Seize the Night

including the cat, regarded the stone crow with an uneasy expression.
    As we drove past this figure, the shadows in the chiseled lines should have shrunk from us in the rapidly diminishing light, as the entire carving settled into darkness. But unless my eyes deceived me, for an instant the shadows elongated, violating the laws of physics, as if trying to follow the light. And as the crow disappeared into the night behind us, I could have sworn the shadow pulled loose of the stone and took flight as though it were a real bird.
    As we headed down the eastern slope of Crow Hill, I restrained myself from remarking on the unnerving flight of the shadow, but Bobby said, “I don't like this place.”
    “Me neither,” Roosevelt agreed.
    “Ditto,” I said.
    Bobby said, “Humankind wasn't meant to travel this far from the beach.”
    “Yeah,” Sasha said, “we're probably getting dangerously close to the edge of the earth.”
    “Exactly,” Bobby said.
    “You ever see any of those maps from the time when they thought the earth was flat?” I asked.
    Bobby said, “Oh, I see, you're one of those round-earth kooks.”
    “The map makers actually showed the edge of the earth, the sea just cascading into an abyss, and sometimes they lettered a warning across the void: 'Here there be monsters.'”
    After a brief but deep group silence, Bobby said, “Bad choice of historical trivia, bro.”
    “Yeah,” Sasha said, gradually slowing the Expedition as she peered into the dark fields north of Haddenbeck Road, evidently looking for Doogie Sassman. “Don't you know any amusing anecdotes about Marie Antoinette at the guillotine?”
    “That's the stuff!” Bobby agreed.
    Roosevelt darkened the mood by communicating what didn't need to be communicated, “Mr. Mungojerrie says the crow flew off the rock.”
    “With all due respect,” Bobby said, “Mr. Mungojerrie is just a fuckin' cat.”
    Roosevelt seemed to listen to a voice beyond our hearing. Then, “Mungojerrie says he may be just a fuckin' cat, but that puts him two steps up the social ladder from a board head.”
    Bobby laughed. “He didn't say that.”
    “No other cat here,” Roosevelt said.
    “You said that,” Bobby accused.
    “Not me,” Roosevelt said. “I don't use that kind of language.”
    “The cat?” Bobby said skeptically.
    “The cat,” Roosevelt insisted.
    “Bobby's only a recent believer in all this smart-animal stuff,” I told Roosevelt.
    “Hey, cat,” Bobby said.
    Mungojerrie turned in my lap to look back at Bobby.
    Bobby said, “You're all right, dude.” Mungojerrie raised one forepaw.
    After a moment, Bobby caught on. His face bright with wonder, he extended his right hand across the back of my seat. He and the cat gave each other a gentle high five.
    Good work Mom , I thought. Very nice. Let's just hope when all is said and done, we end up with more smart cats than crazed reptiles.
    “Here we are,” Sasha said as we reached the bottom of the hill.
    She shifted the Expedition into four-wheel drive and turned north off the highway, driving slowly because she had doused the headlights and was guided only by the much dimmer parking lights.
    We crossed a lush meadow, wove through a stand of live oaks, approached the boundary fence surrounding Fort Wyvern, and stopped beside the largest sports utility vehicle I had ever seen. This black Hummer, the civilian version of the military's Humvee, had undergone customization after being driven off the showroom floor. It featured over size tires and sat even higher on them than did a standard model, and it had been stretched by the addition of a few feet to its cargo space.
    Sasha switched off the lights and the engine, and we got out of the Expedition.
    Mungojerrie clung to me as though he thought I might put him down on the ground. I understood his concern. The grass was knee-high.
    Even in daylight, you'd have difficulty spotting a snake before it struck, especially considering how fast a motivated serpent can move.
    When Roosevelt reached out, I handed the cat to him.
    The driver's door opened on the Hummer, and Doogie Sassman got out to greet us, like a steroid-hammered Santa Claus climbing out of a Pentagon-designed sleigh. He closed the door behind him to kill the cabin light.
    At five feet eleven, Doogie Sassman is five inches shorter than Roosevelt Frost, but he is the only man I've ever known who can make Roosevelt appear to be petite. The sass man enjoys no more than a hundred pound