The Track of the Cat

by Walter van Tilburg Clark

  Grace opened her eyes and sighed, and came around to the foot of the stairs. She knelt below the old man, and put a hand on his knee. "Father," she said softly.

  "Eh?"

  "We mustn’t let Mother send Gwen away. She has to apologize, or Gwen’1l go, Father."

  “Course,” the old man agreed. "Said so, didn’t I? Curt's intended."

  "Harold’s, Father."

  "Eh?" said the old man. "What?" He thought about it.

  “’Sright," he said finally. "Harold’s." He seemed cheered by the discovery. "Better," he said, nodding. “Much better, Curt marry some decent American girl now, not little foreign whore."

  Slowly Grace took her hand from his knee and stood up. She stood for a minute staring down at him, and then turned and started toward the bunk-room. Halfway there, between the table and the stove, she stopped and began to turn around, but then changed her mind again. Very slowly, like one feeling her way, she went to the table and stood with her hands on the back of the mother’s chair. Finally she leaned over and picked up Arthur’s little carving of the sheepherder, but listlessly, as if it didn’t matter to her. Then she turned and went on into the bunk-room and closed the door very slowly and quietly.

  The old man sat alone on the stairs, cradling his bottle. A long time passed, with only the clock and the fire sounding in the room. Then he spoke.

  "Not going upstairs," he said stubbornly.

  He hoisted himself to his feet and worked down the last step and around the post carefully. He made his way to the table in one tack, and then, keeping a hand on the table, got around to his place and pulled out his chair. He sank into the chair suddenly, and sat there brooding and wheezing, the bottle still in his arm, his chin sunk into the folds of his neck.

  A long time later, he suddenly aroused himself, and looked about as if someone had spoken. "That you, Curt?" he asked.

  “Damn clock," he said finally. "Goddam clock, always tickin’."

  He tried to uncork his bottle again, but gave it up this time. He lowered the bottle slowly onto the floor beside his chair. Then he let his arms slide out onto the table in front of him and pillowed his head on his right arm. Once in a while, after that, he muttered something, a protest or a lament, to the empty kitchen, but most of the time there was only his heavy breathing and the clock and the fire. Toward dusk the snow really began to come down again outside, thickly and silently, in big flakes.

  16

  It was nearly dark when Harold came in. He stopped in the doorway to shake the snow from his cap and coat, and kick it gently off his boots. Then he stood there peering into the shadowy room. Only the little worms and butterflies of light from the stove moved and were distinct, but he made out the bulk of the father asleep on his arms on the table.

  "Come in, Joe Sam," he said. "And close the door."

  He crossed to the stove and got matches. The old Indian entered silently and closed the door and remained there against it. Harold lighted the lamp and slid it up again. Then he looked back at Joe Sam. The old man had on a coat that was much too big for him, and a black sombrero with a flat crown. There was a blue bandana tied around his head under the sombrero. His braids hung down from it, and the loose braid was all unbound now and spread over his shoulder. The new snow still clung to him, and was thick on his shoulders and hat.

  Harold started to speak to him, but heard steps in the north bedroom and turned back. There was a quick scratching in there, and a white light showed through the open doorway and grew stronger and steadier. He took a deep breath and straightened himself, and crossed to the doorway. The mother was bending over the lamp, slowly bringing the wick up to where she wanted it.

  "We’re going now," Harold said.

  The mother waited until she had the wick set. Then she drew herself slowly erect, and turned to face him.

  "Going where?"

  "To Williams’."

  The mother just stood there, dark against the light of the lamp.

  "The coffin’s finished," Harold said, "and the grave’s dug. We dug it up back, on the hill. But it’s too late for the funeral now. I’1l be back tomorrow, if I can make it."

  "You’ll be back?"

  "For the funeral."

  Finally the mother said, "You don’t have to go."

  "We can’t stay here, that’s sure."

  The mother waited even longer this time, but finally said, "You can’t go now, not with it snowing again."

  "You didn’t leave us much choice," Harold said. "Gwen’d go without me. You don’t think I’d let her do that, do you?"

  "You could wait till morning, anyway."

  "In the bunk-house?"

  The mother was silent for a long time again, but he just waited. At last she said, "You’d leave us with everything this way?"

  "There’s not much choice, is there?"

  "No," the mother said slowly, "I guess there ain’t." Then she said bitterly, "Seems like I’m always the one that’s wrong."

  Harold’s mind flared, but he thought, No more of that, and just waited again. After a minute, the mother turned away from his stare and stood looking down at Arthur. He could see then that she was twisting her hands together.

  "I’m half out of my mind," she said. “I been thinkin’ all day somethin’s happened to Curt too. Could be I spoke too quick."

  Could be, Harold thought grimly, and still wouldn’t help her.

  The mother let her hands down to her sides, and turned back to face him. "I don’t guess it matters much what I say now. Bring the girl down here, if that’s what she wants."

  Harold stared at her. At last he said softly, "It’s not what she wants. All she wants is to go home. She wasn’t even going to let me go with her."

  "You needn’t of been too much afeared of that, I guess."

  When Harold spoke this time, it was even more softly. "All right, then, if that’s the way you like it." He turned, and saw Grace standing by the table in the kitchen, watching them.

  "Harold," the mother said.

  He waited, with his back to her.

  "I said more than I should of, I guess," she said. "Do you want I should go up and tell her that?"

  He turned to face her again, but then Grace was beside him, saying, "You’d better let Harold go, Mother, or me."

  "You’ll have to beg her pardon," Harold said.

  "Oh, she will," Grace said quickly. "You will, won’t you. Mother?"

  "I’m not the only one around here that said too much."

  "I know, I know. I said terrible things, Mother, and I’m sorry. But you’ll say that much to Gwen too, won’t you? That you’re sorry? We can’t let her go like this, Mother."

  "No," the mother said slowly, "seems like we can’t."

  "You’ll tell her you’re sorry, Mother?"

  The mother nodded.

  "I’ll go get her to come down." Before either of the others could speak, she ran over to the pegs by the door and took down the first coat she got hold of, and struggled into it. It was Curt’s red mackinaw, and it was much too big for her. She had trouble getting her hands out of the sleeves far enough to open the door. Harold started toward her, saying, "Grace, wait," but before he could get to her, she had the door open.

  "Grace," he said again.

  “N0, Harold, you better let me," she said, and slipped out into the snowy darkness, and closed the door.

  Harold opened the door and called after her, "Grace," but she didn’t answer. He went outside and called, "Grace, take it easy." She didn’t answer this time either, and he cou1dn’t see her out there. He started toward the corner of the house, but then stopped. After a moment he went on again, more slowly, and stopped at the corner, and stood there looking up at the lighted bunk-house window. He saw the angle of light when the door opened, and Grace’s small, dark figure go in, and then there was only the window showing again. He waited there, staring up into the darkness, until a gust of wind full of snow blinded him. He bent his head against it, and when it eas
ed off, turned and went back slowly. The kitchen door was still open. He went in and closed it behind him. He was startled, then, to see Joe Sam looking at him out of the shadowy corner between the bunk-room door and the stove. He had forgotten that the old Indian was in there. He was half-sitting on the wood-box, with his hands hanging limp between his knees, and he still had on the big coat and the black sombrero.

  "You better take off your things, Joe Sam," Harold said. "We won’t get at the chores for a while yet."

  The good eye, gleaming steadily in the shadow, seemed to be looking at him, but Joe Sam just sat here, and didn’t answer. Harold didn’t want to say anything more, with the father asleep there under the lamp, and the white light in the door of the north bedroom, but everything quiet in there too. He went slowly over to the table, and pulled out Arthur’s chair, lifting it so it wouldn’t scrape, and setting it down again carefully too. He sat down in it and looked at the big, gray head in the circle of light, and the little, flame-shaped locks standing up on it.

  I ought to get him up to bed, he thought. If he wakes up when they come back, and puts in his two-bits’ worth, but then put that idea aside also, at the thought of the old man’s voice in the quiet, and the ridiculous struggle to get him up the stairs.

  If only Grace don’t go at it the way she did at mother here, he thought uneasily. Even if she gets Gwen to come down that way, it’ll only set her dead against us. The waiting became very long with only the clock ticking and the slow, heavy snoring of the father.

  Well, he thought, I can see to their fire, anyway, and got up and went into the bunk-room, being as quiet as he could in his boots. The fire was out, and the room was cooling fast. There was a faint sweetness of women in the air that made the place strange, and made him feel like an intruder. The stool Gwen had sat on was still there beside Arthur’s bunk, and the hollow Grace’s head had made in the pillow was still there too. Arthur’s little carvings lay every which way in the wrinkles of the blankets. Gwen hadn’t left much mark of herself, though. She’d used his bunk, and it was made up smooth now, with the top quilt pulled up over the pillow. The only thing he could see that belonged to her was the canvas satchel with the leather handles on it, and her initials stamped on the side of it in big, broken letters, G.A.W. The satchel was sitting in the middle of the neat bunk. It looked as if she had been thinking about going away all the time, or at least ever since the father had called her names, and accused her of causing the trouble.

  Harold wanted to go over and put his hands on the satchel, because it was hers, but it made him feel sneaky just to think about it, with that woman smell in the room, and Gwen so angry with him now. He stood looking at the satchel for a minute, and then went over to the stove and shook down the ashes and laid a new tire and lit it. When the small wood was burning surely, and he could begin to feel the heat working out, he put in a couple of chunks, and then went back into the kitchen. From in front of the stove, he could see that the mother was kneeling by the bed in the north room again. It made the quiet of the house more oppressive than ever to see her back at her praying, and it made him angry too.

  Half an hour of that, and we’ll be right back where we started from, he thought.

  He moved over to the table and stood looking down at the father again, without seeing him. Finally he went into the store room and came back out with one arm full of potatoes. He closed the store-room door carefully, and almost tiptoed over to the sink board, and let the potatoes down onto it one at a time. He got out a pan and a paring knife and began to peel the potatoes slowly, taking off straight slices that were too thick, and putting the square, peeled potatoes into the pan. It got night dark in the windows while he worked, and the wind came up outside again so he could hear it roaring in the pines and slithering the snow across the panes.

  Then, finally, he heard the latch of the outside door click. He turned around quickly, and saw Gwen come in, and then Grace behind her. Grace’s face, looking at him over Gwen’s shoulder, was still too bright eyed and triumphantly pale, in the way he didn’t trust, but Gwen looked at him out of the shadow of her hood and looked away again at once. She moved into the room a couple of steps, to let Grace in behind her, and then stood there, the way Joe Sam always did.

  “This is the worst yet," Grace said, in that high, happy voice. She closed the door briskly, like a person with a thousand things to do and eager to be at them. "A little more and you could get lost between here and the bunk-house," she said happily. "We could hardly see the light." Gwen began to brush the snow, that was fine as salt now, from her cloak, and then leaned over to brush the heavier snow from the hem of her skirt. She didn’t look at either of them.

  "I put some more wood in the stove for Joe Sam," Grace said. His fire’ll keep till bedtime. Is she there still?" she asked.

  Harold stood there holding the paring knife in one hand and a half-peeled potato in the other, and kept looking at Gwen. He just nodded to answer Grace.

  "Good heavens, Harold," Grace cried, "you’re taking half the potato with the skin. You poor boy, peeling potatoes. You let them wait now. We’ll get our little formalities over with, and then Gwen and I’ll get supper in a couple of shakes."

  While she spoke, she took off Curt’s red coat and hung it on the back of the chair nearest her, and then brushed at the snow on her skirt with the same busy cheerfulness her voice had.

  Harold looked at her, thinking, If she starts on Mother like that.

  "She’s praying again now," he said. "Maybe we’d better . . .”

  "There’s no use putting it off," Grace said. She came over and took the knife and the potato from him, and put them on the sink board. "Everything will go better once we get that settled, better for all of us." She started toward the bedroom, her chin lifted a little, and that hopeful half-smile on her mouth. "Mother," she called cheerfully.

  'I'he father stirred and muttered in his sleep.

  Gwen said, "No, Grace, let her be."

  Grace stopped in the bedroom doorway and turned around. The white, excited shining of her face was already beginning to fade. "There’s no use putting it off," she said again, but not so quickly or so clearly.

  Gwen moved over into the light by the table, but still with her cloak on and the hood up to conceal her face. "Let it go for now," she said. "She sent you up, and that’s good enough."

  Nobody sent her, really, Harold thought. She took it all on herself. As if to speak to him, the mother’s voice, the deep voice like a man’s, said from the doorway, "I didn’t send her. It was her own idea."

  Harold turned, and Grace moved over against the stairs quickly, and they were all three looking at the mother. The light behind her was stronger than the light in the kitchen, so they could see her face only dimly, but the tall figure in distinct silhouette, the narrow body rising out of the skirt that filled the lower part of the doorway.

  "I had a notion to come myself," she said clearly, "but Grace thought better not. I got a stiff tongue at the best of times, and it don’t limber up none owning I’m wrong."

  "It’s all right, Mrs. Bridges," Gwen said.

  "No, no it ain’t," the mother said, almost triumphantly. "I should of come myself. I been upset kind of, but that ain’t no excuse. I said more’n I meant, and I should of come myself."

  "I know," Gwen said. "I understand."

  "No. I made a promise, and a promise I make, I keep. I want you should hear it from me. I would of come up there myself, only it seems like I ain’t to be trusted now, not even by my own children. There, I’ve owned I said too much. You can put your pride away now, and maybe poor Arthur will get a little peace anyway. I won’t hinder you no more, anything you want to do. Seems my ways, and the Lord’s too, for the matter of that, don’t hold around here no more."

  Now she’s done it, the old bitch, Harold thought fiercely. "Gwen," he said quickly, and turned toward her.

  But Gwen just stood very straight where she was, and looked back at the mother, and said, "If
you want me to go, I’m sure . . ."

  "It’s not what I want any more," the mother said.

  "As far as I’m concerned," Gwen began, but the father’s voice interrupted her, asking thickly and loudly, "What’s the matter? What’s going on here?"

  They all looked at him. He was holding his head up with difficulty, only a little off his arm, and peering cross at them. But he didn’t say anything else, and the mother looked at Gwen again.

  "Don’t talk like a fool," she said. "You couldn’t go any place on a night like this if you wanted to." She turned and went back into the bedroom.

  "What ails her now?" the father asked.

  "It’s nothing, Father," Grace said.

  "Gwen, listen," Harold said, coming beside her and taking hold of her arm gently.

  "It’s always nothing," the father said angrily. "What’s she talking about? I asked you."

  "She meant it all right, at first," Harold pleaded. "It’s only that she gets her pride up when she starts to talk. She knows she was wrong. And we want you to stay, we all do. You know that."

  Gwen still wouldn’t look at him, but she put her right hand out from under her cloak and patted his hand that was holding her arm. "She’s right enough about one thing, anyway," she said. "We can’t go now. So let’s not talk about it, shall we?"

  She turned away from him and went quickly across to the clothes pegs, and stood there in front of them, with her back to the room.

  "Talk about what?" the father asked loudly, and thumped the table with his fist.

  "Please, Father," Grace cried. "It’s all done with."

  "All done with, is it? Now, you listen to me, young lady,” he said angrily, and tried to rise, but lurched to the side and kicked over the whisky bottle. He looked down at it, and said, "Oh, oh," and sat back in the chair again, and leaned over and picked up the bottle. He cradled it in his arm and began to pat it. "Almost spilled it," he murmured.

  Gwen swung her cloak off suddenly and hung it up, and turned back to face them, saying, “It’s time we get some supper."