After he died in March, I put away the little house I'd put out for him – one that he seldom deigned to use, not matter how cold the weather – and discarded his food and water dishes.
But I left the scars on the corner board at the top of the steps leading from the side deck to the alcove just outside the door. Yellow Cat was a big guy, and he liked to stretch full length against the corner board and drag his claws down the soft cedar. I covered the raw scars with gray stain any number of times. It would last for a while, but sooner or later he felt the urge to stretch and etch into the wood the sign that this was his home.
Yellow Cat was not my cat; in fact, he was no one's cat, although I do now know whether that was by his choice or whether someone abandoned him. Over the past four years, though, we had achieved an understanding. I would provide food and water and take him to the vet for shots or to be patched up when he occasionally was wounded by some more aggressive creature. In exchange, he would decorate the porch railing or the deck or the driveway, lolling in the sun or curled up in a ball on the bench.
I had been seeing Yellow Cat (that started as a description and became his de facto name) off and on for more than a year before we began slowly establishing a relationship. He would be curled up in the sun at the end of a retaining wall or sitting under a bush down the hill from the house. He covered a wide range. I had spotted him in the woods by the boat ramp more than a mile from the house, and neighbors had seen him lurking around their places.
He was skinny, and his fur was matted; he had luminous eyes. If anyone came too close, he disappeared into the bushes. Occasionally I put food out, well away from the house. It disappeared, but I never knew whether he was the diner.
After we moved to the lake full-time and brought out indoor cat with us, sightings of Yellow Cat increased.
Over time, Yellow Cat began eating from a dish on the side deck, and then from a dish on the stoop. He no longer retreated when I appeared, but allowing an occasional scratching of his ears was about as much contact as he tolerated. He no longer looked emaciated; he grew sleek and seemed to content to spend most of his time around the house.
On the Wednesday morning that he died, Yellow Cat was at the side door as usual, staring patiently through the glass, head cocked to one side, waiting for breakfast.
I filled his dish – it had been licked clean, which meant thad a coon or possum had wandered by; Yellow Cat always left a few crumbs.
A couple of hours later, I went to put some things in the car preparatory to taking my wife to Birmingham for a medical appointment. Yellow Cat was sprawled on the side deck, looking very much as he did when he stretched out in a warm, sunny spot. The day, however, was cold and windy, and ordinarily he would have taken shelter under the tea olive bush at the corner of the house.
He was dead, peacefully dead, as if the end had come by surprise, and I would like to think, painlessly. There were no marks on him, not even any sign of discomfort. It must have happened not long before I found him, because rigor had not yet set in. When animals know they are dying, they often seek a secluded spot to pass away. Yellow Cat apparently didn't have that warning, and I am glad, because if he had simply disappeared, I would always have wondered what happened to him.
I covered him to keep the buzzards and other animals from getting to him, and when we got home that evening, I buried him on the hillside overlooking the lake. My wife donated flowers from a bouquet that someone had sent her.
The next day, I called our veterinarian to tell him about Yellow Cat's death and to ask whether I should be concerned about the health of our indoor cat. The circumstances of his death didn't yield a ready explanation, and he asked me to remove Yellow Cat from his hillside so he could be sent to Auburn University for an autopsy.
So I carefully removed the now stiff body from his hillside and took him to the vet in a black plastic bag.
I said goodbye to Yellow Cat for a second time and promise myself that I won't reach an understanding with another homeless animal. At least not any time soon.
Post Script: A few weeks later, the vet called me with the autopsy report. Yellow Cat died of a heart attack. We never knew how old he was, and a heart attack was a far easier death the the renal failure that claims so many older cats.
