Track of the Cat - Walter Van Tilburg Clark (7 page)

Arthur moved off toward the gun rack made of deer
legs bent up and fastened to a long panel that hung beside the
bunk-room door.

"And Harold himself bein’ just a mite green at
this sort of thing," Curt went on. "I thought that. . ."

"Which gun do you want to take?" Arthur
asked him.

“
Everbody’s rushin’ me all of a sudden,"
Curt said, and laughed. He looked around at Arthur. "My
Winchester,” he said. "The carbine. And you better borrow
Hal’s. That old Sharp’s of yours is about as much use as throwin’
rocks."

"You forget," Arthur said. "There’s
no use taking a gun for my kind of cat."

He lifted down the topmost of the five guns that lay
across the deer legs and took a handful of cartridges out of the open
box on the shelf under the rack.

"How about the snowshoes and some grub?" he
asked.

"I’ll fix you something right away," the
mother said, putting her hand on the table to help herself up.

Curt had the last of his food in his mouth, and waved
his hand at her to sit still, and after a moment swallowed and said,
"Never mind. We won’t be out long enough to need it."

"If we have to track him," Arthur began.

"We’ll get him there, if we get him at all. If
he’s up in the creek canyon, it’s a regular box, and if you don’t
start singin’ hymns to warn him, we’l1 have him in there like in
a trap."

The mother moved her hand over onto her Bible, as if
she hadn’t meant to rise at all, and said, "First you’re
certain sure it’s a painter, though how you can tell by the way a
cow bellers five miles off, what’s at it, passes me, and now you’re
just as set it’s the creek canyon."

"It can’t be any place else," Curt said.
"The bellerin’ come from the north; wind’s that way. And it
was from a good ways off. It’s all open this side of the creek, no
windbreak for ’em to head for, and if it was the other side, we
couldn’t hear it. North side of the canyon’s too high. There’s
always some of ’em head up in there in a blow, and the echo off
that north wall would carry good. It’s gotta be in there. They
water up in there a lot," he added.

“
Well," the mother said, "if it’s in
there, there’ll be tracks too. I’ll just fix you up a snack to
take along."

She started to rise again, but then Grace laughed,
and the door of the north bedroom opened, letting her laughter into
the kitchen clearly, and a small, dark woman in a yellow, satiny
blouse and a black skirt came in with the laughter behind her. The
mother sat back, looking at her. They were all looking at her, as if
she were making an entrance onto a stage, and she stopped a few feet
inside the door, still smiling about the joke, and looked at the
waiting group. Her smile changed a little, and she said, "Good
morning."

Grace came out right behind her, still laughing,
though softly now, as if the joke mustn’t be brought in where the
others were. Then, when she saw over Gwen’s shoulder her brothers
with their coats on, and Harold by the door with a the lighted
lantern, and Arthur with the carbine in his hands, she stopped
laughing suddenly and her white face at once looked much older and
thinner.

The mother and Arthur said good morning where they
were, but the father rose hurriedly and made a little bow and
gestured sweepingly at the empty chair opposite Curt. "Good
morning, my dear, good morning," he said loudly. "Sit here,
won’t you? There’ll be some breakfast for you in no time at all.
And a cup of coffee. It’s a pity we’ve got you up at such an
hour. Hardly the way to treat one’s guest, and the very first
morning, at that. But since its done,
the
coffee will help."

"Thank you," Gwen said, just glancing at
him, and then away, and came slowly toward the chair.

He moved around to draw the chair for her. The mother
watched him attentively for an instant, but then looked away as Gwen
had, and stood up and went to the stove.

Curt sat where he was and watched Gwen come into the
circle of the lamplight. He was half grinning all the while, and he
looked first at her high, full breasts pressing up the yellow cloth
of the blouse, and then at the brown, round throat where the blouse
opened, and at last at her brown face with the eyes set wide apart
and the low, wide forehead with the crown of heavy braid above it.
Then he slowly stood up too, still watching her.

"Well, well," he said. "The sleeping
beauty. You must have pretty near too good a conscience, to sleep
through all that’s been goin’ on in here." He spoke more
slowly and deeply than he’d been speaking before, making his words
with a drawl almost as long as the mother’s.

Gwen came behind the chair and stood there, because
everybody else was standing, and the father had to wait beside her.
Gwen smiled at Curt, but no more than she had been, not really
meeting his look or accepting his opening.

"I sure hate to break up the party just when
it’s gettin' good," Curt said. "But we got a little call
to make, Arthur and me."

"A call?" Gwen asked politely.

"Well, it’s more like we gotta receive a call.
Only it’s a kind of bashful guest, and we gotta go out and make
sure he don’t run off on us. It’s an old friend of Arthur’s, a
black one." He chuckled.

Gwen looked at him and waited, not understanding, and
too shy, with everyone watching her, to guess.

"It’s only a foolish joke of his, my dear,"
the father said. "And a worn-out one, at that."

"You haven’t heard about it yet?" Curt
asked her.

Gwen shook her head. "I heard the cattle,"
she said.

"Well, we’re in a kind of a hurry," Curt
said, "so I guess we’ll just have to leave Hal to explain it
the best he can.”

He picked up his coffee cup, and emptied it, and set
the cup down again, and said, "Which is kind of too bad, in a
way, because only Arthur here can really explain it. He talks to the
thing."

"Come on, Curt," Arthur said.

Curt grinned but didn’t look at him. He jerked his
head back a little at Arthur and spoke to Gwen, still in that slow,
fixing drawl that wouldn’t let her break away from his look. "He’s
bashful with strange women, but just the same,
he’s the only one can really give you the fine points of this
business. You’ll have to work on him a little when he gets back."

Grace came up to the table beside Gwen. "You’re
going out there now?" she asked. "In this snow?"

"Take it easy," Curt said, turning the grin
at her.

"You’re not going, Arthur?" Grace asked.

"Here we go again," Curt said, shaking his
head, and making the sad face of a man pleading for reason without
much hope of getting it. "What could I do with a black painter
all by myself?" he asked. "An ordinary yellow one, maybe,
but . . ."

"Oh, stop it," Grace said sharply. "You
make me sick." She went around the table quickly, and past him,
not even looking at him. She stopped in front of Arthur, and stood
staring up into his face.

"You don’t have to go," she told him,
speaking quickly, her voice rising a little. "There’s no sense
in it. It’s dark out there, and it’s snowing. What on earth could
you do? If he’s so set on going, let him go alone. Does it take two
men to shoot a shadow?"

The mother was cracking more eggs over the edge of
the pan and spreading the shells to let the insides drop into the
hissing grease.

"You’re gettin’ yourself all worked up,
Grace," she said, without looking around. "Set down, now,
you and Gwen, and I’ll have some breakfast for you in a minute."

Grace clutched a fold of the cowhide parka in each
hand and stared up at Arthur.

"You don’t have to go," she said. "You
don’t. Why do you let him make you? Why do you always let him make
you? That’s all he does it for. Don’t you know that?"

"It’s all right," Arthur said, smiling
down at her, turning awkward before the others watching. "The
storm’s letting up now."

Grace felt the others watching her too, then, the
stiff silence in the room around her excitement. She let go of the
coat and turned away abruptly.

"It’s not that," she said. "lt’s
foolish, that’s all. It’s so foolish—Let him do his own foolish
showing off."

Curt, half turned to watch her, said, "I’ll
bring your darling Arthur back safe and sound, Gracie."

Grace had started to pass him, coming back to the
table, but now she turned swiftly to face him, her eyes very bright
and her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

"If it was only you, I’d wish it was a black
panther. You and your cheap sneering, and your self-importance, and
your always judging others by yourself."

"Grace," the mother said sharply.

"He does," Grace cried. "He always
does. A cheap dirty-mouthed bully, always . . ."

"Grace, did you hear me" the mother said
more loudly, and moved toward her from the stove. But Grace’s voice
broke, and not even seeing the mother, she turned and half ran toward
the open bedroom door, crying out through her tears. "Oh, you
fool, you fool," though not saying who she meant, and ran into
the bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

Gwen looked at the mother and turned as if to go in
after Grace.

"No, let her be," the mother said. She went
back to the stove and picked up a peeled potato and began to cut it
into the pan with the eggs, saying, "She’ll be all right. Just
give her time."

Gwen stopped, and stood undecided, halfway between
the table and the closed door.

The father cleared his throat. "Grace is a
high-strung girl. All this excitement at this hour has upset her."

Curt laughed, but before he could say what he meant
to, the mother said, "Now you get along, you that’s in such a
lather to be out there."

"We’ll be back before too long," Curt
said to Gwen, saying more with his grinning stare. "Then Art
here can explain it all to you. He’s good at talk, Art is. He gets
it out of all them books he’s always readin’."

Harold spoke from the door. "Joe Sam will freeze
out there, waiting for you to finish your joking."

Curt turned a little and looked at him, and he wasn’t
grinning now. "Any time you catch me rushin’ myself for that
old bastard," he said. "Let him freeze. Spookin’ the
horses with his crazy antics."

“
They were spooky enough already," Harold
said. "And how long had he been out there in the middle of ’em?
Half the night, for all we know. If . . .”

He stopped because' Arthur brushed against him going
past to the door. Harold stood aside to let him by, but didn’t look
away from Curt.

"He’s only got that shirt on," he said.

Arthur opened the door and went out, carrying the
Winchester.

“
Hey,” Curt called, and strode after him. "Better
let me have that, padré, before you hurt
yourself."

After that they could hear, through the open door,
his pleased voice saying loudly, "Just the same, you old
heathen, I bet you a pint of the old man’s best it’s yellow."

"I’ll be back in a minute," Harold told
Gwen, and went out with the lantern and closed the door. The lamp
steadied again, and gradually the warmth of the stove came back where
the cold had drawn in along the floor. Outside they could hear Curt’s
voice still baiting the old Indian.

"Sit down, my dear, Sit down," the father
said once more, and, when Gwen moved aside, drew out the chair for
her. Gwen sat down, smiling up quickly at him, but then looking away
quickly too, keeping herself secret against the admiration in his
voice and eyes.

Outside there was a muffled, turning trample of hoofs
in the snow. Harold’s voice called, "Well, get him, whatever
color he is," and Curt’s voice made some short and laughing
answer. The hoofbeats quickened suddenly into a multiple drumming,
and then were lost at once, without fading, as the wind turned and
roared down across the trees on the mountain. The door opened,
letting in another serpent of snow along the floor. Harold entered,
carrying the lantern, waited for Joe Sam to pass him, and closed the
door.

4

The old Indian stood there, trying to hide his
shivering, and squinting against the light in the white kitchen.
Harold, standing behind him, took off his cap, so his fine, bright
hair shone like gold in the light. The cold had brought high color
under the tan of his face too, and the old man looked dark and wooden
and slight as a young boy, standing in front of him. His body was so
flat there seemed to be nothing under his blue work shirt, and the
black canvas pants he wore were as flat behind as they were in front.
Gwen thought, looking curiously at his face and hands, and two short,
tight braids with strips of red-and-blue cloth woven into them that
hung down before his shoulders, He’s like one of those dolls with
only the head and hands and feet made to look real and all the rest
just cloth to hold them together.

Joe Sam turned his head and looked at her then, as if
he had heard her thinking, and after a moment she had to look down.
His face didn’t change.