"Go on with you," she said, smiling in spite of herself.
"You see," he said. "You can’t remember yourself." He went to the stove and came back with the coffee pot and poured the mother’s cup full, and said, "Hal?"
Harold pushed his cup toward him and Arthur filled it too, and looked down at Harold, smiling, and said, "Someday, boy."
"That’s our motto here," Harold said. "Some day."
Arthur crossed behind the mother and filled his own cup.
"It happens," he said softly, and nodding. "It happens in anything. It can go on one way just so long, and then it happens. Curt will see that too, when the time comes." He carried the coffee pot back to the stove and set it just off the firelids to keep hot.
"Curt will see it when he’s made to see it and not before," Harold said. “That’s one place where I agree with Mother anyway. And if that’s what you mean," he added, doubling one big hand into a fist on the table, but not moving the fist, "I agree with you too. It’ll happen."
"You wouldn’t want to see it broke up yourself, would you, son?" the mother asked.
In the north room Grace laughed shrilly, and upstairs the floor boards creaked, and then slow, heavy footsteps crossed the room and paused and crossed back, as if the laughter had started the moving up there. Arthur returned to his place and sat down.
Harold sat staring at his coffee for a time. Then he picked up the mug and emptied it without pausing and set it down hard and stood up. "If that’s the only way to do it, yes," he said. "Curt’s had his way around here too damn long. And he don’t give a damn about the ranch either. Only what he can get out of it for himself. If he got an offer he liked, he’d sell it right out from under us, and not ask anybody about it either."
"No," the mother said, shaking her head at him. "No, he wouldn’t, son. He talks that way sometimes, but he wouldn’t. You know that."
"I know he won’t," Harold said softly. "I know he won’t, but it isn’t because he wou1dn’t like to."
"It’s just talk," the mother said. "He loves the place."
Harold shook his head. "No," he said. "There’s only two things Curt loves: money and his own way. Well," he said, "talking about it’s not gonna do any good. I’d better get at the chores, I guess." He started around the table.
"You ain’t goin’ to say anything to Curt now?" the mother asked quickly.
"No. I’ll wait till Gwen’s gone. But we’re gonna settle it then. One way or another, we’re gonna settle it then." He crossed to the pegs by the outside door and took down a green plaid mackinaw that hung there, and put it on.
"If Joe Sam’s out there, bring him in when you’re done." the mother said. I’d sooner not have him around when he’s like this, but can’t let him sit out there and starve. He never touched his supper last night. There’s gotta be somebody there to make him eat.
"All right," Harold said. He pulled a fur cap with ear flaps out of his pocket and put it on and went out, letting in the sound and the cold of the wind for a moment, and then closing it off.
Arthur had both his hands around his coffee mug on the table, as if to warm them. "Sounds like the storm’s letting up some," he said.
"It ain’t done yet, by a long ways," the mother said. "If Curt had the sense he was born with," she said angrily.
"Harold won’t start anything now," Arthur said. "He’s . . ."
"I ain’ worrying myself none about that," the mother said sharply. "Curt can take care of anything that young one’ll start for a long while yet. It’s this fool goin’ out in the dark in a blizzard."
"Oh," Arthur said softly, as if he saw more than she meant in what she said. He looked at her with that squint to his eyes again, and smiling a little. "I wouldn’t worry myself any about that, Mother. We’ll be all right."
The mother shook her head. "I don’t know," she said. "It‘s that dream, I guess. I can’t get it out of my head somethin’s gonna happen."
"You’d better go back to bed, mother. We’re fixed up now."
The mother shook her head again. "It ain’t that," she said.
"I can feel in my bones somethin’s gonna happen, like I felt this snow comin’ two days ago."
The floor boards upstairs creaked again under the heavy tread.
"Dad’s getting up too," Arthur said.
"He was awake when I got up," the mother said, and added dryly, "He’s fixin’ himself up in front of the lookin’ glass."
Arthur grinned. "Having Gwen here cheers him up a lot."
"Don’t it," the mother said.
The heavy tread stopped, and the door on the high landing creaked. The mother began to sip at her coffee, but Arthur looked up and saw the big figure in the shadow on the landing, against the lamplight in the bedroom.
"Have the girls come out yet?" the father asked.
"Not yet,” Arthur said.
"They’re gettin’ dressed, though," the mother said. "They’ll be out any minute." She didn’t look up.
"Then I’d better have my hot water up here," the father said. "And bring up my shaving things too, will you, Lettie?"
The mother lifted her cup slowly, and sipped slowly at the coffee, and slowly set the cup down again, and didn’t say anything.
"Lettie," the father said, "I asked you . . ."
"I heard you. I don’t see no reason to change our regular ways. Gwen’s seen a man shave before this, I guess. She has a father and three grown brothers, and they don’t keep up heat except in the kitchen, I don’t imagine."
“As if it weren’t enough to be roused out at this hour," the father said angrily. "Now a man must shave in the midst of a flock of women."
"Who are we this morning?" the mother asked, looking up at him. "John Mackay seeing Paris? Or Leland Stanford on a private train? There’s no law says you have to shave at all, that I’ve heard tell of. It was long enough since you had, up to yesterday, goodness knows."
"It seems to me," the father said, "that with company in the house, it would do no harm for one member of the family to make a decent appearance."
Arthur sighed softly, and pushed his chair back and stood up. "I’ll bring your things up, Dad."
"Thank you, son, thank you," said the big voice in the upper shadow. "It is gratifying to receive some consideration in one’s own home."
The father went back into the bedroom, only partly closing the door behind him, and they could hear him clearing his throat repeatedly, like a man about to begin a public address.
"And him seventy-one years old this last summer," the mother said.
Arthur didn’t answer, but took the shaving mug and brush and razor from the shelves by the sink, and made lather in the mug with hot water from the kettle.
The mother, still sitting at the table, with her back to him, said, "There’s no call you should wait on him either. He’s not helpless yet."
"I don’t mind," Arthur said.
He dipped hot water from the reservoir of the stove into a white enameled pitcher, and started up the stairs with the pitcher in one hand and the shaving things in the other.
"You’d better take him up a towel too," the mother said, rising, "or he’l1 be bellerin’ for that, next thing."
She went around the table to the big oak chest under the front window, and took a towel out of it, and brought it back to Arthur on the stairs.
"It’s wonderful how little it takes to put some people in mind of their pride," she said, tossing the towel over his arm. Arthur grinned down at her, but didn’t answer. He went on up slowly into the shadow on the landing, and knocked twice with the toe of his boot against the door frame, and pushed the door open with his shoulder and went in. The father’s oratorical thanks rolled out through the open doorway.
3
Old Bridges sat in his place at the table, with darkness still in the big window behind him. He scraped together the last forkful of egg and potato on his plate and raised it and took it into his mouth quickly, his head reaching for it like a turtle’s. Then
he laid the fork down and leaned back, chewing, and tugged at the corners of his worn, brocaded vest, trying to smooth it over his paunch, and looked across the table at the mother. She was sitting with her head between her hands over a big, leather-covered Bible. It was open to the gospel by Matthew, with the words of Jesus printed in red, and she was reading slowly, shaping each word silently with her lips. Her gray hair was still hanging loose and she still had on the old gray bathrobe. The father’s pale eyes, watering a little in the light and from the pleasure of his meal, examined her attentively, as if they hadn’t seen her for a long time, and then his eyebrows rose slightly. They were impressive brows, thick, black and peaked, and the lifting gave them the appearance of leading independent lives on the big, sagging face, which was otherwise dull and heavy. With the black brows still raised, the old man smoothed first one wing and then the other of his long, white moustache. Still the mother didn’t feel his attention, but went on reading silently with her lips. The old man glanced sideways at Arthur, but Arthur wasn’t paying any attention either. He was sitting there, his chair drawn back from the table now, whittling slowly on the wooden lion.
The father looked back at the mother and cleared his throat. It was a loud sound in the room where for some time there had been only the fluttering of the fire, the slow ticking of the big pendulum clock on the wall behind Arthur, and the faint chipping of Arthur’s knife, but neither Arthur nor the mother looked up. The old man cleared his throat again.
Grace spoke in the north bedroom, near the door and in a high, happy voice, so the words were quite distinct. "I hope it snows for a week then."
The father glanced at the door and changed his mind about speaking. After a moment, he drew a cigar out of his upper vest pocket and clipped the end off it with a little silver knife that hung with a lodge emblem on his watch chain. He closed the knife, returned it to his pocket, and lit the cigar. When it was drawing well, he leaned back in his chair and blew a great cloud of smoke up around the lamp.
"Those young ladies are certainly taking their time this morning," he said to the lamp.
Neither Arthur nor the mother looked at him or said anything.
"But then," said the old man, genially, "I suppose they must be hungry for women’s talk. Certainly Gwendolyn must be, living month after month all alone in that family of sour
Welshmen."
The mother took one hand from her forehead, and began to follow the words with her finger as well as her mouth.
"Though there’s little enough sociability to be found in this house, for that matter," the father said more loudly, staring across at her.
The mother’s finger went on moving a word at a time across the page.
"Lettie," the father said.
"Yes?" the mother asked, without looking up.
"If I might have another cup of coffee, please."
"It’s on the stove," the mother said, and her mouth moved silently again.
Arthur laid the knife and the wooden lion on the table and stood up.
"For one who pretends to be a wife and a housekeeper," the father began loudly.
“I’m getting it, Dad," Arthur said, and picked up the old man’s coffee mug.
The old man paid no attention to him, but kept staring at the mother while his jowls grew red and began to tremble.
"Lettie, what’s got into you this morning?" he demanded finally.
The mother stopped her finger under a word, but didn’t look up. " ‘What’s got into you?’ you’d better ask."
"And since when has it become a misdemeanor to ask for a cup of coffee?"
"I’m getting it, Dad," Arthur said.
"That is not the point," the old man said, pressing himself back in his chair with one hand against the edge of the table and the other, with the cigar in it, lifted at the mother.
"This life, which you seem to resent so bitterly," he said to her, "was not, if you will kindly keep that fact in mind, of my choosing. On the contrary . . ."
This time the mother looked across at him when her finger stopped. The will like a weapon was in her thin face again. "Don’t you come playing any of your bonanza kings on me this morning, Harold," she said with soft, quick fury.
The old man withdrew the accusing hand, but began, "As the nominal head of this family, if nothing more, I deem it . . ."
"Don’t, I tell you."
Arthur came back with the filled coffee mug and set it down at the old man’s place.
"Thank you," the old man said stiffly. Looking back at the mother again, he added, "And now, if you please, my bottle and a glass."
The mother returned his stare for a moment, but then only set her mouth and looked down at her book again.
Arthur went to the big sideboard that stood against the wall under the clock and opened the cabinet door at the end. There were three whisky bottles in it, one partly empty and the other two with unbroken seals. Arthur took out the opened bottle, closed the cabinet with his knee, and took a glass from the row that stood upside down on the marble top of the sideboard. He brought the bottle and glass back to the table and set them down in front of the father.
The old man slowly, making a defiant ceremony of it, uncorked the bottle, poured the glass a third full of whisky, corked the bottle again and set it aside. He raised the glass as if to make a toast, and squinted at the light coming through the whisky in it.
"With storms indoors as well as out, a man deserves a little cheer. To better days," he said, looking at Arthur, and then looked at the mother and added, with sudden fury, "and a life somewhere out of this Godforsaken hole," and drank off half the whisky and set the glass down sharply.
"Virginia City, maybe?" the mother asked, without looking up.
"I can tell you one thing," the father began, hoarsely, leaning forward and pointing at her again. "If the life we are leading at present is the best your. . " but broke off and looked around, hearing voices outside and the hollow knocking of a boot against the sill.
Curt came in first, seeming to fill the doorway, and then the room, because of his purpose and activity. He pulled off his mittens and said, loudly and cheerfully, "Just a cup of coffee, Ma, and we’ll be all set. You ready, old dream-monk?”
"Any time," Arthur said.
"That’s the first break this morning, then. We had a hell of a time with the horses. All spooked up."
Harold came in with the lantern and closed the door, and stayed there, leaning against it.
The mother got up and went to the stove. "Horses is quick to sense things," she said.
Curt laughed. "You too now? Does it take second-sight to know it’s snowing and something’s wrong with cattle when they beller?"
He saw Arthur’s knife and the unfinished lion lying on the table. He came over beside Arthur and picked up the lion and looked at it, turning it over two or three times in his hand.
"Not bad," he said, "not bad. But a long way from done yet. No wonder Joe Sam’s raising hell. All this snow and no medicine puss. Well," he said, tossing the carving back onto the table so that it turned over twice and slid out into the shadow in the middle, "he’ll have to sweat it out a while longer yet. We have to finish the real one first." He chuckled. "So get your gown on, priest."
"You eat some breakfast first,” the mother said. "It’s all ready for you." She brought a filled plate and a mug of coffee to the table and set them down in front of Curt.
"Make way for an ordinary cat-killer, priest," Curt said, pushing aside the knife.
Arthur stood up, and Curt pulled the chair in and started to sit down, but then took the cowhide parka off the back of the chair and held it out to Arthur.
"And take your gown too," he said. "I can’t sit easy with a thing like that behind me."
Arthur took the parka, and Curt sat down and pulled the chair in and began to eat at once, taking huge mouthfuls and swallowing them half chewed.
"There’s no need to choke yourself," the mother said.
"Storm’s l
etting up," Curt said thickly, through the food in his mouth. "If we get out there by daylight, there’s a chance we can catch him at it."
The mother sat down in her place again, and asked him,
"What makes you so certain sure it’s a painter that’s at ’em?"
"What else would they yell for? I killed every wolf in this neck of the woods ten years ago. And I lost two damn good dogs last spring too, if you remember, and there wasn’t much question what got ’em, was there? Or those calves we found down the south end." He took another mouthful and chewed for a moment, and said, “No, sir, one of them bastards has been workin’ this section for four or five months now, and this is him, all right. He’s took over here, and I’ll get him this time if I have to chase him to P1acerville."
"Could be a bear," the mother said.
Curt chuckled. "The only kind of bears I’ve ever seen around here," he said, "was rugs before they was shot. Sheep, maybe, if they could get close enough to ’em, but not a steer."
"Could be just the snow worries ’em," the mother said.
"You’re just tryin’ to talk me out of it," Curt said, grinning at her. "You know as well as I do that ass to the wind and their eyes closed is all any snow ever got out of 'em. Nope, it’s that cat, and I’ll nail the bastard’s hide to the wall this time. I owe him that for them two dogs." He took another mouthful, and drank some coffee through it, and added, "I only wish I had ’em now. I should of got me another right away. But the snow’s next best."
"There’s no arguin’ with fools," the mother said. "Especially when they’ve got used to bein’ boss ahead of their time."
"No use," Curt agreed, grinning at her.
"Well there’s one thing I can tell you," the mother said. "You don’t nail the next hide up on the house."
"Not even if it’s black?"
"Not if it was red, white and blue," the mother said. "Such a stink every time that door was opened."
Curt swallowed and leaned back and laughed and slapped his thigh. Then he sat forward again and said, still chuckling, and pointing his fork at the mother, "I remember you was afraid to touch it to take it down yourself, on account of that smell. But a black one," he said, suddenly solemn, "would be good luck for the house. Wouldn’t it, medicine man?" he asked, half turning to Arthur.
The Track of the Cat Page 4