I'd closed up a hole in the foundation. Some animal (I suspected a cat) had dug through so it could get into the basement. It had to be fairly recent, as we only finished the renovation of our back porch 3-4 months ago, and George, Tom and I had all checked out every square inch of the outside of the house several times. (They'd done a number of small repairs.)
I worried that I might have trapped some animal under there -- probably Billy, because I knew he doesn't sleep in Tommy's house at night -- particularly after I heard a caterwaul only a few hours after placing the trap. I was sure it was coming from under the house, and Sweetpea ran to one of the furnace ducts...
So I borrowed a trap from Atlanta Pet Rescue (from which we'd gotten Wally and Lumpy), baited it and put it into the crawl space. There was still no sign of activity when I checked after dinner last night.
But this morning, when I opened the door between the basement and the crawl space, I was met by a jumping cage and violent spitting. I thought for a moment it was a raccoon, but it was Billy.
We'd gotten acquainted with Billy very slowly over the years. He's one of the nine (I think) cats that Tom (and Diane, before she died) kept.
Skid lived on our porch, convinced it was his. He was old and filthy, but sweet. Though Sebastian tried to befriend him, Skid would back away when Sebastian came out. One morning, Tom found Skid's body on the walkway I'd put in between our sidewalk and the driveway.
Felton wanted to live on our porch, but Skid wouldn't let him. But he would stroll along the path to our water faucet, haughty, wary of me. He'd then wander back home, or on to Carolyn's house, often stopping to spray our steps or one of our bushes before he moved on. I put a bowl under the faucet and kept it filled for him – I've never known a cat who drank so much water. For over a year he wouldn't let me touch him, even though I would rinse out and re-fill the bowl each time we met; he'd wait until I moved away, then stroll over and take a deep draught. Gradually we became friends, on his terms. After many months, when I'd come out, he would deign to roll around happily on the sidewalk, just out of reach, but move away if I got too close. Finally I got to touch him, but I would have to work my way slowly over to where he was lolling. After Skid died, he began sleeping on the wicker couch on our porch and, to demonstrate his approval of our relationship, he stopped spraying the plants and the steps; now he sprays the porch right in front of the door. For the past year or two, he has been meeting me on the steps, and he's become downright affectionate.
Billy was a cute and very rambunctious nearly-full-grown cat when we first met him. He'd hide in the bushes and play with a stick or leaves, just out of reach. Tommy told us that he'd use the cat door to get food, but he spent more and more time outdoors, apparently intimidated or abused by the other cats. I coaxed and coaxed, and I was finally able to get him to come and rub against my legs as I sat on the steps. At first he wouldn't let me touch him -- I'd get a swipe and a slash if I tried. Later he let me pet him some, but he remained skitterish, prone to a wild-eyed look and a swipe. His preferred mode was to drop down on a stair or the sidewalk beyond my reach, roll around passionately for a while, then come and rub against my legs, maybe get a few strokes, then retreat to a lower step or the sidewalk, just out of reach, and resume his rolling. Two or three iterations of this, and he'd take flight.
This morning's Billy was a completely different animal, violent, aggressive, and clearly terrified. He scared the hell out of me. I'd never seen any creature acting like that. The cage contained only fragments of the styrofoam bowl into which I'd put the bait, along with pieces of the plastic sheet that used to line the cellar floor below the cage, which he'd shredded. There was the awful stench of cat piss over everything.
After putting on a glove for protection (even though the mesh of the cage was fine enough to prevent him reaching out), I carried the cage out on to the back stoop. He was hissing and thrashing about the whole time. When I opened the trap door, he took off across the yard and disappeared.
Poor Billy. I'd not seen him since the last warm days of fall, and I'm sure this experience has rendered him completely feral. I'm sure he'll never come calling again...
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