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

said good-bye to Daddy she dreamed she was there in the police station. Sleeping next to Mama, Misto close in her arms, she saw their good-bye there in the jail and she hugged Misto tight, trying not to cry and wake Mama.
    â€œIt will be all right,” Misto murmured, his whiskers tickling her ear. “It isn’t over, Sammie. Your daddy will be all right.”
    â€œThe cowboy will come?” Sammie whispered. “He will help Daddy?”
    â€œYou dreamed he would,” Misto said.
    She hadn’t answered, she’d hugged the big cat tight and he pressed his cool nose against her cheek. “You are my Sammie, you will endure . ” He purred against her so hard she thought his rumble would wake Mama, but it didn’t, she was too tired from the courtroom trial.
    â€œIt must have been ugly and mean,” she whispered, “if Mama wouldn’t take me.”
    â€œIt was ugly. But your daddy will prevail, and so will you.” And Misto had leaped from her arms, raced around the night-dim room, raced up the curtains never movingthem and making no sound, only delighting Sammie. He sailed from the curtain rod to the dresser with not a stir of air, then to the top of the open closet door and back to the bed, then up, up to the ceiling. His joy and wildness, his cat-madness made her want to race and fly with him, and maybe that would make the pain go away. He sailed around the room twice, then pounced down again and snuggled close, still and warm against her, purring and purring. Misto was with her all the rest of the night, snuggled in her arms. In the morning when she and Mama drove to the jail she knew he was near; sometimes she could feel his whiskers on her cheek or feel a brush of fur, and that helped her to be strong for Daddy.
    At the jail when they said good-bye she clung to Daddy and so did Mama but that cop pulled him away and forced him from the room. She could see Daddy’s anger, she knew he wanted to fight them but what good would it do? They’d hardly had time to hug each other and then he was gone, was marched away down the hall. He glanced back once, then she and Mama were alone. Everything was empty, the whole world empty. She felt Misto’s warmth against her cheek, but now even her loving cat couldn’t help.
    â€œYou know we’ll visit him at the prison,” Mama said. “They have visiting hours, we’ll be with him then.”
    â€œIn a cage,” Sammie said. “We can’t be with him at home. We have to visit Daddy, like a stranger in a cage .”
    Another cop walked them out to the front door. They crossed the parking lot, got in their car and sat holding each other. Mama tried to stop crying but she couldn’t. Sammie pressed so close that when Mama started the car she could hardly drive; she drove one-handed, her arm tight around Sammie. Sammie was nine but she felt like a tiny child, pressing her face against Mama. Now, without Daddy, they weren’t a family, they needed to be together to be a real family. When Daddy went overseas, when she was little,he told her he was going to fight for freedom. Freedom for their world, he said. Freedom for their country and for every person in it. But instead of freedom for all, like the history books said, those people in the federal court and even their own neighbors had stolen her daddy’s freedom from him, and Daddy had done nothing wrong.
    Ever since the trial began, she and Mama had stayed with Grandma, and Sammie had been with Grandma every day. Mama didn’t want her in school, when Brad Falon with the narrow eyes might still be in town, might follow her. And where the kids would bully her and say her daddy was guilty.
    During the trial Grandma had gone right on running her baking business; she said the money she made was even more important now, and you couldn’t just tell longtime customers there would be no more pies and cakes until the trial was over. Grandma said