The Old Man’s Family

  Owen pulled himself up from the overturned truck. His passenger door was face up to the sky and fell closed the moment he was clear of it. He slid down the roof side of the truck into the snow. There was a long gash in his right leg that hurt bad. Why did the old man put up such a fight? From the way the truck had hit the ditch and rolled into the tree and landed on the driver’s side, he knew the old man was dead for sure. Why did he fight? When you have a knife people are supposed to listen to you.

   Owen could see the snow turning red around his leg and he wanted to throw up. He couldn’t make out where the driveway was anymore. He could see a barn, but there was no house. He started pulling himself towards the barn. Maybe the house was on the other side.

   When he got nearer to the barn, he could see there was no house at all. There was a framework. A cinderblock basement shell with a few wooden beams covered in snow. The start of a house, but no house. No shelter. No warmth.

   Owen used a tree to help him stand. He put pressure on his bleeding leg. He didn’t want to crawl into the barn. The old man’s family was here, waiting for him to come home. Or so he had said. Owen couldn’t find his knife. Was it back in the truck? The truck was too far away now, and even if it was there he’d have to climb back in and out, and he didn’t have the strength for that. He needed to tie his leg off soon. It dawned on him that when the truck had rolled, he had cut his leg open with the knife. The bleeding was worrying him.

   The barn had a full door, and a Dutch door with the top half closed and the lower half open. Owen fought to open the top half but it seemed frozen in place. He forced himself to get down and crawl in the bottom. Something brushed by him and he fell on his face, aggravating his leg.

   Something else brushed him. Owen panicked and pushed himself back out of the lower door. Back into the snow. Nothing followed him, yet. I’m going to die out here, he thought. He got himself up and went to work on the upper door again. He wanted get some light inside the barn before he tried to go back in. The upper door finally gave. He did some pulling on the opposite full door. Despite the drifting snow, this door gave easily as if more frequently used.

   With the daylight coming in, he could see the barn was filled with a wall of stacked, small plastic storage bins. He felt more pain in his leg. Something was pushing against it. A cat. Then he could make out the other cats. Some were moving past him out into the snow. One was following his trail back towards the truck.

   The old man’s family were cats. Feral cats. Most of them kept away from Owen but a few were curious. Some lay in their bins looking at him with indifference. The bins had holes in their sides and were filled with straw and insulation, for bedding and warmth.

   A few more of the cats were sniffing their way in the snow towards the truck. How were they going to feel when they found the old man? They’re just cats, Owen told himself. As long as they can sleep and eat, they won’t care. Then he saw one sniffing at the blood on the snow. His blood.

   He found a work bench. Hanging from the nails on the wall were only rusty handsaws and duct tape. There was a stack of old towels and blankets, like those used for bedding in the shelter bins. Owen found the cleanest looking towel for a dressing and duct taped it around his leg. His pants were about his ankles while he did this. The cats were getting braver. They were showing far too much curiosity. He lifted an arm to backhand one of them and several hissed at him.

   He slapped the closest one away. It came right back at him. Its paw clawed across his nose several times. Owen was bent over but sat up quickly. The cat bore down and tensed, preparing to jump at Owen. The cat let out a low growl that was building. Its murderous eyes locked on him.

   Owen grabbed the stack of blankets and towels. He held them in front of himself as a shield. The cat’s growl changed to an ear hurting cry, and then an even louder hiss. It kept repeating its displeasure. Twenty minutes of this stand off passed before Owen said, “It’s alright. It’s okay. It’s alright. It’s okay.” His words were a whisper that he could barely get out. The cat finally relented and wandered off, but not without making as few backward glances every few feet.

   Owen was too shaken to move. After a while he nodded off in place for a few minutes. He woke to a different cat staring into his face from the workbench. It frightened him. He went to slap it away and then checked himself. He didn’t want to start that again.

   His leg was swelling and pressing against the tape. Despite the considerable ache, Owen was more bothered by the claw cuts on his cheek and nose.

   Owen poked around boxes and shelves by the workbench and found a large glass jar full of some homemade granola. It had oats and nuts and raisins, and had been made years before the barn was even built. Owen forced some into his dry mouth. The nuts were soft and the oats tasted like dust. Owen tried to wash it down with handfuls of snow. The snow hurt his teeth. Everything hurt.

   Owen found among the plastic bins a human sized shelter. It stuck out several feet from the others along the ground. It was made from four old house doors screwed together into a long rectangle. The inside was lined with insultation that was duct taped in place. Straw and a sleeping bag covered the bottom. There was a pillow at the opening.

   Owen didn’t like the idea of his head sticking out so he turned the bag and pillow around and crawled in. After a few minutes he forced himself out because he couldn’t breathe with his head at the back of the shelter. He slid in again, this time feet first with his head sticking out. Before he could work up too much concern about the cats poking about, he was asleep.

   He woke to hisses and howls.

   Getting out of the sleeping shelter was difficult and his leg was worse. He could hear a coyote. Many of the cats were looking out the open doors. A few hissed. A coyote had found the truck. It kept circling, but could not find a way in. It wanted the old man’s body. Coyotes like small animals, but they can feed off the dead, too.

   Owen sat by the workbench to look at his leg. He thought of tearing the duct tape with a handsaw and having a closer look, but decided he didn’t want to know, because if it was worse, he didn’t think he could do anything about it.

   He sat for a while staring out the barn doors without a thought, or plan, about what he was going to do now. Night came and exhaustion forced him back into his human shelter. A few more cats took an interest and headbutted him. One even pushed along his side to lie with him for the heat.

   He woke slowly, wondering if a fever was coming for him. He could hear a cat near his face growling. He got his arms up for protection before twisting around to look out the doors. The coyote was only twenty feet from the barn looking in. The cats were not happy.

   Owen got up and sat against the shelters. The coyote looked in, smiling. It was in an upright sitting position. The snow had stopped. The coyote was skinny, you could see it in its face. The cats and the coyote. Skinny. Feral.    

   A cat was sniffing at his leg where the blood was dry. Where the wound was. The cats worried him less than the coyote. The cats looked hearty compared to the coyote. It must be very hungry to get this close. Because, usually, they’re cowards.

   The growling stopped and only the odd hiss was sent the coyote’s way. He must have given up trying to get into the truck. He’s given up on the dead guy, and now he’s looking at the wounded one.

   Owen limped to the workbench and sorted through the pile of blankets and towels for something he thought he saw yesterday, a pillowcase.

   He couldn’t tell which cat had attacked him the day before, but it didn’t matter. Any one of them would do.

   He opened the pillowcase and covered one of the friendly ones brushing against his leg. He scooped the cat up, and had it upside down in the case in one motion. The cat cried and hissed and its claws came through the pillowcase but it could not tear itself out. While it fought and squirmed the other cats hissed and cried as well. Some started fighting with each other.

   Owen limped out of the barn to offer the coyote the cat but it backed away. Owen was trying to make it understand that they could have a bargain between them. One cat a day to leave Owen alone. To buy himself some time.

   Owen moved closer, but the coyote kept backing away. Not too quickly, just out of reach. Beyond was the woods. The coyote paced back and forth at its edge and then went in. Owen thought it might be better to follow and not let the other cats in the barn see what he was doing.

   The coyote waited inside of the woods. When Owen was out of sight of the barn, he swung the cat in the pillowcase against a tree to stun it. He didn’t want a fight when he opened the case. He started to lower it to the ground to dump its contents. There was no movement inside. When he opened the top of the pillowcase the cat came back to life. It clawed its way up his hands and attacked his face.

   He screamed and batted at the cat. It leapt to the ground and ran back to the barn. Owen dropped to his knees holding his bleeding face. He heard the coyote snarl. He fumbled with the pillowcase. He hoped he might be able to put it over the coyote’s head before he was bit.

   Of course, what the cat knew, which hadn’t occurred to Owen, was that coyotes don’t hunt alone. Often one of them will leave the woods to lure their prey back to where their pack is waiting. And the coyote’s pack was waiting. And they surrounded Owen.

  The police were able to identify Owen by his dental records.

  The old man’s son planted a willow tree near where the old man died. The son saw to it that the house was built, and his son saw that the cats had a home as long as the family lived up there.