“I’m dyin’, I’m dyin’, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” Sylvester thought.

Sylvester felt like he was under water, he was trying to breathe but couldn’t because something kept covering his mouth and nose and eyes, something wet and heavy, something that was causing his head to roll back and forth on his shoulders.

Bailey continued licking Sylvester’s face, continued licking with her big thick wet slobbery tongue across the cat’s face and eyes. Sylvester was stuck in the mud under a fallen tree trunk with only the tip of his tail sticking out. That’s what had caught Bailey’s attention. The tip twitched slowly back and forth as Sylvester settled down into the comfort one feels as he prepares to let his soul slide off toward the light.

Bailey had seen the tail, sniffed around and uncovered the pink nose at the other end and started to dig the cat out from under the shattered tree. The cat lay face down in soft oozy clay and Bailey closed her big jaws around his head and pulled. Sylvester naturally struggled and put up a feeble fight, but that helped break him free, and he came out with a plop. Bailey dropped him.

“Oh, . . . Yieeeeee!” Sylvester was terrified and jumped to his feet, tried to turn and flee but fell over. He was hurt, bad.

Bailey picked him up like she had her puppies, and carried the half dead cat to a secret place she knew. She dropped him onto the roots at the base of the old tree, now wrecked, and with the hollow trunk exposed. Sylvester was too far gone to crawl in.

Sylvester let his heavy eyelids settle back and went into the trance-like state cats go into when they need to shut things down so healing can start.

The next morning Sylvester tried to open his eyes but couldn’t. He tried to move but couldn’t. Something had him entrapped, entombed. There, he managed to stretch out a leg, and felt this cracking feeling as he did. There, an eyelid cracked open just a little bit. He didn’t recognize anything. He was encased solidly in hard dried clay. “I’m still alive,” he thought, and slipped off again.

“O-o-o-o-h, o-o-o-o-h, o-o-o-o-h, n-o-o-o-o,” Sylvester moaned as he was jerked awake, and he was back in the dog’s mouth again, as Bailey ran for all she was worth. A pack of wild dogs, with the ravenous rage of hunger, had found them and sensed a one-sided advantage, and food. Bailey had grabbed the cat and then took off straight for the water and jumped in. “O-o-o-o-o-h, o-o-o-o-h, n-o-o-o-o-o,” came Sylvester’s lament again as he was alternately under water and then in clear air, underwater and again in clear air, as Bailey’s strong legs and powerful muscles propelled them through the current to the other side of the river.

Bailey climbed out on the other side, entered the canebrake at the river’s edge and kept going, kept going right through the wild pig wallow, right through the green duckweed covered shallows and up the gentle rise ahead. She stopped at another hidey-hole she knew about from her younger days. It would be safe. Bailey dropped Sylvester, now clean of the mud but covered nose to tail tip in duckweed, like he had been decorated with green confetti.

“At least my eyes aren’t stuck shut,” Sylvester thought, “and I’m still alive,” and then, “I’m hurt, I’m hurt,” he whimpered and dozed off again.

Four days later, Sylvester’s eyes popped open and he raised up on his elbows, “Holy cow, what happened?” Tired, he settled down again. Sleeping soundly he dreamed cat dreams of happier days, of bowls of food and soft cushions, and mice, no mouse stood a chance with him. He became aware of a low thumping sound, like thunder off in the distance, it got louder and louder and the ground began to shake. “Now, what?!”, he wondered and opened an eye.

Bailey was one of those idiot dogs that, once the tail is in motion, the ripple reflects side to side along the whole body. Bailey weighed about 125 pounds. Bailey’s human had once backed his pickup over her tail, and most of it had to be amputated, but the six inches that were left were enough to put her body into full motion. She didn’t understand why she was so happy to see Sylvester sit up, but she was. Bailey eased back down and resumed her position curled spoon-like around Sylvester’s limp form. Sylvester closed his eyes and purred, soft and low.

Sylvester had come and gone, come and gone. His nine lives were down to two.

He didn’t know why he was no longer terrified by Bailey, the big fat Labrador who had once been his neighbor across the street, but her warmth, her nearness, her smell was what had brought him through the near death experience of being buried underground.

Bailey stayed by Sylvester’s side for two weeks. Sylvester got up one day and took a few wobbly steps and lapped the water at swamp’s edge.

Bailey went off and returned in a little while with a frog.

Sylvester nosed the dead animal. “I don’t eat frogs,” Sylvester meowed.

Bailey went off again and returned with an anole, the green chameleon. “That’s better,” Sylvester was hungry and this time ate the whole animal, including the tail and legs, which he usually left behind.

Bailey and Sylvester became inseparable. Sylvester thought there would be something in it for him if he hung around the big dog, and Bailey liked having the company of something familiar from the old days, another time.

They wandered far and wide, followed the swamp flow upstream because there seemed to be more food in that direction, gradually worked their way up to the stream, and up the stream to the river and up the river to the mountain range that grew up from the peneplain.

They knew there were humans around. Once in a while, they would see smoke, get a whiff of people smell, cooking smells. Cautiously, now, they approached a campsite, a cave that was occupied by two women and two children. They stayed in the underbrush and watched, but came no closer.

One day, Bailey saw the children out by themselves and went closer. She had grown wary and wasn’t sure how close to get, and the children saw Bailey before she returned to the safety of the forest.

Sylvester jumped. Legs extended, Sylvester arced through the air, claws out and eyes fixed on his target, the man’s face.

Sylvester didn’t know the man, but he knew good men from evil men, and if Bailey thought he was evil, too, then that was it. Bailey saw the man, and then she saw the children, and had automatically moved in between them. The man drew back his big staff and started to swing. That’s when Sylvester made the decision.

The man had started the downswing when Sylvester hit him full in the face, back feet churning and the front claws looking for soft spots to rake with one claw, while holding on with the other, and his jaws clamped square on the man’s eyebrow ridge. The man hit Bailey and sent her flying but his aim was off. Bailey would limp for a few days, but that’s all.

The women heard the noise and came running, grabbed the children and swept them up and ran for the cave. The man moaned and cried out pitifully under the cat’s attack.

“He was looking inside,” Neonate told Mary Alice, “He was trying to take our food.”

Margaret heard. “Go inside, children.” She motioned them away.

The man was not there when she went back to look for him.

Margaret came back into the cave. “Should we go or stay, Mary Alice?”

“What do you think?” Mary Alice asked.

“He looks like he’s travelling alone. Let’s keep watch for a couple of days. Did you see that dog? I wonder if it’s still here?”

“Did you see the cat? I’ve never seen anything like that.” she said.

When they found Bailey, Sylvester was by her side bumping her with his head. He didn’t move away when Margaret approached. “Who are you, old girl, and where did you come from? Are you hurt?”

Bailey lay stretched out on her side, breathing heavily. Her stump wagged side to side and thumped the ground weakly when Margaret placed her hand on the dog’s head.

“Come on, kitty, let’s get her inside.”

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