Sidewinders

or goin’ so hard. Oh—what I come to tell you. One a’ the Milcher kids is missin’. Found the Reverend out lookin’ for him, but you know him—he’s like buttered beef in a crisis. Made him go on home.”

Jason nodded. “When’d he go missing?”

“Sometime between seven and nine thirty. The Reverend thinks he’s out lookin’ for the cat. She’s missin’, too.” During the passing years, the Milcher’s original cat, Chuckles, had been replaced several times. The latest one was . . . well, he couldn’t remember at the moment. But it was either a grand kitten or a great-grand kitten of Chuckles.

“Shit.” Jason put his hands flat on the desk, then pushed himself up. “I reckon now’s as good a time as any.” He shook out his bandana and tied it over his nose and mouth. “You rest up. Come out when you’re ready.”

But Ward was on his feet, his clothes dribbling sand on the floor. “Naw. I’ll go with you. Four eyes are better than two. Or so they tell me.”

Jason nodded. “Appreciate it. Pull your hat brim low.”

He opened the front door. He had a firm hold on the latch, but the sudden influx of wind shoved Ward off his feet and into the filing cabinets.

“You wanna warn a fella afore you do that?” he groused.

Jason didn’t blame him. “Sorry, Ward.”

Muttering something that Jason was glad he couldn’t hear, Ward slowly got back to his feet, using his feet and hands and back for traction. He made it to the desk, and finally to the door.

Jason shouted, “We’re gonna hafta get outside, then pull like crazy, okay?”

Ward nodded, and they did, each bracing a boot on either side of the door frame. It took them nearly five minutes just until Jason lost sight of the wall clock, but eventually it was closed and latched.

“Which kid was it?” he asked Ward over the howling wind.

“Milcher!”

“Which Milcher kid?” There were a bunch of them.

“Peter. The five-year-old!”

Great, just great. A five-year-old kid lost in this storm!

A storm a grown man could barely keep his footing in, and that seemed intent on staying around until the end of time. Maybe it was the end of time.

But Peter was a tough little kid. If he had survived the trip out West in his mother’s belly, he could survive anything. At least, that’s what Jason hoped.

He tried to think like a five-year-old following a cat . . .

“Follow me!” he said to Ward, and set off, staggering against the buffeting wind, toward the stables.

Down at the stable, they found several cattle and a couple of saddle horses standing out in the corral, all with their heads down and their butts into the wind. Jason wondered if they could get them inside once they found the Milcher boy.

It didn’t take them long at all. Once they pulled the barn door closed after them and called out his name a couple of times, they heard soft sobbing coming from the rear of the barn. Well, it would have been loud wailing, if not for the roar of the storm. Ward heard it first, and Jason followed him back to a rear stall, where Jason uncovered the boy, hiding beneath a saddle blanket.

“Peter?” he asked.

“My daddy’s gonna kill me!” came the answer. When the boy looked up, his face was streaked by the trails of tears through the crust of dust and grit on his face. “But I had to find Louise! She’s gonna have kittens, and she’s having them right now!” He pointed down next to him in the straw, and there was the Milcher’s cat, with a third or fourth kitten just emerging.

“Get a crate, Ward,” Jason said, and put an arm around the boy. “Don’t worry, Peter. Your daddy’s not gonna kill you. In fact, he was out looking for you, he was so worried.”

Ward handed him an apple crate, in which he’d already placed a fresh saddle blanket.

“H-he was?” Peter asked.

“He was indeed. Now let’s see . . .”

Jason gently lifted the mother cat while Ward stooped over him, carefully bringing the still attached kitten along, and they placed them in the apple crate. “Good,” Jason said. “Now let’s see who else is here.”

He found not three, but four other kittens. Three were tabby and white, and one was all white. By the time the men got them all back with their mother, she had finished giving birth to the fifth kitten, had cut the cord, and was busy licking it clean. “Good kitty,” Jason murmured, “good momma.” The kitten was tabby and white, too, although with more white than the others.

Jason and Ward stood up, and Jason held his hand down to the boy. “Guess we’d best get the lot of you back home!” Ward shifted through the stack of saddle blankets and dug out a relatively fresh one, covering the box snugly.

“But the baby cats can’t go back!” Peter said as he grabbed Jason’s hand and pulled himself to his feet. “Daddy doesn’t like them. He says he doesn’t like the smell of birth.”

“Reckon he’s just gonna have to get over it,” Jason said, trying to hide a scowl. He didn’t much like the smell of Milcher, either. And if Milcher objected to those kittens in his damned house, then Milcher was going to find himself in jail. For something or other.

Jason lifted Peter up into his arms, then threw a blanket over him. “You all snugged up in there?” he asked.