A Long Road Home

In the morning of the world, the Spirit Above breathed out the whole universe, everything you see about you, and set the Clans of the Folk upon the good green earth. First came the Clan of Man, and then all the others. There were the Clans of the Birds, and of the wild creatures, those who swim in the seas, and all the rest. Beside the Man, he placed Cat.

To the Man he said, “I give you mastery over all living things, and also great responsibility. Fill up the earth with your offspring, but live with compassion toward all creatures.”

To the Cat he said, “I make you a companion and friend to the humans. Guide their steps, for they cannot see the world of the Spirits, and only dimly do they sense the difference between the light and the dark.”

To the Man he gave one life upon the earth, and decreed that his summers might be many, until at last, with snowy beard and full of years, he must make his final journey.

To the Cat he gave fewer summers, but our lives are nine, in the world that turns beneath the sun. So it is remembered in the First Song of our Clan and our Kind:

Nine paths to walk, nine lives to live, upon the earth and under the sun.

Nine times to see the sky, and lie upon green grass.

Only then, to part the veil, and walk our

final path.

For so it is remembered, and so it has been sung.

I am called “Augustus Magnus,” a name given me by my human companion. He had been an excellent scholar before he left his family to march with the grey soldiers, and it pleased him to give me a grand sounding name from his books. Most often though, he simply calls me “Gus.”

It was the Fey of Avalon who gave me my true Clan name however, before I first left that Sacred Isle to live in the world of men. There, and among my own kind, I am “Wind Runner.” That is the name that I will bear through all my lives upon the earth that turns beneath the sun.

I am of the Folk, and of the Clan of Cat. I walk beside a human companion, for such is the place that was given me and my kind, at the beginning of all things.

I say here and now, after the ancient ways of my Clan and my kind, that the human being “John Thomas Pope” is mine, and under my protection. Any who seek to harm him must first pass me.

I first met John Thomas in the place the humans call “Hospital,” where the maimed and injured must go to live or die. The terrible wounds of his body were healing, but not so those of his inner being.

Those still festered, unseen by the humans. But I saw them, in the way that my kind see, and I knew that left to themselves they would never fully mend. They would blight and poison his life, and he would exist in torment all his days.

My kind, the Cats, have from the beginning possessed senses and powers owned by no others, for so we were gifted by the Spirit Above. With them we see and know the hearts of our fellow creatures upon the earth. I saw the heart of John Thomas Pope, as he lay silent on his narrow cot, and I knew his agony.

At that time, and in that place, human hospitals were places of horror and pain. It grieves me still, to think of my friend lying there amid the screams, with the stench of death all about him. There were many such places, in the summer after the Clan of Man slew their fellow human beings, near the town where I was born.

For three awful days they killed one another, and many were those who parted the Veil and journeyed on, many whose ruined bodies could no longer hold their spirits upon the earth. And there were some who finally healed, and took their slow and troubled paths homeward.

I assume no place of superiority for myself, but human war is a thing that has never been fully understood by my kind. It is true that we Cats fight amongst ourselves, but those are simple matters of territory and mating, between individuals. They are quickly resolved and forgotten.

When the humans go to war, nothing is resolved, and the earth itself is rent and torn. In the days of the Great Sundering, the Clan of Man fought like rabid creatures, striving to annihilate one another from under the sun.

The Spirit Above did not create the Clan of Man with the ability to dispassionately take one another’s lives.

It may be done at great need, but not without cost. To slay another, a kinsman of one’s own kind, is a violation against one’s own spirit. It fouls the heart, and changes the soul. He who sheds his fellowman’s blood can never be the same again. A terrible price must be paid.

For so many to die at the hands of their own kinsmen, as did in those days, is abomination in the sight of the Spirit Above.

The humans knew all these things. Oh yes. They knew them full well, before ever they began the Great Sundering.

Yet now they fought, not with fang and claw, but with weapons that made the earth itself thunder and quake. They darkened the sky, and made it flash and rain down death. They tore the flesh and shattered the bone, and spilled red blood upon the ground, until it ran like rivers.

Kinsman slew kinsman, by the thousands and then tens of thousands, as the hate and fury grew, and when the smoke had finally cleared, it took them many days, just to count their dead.

Filled with horror and fear, we of the Clan of Cat watched, and it seemed to us that there might be none of humankind left alive, when they were finally done with their madness.

They had utterly betrayed the trust placed in them by the Spirit Above, when he decreed they must live in compassion toward all creatures. We feared now that the storm of hate might never end at all, that the earth itself might pass away.

But end it did, at least for a little while, and the acrid smoke of dying blew away on a fretful wind. Quiet finally returned to the shattered earth, broken only by the anguished cries of those whose flesh was torn beyond healing.

John Thomas Pope did not cry, at least not in a way any of his fellows could hear. Only I, Wind Runner, called Augustus Magnus by the humans, heard his spirit weeping. I knew his tormented soul, but I am not a man. I am of the Clan of Cat. Our eyes are bright, and we see what others cannot.

It was a woman who found me wandering in the street, a tired woman in a bloodstained apron. I know not her name; she was simply someone whose heart would not allow her to remain safely in her home, while others suffered and died.

She was but one of many such, who came out to tend the shattered bodies and anguished souls when the great armies finally tramped away. Their toil was just beginning, when the sound of marching feet faded over the wooded hills, to yet another killing ground.

I had seen twelve weeks of my third life upon the earth, when the woman picked me up and carried me inside, and gave me into the arms of the injured young human, John Thomas Pope.

He was not a soldier really, just a young boy of eighteen summers. But his eyes! They were those of someone much older. They were eyes that had seen far too much, of what never should have existed at all.

He did not speak, but as he reached to take me, a faint light kindled behind those stricken eyes, and the woman in her blood-spattered dress dared to hope. There were so many in that time, so many whose eyes would never light again, save with fevered memories. Perhaps this one boy. Perhaps.

All that day I stayed beside John Thomas on his cot, and licked his hand until he began to stroke my fur. All that night I pressed myself to his side, after the way of my kind. I wanted him to feel my purring, and maybe take some small comfort.

That is the second of the powers given my kind when the world was new. We may, when we so choose, calm and ease the torment of others.

That day and night were our first together. Our days and nights have now become numberless, beyond the ability of my kind to count, but the memory of Cat is long. I still can see the very first of them, as if it had happened only yesterday.

On that day I, Wind Runner, of the Clan of Cat, pledged myself to the human, John Thomas Pope. I am his friend and he is mine, and I will remain by his side for all the days that I am given, until I end my Walk and journey on.

From that moment, John Thomas refused to be parted from me. He would not allow me to be taken from his arms, even to allow the doctors and the exhausted women to tend his wounds. Knowing his need, I hissed and spat at any who attempted to separate us, till finally they ceased to try.

On the final, terrible day of the great killing, they had cut away his ruined leg, so that he was left with only one. That was a grievous hurt, and if a Cat had been given the ability to cry, my tears would have fallen for him like rain. But that great wound had been tended with such meager skill as the doctors of that day possessed, and from it, his body was gradually recovering.

The wounds to his heart, his human soul, were a far different matter. If they ever healed at all, it might take the rest of his life. I remained in his arms, and the light behind his eyes began to brighten, little by little, and day by day.

I only left John Thomas while he was sleeping, to quickly find food and see to my other needs. Always, I returned to my place before ever he knew he was alone.

I wanted my friend to see me first, each time he awakened, and not the horror all about him. When he did, he always reached for me, and we would spend another day together.

“You will be Augustus Magnus,” he whispered to me one morning, and I took up the name as my own.

I was only a simple creature, just an abandoned orange kitten, and I held no power sufficient to heal the evil that had darkened our whole world. But I could comfort this one grievously hurt human being. I could accomplish that much, with the gifts given to my Clan and my Kind.

I swore then, after the manner of the Cats, and in the sight of the Spirit Above, that whatever I could do for John Thomas Pope would be done. Whatever I could give to this one boy, would be given with all my heart.

During those first days an older soldier, a bearded man with many stripes on the sleeves of his blue shirt, befriended John Thomas. It was he who fashioned a wooden crutch for him, and padded its crosspiece with the cleanest rags he could find.

It seemed that once their armies had left them behind, the different colors they had all worn to distinguish themselves had ceased to matter. The wounded, blue shirts and grey, became kinsmen once again, now that the madness had departed.

The old one, a grizzled, bear-like man called Abner, aided my friend as he took his first tottering steps with the crutch, ready to catch him if he fell. I stayed close too, jealous of any attention given to another. John Thomas was mine. I would attend his needs.

But the grey-whiskered Abner meant only to help, and reached down to rub my ears, as soon as John Thomas was once again seated on his cot.

“Handsome little fellow you got here,” he commented. “Acts like he don’t want you out of his sight. Gonna take him home with you?”

John Thomas nodded, and I hopped up beside him once more. “Yes,” he answered softly, as if speech were difficult.

I knew that it was not the physical act of communication that was so hard for him. No, the difficulty lay in speaking without screaming. Then, all the pain inside him might come flooding out for the whole world to hear. John Thomas could never allow that to happen. “Yes, he said again. “Augustus will go with me.”

Abner came every morning after that, and John Thomas walked with him, leaning on the crude, handmade crutch. His steps were at first slow and painful, but his body was growing stronger again. Each day he and Abner would walk further. Each day his steps grew steadier, more sure, as the hot and sultry summer slowly passed, and autumn approached.

“Where is your home, Son?” Abner asked him one sunny afternoon.

“Virginia. A little place called Singer, in the Shenandoah Valley.”

“How far have you got to go?”

“About a hundred and twenty miles, by the route a bird would take. A hundred fifty, the way the roads wind in the hills.”

They were the most words John Thomas had uttered at one time, since the final day of the killing. It was good to hear him speaking with the other humans, though I knew how much effort it cost him.

“That’s a mighty long road home,” Abner said. “You got anybody waiting for you there?”

“Yes. My Granddaddy is the Parson of Valley View Church.”

“You heard the officers decided you Southern wounded could go home, didn’t you?”

John Thomas nodded.

“As long as you don’t do any more fighting, that is. You just have to sign the parole papers, and show ‘em to anybody who asks.

“Don’t carry any weapons with you when you go. Not even a jackknife. Don’t even look at a gun, until this war is over.” John Thomas nodded, and Abner went on. “When you feel up to it, I’ll get you a sack with some biscuits and stuff, and you can just take off whenever you like.”

He glanced down to where John Thomas’ tattered trousers were pinned up short, below the sad stump of his missing leg. He shook his head unhappily and said, “I wish we could give you a horse, but there ain’t any. General Meade took all he could find, to pull the artillery.”

“We’ll make it, Abner. We’ll just be slower, that’s all. Might take us a day or two longer, but we’re not in a hurry. Gus here will get me home. He won’t let anything happen.”

Abner looked at John Thomas a bit oddly when he said that, but he didn’t comment on it. Men’s thinking always got a little strange, when they’d seen and done the things John Thomas had.

“If you could get me that sack of biscuits tomorrow morning, I’d be much obliged. Too late in the day to start now,” my companion said.

The old Sergeant nodded and went his way. There were many others who needed his help before his day could end.

John Thomas and I spent one last night upon his cot, and rose early the following morning. Just as the dawn began to color the sky above the eastern ridges with rose, and the last of the stars were winking out, we two friends walked away. Without a look backward, or a farewell to any save Abner, we took our leave of the place the humans called Gettysburg.

I, for one, would never miss that valley of death, where so many thousands of young humans had perished untimely. It never should have been like that. They’d never had any differences worth that.

Any great battle-place becomes shadowed, and different. For so many souls to part the Veil and make their final journeys leaves a mark upon the land. It is forevermore filled with their faint, whispering voices, drifting bits of their being that have been left behind. I was glad we were leaving it forever.

With the Sergeant’s promised burlap sack of biscuits and hardtack slung over his shoulder, and me at his side, John Thomas Pope turned his steps toward the home he had left an age ago, before our world had gone insane.

A boy had walked away from there: young, fearless, and eager for the glory of war. A man with haunted, flickering eyes would return in his stead. The boy could never come home. He was lost, gone forever from the earth.

We didn’t cover too many miles that first day. The carved top of the homemade crutch, as carefully as Abner had shaped it, still pained John Thomas where he held it clamped beneath his arm. He quickly learned to put as much of his weight as possible on his hand and lower arm. That helped, but not nearly enough.

I knew his foot hurt him too. He had a single shoe that had been found for him by one of the hospital women, but it didn’t fit nearly well enough for tramping long distances. Its previous owner had evidently been a much bigger man. Finally John Thomas just threw it away and started off again barefoot, being careful of briars and stones.

It wasn’t the first time he’d gone shoeless, I knew. I’d heard him telling Abner that the grey army for which he’d fought had never been able to get enough shoes for all its men. “Never enough shoes or food,” he’d said. “Marse Robert’s army of barefoot scarecrows.”

“Scarecrows that came blessed near to whipping us,” Abner had commented dryly as he stroked my fur, and my friend had nodded silently.

And so John Thomas and I made our slow way toward the south and west, down the long, winding, leafy avenues of trees, over roads that were never more than wagon ruts in the dusty ground, or sometimes through the turf. The scent of the countryside grew sweet to my senses, after we’d left the death-place behind us.

The only sounds were those of the wind and the birds. The larks, robins, and mockingbirds never ceased their singing and calling to one another as we passed beneath their boughs, and the doves payed us no mind at all. They had seen whole armies pass this way, and couldn’t spare their attention for one ragged, limping, grey soldier, accompanied by a young orange Cat.

We spent the first night of our journey beneath a giant old oak, a gnarled and twisted ancient that had doubtless seen many armies march by, fight their meaningless wars, and become dust in their turn. We were almost certainly not the first to pass a night amid the acorns, upon the grass between its roots, and it seemed to welcome us.

We made no fire, as the indigo dusk deepened into darkness. The earth beneath us still held the heat of the afternoon, so that there was no need of anything more. The stars were thick and bright above us, and they twinkled and flickered through the leaves like myriads of bright eyes. Warm breezes whispered in the tops of the trees.

Later that night the yellow-faced moon rose, but John Thomas and I did not see him looking down upon us. We slumbered beneath his pale gaze. Clan of Man and Clan of Cat curled up together, and the ancient oak guarded us there, with its outstretched arms.

I pressed myself against my friend’s side and purred, so that no evil dreams might torment him while he slept. He’d told Abner that I would get him home safe, and if it lay within my power to accomplish that, I would do so.

The sun had dappled the earth with gold around our resting place before the birds roused us once more. Our hard bed notwithstanding, I knew that John Thomas had slept more peacefully than at any time since the three terrible days of death.

We were alone, away from all others of his kind, and it was quiet. It was enough to allow him what small peace he was ever likely to find, as our world stood now.

He levered himself upright on his one remaining leg and the crutch, yawned and stretched, and looked about him. Then he refilled his water bottle from a clear creek that ran a few yards away. Those were all the preparations we needed, and we set forth once more.

I wasn’t really interested in the hard biscuits John Thomas gnawed as we went, but I caught several katydids along the way. They were fat, juicy ones, and I wanted nothing more. The rich land through which we walked held everything I needed.

Around midmorning, a patrol of blue soldiers overtook us on horseback, and I sensed my friend once more withdrawing inside himself. He stood in the road and looked at them silently as they came.

One of them joked as they reined in their mounts, “What’s yer sidekick’s name, Johnny Reb?”

“He is Augustus Magnus,” John Thomas gravely replied, and the men in blue laughed as if it had been funny.

The blue Captain took in the crutch and his missing leg, and put on a pair of spectacles to examine the parole papers my friend handed him. He asked, “Are you Pope?” and John Thomas nodded. The Captain took another paper, this one smaller, from his saddlebag.

“This here’s a ferry pass,” he said as he leaned down to give it and the parole to him. “There’s some men carrying folks across the Potomac with a flatboat, upriver a piece. Good luck to you, son.”

Then they were gone, and we were alone once more. I realized that John Thomas felt something akin to fear among others of his own kind. In the days to come, we were forced to pass through several small hamlets and towns, but each time we did, my companion grew remote and withdrawn, and sometimes his hands would tremble.

It was as though he had lost all his ability to communicate with his fellow humans. He was suspicious and fearful of them, even the women and children. They were his born kinsmen of the Clan of Man, but he no longer had anything in common with them. We avoided them whenever we could, and when we could not, he wanted to be away as quickly as possible.

Mostly we kept to ourselves, as we made our slow way down along the western foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The food Abner had given us ran out after just a few days, but the humans we did meet were quick to give whatever they could spare to anyone in grey.

One kindly woman in a small town looked into John Thomas’ eyes and shook her head, as she gave him a few corn dodgers to put in his rucksack. He nodded to her as he took them, but remained mute, and looked quickly away.

“Lord ha’ mercy,” the woman said softly to herself as we walked away. “Are all of them like this?”

“Yes,” I thought as we walked away from her. “Your Clan and your kind have fed a whole generation of your boys into the fire. Any who return will be like my John Thomas, and many will never come home at all.”

She shook her head again, standing there in her yard with her hands on her hips.

It took us one whole month and part of another to reach the sleepy little hamlet where John Thomas had grown up, but we had no desire to hurry. If we went a few days without meeting other humans, he could usually knock over a rabbit or squirrel with a handy stone. There were also numerous thickets of blackberry and huckleberry, so we were in no real danger of going hungry.

If I had to, I could always get by on what I could catch. It is difficult to starve a healthy Cat in a lush green countryside.

For my part I would have been satisfied to walk beside my human friend forever, through an endless summer, never meeting anyone at all. That would have been as near to paradise as I could imagine.

I knew that John Thomas was actually afraid to go home, for then he would be obliged to deal with his kinsmen. He would have to become a part of their society once more, and he feared that, above all. The problem was not that he had come to dislike his fellow humans, but that he no longer knew how to be one of them.

Both of us knew it could not be avoided forever. The changing seasons were fast overtaking us. The nights were becoming chillier, and the leaves of the trees glowed with hues of scarlet, and gold, and dark wine. Winter couldn’t be far away. We’d soon need to get indoors.

Therefore, on a pleasant afternoon in October, John Thomas and I found ourselves trudging down the central avenue of Singer, Virginia. There were few humans in sight on the quiet, leaf-strewn street, the war having long since taken all the men who were of an age to fight.

I saw some women gossiping on the planked sidewalks, and a few children played in the street. Two old men halted their game of checkers and stared, from a wooden bench in front of a barbershop.

Three or four of my own kind looked us over with bright eyes and pricked ears, as we walked by. I returned their polite greetings, and gave them my Clan name, but kept to my place beside John Thomas.

As we were passing a small store, the end of his crutch skidded off a rounded cobble. He staggered and flailed, trying to shift his weight and regain his balance. He had become fairly nimble with the crutch and his one remaining leg, but cobblestoned streets could still be treacherous.

He didn’t quite fall, but a young woman came flying out of the store and grabbed him by both shoulders anyway. I felt my friend’s quick flash of anger as she did.

“You’re hurt!” she said in a startled voice. “What happened?”

I knew John Thomas didn’t want others to touch him, even to help. In those first days, he would have preferred to fall to the ground, rather than have anyone lay hands on him. He wrenched himself free and shoved her away. A soft hiss escaped from his lips.

The girl jerked back, hurt and surprise on her face. I saw that she was beautiful, after the manner of her kind. She wore a blue gingham dress, and her straw-colored hair curled about her shoulders. Her eyes were the blue of an autumn sky at the very top of its high dome, and the scent of flowers lingered about her.

But John Thomas walked on past, without a second glance.

“John Thomas Pope!” she shouted after us. “Do you think you can come home after all this time and just walk by me?”

All anger instantly departed the face of my friend. Reason returned to his eyes, along with recognition. I saw him suddenly remembering, recalling, as he came back to himself. Shame flooded his swiftly reddening features.

“Mary Kate, I…” he stammered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see who you were. I… I am sorry.” A tear rolled down his dusty cheek, and then two more, down into the brown fuzz he had where older soldiers sported a beard.

Now another woman came through the door, out onto the boardwalk, someone with the same cerulean eyes, but in an older face. She spoke sharply to the younger one, “Mary Kathleen O’Connor! You come back inside this instant!”

Then her hand flew to her lips, as she took a closer look at the barefoot and tattered grey soldier who stood in the street with her young daughter.

“John Thomas!” She gasped. Her eyes travelled downward and took in his pinned up trousers and missing leg. “Oh my Lord, you’ve been wounded! Does your Grandfather know you’ve come home? Mary Kate, get him inside, and pour him a cup of cider, while I fetch Reverend Pope from the Church!”

She flew toward the far end of town, squawking like a startled hen, leaving us standing there in front of the store. John Thomas began to tremble, and quickly reached down with his free arm to scoop me up.

“Your friend can come inside too,” said Mary Kate softly, as he clutched me to his chest. I saw her heart, and found someone with a great liking for my kind. Intrigued, I looked more closely. Her heart held no darkness that I could find, and I found myself approving of this young human.

“He is Augustus Magnus,” John Thomas said in a hoarse whisper. “He came with me, from… He is Augustus Magnus. I call him Gus.”

“Then let’s get the two of you inside and sitting down,” she said. “Have you walked all the way here? I don’t even know where you were, John Thomas. We heard the Virginia regiments had gone north.”

He looked at her vacantly and said, “Pennsylvania. I was in Pennsylvania,” as if the words held no real meaning for him.

“So far,” she said. “So very far to walk, even for someone with…” Now two scarlet patches appeared on her cheeks, as she broke off her sentence. “Let’s go inside,” she repeated.

Inside the store, Mary Kate quickly fetched a china cup and filled it from a stoneware crock which sat on the counter. I caught the sharp scent of apples as she poured the fresh cider. I hopped from my friend’s arms to the floor, so that he could take the cup from her hand.

John Thomas sipped at it, gazing solemnly at the girl, who stood with the heavy crock still in her hands. She set it back in its place, and reached down to ruffle my ears. “Gus is a fine little fellow,” she said, stroking my fur. “I love his color and markings. Are you going to keep him?”

John Thomas nodded, his eyes on hers. In his heart I knew he was happy to see her again; there had clearly been something between these two in the past, something he would be glad to renew. None of that had changed. That was not the problem at all. No. I knew what was wrong.

My friend was desperately afraid of showing emotion to anyone, even Mary Kate, even now, at what should have been a joyous reunion. If he did, if he opened himself even the tiniest little bit, all the darkness inside him might come shrieking out at once, and he could never let that happen.

I knew there was a terrible shame in him, too. Here he stood, fresh from the killing ground, maimed, left with half a body, in the same ragged grey clothes he had worn on the final day of killing. His hair was long and unkempt, he was unshaven, and he stank. He desperately wanted to hide himself from the young woman who stood gazing at him, to flee far away from those bright blue eyes.

Human beings are stupid, sometimes. You don’t look around you, and when you do, you don’t really see. It did not require the senses of Cat to understand that Mary Kate O’Connor did not care about his scent, or his hair, or his shabby clothes. None of that mattered to her at all. My approval of the human girl grew.

At that moment her mother returned, and with her was a tall old man dressed in a black woolen frock coat and trousers. His deeply lined face was ageless; he might as easily have seen a hundred summers as sixty. Though his whiskers were white as snow, he seemed as hale and able as a far younger man. In the pocket of his coat was a worn, dog-eared Bible, as much a part of him as his hand.

For a moment of time, the old preacher stood looking at John Thomas as if he couldn’t believe what his eyes were telling him. Then he lunged forward and enfolded his grandson, crutch and all, in his long, strong arms, while Mary Kate and her mother watched with wide smiles.

“Oh, how your grandmother and I have prayed for this day!” he said. “Just now I was in the Rectory, praying for you on my knees! Oh Lord God, thank you!”

“Granddaddy, I can’t…” John Thomas tried to say, but the Reverend William Henry Pope would not hear him.

“Oh, my grandson, my grandson! May God be praised!”

“Granddaddy, I can’t come to the house yet,” John Thomas said again. I can’t see Grandmother. I can’t come all the way home.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“Granddaddy, I’m not the same as I was,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I’ve done things I can’t talk about. The war… I am guilty of hideous things, Granddaddy. I’m not fit to come into your house, or the Church. If you’d just let me sleep in the barn until I can find somewhere else, I’d…”

But his grandfather would not even let him finish. “My beloved grandson John Thomas has come home alive from this terrible war! I will not put him in the barn with the animals! I thank God I have lived to see this day!”

Now he held my human friend at arm’s length and just looked at him, as though he were made of gold. I had no disagreement at all with that. I loved John Thomas, too.

“I have sent for the stable boy to bring the buggy here,” he finally said. “We are going home. We still have all your old things in your room, and we’ll get you a hot bath.”

John Thomas didn’t try to argue with the old preacher anymore; it was like swimming against the tide.

“Sip your cider until he gets here, boy. Talk with Mary Kathleen. Is this fine orange tabby your cat?”

John Thomas nodded and said, “He is Augustus Magnus. He walked with me from Pennsylvania.”

“Then he comes home too. It’s a wonderful thing to have a cat for a friend. I will make him a proper bed in the morning, as soon as it’s light enough to see my tools.

“Mary Kathleen, you are expected for supper at sundown, and do not be late! John Thomas’ grandmother will set a place for you.

“Oh, my gracious Lord, my grandson has come home at last!” he said, over and over.

I began to believe that things might turn out well after all, for John Thomas and me. There was at least hope, and it grew day by day. My kind enjoy many senses and powers not possessed by humans, but not even the Clan of Cat may know the future. For that we must depend on the Spirit Above, as must you, and all the other Clans of the Folk.

John Thomas still faced a long road of healing before he could be whole again, but when I heard the love in his grandfather’s voice, and saw the longing in the eyes of Mary Kate, I knew it was only a matter of time. Neither of them had any intention of giving up on him.

He would never again be the boy who had left Singer to march with the grey soldiers, but he would be the man who had come walking home with me. He would be the human being he was meant to be, when he could finally put behind him all the bad things that had happened.

It would be wonderful to end my tale here and now, by saying that all was well after that day, but life upon the earth is rarely like that. Our world did not magically brighten, not all at once. The war of the Great Sundering still thundered on in the east, where young humans were still dying for a cause I and my kind would never comprehend.

Blue soldiers came to the countryside around Singer the year after John Thomas came home. They took almost everything, from food to livestock, and burned most of what was left.

Times were hungry and hard for a while after they moved on, but eventually, life emerged victorious over death. The Spirit Above had decreed that it must be so, after all.

“Every night must see a dawn, and every darkness end,” for so it is remembered, and so it has been sung, by my Clan and my kind.

In the spring of the next year after that, John Thomas and Mary Kate stood in the town’s tiny church, before the Reverend Pope, and recited the vows and rituals that joined their lives forever, upon the earth and under the sun.

I, Wind Runner, of the Clan of Cat, called Gus by my human companions, stood with them and gave thanks to the Spirit Above, there at the end of our long road home.

END