The Visitor from the Woods

Four pairs of feline eyes were fixed on the French doors that morning, so intently that I knew something unusual had found its way to our house.

The first neighbor we met after moving to Lacon Mountain was Kenny. With only two neighboring homes, introductions came quickly. Kenny and his family live closest to Old Highway 31. He's a colorful fellow with a long white beard and a weathered face that speaks of decades of hard work, softened by an easy smile and lively spirit. I liked him instantly.

Kenny filled us in on the history of our property—the man who built our house twenty-two years ago, the shared easement along our second driveway, and the elderly neighbor whose abandoned home was slowly disappearing back into the forest. Then he showed us the rock waterfall behind his own house, a beautiful cascade spilling into a peaceful pool.

"The bane of my existence! I'd like to tear it all down; it's too much work to keep it up," he explained, "but the wife loves it."

John told him about some of our plans and the time it would probably take as we acquired the tools and equipment we would need.

"Don't go buyin' nothin'," Kenny told us. "I have everything you need. All you have to do is ask."

"What are the downsides to living up here?" John asked.

"Well, there are a couple. One of the reasons Brian wanted that downed tree across your second driveway over there was to keep the kids on four-wheelers from driving up and down there. People like to use Higdon Road as a cut-through sometimes, too.

"And the other despicable thing people do is dump animals out here—mostly cats. If I see one, I wait a little to see if it keeps coming back, and if it does, I'll check with our neighbors to see if it belongs to one of'em. If it doesn't, I shoot it."

I managed to stifle a gasp. As someone who loves cats—all cats—the words hit me hard. I could never do what Kenny described, yet I understood the anger behind it. He wasn't cruel; he was furious with the kind of people who abandoned helpless animals to fend for themselves. After years of seeing hungry, flea-ridden strays appear in the woods, he'd reached conclusions I never could.

I pushed the thoughts to the back of my mind and focused on the warm-hearted side of the man standing in front of us. At the same time, I hoped that we wouldn't soon experience a visit from a stray abandoned by a heartless human being.

Before our visit ended, John had arranged to borrow a pole saw and a chainsaw to cut back some limbs overhanging our driveway in anticipation of my cousin Billy's arrival with the first U-Haul truck.

A month later on one early morning when I walked into the downstairs living room, I noticed Samson, Andre, Eli, and Josephine sitting at the French doors eyeing something intently. I rubbed my eyes under my glasses to clear the blur of sleep away and walked toward the door. There, standing on its haunches pawing at the glass with its front paws was a little gray striped kitten with green eyes and white socks on every paw.

"Oh, my goodness...oh, my goodness," was all I could mutter.

John had gotten out of bed just after me to take Cooper out and asked, "What's 'oh, my goodness?'"

Just then, Cooper spied the kitten and nosed between Andre and Samson to put his muzzle against the glass and snort. Suddenly, the kitten noticed the creature staring at him from the other side of the glass, and he dashed towards the back deck just as Eli had done that late afternoon on the day we moved. In an instant, he had disappeared.

I turned and gave John a pained look.

"We can't take in another cat, Kelly," he said sternly.

"I know," I said, "but we could have an outdoor one."

John immediately offered up the usual objections—the vet bills, the flea and tick meds, the food—all legitimate points, but he also knew they were ultimately futile. I was already planning how I would slowly build the kitten's trust, trap it, and take care of it properly.

"I'm sure it didn't go far," John said. "It's probably going to hang around the house because it can smell the other cats."

I sure hope so, I thought wistfully.

Over the next few days, I learned the kitten's fur color provided natural camouflage. One afternoon I spotted him curled up on the moss-covered rocks on the plateau behind our upper deck, and he blended in perfectly. I set two bowls under the eave of the deck: one filled with fresh water and the other with a can of wet food. The food disappeared a little at a time each day.

It was yesterday when I first saw the kitten climb down from a crevice in the rocks where he'd been hiding, stretch on a sunny spot, and make his way to the mossy area where he liked to keep watch. Later in the day when a light rain began to fall, I found him curled up around the corner of the deck under the eave. I tried to get close to him, but he dashed to the edge of the deck, jumped to the side of the rock wall that extended down to the massive hole under the deck and disappeared.

Earning the trust of a feral kitten isn't something that happens overnight. It's an investment measured in patience rather than days, one that many people would never choose to make. But I've learned that frightened animals often repay kindness in ways that are difficult to describe. Somewhere beneath all that fear is a creature simply looking for a safe place to belong. Helping him discover that may take weeks or months, but to this lifelong cat lover, there could hardly be a more worthwhile adventure.