Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 17 Who Blew The Whistle

With a growl and an abrupt change of mood, Koko sprang from the desk and launched a mad rush around the main floor - across the coffee table, up over the fireplace cube, around the kitchen. Objects not nailed down were scattered: books, magazines, the wooden train whistle, one of the carved decoys, the brass paperweight. Qwilleran grabbed the wooden pencil box from the path of the crazed animal.

"Koko!" he yelled. "Stop! Stop!" Another decoy went flying. There was the sound of breaking glass in the kitchen. Then the cat flung himself at the front door. He bounced off, picked himself up, gave his left shoulder two brief licks, and stormed the door again like a battering ram.

"Stop! You'll kill yourself!" Qwilleran had never interfered in a catfit; it usually stopped as suddenly as it had started. But he honestly feared for Koko's safety. He rushed to the foyer and threw a scatter rug over the writhing body and pinned him down. After a few seconds the lump under the rug was surprisingly quiet. Cautiously he lifted one corner, then another. Koko was lying there, stretched out, exhausted.

It was then that the growl of the bulldozer floated up the trail on the damp night air. So that was it! The constant stop-and-go noise was driving Koko crazy. Or was that the only reason for the demonstration? Qwilleran felt an urgent tingling on his upper lip. He pounded his moustache, put on his yellow cap, and started out with a flashlight.

Following Koko's significant catfit, Qwilleran jogged to the building site, where the skim-loader was making its nervous racket-starting and stopping, advancing and retreating, climbing and plunging. He could see bouncing flashes of light as the vehicle's headlights turned this way and that. While he was still a hundred yards away from the earth-moving operation, the noise stopped and the headlight was turned off. Time for a cigarette, Qwilleran thought; he'd better not leave any butts around.

At that moment there was a gut- wrenching scream - a man's scream - and then an earth-shaking thud - and then silence.

"Hey! Hey, down there!" Qwilleran shouted, running forward and ducking as something large and black flew over his head.

His flashlight showed the tractor lying on its side, half in the ditch. The operator was not in sight. Thrown clear, Qwilleran thought as he combed the area with a beam of light. Then he heard a tortured groan from the ditch. The operator was pinned underneath.

Futilely he threw his shoulder against the machine. Desperately he looked up and down the lonely highway. A single pair of headlights was approaching from the north, and he waved his flashlight in frantic arcs until it stopped.

"Gotta CB? Gotta phone?" he yelled at the driver. "Call 911! Tractor rollover! Man trapped underneath! Trevelyan Road, quarter mile north of Base Line!" Before he could finish, the motorist was talking on his car phone. He was Scott Gippel, the car dealer, who lived nearby.

Almost immediately, police sirens pierced the silence of the night. Seconds later, red and blue revolving lights converged from north and south, accompanied by the wailing and honking of emergency vehicles.

While Gippel turned his car to beam its headlights on the scene, Qwilleran climbed down into the ditch, searching with his flashlight. First he saw an arm, grotesquely twisted...next a mop of black hair... and then a bearded face raked with bleeding clawmarks.

A police car was first to arrive, followed by the ambulance from the hospital and the volunteer rescue squad from the firehall. Seven men and a woman responded. They had rescue equipment and knew what to do. They jacked the tractor and extricated the unconscious body from the mud.

Qwilleran identified him for the police officer: Edward Trevelyan of Indian Village; next of kin, Letitia Trevelyan in West Middle Hummock. The door closed on the stretcher, and the ambulance sped away.

The others stood around, somewhat stunned, despite their composure during the rescue.

"I heard the tractor," Qwilleran said, "and was on my way here to watch the action, when I heard a scream and the machine toppling over and a huge bird flying away. I think it was a great horned owl. There's one living in the woods."

"When they're after prey at night, they can mistake anything for an animal," the officer said. "You're smart to wear that yellow cap."

Gippel said, "That guy'll never make it. His bones are crushed. Do you realize how much that tractor weighs?"

"The soil is wet, though," Qwilleran pointed out. "He was partially cushioned by the mud."

"Don't bet on it!" Gippel was notorious for his pessimism, being the only businessman in town who refused to join the Pickax Boosters Club. As Qwilleran walked back to the barn, he dreaded the task of notifying Polly. The thought of a serious accident on her property would blight her attitude toward the house and add to her worries.