I was milking Princess when Kate told me Billy Cat was dead. He never came into the tent last night and all morning I was waiting to hear Kate yell that she found him asleep in the house, under the deck or above the washing machine. His nightly ritual of waking us up at 10pm and then again at 5am to snuggle and eat was broken that night. He had been sleeping on my legs for two months since we moved to Western Mass and started living in a tent. The only thing he never learned in North Carolina was the danger of the automobile. Now, in the outskirts of civilization, he collided with a car in the middle of a rainy night while we waited for his distinct meow to let us know he was a-ok.

Billy had a mysterious background. Like our rooster, we don’t know where Billy was born or how he found us. A farm hand in NC found him in our 4×4 one day and he was friendlier than any kitten I’d ever known. He was obviously trained by some mama cat somewhere because he was an excellent hunter, hider and snuggler. I never worried about him getting eaten, he was a very careful cat. He never came out during the day and only seemed to have energy at sunset and sunrise. He was dark and barely visible. No coyote could ever touch him. He loved Rudy and slept against his belly. He slept next to me every night for the last year. First on the window sill next to our bed in North Carolina. Then on my legs at the River, on Cape Cod and finally in Western Mass. He came when I called him and loved raw liver. He spoke to us in some cat language we understood and he seemed to understand us. I never had to yell at him or put him in a cage. He let us carry him down a busy Boylston st. in Boston trusting completely that we would keep him safe. He never tolerated a cage or a leash, so we just had to hold him in our arms every where we went. He took the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard and rode on my lap in the Subaru. He was the greatest cat I’ve ever known and I miss him so much.

He’s buried under an old apple tree in Western Mass at 1400 feet. He didn’t look like Billy when I dug his grave but he felt like him when I put him in it. I don’t want to forget him.