She twisted free, and said quickly and fiercely, though almost whispering, "I’m not crying."
"Look, honey," he said, taking hold of her again. This time she turned to him suddenly, and buried her face against him.
"Oh, Hal," she cried softly, "he thinks I’m to blame."
He held her closely for a moment, and then kissed the top of her head, and asked, "To blame for what?" as if it were a joke that anybody should blame her for anything.
"All of it. For Arthur, and Curt not coming back."
"And just how does he figure that?"
"No, Hal, he meant it. That’s what. . ." She buried her face and held herself tight against the sobs. "I don’t care what he calls me," she said, the words muffled in his coat.
"But he meant that, Hal. He thinks . . ."
“So he called you things too?"
Gwen nodded against him.
"Such as?"
Gwen shook her head. Then he could feel her stiffen, not just to stop the crying, but to free herself a little too. "I don’t care about that," she said more clearly. "It’s only because he really thinks . . ." but then gave up again.
"Listen, honey," Harold said. "He didn’t think anything. He’s drunk. He always gets drunk when there’s trouble, and when he’s drunk, he doesn’t think. Like you said, he probably didn’t even know who you were. He probably thought you were somebody from forty years back. He likes you, honey; really, he does. He was all perked up, having you here."
“He knew who I was," Gwen said. "He called me a . . ."
Harold waited, but then she said again, "I don’t care. But he really blames me. He thinks Arthur . . . He said none of it would have happened if I hadn’t—if I hadn’t made eyes at
Curt."
"Oh," Harold said.
He kept saying Curt would be back now if he hadn’t sworn he’d get the hide for me, the painter skin."
"That’s nonsense, honey," Harold said, and kissed the top of her head again. "Don’t you pay any attention to such nonsense. He knows who was making the eyes. And what’s more, once Curt got started after that cat, he couldn’t have quit for anything, and it would be just the same if he’d never even seen you. You know that. And if you don’t, we all do, and Dad the most of all, when he knows anything. He boasts about it; you’ve heard him."
Gwen nodded against his coat.
"Curt would stay out there till he got that cat if there was only him and it left in the whole world. He was just showing off a little for you, and that wasn’t your fault. Nobody blames you for that."
“But if I . . ."
"But if you hadn’t been here at all, it wouldn’t have been any different. Not once that painter killed a steer. You remember that."
Gwen nodded against him. Then suddenly she pushed away from him and turned hastily back to the stove and slid the frying pan off the fire lids.
"Here I am letting everything burn up while I act the crybaby," she said, laughing shakily. "I’ll have your breakfast ready in a minute. Only these eggs. I’m afraid the eggs are ruined."
"They look fine to me,” Harold said. He started to say something else, and then didn’t. Finally he asked, "How’s Grace this morning?"
Gwen spread a wire toaster on the fire lids and laid four slices of bread on it. She didn’t answer for so long he began to think she hadn’t heard him. Then she said, "She’s all right, I guess. She’s asleep now."
"Meaning she didn’t sleep last night?"
There was another long wait before Gwen said, "Not much, I guess," and at last added, very low, "She went in there once," and raised her hand a little from her side to point at the north bedroom.
"Oh, Lordy," Harold said softly. "Not like last night again?" he asked.
Gwen nodded, and then, before he could speak, said,
"I’m scared for her, Hal. She just can’t seem to let up any at all."
"No," Harold said. "No, it’s tough on her, all right. Well," he said, "I’ll stay down here tonight. Joe Sam’ll have to look out for himself."
Gwen glanced at the plate on the sink shelf. "He didn’t eat much this time either, did he?"
"No," Harold said, "just the meat."
Gwen asked, "Should we wake your father up to eat?"
Harold looked at the old man. "Better let him sleep, I guess. I’ll see if Mother wants something."
He went to the bedroom door and looked in. The mother was sitting in the rocking chair by the bed, with the Bible in her lap. She had on her good black dress now, a heavy, stiff one with a big skirt and a tight bodice, that made her look like the old pictures she kept in the trunk upstairs. It had white lace at the throat and the wrists. She was sitting up straight, away from the back of the chair, with one hand laid out flat upon each half of the Bible. The lace of the cuffs looked very white on her brown hands on the stained, yellow pages. She had a black shawl over her shoulders, and her hair was drawn up tight, with no loose strands or wisps.
Arthur’s body was dressed in the black clothes she’d laid out for it too. It was lying straight on its back now, the shiny boots together, the wrists crossed upon the breast, the face pointed at the ceiling and bound around with the black scarf again, to hold the mouth shut. It was like the body of a stranger lying where Arthur had been. 'That, and the mother dressed up the way she was, made the whole room strange.
He went in. The mother heard his boots, hard on the bare floor and then heavy on the piece of old carpet that did for a rug, and looked up at him. The little erasures her first pain and doubts had made in her face, the way death had made them in Arthur’s, were gone now, and so was the inturned, half blind look in her eyes. They were her own eyes again, sharp and challenging, only more sunken than ever.
She and the Lord have made up their mind, Harold thought. Or did she see me hugging Gwen?
"You look tired, Mother," he said. "You’ve got everything done now. Why don’t you try to eat a little something, and then get some sleep?"
"I’m all right," she said. She looked away from him, across the bed and out the west window, so that he looked too.
There was only the snow piled on the sill and along the bottoms of the panes, and the big flakes still slowly falling.
"Is the snow going to stop, do you think?" she asked.
"Hard to tell. It’s let up, but it doesn’t feel like it’s done yet, some way."
"Wel1, you better get at making the coffin, just the same. When you’ve had some breakfast."
"All right. Will you have breakfast with us?"
“I’m not hungry yet. You just bring me some coffee.”
He knew better than to argue, when her face was like that. He nodded and returned to the kitchen.
"Just coffee again," he told Gwen.
"I’m fixing her some scrambled eggs," Gwen said. "They might go better than the fried."
"They might," Harold said.
He felt quiet and indifferent after standing there beside the strange Arthur, and feeling the mother keeping things to herself. He waited by the stove, not thinking about anything, but just watching Gwen stir the eggs and then scrape them onto a plate and fill a mug with coffee. At the sound of the fork scraping the pan, the father stirred and muttered, but then sighed and was quiet again.
Harold picked up the plate and mug and went back into the bedroom.
"Gwen thought maybe scrambled eggs would go pretty good," he said.
The mother stared at the plate of eggs for a moment, and then, without a word, took it and set it on the table. She kept the mug of coffee in her hands.
"Is there enough boards for the coffin?" she asked.
"I think so. There’s a lot of wood in the shed, left over from the bunk-house. And there’s the lumber Curt got for a tack room."
"Them’s new boards, ain’t they?"
"He just got ’em last month."
"You better use some of them, then, if they’re good enough wood."
"They’re as good as anything we’ve got."
; "We1l, they’ll have to do, then. You better get at it as quick as you can. I got a feelin’ the snow’s about done, and there’s the grave to dig yet."
Harold hesitated for a moment, but then said, "All right," and went back into the kitchen.
The father was awake and sitting up now, holding himself up with his hands against the edge of the table. He was looking around slowly out of bloodshot eyes and the world of sleep that was still more real to him than what he saw. When Harold sat down at the table, he turned his big face at him slowly, screwing it up to see him better.
“Oh," he said. He looked away into the shadow on the table. "I thought maybe Curt was back," he said. "I told him what I thought of him, the young fool, chasing out after black painters in a blizzard." He uncorked the bottle with whisky in it and very slowly and carefully poured his glass half full.
"Would you like your breakfast now, Mr. Bridges?" Gwen asked.
"Breakfast?" the old man said. "In the middle of the . . ." but then cautiously pried himself around in his chair far enough to see part of the front window, and said, after a moment, "Well, it is, at that."
He turned back and drank the whisky at one hoist, and set the glass down again.
"Very well, then, young woman, I will have some breakfast."
He leaned farther over the table and peered at Gwen through the shadow. "And just how did you get here, young woman?" he asked. "Curt," he said, turning his head ponderously to look at Harold, "who is this young woman, and how did she come here?"
"It’s just Gwen, Dad. She’s been here a couple of days."
"Gwen? Gwen? and who on earth, may I ask, is Gwen?"
He spoke as if Harold were an audience of many people.
"Gwendolyn Williams, Dad. You remember her."
"I do not remember her," the old man said. He swung his head back and stared at her again. "Gwendolyn Williams," he muttered.
Gwen had a filled plate in each hand, but she waited there by the stove while he stared at her.
"‘Oh," the father said finally. "Of course. Harold’s intended. Old Lew Williams’ girl. Charming girl too, charming," he added. "Curt," he said, turning his head slowly to look at Harold again, and grinning a little, "Curt, I’m surprised at you, letting a young whippersnapper like. . ." He stopped speaking and stared at Harold, and his grin faded. "No," he said. He closed his eyes and sat there for some time with them closed, breathing loudly and frowning. Gwen came to the table then, and set the plates down, one in front of each of the men. The father opened his eyes again. "Where’s Curt?!”
"He’l1 be back today, Dad."
"Back today? I should hope so."
He thought about the matter, and then rolled his eyes to look at Harold without moving his head. He made a sly, knowing grin, and slowly, triumphantly, raised one hand and pointed at him.
"Out hunting," he announced. "That’s where he is. And he’ll get it too. He don’t ever give up till he gets what he’s after, Curt don’t. He’s a great shot, too, Curt is," he went on happily, "a great shot. Why, I remember once," he began, addressing his greater audience again, "and when he was only a youngster too, thirteen or fourteen, or somewhere around there, he won a turkey shoot down at old Jake Ha1ey’s ranch on the Carson River. Jake called the place a ranch, anyway. Half a dozen dry washes full of sagebrush, three scrawny cottonwood trees, and a litter of rags and old shoes and broken-down wagons is about what it amounted to. Jake used to say himself, when he had enough rot-gut in him to be half-way human, that rags was his chief crop. Grew old shirts about three to the bush, he did, though pants was rarer. But he did have turkeys. An old scoundrel, Jake Haley was," he said, chuckling. "He cleaned up on those birds, though there wasn’t a thing to ’em but legs and feathers. They were more like buzzards than turkeys. In his more sociable moods he used to admit they were a cross, and that with the natural advantages of his place, the buzzard strain was getting a little the best of it. He couldn’t have sold one of the critturs for a thin dime. So he used ’em all for turkey shoots. Four bits for three shots; plain highway robbery. And there couldn’t anybody hit ’em, even at that price, the way he had it rigged. Buried ’em in a barrel in the ground, with only the head sticking out. Hundred yards, if it was an inch, and uphill, and enough neck room so the turkey could dodge all around. Made a mint out of that system, old Jake did. But he got one good scare, anyway, and Curt gave it to him. Knocked one off on the second shot."
He laughed a thin, gleeful whinny, startling after his deep voice speaking.
"Should have seen old Jake’s face. Only the third man to shoot, and he got one. Nothing in the rules to say he couldn’t keep on shooting all day, either. Old Jake thought he was ruined." He cackled happily. Gwen pushed aside the bottles and the glass to make room for his coffee. She did it very slowly, to avoid catching his attention, but he saw the bottles moving and looked up at her. The pleasure died out of his face.
"Young woman," he said heavily, "I beg your pardon. Inexcusable of me. Inexcusable."
"It’s all right, Mr. Bridges," Gwen said, flushing.
"It’s all right," the father repeated. "You hear that, Curt?" he asked Harold. "Your intended, and I forget her name. Inexcusable. But she says it’s all right. You’re a lucky boy, Curt, very lucky."
Gwen sat down quickly in the mother’s place, and she and Harold began to eat. They couldn’t look at the father or at each other.
After a time the old man turned his head slowly and stared at Harold. "No, Harold’s girl," he said. "Curt’s out hunting, the young fool. But he’ll get what he’s gone after, just the same. He don’t ever give up till he gets what he’s after, Curt don’t. Why I remember once," he began, changing to his public voice, but then thought about it, and stopped there. He began to eat, taking huge mouthfuls, but chewing them slowly. Once he put his fork down and sat staring at the shadow of the lamp while he chewed.
"It killed Arthur, just the same," he argued.
Harold looked at him quickly. "What did?"
"That damned black painter. Only I thought it was Curt. He was wearing Curt’s coat. Wasn’t, though; was Arthur. Saw his beard. Arthur took Curt’s coat."
He considered that, sitting perfectly still. "Why’d he take Curt’s coat?" he demanded. He stared at Harold angrily.
“Keeping things from me," he accused. "Everybody keeps things from me. In my own house."
Harold sighed. "Nobody’s keeping anything from you, Dad."
"Yes, they are. Can’t even have an opinion around here any more. Can’t fool me, though," he said craftily. "I know. what’s going on. Saw him on the bed in there. I know. Black painter killed him."
"Maybe a painter, Dad, but not likely black.”
The old man stared at him angrily, but then gradually the anger weakened into confusion, and after a minute he turned back to his plate. When he had finished his food, Gwen brought him a second cup of coffee. He sat there trying to drink it, but kept nodding and sagging forward.
"There’s nothing you can do now, Dad," Harold said. "Why don’t you go up and lie down for a while?"
"Nothing anybody can do in this infernal snow," the old man muttered. "Might as well all go to bed." He hoisted himself to his feet and stood there, swaying and holding onto the back of his chair. "Waited up all night," he said. "Very tired. You will excuse me, my dear," he said to Gwen. "Have to step outside for a moment," he said to Harold.
He swung around slowly, keeping his hands on the chair, and looked out the window again. Then he swung back, and leaned over. Carefully extending one hand, he poured his glass half full of whisky again, and lifted it.
"Drop to warm myself first," he explained. "Cold out. Too early for winter. Always feel the cold more when winter’s too early." He drank the whisky off without stopping, set the glass down, and straightened up. When he had his balance behind the chair, he turned and lurched toward the outside door.
Harold got up quickly and went to help him, but the old man waved him away angrily. "All ri
ght," he muttered. "Quite all right."
He steadied himself against the doorframe, and then got the door open and lurched out, nearly falling as he stepped down into the snow. He saved himself by his hold on the handle of the door, and the door closed suddenly and loudly.
Harold picked up the two whisky bottles, threw the empty one into the trash box under the sink, and put the other into the cabinet. Gwen began to clear the table, and he helped her, but they still didn’t talk.
When the old man returned, he balanced in the doorway and peered at the table. "Where’d you put it?" he asked. He left the door open, and steered carefully across to the table. The cold air and the fresh smells of snow and pine came in behind him. He leaned on the table and looked around over its top. "Where’d you put it?" he asked again.
Then he grinned knowingly. "Is no use," he said. "Think you can hide things from me, eh?"
"I was just picking up, Dad," Harold said. "It’s in the sideboard. You’d better get some sleep now, though. You look tired."
The old man was touched by this sympathy. The tears welled up over his red lids, and began to trickle down his cheeks. "Tired," he said. "Waited up all night for him. Better get some sleep."
He worked his way to the foot of the stairs, and there, holding onto the rail, drew himself up and turned to face them.
"Beg your pardon, young woman," he said to Gwen. “Inexcusable. ’Solutely inexcusable." He said inexcusable very slowly and carefully, and didn’t miss a syllable. Then he turned back and began to pull himself up the stairs, using both hands on the rail and pausing on each step.
Harold came over to the foot of the stairs, and he and Gwen stood watching every move the old man made. His heavy breathing and the crack of the stairs under his weight were loud in the room. A step or two above the middle of the stairs, he stumbled and swung back on one heel. Gwen uttered a little, nervous cry and put her hands up to her cheeks quickly. Harold sprang up the stairs. The old man caught himself with the rail behind him, and hung there, his chin down hard against his chest, and his eyes closed. Harold got up to him, and steadied him above the rail. After a minute, he drew the old man’s arm over his own shoulder, and, still holding him around the waist too, started him up again. They went very slowly, the father sagging and letting his head roll, but pulling with one hand on the rail. They reached the landing, and paused while Harold got a new hold to take the whole weight, and then shuffled in through the bedroom door. Gwen sighed, and let her hands down again slowly. She stood there a moment more, listening, and then turned back to the sink. She was still quiet, though, not touching the waiting dishes. She heard their voices speak briefly above, and then the old man made a long, relaxing groan. Harold said something more, and his boots sounded loudly, coming out onto the landing. The door was closed, and the boots came down the hollow stairs.
The Track of the Cat Page 17