Hiwa was completely black except for a few white hairs in her ears. I could sometimes locate her in the dark by looking for the spot that looked darker than the surrounding dark and reaching down into the darkness. It would almost always be her.
When Buster adopted us in late 1991, he clearly decided that Hiwa was okay.
The two of them stayed friends throughout their lives, and could often be found in close proximity.
In the summer of 1992 we went off to visit Australia for nearly two weeks, leaving the cats in the care of neighbors. By that point we had six cats in segregated conditions, two outside boys (Tommy and Buster) and four insiders (Miki, Kua, Hiwa, and Kolo). We worried about them through the whole trip, of course.
When we got back home, we rushed in and couldn't find Miki and Hiwa, who should have been safely inside, but there was a large, fat and very friendly black cat outside, origins unknown. It was only after several minutes of neurotic searching that Meda pulled me aside and said, look, this friendly cat is Hiwa. She had plumped out in our absence and looked so at ease outside, after slipping outdoors, that I somehow convinced myself that it couldn't be her.
Eventually we relented and installed a cat door, allowing all the cats to freely go in and out. Hiwa returned to her earlier treat of climbing up onto the roof. Now, though, she turned it into an interactive game by getting up there and then standing precariously on the edge of the roof, crying pitifully to be "rescued". I would then go outside and climb up on something in order to reach her and carry her to safety, at which time she would happily dance away from the edge and just out of reach.
