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cats, we ten slipped away and ran.
    â€œJust north of your barn, they surrounded us again.We dove into a hollow tree that Cotton knew. We left our scent down inside it, for them to follow, and then we climbed. Sage…Sage was with Stone Eye’s warriors.”
    Charlie looked down at Sage, shocked.
    â€œSage ran with Stone Eye,” Willow said. “When our band broke away from him, Sage was young and he clung to the security of that tightly ordered life. I think that sometimes he wanted to be away from Stone Eye’s brutal rule, but other times he was too afraid to leave. He would not come with those who escaped to join our free band. He wouldn’t leave, despite Stone Eye’s cruelty,” she said sadly.
    Charlie shivered, trying to imagine the young cat’s indecision and fear.
    â€œBut last night,” Willow said, “as they gathered around the tree to dig us out, with Stone Eye yowling orders, we leaped down on them, slashing and raking. In the dark, Cotton throttled Stone Eye before he could twist and grab him—and it was then, when Stone Eye screamed with pain, that Sage saw Stone Eye’s weakness, and turned on him wildly.
    â€œThis so infuriated Stone Eye that he flipped over, threw Cotton off, grabbed Sage by the leg and shook and flung him.
    â€œAnd then Coyote was there, fighting Stone Eye. I’ve never seen such a fight, Cotton and Coyote were crazy with rage at Stone Eye’s brutality to young Sage, they killed him before his warriors could help him.
    â€œWhen Stone Eye lay dead, Charlie Harper, the cats began to cheer. What a wild sound, that excited cheering breaking the still night. Now…” Willow’s green eyesburned at Charlie. “Now we are all free of him. Free of the slave master.” And for the first time that evening, Willow smiled, her pale ears sharply erect, her eyes glowing. “The tyrant is dead, Charlie Harper. Now, Cotton and Coyote will rule, now we will all live free again, and there will be no tyranny.”
    But Charlie, slowing behind a creeping truck, only hoped they could keep their freedom. In the world of humans, it seemed to her, there was always another tyrant ready to destroy the meek and gentle, another dictator burning to enslave those weaker than himself.
    Willow lifted a paw, watching her. “There is something more, Charlie Harper.”
    Charlie passed the truck, then pulled quickly back into the single lane. The evening traffic was growing heavy in both directions on the darkening two-lane.
    â€œWe had another death,” Willow told her. “A week before we were attacked. An elderly member of our band. We buried her in the ruins.” Willow’s small clowder had lived in the ruins of the old Pamillon Estate, among its fallen walls and crumbling cellars, ever since they’d left Stone Eye’s domination.
    â€œWe dug deep to bury her, but we had to abandon the first grave we started. There was a human body there, we uncovered human bones. Old, earth-stained bones. A hand, an arm, part of a shoulder.”
    Charlie thought they had found one of the Pamillon family graves, that they had been digging in the old family cemetery.
    â€œWe covered them over again, and moved to the soft earth of the old rose garden,” Willow said.
    Charlie glanced at her. “But the rose garden is the cemetery. What…?”
    Willow looked up at her. “Yes,” she said softly. “We buried our dead one beside the graves of the Pamillon family, buried her at the back of the garden where the tall old bushes bloom best.”
    Charlie pulled over as a speeding driver passed, narrowly missing them. “But where was the human grave?” she said, cursing the hare-brained driver.
    â€œIt was in a little courtyard outside a bedchamber, a sheltered garden walled in on three sides by the house, and overgrown with bushes and vines. Through a glass door you can see into a chamber, see a