The Cat Lady
By John Luthens
I never would have clawed into the cat lady’s story if I hadn’t been pushed. I’m usually preoccupied investigating far gentler tales in the natural world. Guess old habits die a hissing death in the life of an outdoor journalist, and in my defense, it was just too good to pass up.
The drama unraveled on the trail – the Interurban Trail, to be specific – a converted rail grade winding from the northern reaches of Ozaukee County and into Milwaukee. It’s a smooth-paved path that offers bountiful access for bikers and hikers to glide through open country and urban village alike. And it just so happens that the trail section running through my hometown of Grafton, Wisconsin is a runway into the wild.
Walking out my front door and down the street to the trail access, depending on the day’s fancy, I routinely hike to the nearby villages of Port Washington and Cedarburg along the retired grade, enjoying southeastern Wisconsin’s finest green spaces, packing a lunch and camera or perhaps a fly rod to fish the nearby Milwaukee River for smallmouth and the Lake Michigan tributaries for steelhead and salmon.
Now, over the course of these wild, interurban adventures, I’d sometimes cross paths with a woman’s silhouette crouched along the trail cover. She was always in the same spot, mumbling to herself in incoherent tongues and fiddling about in the brush, swaying like the breeze through the branches and staring into the trees.
I’ll admit it was a bit odd but, being that the easement foliage along the trail is a prime observatory for deer, turkey and migratory birds, and considering the fact that I, myself, have done my share of oddball surveillance along the interurban line, not to mention a boatload of fervent mumbling and swearing when the Milwaukee River smallmouth are particularly uncooperative, I’d simply scurry on my merry way without paying her any mind.
I didn’t yet know she was the cat lady. I had no clue of the clandestine safehouse she was running, or how far along the trail her claws could reach. And I certainly didn’t realize that I was being stalked.
The story began picking up speed on the converted railway and careening out of control like a runaway train during the height of the springtime bird migration. I’d been on my interurban loop for a solid week photographing warblers and waterfowl, and I’d noticed that there were more public works trucks buzzing along the trail than usual. They were clearing invasive brush and fallen limbs from the trail edges, and they seemed overly watchful every time I walked by. Birds and felines have a tenuous history at best, so it’s not surprising that the cat lady’s minions pounced when they did.
I was prowling with camera in hand when public works trucks started rolling in waves out of their enclosed fence-fortress and circling the Interurban Trail like orange tigers. They were toting weapons that were modified to look like chainsaws and brush grinders, and it actually appeared for a moment that they were on the verge of running me down before I escaped into a thicket to chase after an elusive cardinal that had been collecting nesting material from the trail edge.
I was dressed in my finest outdoor play clothes, looking like a wandering gypsy in beat-up trousers, heavy boots, and a camouflage jacket – certainly not on par with the standard dress-code of jogging suits and fancy bicycle outfits that are commonplace along the urban sections of the trail – but easily the cat’s proverbial meow when it comes to stalking birds and escaping unseen into the shadows.
There was no sign of florescent vests, hardhats, or my cardinal, for that matter, as I exited the thicket and crept back onto the path. I was far too busy patting myself on the back for my evasive stealth to bother questioning if the public works had really been tracking me in the first place. And I was halfway out of town across a trestle bridge over the Milwaukee River and still in the throes of adventurous celebration when the police cruiser snuck up the trail behind me and flipped on its lights. I still hadn’t met the cat lady, but I was about to be thrust into her operation just the same.
The squad car apparently had no qualms about pursuing me down the trail, but it seemed hesitant to chase me onto the bridge. A pair of officers got out and beckoned me to come to them instead. If I’d thought for a second that they were there on the cat lady’s behalf, I might have taken a page from The Fugitive and swan-dived off the trestle and into the Milwaukee River below. Cats are notoriously afraid of water, but unfortunately, so was my camera and bird-watching optic equipment. Surrender was the only option.
As they shook down my shady, interurban garb and cased the trail section behind me, the police explained that the public works had reported seeing me shamble by an awful lot during the past week, which I vocally admitted was a stone-cold fact, but which also privately vindicated my paranoid fantasies that the wily orange trucks really had been running covert surveillance on my comings and goings along the Interurban Trail.
The officers detailed that the public works had uncovered a network of tarps, beds and food dishes in the trailside foliage during their brush-demolition project and, putting their collective noggins to work while noting my atypical appearance, they thought I might be homeless and living in a makeshift encampment. I’m a writer. I’m usually not at a loss for poignant words to voice my thoughts. But I’ll be darned if this turn of events didn’t leave me gape-mouthed in silence.
I’m still not sure if they wanted to help me or escort me out of town. I’d like to think the best of people, so I’m rooting for the former option. Either way, after they pointed to where they found the tarps and beds and it coincided exactly with where I’d spotted the woman’s shadow standing in the trees, I didn’t blame Grafton’s Civil Service one bit. The cat lady had gotten to them and they weren’t in their right minds. It was time to take matters into my own hands.
A footpath led me silently off the Interurban Trail and into her hideout. I discovered a shallow glen littered with plates and cat dishes that were overflowing with food, and beds complete with cushions, awnings, and coverings. It was difficult to see from the main trail, but it was obvious that some evil genius had put a ton of effort into building a varmint boarding house. In the veins of investigative journalism, I’d pretty much pegged the who and where by this juncture. Seemed the only thing left now was to figure out what in the hell.
I began sneaking into her abode early in the morning and late in the evening to avoid being followed. The cat lady, herself, remained elusive, but I suspiciously eyed every trail walker who happened to amble along. I found myself staking out the place so often that I began to wonder if maybe the police and public works hadn’t been on the right track. I might have been better served abandoning my house altogether and upgrading into her camp.
The dishes were always magically restocked with cat food and the covers on the beds were turned up and trimmed like a bed and breakfast hideaway. Ironically, I never spied an actual cat, but the resort seemed to be all-inclusive when it came to the animal kingdom. I startled a pair of mangy squirrels away from their dinner on one of my stakeouts and watched a sleepy raccoon lumber from one of the beds on another. God only knows what manner of monstrosities would have been guarding the perimeter if I’d worked up the courage to sneak in after dark.
Like a smallmouth bass striking my fly when I’m lollygagging and oblivious, she caught me unawares. Sunshine was twinkling through the trees. Puffy clouds were dancing in the sky. It was anything but an ominous day for a showdown and cat lady patrol wasn’t on my to-do list. I was only out for a simple walk on the Interurban Trail when I passed her hideaway. And there she was.
She was crouched at her accustomed shrine in the interurban shadows, filling food dishes, changing kitty linen and mumbling away. I did a double-take, hesitant now that the moment of truth had arrived. I’d written myself into a ragged corner on the Interurban Trail, and I knew that I should roll the presses and put the story to bed. How bad of a conclusion could the entire ordeal possibly have? I calmly veered off the trail to introduce myself to the cat lady in hopes of a fairytale ending.
Big mistake! The cat lady began hissing and shouting the moment I approached. She warned me not to take another step. Although we were technically on public property, she brandished a stick and threatened to run me off her land. When I explained that I meant no harm and was only a curious reporter, she refused to budge and shouted that she wouldn’t answer a single question. I never got close enough to see if she had whiskers and a tail, but I think she would have clawed my eyeballs out if given half a chance.
The cat lady vanquished me in under a minute. I had no choice but to fall back. Crazy, she may have been, but I couldn’t very well go fist-de-cuffs with a lady over a couple of pounds of cat food, especially when it seemed likely that I would be the one to come out a cat fight the worse for wear. And I certainly couldn’t report the incident to the police, seeing as they were the ones who’d helped push me into this predicament in the first place.
I sat on the Interurban Trail licking my wounds while the cat lady guarded her bizarre food plot and watched me with predator’s eyes. I found myself at a crossroad in my investigative journalism career, and I decided then and there to leave the heavy lifting to the newsroom professionals.
Besides, the outdoor world is a far more interesting place if its sprinkled with just the right amount of villains and vagabond trail dwellers. I’m still not sure which one is which, but I figure that the Interurban Trail is plenty big enough for both of us either way.
John Luthens is a freelance writer from Grafton, Wisconsin. He’s currently making a plea to his publisher to have the “The Cat Lady” added as a last-minute entry to his upcoming book, “Writing Wild: The Tales and Trails of a Wisconsin Outdoor Journalist”