Tuesday, March 25, 2003 | 8:22 a.m.
This is a story with a happy ending.
Missy the wayward cat was found early Saturday morning, skinny but very much alive, 19 days after disappearing from a recreational vehicle in the Oasis Las Vegas RV Resort on Windmill Parkway.
The cat had been roaming the park since disappearing March 3 from Richard Bradford's RV. Bradford, of Umpqua, Ore., figured his cat escaped while he was loading his gear for the trip home after NASCAR weekend.
He discovered Missy missing as he passed through Bakersfield, Calif. Debbie Williams, his daughter, tearfully related the tale in Valley Views a week later, telling us that Missy and her feline brother Matt belonged to her mother who had died in June.
She received an outpouring of concern and offers of help came from Las Vegas residents.
"I couldn't have imagined how many people would come out for a cat. People came out of the walls for this," Williams said in a telephone conversation Monday morning.
Local support lured Williams and her sister back to Las Vegas last week. They parked their sport utility vehicle at Oasis on Wednesday, in hopes the cat was hanging around or in a shelter.
They combed shelters in Las Vegas and Henderson. They asked an Oasis maintenance man to check inside a hole in a fake rock near the back of the park. They set out cat food and waited. They crawled under shrubs and shimmied into a concrete culvert.
"I ran out of clothes and we had to run over to Wal-Mart, I got so dirty," she said. "We walked around the park calling her name and checking the cat food."
And still, no Missy. Late Friday afternoon Williams and her sister gave up. They decided to leave Saturday morning and head home without Missy. Williams tried watching a DVD on her laptop computer, but it was no use. At midnight she was restless.
"I told my sister we should walk around the park one more time. We walked kept calling her name. I'm sure we were disturbing everyone in the park," she said.
The women returned to their SUV and piled their suitcases outside on the ground to give them a little more sleeping room. Just after 1 a.m. Williams' sister spotted Missy sitting atop Williams' suitcase. The cat had tinkled in it last year while Williams was packing for a trip, and there was enough scent to lure her back.
Williams, barefoot and without the glasses that allow her to see at night, jumped out of the SUV and chased after the cat, which ran under a trailer. The cat emerged once it recognized Williams' voice.
"She came trotting on her little feet and meowing. She was meowing and purring and rubbing all over us," Williams said. "We couldn't sleep and left at 4 o'clock in the morning."
Missy was back home with Bradford and Matt by Sunday morning. A visit to the vet early Monday showed she had survived a dog attack and lost 3 pounds, but was otherwise OK, Bradford said in an e-mail he sent later Monday morning.
"I am proud of my girls for their faith and perseverance. They truly came through," Bradford wrote. "We all believe that their mother played a huge role in the protection of Missy. Debbie had her mother's picture on her at all times."
And they all lived happily ever after.
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