Angel's Anguish

This is a slice of my novel: Tales From the Green, a fantasy based on the amazing souls we encountered during our years of animal rescue work.

Angel crept through tall grass toward a wooden pallet where she'd hidden her kits. Shiny black spiders with red hourglasses on their bellies stood guard, swaggering along the mildewed planks repelling human hands. Angel trilled and three little faces appeared. Now six weeks old, every one of them had a full belly, felt loved and safe, and knew the price of disobedience. They wouldn't dare leave the nest without the permission she'd just given. Angel was a good mother.

Her own life had been hard; she'd barely finished her milk-feeding when her own mother was taken. Her father, she never knew. Surviving by wit and caution, she froze or fled with every sound, scent, or change in the wind. She taught herself to hunt and to forage in dumpsters, how to hide, how to build a nest, how to insulate it against the cold with whatever was available. She became a master opportunist and she survived. As seasons passed, Angel birthed many litters, but she never forgot her first, born when she was hardly more than a kit herself. Somehow she managed to feed and protect them.

Angel was tough, and she was smart, but life on the streets was dangerous. Without a home or human to protect her, she was fair game for the stupid and cruel. Hit by stones, chased by predators, she'd been wounded more than once. She'd fallen ill with nothing to save her but her will to survive. To Angel, Death was a trickster. Brushing her whiskers with a bony paw, it had gathered many loved ones and left her breathing. Angel had danced beneath seventy-two brightmoons, but since she'd lost her friend and mate to the latest sweep of the White Truck, she'd had enough. She was tired of being hungry, cold and frightened, tired of running, tired of hiding. She'd run from the leatherboots for as long as she could remember and she'd be running until she couldn't. To the uprights being homeless was a crime and death the only punishment.

So after a romp to stretch their legs, she herded her litter back under the pallet. Other than the babies and her cousin Long Claw, Angel was now alone. And thinking on Long Claw, she wasn't surprised when he slipped into their shelter, green eyes glittering. “We have to leave,” he whispered, fear scent rolling off his gray and white pelt.

“Why?”

“A tall-one, the heavy female with mean eyes stalks the alley. She's shining a light into the sheds, looking for your kits. I'm sure of it!”

“What have we done to her? Why, Long Claw, why do they hate us?”

“I don't know, but we need to leave. It's not safe here anymore.” Long Claw knew uprooting a queen from her snuggery was difficult at best. He licked Angel's paws with pleading eyes.

“When?” She asked.

“Tonight, after sunfall.”

“What about the provider?”

“What about her?”

“I don’t want to lose her.”

“Maybe she’ll find us.”

“No, she won’t.” Angel bathed each of her nursing kits, then stared into her cousin's sad eyes. Lying on her side, brushing her babies with a slow tail, she was content. “I’m not leaving,” she declared and realizing his pleas were futile, Long Claw left. It pained Angel to deny him, but losing the provider would be worse. She'd endured too much hunger to abandon a food source at the first sign of danger. She washed her kits again, then curled around them and dozed.

At sunfall, Angel again let her brood out to play. They stalked one another through the weeds and chased their mother's waving tail. She cherished her children's joy, dreading the days of bittercold when hunger came daily and beetles and worms and skinny birds became great swag in their haunted eyes. They couldn't lose the provider. They just couldn't.

Gravel crunched beneath heavy wheels, pulling Angel from her thoughts. She leaped to her paws. The kits raced to their mother and were ushered beneath the pallet as doors slammed and leatherboots stomped along the other side of the fence. Long Claw squeezed beneath a weathered post, scuttling toward them with fearful eyes.

“White Truck!” he hissed, as he and Angel slipped into the nest, peering between blades of grass at the gate. It creaked open and two tall-walkers entered the yard. One was heavy and red-faced with small, cruel eyes. He held the pain stick that sent shocks through your body when it touched you. The other, tall and thin, carried a net on a long pole. They were leatherboots wearing leather gloves, the most dangerous breed of men.

“Is that where she said the nest was, Mr. Bleggs?” the thin one asked, showing deference with tone and body language toward the alpha male.

“Shut up already, Wilson. You're gonna scare 'em off.” They advanced, the thick one grunting as he reached for the pallet, aiming the pain stick with his other arm. The tall one stood to the side and readied his net. Long Claw pushed Angel behind him and unsheathed his claws. With felid instinct, he focused on Bleggs' pulsing carotid. Hissing like a snake, he tensed for attack. I'll die with this furless fatty's flesh on my fangs but Angel and the babies will escape.

A shriek split the air. The uprights turned, staring as if frozen through the open gate at Gentleman Jim perched on the hood of the White Truck, his body swaying side to side. His head trembling violently, his eyes rolled into his skull as he yowled again and again, raising furrows of paint as he kneaded the hood's shiny surface.

This agitated both men greatly. “What the fur fly” Bleggs cursed and forgetting the cats trapped beneath the pallet, both men bounded toward Jim.

“Yeeeeee-ooooow-wow-wow-wooooow-yeeeooww,” the crazed cat wailed. Wilson slammed his net on nothing as Jim tumbled off the far side of the truck. Despite his infected leg, he raced down the alley ahead of the leatherboots while Angel and Long Claw scurried from the nest and out the gate, kits dangling from their jaws. The largest kit was forced to run on his own, but fear made him strong. The fugitives put a safe distance between themselves and the humans before they checked on Gentleman Jim who sat with his rump against the last fence, all signs of frenzy gone. When Bleggs and Wilson rushed him, he didn't run. He merely stared at Bleggs and the pain stick he'd raised to shock him.

“Wait!” Wilson yelled.

“Are you crazy? He'll escape!”

Jim embraced them with soft eyes and Bleggs lowered his weapon.

“What's that sound?”

“He's purring,” Wilson whispered, laying his net on the ground. He lifted the bony tomcat into his arms, careful of his festering leg.

Bleggs watched as Wilson stroked Jim's head and under his chin with gentle fingers. “He's real skinny, boss,” Wilson said, surprised when Jim's fur compacted beneath his hands and his skin slid loose along his bones. He cooed to the broken stray, who purred, loud and ragged before settling into a steady rumble of contentment. Years of struggle had carved a bitter grimace into the cat's expression, but the warmth of Wilson's hands erased those lines. Love was the gift that eased his suffering, and Jim forgave the humans who had betrayed him. He raised his forepaw to Wilson's cheek, then closed his eyes. His purr faded. Jim left the world that didn't want him, loved again at last.

The tall man carried Jim to the truck, wrapped him in a towel as if he were sleeping and held him in his lap. He turned to the window so Bleggs couldn't see his grief. He'd experienced worse in the two years they'd been working together, but Jim had touched his heart.

“We screwed up, losing those ferals,” Bleggs said, glancing at the towel. “Didn't lose this one though,” he chuckled, reaching for it. “I'll incinerate it.”

Like a mother cat protecting her kit, Wilson's hand batted Bleggs away and he pulled Jim's body closer. “He's not an it and I'll take care of him,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “…sir,” he added. A moment passed in silence, then by way of apology, “I have a big backyard.” Bleggs didn't respond. They both knew what Wilson proposed was against the rules.

No matter, Bleggs told himself. There's rules I don't like much either. “I always knew you were a softy.” He paused, then, “I guess it's all right to do a favor.” The word 'favor' told Wilson one would be expected in return. He didn't care, not now, and Bleggs said nothing else.

The years of loneliness and hunger faded away. Jim felt no pain. He padded beside a stream through a meadow of nip surrounded by trees. Bending over the water, he saw the reflection of a youngling with sleek fur and strong muscles. Great Mother lowered her massive paw and lifted him to her azure eyes.

“Welcome, my beloved. I name you Radiance, for that is your true nature. Here you will know only joy.” Radiance stood in fragrant grasses, his back warmed by sunlight. In the distance, he spied friends from long ago.

Angel and Long Claw loped down alley after alley until the scent of the leatherboots faded. They followed a two-lane road that twisted down a hill, ending in a metal fence and locked gate. Creeping along the fence, they found a skunk-hole and slipped into a field of thistles and foxtails. Angel's largest kit, Cloud, spied a creek. Bending his taupe head for a drink, he jerked away in fear. The water smelled unnatural and left a rainbow slick on stones. Angel and Long Claw, still holding the smaller kits in their jaws, made for the center of the field where a strip of asphalt lay littered with rusting cars. Beyond that, rising from the weeds like an open mouth, was a cave of broken glass and concrete, a skull with teeth of dangling cables and metal gears and a conveyor belt tongue. Farther in, iron stairs ending nowhere rose into space like unfinished thoughts hanging over machines on the floor. Pieces and parts lay oddly about as if dropped when humans suddenly departed. Coffee cups, overflowing with rainwater warped the desks beneath them and open boxes of papers had turned to moldy mush. The cavern felt ominous, as if life had been erased mid-sentence; the uprights dissolved where they stood.

Windows ran the length of the building, their metal frames leaking rivulets of rust down the stucco outside. Inside, cubbyholes lined the walls, some with wooden partitions and doors with windows of milky glass. Some were just splinters and shards on the floor. Long Claw felt certain the building was haunted. He wanted to leave but exhaustion won. Dropping the kits into a dry box they found beneath a desk in a cubbyhole near the entrance, Angel climbed into the makeshift snuggery and nursed her babies to sleep.

“This land is wounded,” Long Claw moaned. “It's not safe. That's why the tall-walkers left.”

“We won't stay long and perhaps the haunting will keep others away.”

“Evidently not,” Long Claw rasped, scruff rising as the scent of dog filled their noses. “I'll check.” Angel huddled over her kits, agitated until her cousin returned. “The barker's gone,” he assured her, settling wearily on his belly. “But it might return. Maybe it lives here.”

“I doubt that,” she meowed, curling around her babies' warmth. Angel slept as soundly as they did and didn't wake moonlight peeked through a gap in the roof and shone upon her face. Looking at her sleeping cousin, she felt uneasy. Long Claw's right about this place. We can't stay. But she was hungry now. She slunk into the field where she found several mouse holes in a patch of dirt and settled nearby. Soon a little creature crept out to forage in his bright and shadowy world. Angel killed it with a single blow, then ate it in two bites.

She crouched over a new hole. That's when she smelled the dog. Overwhelming, unmistakable, stinking foul feral dog! Angel whirled around to fetid breath and vicious yellow eyes. Yowling with terror, she twisted 180° mid-air, hurtled across the field, jumped the stream and rocketed toward the hole in the fence, the hound right behind her. She dove and he lunged, growling and snapping. Fierce pain! Her tail caught in his vice-like jaws, he shook and pulled until Angel began sliding backward through the hole. If he got her back in his mouth she would die. Hooking her front claws firmly into the earth, Angel kicked with her hind legs, Dirt flew into his eyes. The demon-dog jerked backward and Angel's vertebrae snapped, delivering fur, skin and bones into his mouth. He released her, choking, spitting her parts. But he didn't give up. Digging out the hole, he squeezed through the fence, now several heartbeats behind. Angel ran for her life, screeching with pain.

Faster! They streaked into the maze of human dens. She cleared bushes, boxes and bikes, dodged hedges and cars, streaking down the center of the street. Angel lunged forward, faster, then faster, and still the thud of his paws, the click of his nails, his sweat-stink and foaming jowls came ever closer, his growling louder than her pounding heart. Faster! Her paws no longer touched the ground and the world flew by in a blur but the creature would not relent.

Then Angel saw the fence. Bursting ahead, she leaped. Up, up, up, she climbed the linked chains until she danced along the top. Whang! Monster-dog slammed into it, tossing Angel into the air. But Great Mother thrust out Her Paw and Angel fell to the far side, landing in a cushion of weeds. Whang! The galvanized steel sang as the frenzied beast threw himself against it. Whang! Again. Whang! Angel lay with her heart pounding, too exhausted to move. The fence held.

At last the hound realized he couldn't reach her. He barked furiously, then whipped around and ran off. Angel worried he'd find another way to get to her, so she roused herself and limped away. She climbed a myrtlewood still in bloom, pressing her nose into its blossoms to soothe her racing heart. Finally her breathing calmed, and she felt confident enough to leave the tree. Angel loped down the center of the road, looking for a safe place to rest.

Into a yard, down a pathway of smooth stones, Angel climbed the porch steps, opening her mouth to taste the air. A faded scent marker near the door told her kin once lived here; now she sensed tall-walkers inside, dreaming in their snuggeries. From the porch roof hung a swing. Angel crawled behind the bottom cushion, covering herself with the top. She closed her eyes, grateful to be alive. There's a reason I'm spared, she told herself as she slipped into a dream.

Morning came long before sleep had healed her. Laughter and squeals come from the house. With huge eyes Angel peered from behind the cushions as human kits burst through the door and scampered down the walk to the corner. A huge yellow monster rolled to a squealing stop, opening its mouth with a belch and a hiss. Angel watched it swallow them whole and roar away. A big daddy lurched from the house, climbed into a small car, made it purr and left. Angel sensed the mother was still inside. As they tend to be kinder, she relaxed, permitting herself to rest on the pillow rather than behind it while she licked dried blood from her tail. The wound was clean, snapped off, not shredded, and would heal. Her lovely appendage was shorter by a third, but it would heal. She realized her teats were taut with milk, and the needs of her babies filled her thoughts. Angel leaped to the porch just as the door opened again. She and the tall-ones' mother faced each other, both surprised.

“Well, who are you?” the woman chirped. Neither moved. She saw Angel's tail and gasped. “Are you all right, baby? What happened to you?” Crouching and reaching with an open palm, Angel sensed she meant no harm, but almost nothing is as dangerous as letting a two-legged touch you. Anything could happen. Angel leaped from the porch and ran.

All night she had dreamed Long Claw kept her babies safe, but he couldn't feed them. She must hurry back. What if the hell-hound returned to the field? Angel ran faster. No! Why should he? She resumed a less strenuous trot. What if he wanted revenge for my escape? She quickened her pace again. That's crazy. He doesn't know my babies are hidden in the building. Yes, but he can sniff them out. Perhaps he hunts there. What if he does live there! Heart pounding, the anxious mother bolted toward the field.

Angel slid through the skunk hole, hurtling toward the hulking shell of stained stucco and broken glass. She froze before a swath of broken, beaten down grass splattered with blood. Violence hung in the air. Trembling, Angel moved on, parting tall blades with her muzzle. She found the dog dead, his chest gashed and neck ripped open. It was his blood that had sprayed the weeds. Then she spied Long Claw on the asphalt. Facing the entrance belly to the ground, his rear legs tucked beneath him, his arms stretched before him like a Spinx. But his eyes were lifeless and his body already cold. He had battled the beast and won, then died from his wounds while guarding her kits. Angel sank to the earth, overwhelmed with sorrow. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, threw back her head and keened.

Little mews answered her wail. Cloud bounded to his mother purring like an engine, the other two close behind. Angel licked their small faces in a frenzy of joy. She led them to their box and nursed, trilling her gratitude. Long Claw had saved them. She would sing his greatness every brightmoon for as long as she lived.

Once the kits slept, Angel left to feed herself. She caught a mouse, quickly ate her kill, then searched the field for herbs to honor Long Claw. His favorites, chamomile and valerian, she dropped around his face. She placed sweetgrass along the sides of his body. She called to her kits and they came.

“The Great Life wastes nothing,” she told them. “All is transformed. Long Claw’s life in this body is finished and the light he emitted has moved on. This body is empty now, a meal for beetles and worms, for Great Mother loves all her creatures.”

Cloud shuffled his paws, gazing sadly at the stiffened shell that had been Long Claw. “I don't remember a life before this one, mother.”

“Nor do I, but I've had glimpses of Spirit. I believe this, son.”

Angel sang the Song of Loss, followed by a poem she dreamed while gathering the herbs.

Long Claw Fearsome, claw and fang,

He gave his life for mine.

Then leaped so high he caught a star

And left this world behind.

Long Claw Mighty, pure and brave,

Now plays in Fields of Nip.

The sacrifice he freely gave,

Beloveds shall not forget.

Long live Long Claw! Long live he

Who gave his final breath,

Long live Long Claw! Hero he

His light shines even in death.

The kits clambered back into their box and dozed. Angel remained near her cousin. She had a troubling dream. The female tall-walker who'd caused so many deaths in the alley walked with a light and a stick, poking in trash heaps, looking for Angel's babies.

Her neck grew out of her spine at an angle like the handle of a cane, and on its end was a knob of a face, round, flushed and fleshy, with short, steel-gray hair lying close to her scalp. The face itself wasn't much, a pinched mouth, a bump for a nose and two small eye sockets, each holding a dull gray bead. Her eyes darted this way and that, always looking for little lives, vulnerable lives, lives different from hers who were easy to hurt. They saw little else, no color, no beauty, just as her nose smelled nothing sweet and her lips never bloomed with the taste of love. A sad life turned ugly.

Bound by judgment, the eyes hardened with age. Nothing got through, no doubts, no troubling thoughts, and certainly no wonder at the world. Anything not from authority was rejected. New ideas were just a case of indigestion any good enforcer knew how to cure. One gray day following another as even more doddering ideas took hold. By then, the bones of those she had tortured were dust and their cries gone from the world. Only when she couldn't sleep and didn't know why, when ghostly whispers were almost heard, only then would her eyes tear up and her ossified heart beat with a glimmer of remorse…for something…something they had made her do…what was it? How she would struggle for clarity. But it eluded her, as did redemption, for even as death claimed her, angry and fearful, she wanted others to pay for her sins.

Starlight would tell Ghost the price of eating meat is not knowing our past lives. Angel believed the price of cruelty is not knowing this one.

Angel tucked her babies beneath the rotting pallet. The journey back had been long and torturous. They were all exhausted, but Angel rested only a little before rousing herself to stand vigil by the gate.

The moon sailed high above the alleyway when the provider finally came. Dropping her satchel near the dumpster, she began filling bowls with kibble, shoving them beneath the bin with her cane. It gave the ferals protection from the elements and from uprights, who were loathe to stick their hands into the filth to remove the food. Rolling her hair around her hand and tucking it up with a pin, she squatted on the balls of her feet. Her long skirt brushed the pavement, so she pulled it up between her knees and tied a knot. She was filling bowls with water when Angel presented herself, Cloud dangling from her mouth. Padding cautiously toward the human, she placed her baby on the asphalt just outside her reach.

“Oh, Mommy!” the woman cried, opening her palm toward Cloud, exactly as she had in Angel's waking-dream. Angel sniffed it. Her son trembled but obeyed his mother's command to stay. The provider cooed, stroking his back and narrow shoulders and soon the kit was arching the dome of his head against her palm, purring loudly. With her other hand she offered kibble and Cloud gobbled it up. Great Mother's Tail, it's good, he thought.

In slow motion, the human removed her jacket and spread it on the ground, placing the kit in the center of its folds. Angel appeared from behind the fence with her other boy, then fetched her precious girl. The provider wondered what horrors the feral mother had endured. Life must be tough to give your babies away, she thought, noticing the dried bone tip protruding from her shortened tail.

“Good mommy, good mommy,” she cooed, hastily preparing the last dishes for the other kin, whose eyes gleamed thankfully from their hiding places. The mewling kits tucked in her jacket, she tossed her food satchel over her shoulder and rose. Angel watched every move.

“I promise your children will be safe and happy. You are the best of mothers, an angel.” The woman turned and walked away, stopped and faced Angel again. “You can come too. There's room for you…and I don't have to touch you. Just come and be safe.” The babies mewled and Angel knew she couldn't part from them. She followed the provider down the alley. She never returned.