Read Online The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape by Shirley Rousseau Murphy and Pat J.J. Murphy - Free Book Online

window—enjoying a little game, Lee realized when the deputy began to scratch a tickle along his neck. Lee hid asmile as the deputy scratched his ear, then his jaw. When the portly man slapped at his balding head, Lee had trouble not laughing out loud. When he scowled at Lee as if his prisoner was causing the trouble, Lee glanced sternly toward the shelf behind him—kitty-play was all right, but the cranky deputy looked like he wanted to pound someone, and Lee was the only one visible.
    M ISTO STOPPED THE teasing when Lee frowned. He rolled over away from the deputy, hissing softly at the way the heavy lawman hogged the seat, squeezing Lee against the door, deliberately crowding him in the hot car. When Lee’s companion lit up a cigar Misto wanted to snake out his paw again and slap the stogie from the fat man’s face.
    And wouldn’t that make trouble, when the unpredictable lawman felt his burning cigar jerked from his mouth and saw it flying across the car—an armed and unpredictable lawman. Smiling, Misto guessed he wouldn’t try the man’s temper that far.
    L EE SAID NOTHING about the cigar smoke, but sat trying not to cough. Neither deputy had said much to him and he didn’t want to get them started; he’d take the smoke and the silence. He looked out the window at the yellow wheat fields stretching away; he stared at the back of the driver’s head until the thin deputy met Lee’s eyes in the rearview mirror, his glance cold and ungiving. Soon the car was so thick with smoke that Lee couldn’t help coughing.
    â€œCan I crack open the window? The emphysema’s getting to me.”
    The fat deputy scowled, but grunted.
    Taking that as a yes, Lee managed, despite the handcuffs, to roll down his window, and sat sucking in the freshbreeze. The warm wind made him think of the desert, of Blythe, of the buried post office money and the simple pleasures it would buy.
    â€œWhat’re you smiling about, Fontana?” the fat deputy said. “You know something we don’t?”
    Lee shrugged. “Hungering for a good Mexican meal. They ever serve Mexican in the Atlanta pen?”
    In the front seat, the thin deputy drawled, “Atlanta, you’ll get Brunswick stew. That can be as hot as you’ll want to try.” When Lee began to cough hard despite the open window, the driver glanced back at his partner. “The doc at Springfield told you, Ray, no smoking in the car. That cough gets bad, he keeps it up, we’ll have to turn around and take him back.”
    Scowling, Ray opened his window and threw the burning cigar out on the shoulder of the highway. Lee hoped to hell he didn’t set the wheat afire. This wasn’t going to improve the man’s temper, if he couldn’t smoke. And it was a two-day drive to Atlanta.
    Soon, with the cigar smoke sucked away by the wind, Lee was able to breathe again. As he settled back, easing pressure off the belly chain, trying to get comfortable, he felt the weight of the ghost cat stretch out along his shoulder. Felt the insolent tickle of bold whiskers, and again he tried not to smile. Lee wished they were flying instead of driving, he liked looking down at the world below, the patterns of farms and cities, the snaking rivers. He’d been startled when, during the flight out from L.A. to Springfield, they’d passed right over the country he had known as a boy. He’d pressed his forehead to the plane’s tiny window seeing, in a new way, the wrinkled face of Arizona, the great plains broken by dry, ragged mountains. He saw Flagstaff, the San Francisco peaks rising behind. Where the highway moved north of Winslow, and the Little Colorado River made a sharp turn, a lonely feeling had clutched at him. Off to hisleft, three fields formed a triangle with trees marking their borders. Those had to be the north fields of the ranch where they’d moved when they left South Dakota, when his dad sold