A Tail of One Kitty

As am I, lucky is the being that gets to live in this house.  Just around the end of the holidays there was going to be a change in the household though.
Maggie, the 15(ish) year old Cardigan corgi was getting ready for her trip the Rainbow Bridge. She was my little sister in diabetes and in the absence of Mark, I was always more than glad to get down on the floor with her to test her blood and give her her shots.
Getting back up again was another story but Maggie was my pal. And I miss her.
Just around that time, a wee black cat started coming around. It was small, had beautiful eyes and the sweetest little face, a nubbin of a tail and a pretty bad limp. It was also blacker than black but looked like it would feel like velvet if one were to pet it.
We started to refer to it as Bob, in reference to its tail, and Mark began leaving dry food for it up on a table on the front porch so that little dogs could not get to it. In truth, had they really wanted, they could've jumped onto a chair and then onto the table but it was winter so it just had to be out of their line of sight.
Soon, Mark began to put out some wet food by the chicken coop in the back (since kitty was taking shelter in one of the storage buildings in the alley) and it would show up pretty zippy-quick once the food was out. It had a healthy appetite even if it looked kinda beat-up and so Mark and Suzie decided that we should rescue this wee feral cat. At the very least, do the responsible thing and get her fixed. I can't count how many animals they have rescued over the years.
Mark went and got a trap.
First catch, our own cat, Charlie. He is normally very chill, and is in fact, the bridge between the felines and canines in the house. He is also the reason that Zeus, the little piebald dachshund, stands up on his hind legs and boxes like a cat - but Charlie did walk around in a bit of a WTF huff for a couple of hours. Fortunately, he's not one to hold grudges.
Next catch - a neighborhood cat we call, Slim. Again, not the black cat we were hoping to trap - although they were all black cats.
Third try was the charm! Mark took it to our vet, turns out it was, in fact, a she, maybe seven months old, and they had a look at her leg and appointments were made for her to be spayed in a couple of days and then after a bit see if they could do something with that poor little leg that had been broken and then healed all wrong.
Mark brought her back and let her go in the upstairs room that was, at that moment, mostly empty of furniture. She was going to have to hang in there for a couple of days until her appointment to be spayed.
She is so, so dark that Mark would go to check on her and she was usually hiding under one of the couple of pieces of furniture in the room but she could get lost just being in the shadow.
We found out very quickly, when Mark tried to catch her to put her in the carry-case to go to the vet, that young as she was, she clearly understood the concept of centrifugal force and even with just the three working legs she could run around the wall, up to the ceiling and as long as she kept going around as fast as she was able, she could stay up there. 
Miraculously, and somewhat aided by the lack of furniture, Mark was able to grab her and put her in the case. Not without some blood being spilled. Mark's. Little girl had serious claws.
When Mark brought her home, she was put in their son's room (he's a grown man and doesn't live here anymore but as a wise Montanan he does come home for Christmas and if he can, some time in the summer) so she could sleep off the anesthesia as the other room was now being redecorated.
Mark went to check on her and after a while, he ran out and said, "She's gone. I have turned that room upside down and she has disappeared."
Well, that's just impossible. All the windows were shut, only one door, Mark had moved and looked under and/or behind every piece of furniture in that room.
After a bit, Mark & I were downstairs in the kitchen and thought we heard a couple of faint thumps somewhere around us. We looked at each other and realized she had moved the cover of the heat register on the floor upstairs  and post-spaying, was now wandering through the heating ducts like some sort of kitty Houdini.
Mark was able to lure her out with food. He then spent the next day on his stomach duct taping all of the heat registers down.
Bob was then let to wander about and check everything out. She spent a couple of days in the basement and would wander up in the evening to peep around the corner to watch the nice man who gives her food as he cooked people food. Ultimately, it was harder getting down there to feed her and perhaps equally decisive, Mick, the largest of the three black cats wasn't having it. The basement and Mark's office are really his main hangs and he had no interest in making any changes.
Once we got her back upstairs, I think she approved of how the new room was coming along, took up residence and soon we just began referring to it as "Bob's room".
There was still the matter of the leg - not sure how Mark got her this time but off she went to have her leg operated on and she was returned to her room and the door was kept closed for a few hours again, while the anesthesia wore off and she was then again allowed to wander about with her new pink cast. It did make her much easier to find.
For a while, it became her habit to perhaps spend the day in Drew's room and then at about 7pm return to her room and sit in the middle of the doorway, pink cast sticking straight out into the hallway.
I would often come and sit on the bench in the hall and just talk to her. Only a handful of feet separated us and as long as I didn't try to make any moves, she was fine with that.
Poor Zeus, he loves everything and everyone and wants to be her BFF more than anything but he must be patient. And he is trying ever so hard. So far, Charlie is the only living soul who has been able to get close to her.
It was time to get her cast changed - I watched Mark steady himself and wearing long sleeves and gloves, went in to get her into the carry-case. He came out several minutes later, empty handed, looking as though he'd accidentally gotten caught up in some sporting event. Think, rugby, not golf.
I asked if he needed some help and so we, two people in our 60's, steeled ourselves and went back into her room to do battle with like, a three-pound kitten. Who basically can fly.
The fact that there was now furniture in the room and decorating had been done, made this rather more difficult than the almost impossible task it had been before. After watching her fly around the walls, she finally went under the desk - boxed in on three sides, Mark was able to grab her and I was in the exactly right spot with the case when Mark spun around so in she went, the door closed and our lives stopped flashing before our eyes.
A few days later poor little Bob had some intestinal distress but I believe Mark went and got another trap to get her over to the vet. Happily, the problem was sorted out quickly and back she came.
Finally, the day came when Mark was going to take Bob in to have her cast removed, hopefully for the last time (it was) but this was going to mean one last catch and release.
Forward we go, step by step, we try the "here, I'll flush her out from under the couch to your end" - nope. When she was making her next loop around the room I was going to try to catch her in the case but as she came by - she jumped right over me and did a lap around the room on the wall. She hit the ground, Mark went for a tackle - D'oh! She then made that one tactical error and hid under the desk again.
Mark grabbed her, same deal, I was right there with the case, in she goes and in the split second before we could close the door (and because this ain't her first time at this rodeo) she shoots right back out but what she doesn't know is how good and fast Mark was at softball so he caught her and again right back in the case and the door was locked. All of this, from the time Mark got her from under the desk to getting her into the case for the second time, happened in probably less than 5 seconds.
If we have to do this again (and we will), I'm definitely going to film it.
I Googled bobtail cats and there is really such a thing as an American bobtail cat. In the description there is a notation that they are quite smart and can escape from a room with no door and windows, plus a couple of other attributes and there's no doubt that that's our girl. We'd wondered if she'd lost her tail when she broke her foot but it looks like she was actually born with this tail.
And so, she is getting the hang of having four legs and is pretty much the princess of the house. She likes to hide and just watch what's going on. She spends most of her day hiding behind a piece of furniture under the east window of the dining room, which affords her two (duct taped) heat registers (one at each end) upon which to sit, some good positioning for watching what everyone else is doing but is a small enough space that only she can be there.
She is braver every day and now eats on the old Roeper stove in the pantry like the other two cats. She comes closer and closer to check out what's up and still likes to come into the kitchen to watch Mark cook.
She has not allowed any of her people to touch or pet her yet - although she's fine with Mark opening her cans of food inches from her head. I can get within a couple of feet and just talk to her in calm tones. Zeus is trying so very hard to be patient - he can get reasonably close to her. Not as close as he'd like though. My dog, Peggy (a doxie/beagle mix) is interested but a bit more aloof. Mick has been appearing in different parts of the house to try to show her who is boss and Mark says now he's just grumpy. "Oh, so he's reached the stage of 'acceptance'" I said. And then there's Charlie, the only one to have gotten her trust, or as much as she's willing to give just now.
She likes to look out the windows, initially Suzie thought that maybe she was sad at having to be inside, I'm pretty sure she was thinking "there but for the grace of the giant cat head go I".
There have been warm days, doors have been wide open, she can go be feral again, but she's no dummy. She's warm and dry, always has food and there is a ton of love from all creatures great and small to give to her as soon (or if) she feels ready to accept it. Much like Zeus, we are all waiting patiently for the day that she might let us pet her - but maybe she needs to still stay away for now to maintain her "feral" cred.

Please meet our little Bob: