I thought Cleo was dead. The night before Cleo came in to the house about four o’clock. She likes to play outside and four in the afternoon was a little early.
Sure enough, she got antsy and asked to go out again to play until it got dark. I let her out and, just before it got so dark I had to turn on the porch light, she reappeared.
“Come to bed, Cleo,” I said.
For some reason, instead of coming in to bed, she turned up her nose at my invitation. I called her several times but each time she ignored my call and strolled off. It got late. Still no Cleo appeared. Finally, staying up later than I should and past my bedtime with no Cleo, I went to bed.
She has stayed out a couple of times in good weather but she always apologized and came in for the night later afterward. This night and the next morning there was still no sign of the wayward creature.
By 10 o’clock, the morning of the following day, I was sure a skunk or a coyote had found Cleo and done her in. I expected to find her bones and a patch of gray fur somewhere in the field next spring.
Anyway, just on the chance she needed me and was stuck somewhere, I walked down to the garage, searched the corners, walked down to the barn and all the while I called her until the neighbors must have thought I had lost my mind.
Still no sign of that cat.
When, like me, you have a friend like Cleo, you get used to having them around. Cleo never talks to me much. I hold up our conversations usually and do all the talking. Still, she understands what I say. Over the year and a half we have known each other, she has become someone I depend on for good company.
With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach I walked out to the back pasture where my well is located.
The field to the well is in a grove of 20 oaks. I thought something might have scared Cleo enough she ran up the trunk of one of the trees. I saw myself hauling a ladder into the field to bring her down … but no Cleo was out there.
I had given up all hope of finding Cleo … or her corpse, and I had started back to the house. Ten steps from my well something prompted me to look behind me. There was Cleo sitting in the path fat and pleased with herself and looking not a bit guilty.
She was happy to see me, I think. I was glad to see her but I scolded her.
“Where the hell have you been?” I said.
By answer she ran ahead of me 50 feet or so and waited for me to catch up. I plod and she runs. She did the same thing again, repeating her odd move a dozen times all the way up the hill to my barn and then to the garage.
I finally figured out the reason for her strange behavior. Cleo was certain I was lost. She was showing me the way to go home. On top of all that, when I got to the house Cleo chose not to follow me into my bedroom. Having discovered that Cleo was still among the living and apparently in excellent health I ignored her failure to come in and be sociable.
A half hour later she appeared, gave me a perfunctory hello, had some kitty bits and climbed up into her bed of an old sweater on top of my cargo box of reference material that sits on top of the side dresser, and went to sleep.
She never did apologize.
When I gave her a goodnight pet she gave me a kitty kiss on my hand and said good night. I guess Cleo has finally grown up with a mind of her own.
Gene Paleno is an author and illustrator living in Witter Springs.
