Cat Breaking Free by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Page B

for hours after they were brought into this room and locked in here.
    But coming down the hills, flung about in the bouncing cage, they had seen clearly where they were going. They had recorded every scent, every change in the wind, had looked down on the village rooftops and the crowded hills on the north, and looked back at the hills from which they had come. They had learned about the house as they were carried through.
    The house had two bedrooms and a lower floor of some kind. At night she could hear Hernando and Dufio descending the stairs; she thought they slept down there. She hadn’t heard Hernando in a day or two, though. Alone down there, Dufio had been quiet, except for a TV. Dufio didn’t like cats, none of the men did, and that made their capture all the more frightening; they didn’t like to think what Hernando and Luis intended for them.
    Maria was kind to them, though, when her brother wasn’t around. She brought them nicer food and even milk sometimes. But she was afraid of Luis. Maria was, Willow thought, almost as much a prisoner as were they.
    Of course, they did not speak in front of Maria; they whispered among themselves only late at night, when they were certain that Maria and the old lady slept. Maria called her Abuela. Willow watched Maria sleeping now, and the calico cat was filled with questions about the young woman who seemed more Luis’s servant than his sister; questions she supposed would never be answered.
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    Maria woke when she heard the men come in. As usual, they were arguing. They always made a mess in the kitchen for her to clean up in the morning. She prayed their job had gone okay, so that Luis would be in a decent mood. Her arm and back were still black and blue from the last beating. To Luis she was property, not good for much.
    One of the cats was fussing around in its cage. She hated seeing those cats there, pacing like wild animals.She fed them through the bars. And when Luis unlocked the cage door so she could clean the sandbox, they always looked like they’d bolt. She didn’t know what would happen if they tried and Luis grabbed them. She had no idea why Luis and Hernando had trapped cats or what they meant to do with them. She’d heard them talking and whispering, but what they said didn’t make sense. Maybe Hernando had been drunk, or smoking a joint. She hated when he did that. But no cat could talk, that was what she’d thought Hernando said. And something about the cats knowing something, having seen something. Crazy talk, as crazy as Dufio, but in a mean way, not just dumb like Dufio.
    Maybe Luis was just doing what Hernando wanted; Luis treated his older brother with more respect than he treated poor Dufio. She wondered where Hernando was, gone so long. It angered Maria that Luis and Tommie had taken the big front room, Abuela’s room. That Luis made Abuela sleep back here with her and the stinking cage. She was, after all, his grandmother, and he should show respect.
    Until Maria came, Abuela had lived here alone. But after she fell twice, once tripping on the worn carpet, once on the stairs, she asked Maria to come live with her. She was afraid of breaking a hip, of lying there unable to call for help. Maria was her only granddaughter.
    Maria had been eager to get away from Luis. Estrella Nava was ninety-three; God knew she needed someone to take care of her. Maria had been so happy to be off by herself, to take the bus up from Irvine. But then, months later, Luis and their two brothers and Tommie McCord had decided to come here. Maria thought they were ditching the L.A. cops. They didn’task Abuela if they could come, they just moved in, greedy for the free rent and a new territory to make trouble.
    Well, at least Hernando had gone off somewhere with his noisy motorcycle. Luis didn’t look for him, so probably he was with a woman. And Dufio…Sometimes she thought Luis felt sorry for Dufio, because Dufio was so