At last he came onto the treeless strip of snow that went up the mountain from the end of the canyon. He found the tracks that led to the gap at the edge of the cliff, and worked up them, guessing the wild running and the wallowing falls into the drifts, till he came to a pile of cut boughs and the deep black hollow of a burnt-out fire with a few woven-together boughs laid on the snow between them and sagging from a weight that wasn’t on them now. The Winchester lay on the corner of this platform of boughs, and along its edge toward the fire hold, was a neat row of six cigarettes. The missing bear-paws stood neatly together against the pile of boughs. He picked up the carbine and tried the trigger. It gave limply, and he pumped the lever, and holding the muzzle uphill at the open snow, tried again. The carbine roared and leapt in his hands, and instantly a little spurt of snow jumped in the clearing, and a deep, tumultuous echo rolled in the canyon below. He shook his head, and laid the Winchester down on the boughs again, and looked all around the clearing.
Finally he sat down and laced on the bear-paws and rose and worked slowly, very tired now, and sleepy from the dazzle of sun on the snow, along the marks he could see. Still he found only the flat, round prints of the bear-paws, in a single, dragging trail down from the mountain, and in deep, unclear ruts from the black remains of the fire to the slashed trees on both sides of the clearing. It made a queer, lonely puzzle, a little foolish in the bright sunlight on the snow, but a little terrifying too, when you knew the end of it.
He stopped finally by the cut trees on the north edge, and looked along the single trail that went up the mountain out of sight into the timber. It went by itself as far as he could see it, and he shook his head again, and came back to the pile of boughs. He stood there looking down at the six cigarettes laid neatly side by side upon the edge of the platform of boughs.
He had himself set for a long time, he thought dreamily, and then, looking at the black fire hole again, And he was here a good part of it.
Finally he looked around the clearing once more seeing his own tracks going beside Curt’s now, and thought drowsily, the whole pattern of what he had found becoming unreal, It might as well have been your black painter at that, Joe Sam. He picked up the Winchester and laid it with his own over his right shoulder. He stood looking at the cigarettes again, but at last shook his head a little and left them there just as they were. He went back down to where Kit was waiting, and untied him and led him on down below the last trees. There he took off the bear-paws and tied them to the saddle and mounted. Laying the carbines together across his thighs, he rode the rest of the way down slowly, going almost to the end of the reach this time before he reined Kit over into the canyon.
When he got back to the body and the faintly smoking funeral fires, he took Kit down and tied him beside Smudge in the willows once more, and standing the rifles up against the brush, put on the bear-paws, and climbed on up the canyon. He found Joe Sam still squatted over his red work, but the great hide free to the shoulders. Joe Sam stopped the knife where it was and looked up. Harold saw it was Arthur’s knife he was using.
He shook his head. "He had a big fire up there, but I couldn’t find any tracks except his."
"You shoot," Joe Sam said.
"Oh, I was only trying his gun. It was still loaded. Something scared him, though. He was running when he fell over the edge."
"No track?"
"Only his."
Joe Sam made one short sound, a kind of soft grunt, and then suddenly, as if waking from some thought of his own he wished not to show, looked down again and began to tug at the hide and flick under the edge of it with the bloody point. That was answer enough for him, Harold thought, A proof as good as seeing it.
He took off the bear-paws and knelt to help the old man, drawing with both hands at the slippery hide, while the bright knife flicked and flicked, severing the thin, clinging membranes.
The sun had gone out of the canyon to the southwest, and the blue shadows and the wind were in the aspens again, when at last Joe Sam rose with the freed hide in his hands, and held it up for a moment to show its great length, and then laid it on clean snow and rolled it, fur side in. The thin, marbled carcass, appearing much smaller than when the pelt had covered it, lay naked in the bushes. Joe Sam, grinning a little, held the roll of hide up, the tail flap and one claw-weighted paw dangling, out of it.
"Good blanket for bed now," he said. "You get marry, huh?"
Harold thought again, You can’t blame him, and said, forcing a little grin himself, "Maybe. That’s up to her."
Joe Sam shook his head, grinning widely now. "She come," he said confidently. "You boss now. No trouble."
Harold looked at him, and finally said slowly, "I guess I am at that," seeing for the first time the enormous difference this could make.
"Well," he said quickly, "we’d better get moving. It’ll be pretty near dark before we get back now."
Joe Sam looked at him, with the joke in his eye, but then only nodded and laid the rolled hide on the snow and knelt and began to lace on his snowshoes. Only when Harold was knotting the rawhide of his second web, the old man said, without looking up, "Not black painter."
Harold finished the tie, and knelt there, looking at the small old figure in the coat too big for it, and at the dark, square old hands, splashed with the dried blood of the cat, working awkwardly at the laces.
Going to sic it on me now? he wondered, but answered, "No. I guess we’ll never get that one."
"Not get," Joe Sam agreed, and Harold didn’t think he was joking now, but that he meant it for himself too.
They went back to the horses, Harold ahead, with the heavy Sharps rifle, and Joe Sam behind him with the rolled skin in his arms. By the horses, Joe Sam bound the roll with the laces of his webs, and after a long, patient trying, got Smudge to accept it, and tied it on behind the saddle.
Harold turned the snowshoe sled so its prow was headed down canyon, and then led Kit up out of the willows, and hitched him to it by his lasso. Seeing Joe Sam already mounted and waiting, he brought the two carbines up and mounted himself, and led the way slowly down, looking back often to make sure the clumsy sled with its hooded burden was following him safely. Each time he looked back he saw Joe Sam coming down behind the sled, hunched stolidly in the saddle, the Sharps straight across his legs, the black sombrero set perfectly straight on his head, on top of the blue bandana around his face.
A queer guard for your last ride, he thought once, addressing the dead Curt between them.
They went clear out onto the flat of the meadow, into the sunlight, before Harold turned south toward the ranch. The wind was stronger out there, and sometimes they moved in shadowy file, the leader, and the low, crude sled, and the guard, through a spinning, glittering mist of blown snow they couldn’t see out of, the living any better than the dead.
When the snow swept lower past them, though, or at a shift of the wind tied away east in three smoky columns, Harold could see the ranch, still tiny with distance, and already in the shadow of the mountain. Once in a while it showed clearly, so he could see even the smoke lining out from the chimney of the house, but more often it grew faint or even disappeared behind the running snow.
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The Track of the Cat Page 46