacket and carry him that way. Dozer has been dead a long time. He was killed out on our highway. So was their brother, Spotty. Uno and Stinky (his sister) are the only two left of a once-thriving family of cats.

The field is so beautiful right now. The white of the Queen Anne's lace has given way to yellows and purples. Once in a while, during our walk in the field, I'd have to shift Uno from one arm to another, as he's a pretty heavy cat. His claws would dig into me because he thought I was going to put him down. He didn't want that.

We were on the last leg of the trail when I looked down and saw something white, a skull. It was recently cracked, probably by the mower wheel. "What is it?" I asked Allen. But as soon as he turned it over, I knew.

"It's a cat," he said.

Two of ours had disappeared this summer.

Uno jumped from my arms and smelled the skull. Then he sat there next to it, looking. We started walking again but he stayed there. I turned frequently to look back at him. Each time I looked, I saw him sitting completely still, just looking the skull.

One of the cats that disappeared this summer was his mother.