" Grace was still standing by the outside door.
"I’ll leave the lantern," Harold told her. He blew the lantern out and set it on the table. "If she needs me for anything, you come up and call me, will you?"
"Al1 right," Grace said.
Harold looked at the door of the bunk-room again, but it stayed empty, with only the soft light showing in it from the lamp that was out of sight.
"And you might tell Gwen good night for me."
Grace came away from the door and stood beside the table, "You better tell her yourself," she said.
"I don’t guess so. You tell her for me."
"A1l right," Grace said. "I’ll tell her."
"And you get some sleep too."
"Oh, I will."
He tried to grin at her, and patted her arm, and said, "Come on, Joe Sam."
They went out, and Harold pulled the door closed, getting a last look at Grace, still standing there against the table, looking at nothing. Then there was only a square shaft of light coming out of the window beside them. The light spread quickly against the driven snow, and didn’t reach far. When they had crossed it, the darkness was thick everywhere in front of them, and when they came around the corner of the house, the wind shut them off too.
"Keep close behind me, Joe Sam," Harold yelled, and then looked ahead and up the slope, trying to keep the bunk-house window in sight. Sometimes it would show brightly for an instant, but most of the time it was dim and small behind the twisting veils of the blizzard, and sometimes it almost winked out. Twice he felt Joe Sam touch him on the small of the back, to make sure where he was.
18
Harold woke gently into a deep hush in the morning. For some reason he could not remember, he felt lazy and profoundly at peace, almost happy. After a minute, he turned his head on the pillow and looked at the window. There was a little wall of snow at the bottom of each pane, and beyond them he could see huge, far-separated flakes floating down through a brightening air.
It must be pretty well snowed out, he thought, and then, remembering the sweeping blizzard of the night before, he remembered everything else that had happened too. The wall of peace that sleep, and perhaps good dreams, had raised in his mind, crumbled away. It seemed to him then that he must have slept too long, and that something had happened while he slept, something he might have prevented if he’d been awake. He threw back his blankets and started to roll up onto the edge of his bunk. Then he saw Joe Sam, and froze where he was, propped up on one elbow.
The old Indian was crouched on one knee, so close to the head of the bunk that Harold could have reached out and touched his face. He was naked again, and holding the bottle neck down against his hip, like a knife ready to be driven forward and up. He was whispering rapidly and softly, like an excited breathing, and making little, quieting motions with his left hand, as if to keep someone else still. Harold glanced quickly past the old man to see who it was, but there was only the bare floor, with a little sawdust and a few shavings on it, that he had missed when he swept up after his work. Harold looked back at the bottle neck again, to be ready to jump when it started. It didn’t move, though, except to tremble a little where it was.
I can’t stay here all day like this, Harold thought, and turned his head very slowly to look at Joe Sam’s face. Joe Sam wasn’t watching him at all; he was watching something down at the foot of the bunk. He was turned a little toward the foot of the bunk, and was holding himself ready to leap at it. Harold looked quickly down where the old man was looking, but there was nothing there either, except the shape of his own legs and feet under the covers. He didn’t dare to move his feet, for fear Joe Sam would pounce on them like a cat. He was watching them like a cat watching a hole where he’d seen something move.
That’s it, Harold thought, the cat. He’s holding the cat back, but he’s ready to help it, too. They’re together. The image was distinct for a moment, but then it passed, and he wasn’t so sure. Or maybe he’s helping Curt, he thought. Maybe it’s the cat he has cornered. What’s the good of making fool guesses? he asked himself more wakefully. The old man’s seeing things again, that’s all that’s sure.
"Joe Sam," he said quietly.
The excited whispering stopped at once, but Joe Sam still crouched there, with one hand out to hold back his invisible ally. He appeared to be holding his breath now, in order to hear better.
"Joe Sam," Harold said again, and more loudly.
Moving only his eyes, the old Indian looked up Harold’s length from the feet he had been watching so intently. When he saw Harold’s eyes looking into his, his body slackened a little at once, and then, gradually, the excited pleasure faded from his face. His lips, which had been drawn back in a half grin, closed over the worn stumps of his teeth, and he let the bottle neck down to the floor. Then, before Harold could speak again, he stood up and padded softly across the room and let the bottle neck down into the trash keg without a sound. More slowly, all the purpose gone out of him, he drifted back to the stove and stood beside it, holding his hands out to the cold iron. The snow light from the window revealed all the bony knots of his dark body. He began to shake heavily. He hunched and tightened himself against the shaking, but that only made it worse.
Same as it was in the corral yesterday, Harold thought. He comes out of it, and he’s a hundred years old again. He swung up onto the edge of the bunk, and felt much better because he had completed the motion.
"Joe Sam," he said once more.
The old Indian looked back over his shoulder. His face was sad, and his jaw was shaking like the rest of him.
"Hello," he said.
Like it was any morning, Harold thought, and asked, "What were you after with that bottle neck?"
"No got bottle neck," the old man said finally.
Harold watched him intently, but he said nothing more, and finally he looked back at the stove. Harold shrugged his shoulders and stood up.
"You better get into your bunk. The fire’s out."
The old man slowly drew his hands away from the stove and held his elbows with them, hugging himself. Still hugging himself, he moved slowly across to his bunk, but then just stood there beside it, staring down at it.
"Get in, Joe Sam. Get under the b1ankets," Harold said.
Still the old man just stood there, staring, until Harold began to feel uneasily that it wasn’t the bunk he was looking at, but something left over from the excited dream. Then, instead of getting into the bunk, he took up the red flannel underwear that lay on top of his other clothes and began to get into it very slowly. He was shaking so badly that he had trouble balancing himself when he had to stand on one leg.
He doesn’t know it, though, Harold thought, watching him. It’s like he woke up into a dream, not the other way round.
"Y0u better get under the covers and warm up first," he said.
"Whisky," Joe Sam said. "Make warm." He went on trying to get into the red underwear.
"All right. I’ll get you a drink when I go down. But you better stay in bed a while first. You got the shakes bad."
"Feed chickens," Joe Sam said. He got into the underwear finally, and buttoned it and reached for his shirt.
Harold stared at him, angered in spite of himself by this stubborn, sleepy defiance. But then he thought, letting the anger pass, Better keep him where I can watch him, at that, and looked down at the boot he was holding, and began to pull it on. But no more bottle necks, he thought. We’re done with bottle necks.
He slowed his dressing to let Joe Sam Hnish first. When the old man was dressed, he said, "You go on down, Joe Sam. I’ll be along in a minute."
He stood up and crossed to the wash basin and poured it full of water. The film of ice that had formed in the night clicked faintly as it broke into the basin. Harold watched Joe Sam in the piece of mirror on the wall. It was more real, some way, than looking right at him, to see the small figure standing out so distinctly in the middle of the room in the white, snow light, and behi
nd him, much farther behind him than they really were, so that he was standing in a long hall, the bare board wall of the other end and the pile of stove wood, with a bridle hanging from a nail above it. It was Joe Sam’s dress-up bridle, and the silver studding on it made tiny points of shining. The points of shining weren’t attached to the bridle. They were alive in the air by themselves.
The little, dark man in the center of the hall just stood there, looking at Harold’s back. He was too small for his face to show clearly. Only his eye on the side toward the window shone by itself, like one of the silver nails. Harold wanted to turn around and look at the face that was too small to show anything in the glass. He didn’t, though, but doused his face quickly with the cold water, wetting his hair too, and looked into the long hall in the mirror again. The httle, dark figure was still there, but water had splashed onto the mirror, and made it appear only waveringly, and then disappear. Suddenly Harold was really afraid of the figure. It became the same dangerous stranger who had come to life before, when there were no tracks in the snow.
"You go along, Joe Sam," he said sharply, and then, ashamed of the edge in his voice, added, "You’re cold enough now. Get down there and get yourself warm. I’ll be down directly."
He doused his face again, and cleared his eyes, and saw the little figure in the long hall turn toward the door, appearing between water streaks and vanishing behind them. Then the door opened, making a white rectangle in the dark hall. The figure appeared in the white rectangle, and vanished from it as it had behind the water on the glass. The faraway door remained open, showing only a faintly moving whiteness, like breath on the glass.
It occurred to Harold that the figure hadn’t gone through the white rectangle at all, but only across it, and that it was still in the hall, creeping along the wall toward the trash keg. In spite of himself, he turned around quickly. The long hall with the shadows he couldn’t see into became the small, ordinary room, with plenty of light to show everything in it, and there was nobody else in the room. He relaxed slowly. Finally he even grinned at himself a little.
"It’s me I better keep the eye on, not Joe Sam," he said. He looked through the open door and down the hill. Only the snow-covered plane of the house roof showed, and the dark, log tower at the north end of it, with its cap of thick white. They were small and faint through the falling snow. Joe Sam wasn’t in sight.
Harold quickly finished washing, wiped his face and hands and combed his hair. Then he emptied the basin into the slop pail, and straightened up and looked at the door again, and then at the window. There was still only the faraway roof and the falling snow. He went to the tool box under the sawhorses and took out a hammer and went to the trash keg. He lifted out the jagged bottle neck and laid it on the floor and smashed it into small pieces with the hammer. He swept up the pieces and dumped them into the keg. Then he dropped the hammer back into the tool box, put on his cap and mackinaw, and went out.
He was just closing the door when he saw Joe Sam. He stiffened and held his breath, because the old man was standing flat against the outside wall, so close to the door that their shoulders were nearly touching. Then he let out his breath and loosened his shoulders. Joe Sam wasn’t even looking at him. He was just standing there, hugging himself and staring down dreamily at the house from under the brim of the black sombrero.
After a moment, Harold said, "Come on, Joe Sam," carefully keeping the anger out of his voice, and pulled the door to, and started down the hill. The snow was nearly to his hips now, and he had to drag his way down through it. It made a quilted hush over everything, that could be felt in the body, especially after the loud noise he’d made with the hammer in the hollow bunk-house. He looked back once, and Joe Sam was coming down right behind him, stepping carefully in his tracks in the bottom of the trench his legs were plowing. Harold smiled in his mind, and thought, He hates to leave a track. Then he thought, looking at Joe Sam’s face, He couldn’t help hearing me break that thing, but if he cares, he’s sure keeping it to himself.
He looked out toward the valley, but in this heavy snowing, it wasn’t even the beginning of a plain any longer. The white world was closed in to its smallest yet.
Gwen was alone in the kitchen when they came in. She was already dressed, wearing the bright, yellow blouse again, but her hair wasn’t braided yet. Instead it was hanging in a heavy mane down her back, drawn together at the nape of her neck and tied with a yellow ribbon. Harold had never seen her with her hair down before. It was just one more little difference, but suddenly everything in the familiar kitchen was strange, the way the bunk-house had been in the mirror.
Gwen half turned around from what she was doing at the stove, and looked at him. With her hair drawn back tight that way she appeared older too. She looked very tired, and her eyes were only seeing him, not saying anything or asking anything.
"Good morning," she said, and turned back. "I’ll have your breakfast ready in a few minutes," she said.
So it’s still that way, Harold thought, and after a moment said, "I brought Joe Sam down too."
"I see you did," she said, turning something in the pan.
"Grace up?"
"Not yet. She didn’t get much sleep."
"Then you didn’t either, huh?"
"Don’t bother yourself about me."
Don’t think I am, he thought, with sudden anger, but waited, and finally said, "I do, though. You know that."
“Thnks,” she said.
He waited again, and then said softly, "All right. Have it your own way."
Gwen didn’t say anything. So he was till in a strange place when he went around the table and into the north room. The lamp in the window was out, but everything in the white room was clear with light from the snow. The shape on the bed was still covered with the white blanket, and the smell of sage and balsam was almost strong enough to cover the other smell.
The coffin was still standing where they’d set it, by the bed, but the lining was all tacked into it now. It looked queer, that soft, puffy patchwork of bright colors inside the plain wooden box that had only a thin coat of black paint. Harold looked over at the lid, leaning against the wall, and saw that there was a piece of quilt tacked onto it too.
The mother was sitting in the rocking chair beside the coffin, and Harold thought at first that she was asleep, but when he didn’t speak, she opened her eyes and looked up at him.
"Ain’t this snow ever gonna stop?" she asked, hardly moving her lips. She wasn’t really asking a question, but just protesting faintly.
“It can’t last much longer at this rate," Harold said.
The mother closed her eyes again. "We’ll have the buryin’ as quick as it stops," she said. "I’d like we should have a preacher for it," she added.
"Not much chance of that, I guess," Harold said.
"No," she agreed, and after a moment said, "You should do the talkin’, by rights, but there ain’t much chance of that, either."
"No," Harold said.
"Well," the mother said finally, "we’ll wrap him in that blue spread, I guess. He’s always been partial to that blue spread. When he was a little feller, he was always after me to get out the blue spread so he could look at it. He’d sit there and study over it an hour at a time. Run his finger around on all the birds and trees and things like he was drawin’ them hisself. Tell hisself stories about ’em while he was doin’ it. They was more real to him than people that come to the house. He was a queer little feller, Had a world all of his own, couldn’t anybody else get into, half the time."
"I know," Harold said, and thought, Not only when he was a kid, either. "We’1l clear the grave off as soon as the snow lets up," he said.
"We gotta have it today, even if the snow don’t stop," the mother said.
"I know, but it’s going to. Has to, the way it’s snowin’ now, and no wind."
The mother opened her eyes again, and looked at the coffin. "We could put him in now," she said. "While we’re one."
"All right," Harold said, and without knowing it rubbed his hands hard and slowly down his thighs. "You better let me get Joe Sam, though. Why don’t you go in the kitchen and get yourself some coffee? Joe Sam and I’ll take care of it."
"I don’t know," the mother said wearily. "I don’t like too much he should do it, a last Christian duty like that."
After a moment Harold said, "Arthur thought a lot of him."
"I know that. More than he did of the rest of us, I thought sometimes."
"You better let us do it, Mother."
She sat so long, motionless and with her eyes closed, that he began to wonder if she’d fallen asleep, but finally she asked, "Is that Gwen Williams getting breakfast?"
"Yes, it is."
Again the mother waited some time before she spoke. "I’ll just go in your room and lie down a while, I guess. You could bring me some coffee when it’s ready."
And she’s still at it too, Harold thought wearily.
"All right," he said.
The mother opened her eyes and sat up. After a moment she took firm hold upon the arms of the chair and pushed herself to her feet. She faltered when she let go of the chair, though, and Harold quickly put a hand to her armpit to steady her. When she was sure on her feet, she stiffened against his hold.
"I can do for myself, thanks."
Harold let go of her. She stood there looking down at the shape under the white blanket for a minute, and then turned and walked slowly into the kitchen. She went across the kitchen the same way, without looking around, and into the bunk-room, and closed the door again behind her. Harold followed her into the kitchen, and stopped by the table. Gwen was standing at the stove, where the mother had almost brushed her going by. She was holding the long fork in her hand, and looking at the bunk-room door.
The Track of the Cat Page 23