Track of the Cat - Walter Van Tilburg Clark (31 page)

"Did you want to see me, Mother?" Harold
asked.

The mother didn’t look around, but said, "Come
in here, will you? There’s no use telling our troubles to the whole
wor1d."

Meaning Gwen, he thought, and went in and stood
beside her, but looked over her at Arthur on the bed. It wasn’t
like Arthur sleeping there now. The long, dark hair and beard looked
false around the sinking face. He looks like an old man trying to be
young, Harold thought. A skinny, mean, old man. With a pot belly,
too, he thought, seeing how tight the black coat had become. We keep
the room too warm.

“
We better have the funeral tomorrow, no matter
what," the mother said.

"I guess we’d better."

"If you and Joe Sam would bring the coffin
down."

"All right."

"Then I could get it ready tonight," she
said.

"It’s all ready."

"He can’t lie on the bare boards," the
mother said, more in her old tone. "I want to line it with a
quilt."

After a moment, he said, "Why don’t you just
get the lining ready, Mother, and I’ll put it in, first thing in
the morning."

"I’d like to do that much myself, if I’m to
be allowed now."

If you’re to be allowed, he thought, but finally
said, "All right, then."

"If you’d just bring me down a hammer and
tacks when you come."

Just what they need to listen to all night, he
thought, but said, "All right," again.

"After you’ve had your supper."

She began to rock the chair a little.

Enjoying herself now, Harold thought. He turned
toward the door.

The mother stopped rocking. "Harold."

"Yes?"

"Are there enough good boards for another?"

Jesus, he thought violently, all his anger coming up
at once, the Erst time she doesn’t have
everything
her own way, she wants to bury us all. He didn’t trust himself to
answer, and finally she looked up at Then he wasn’t so sure. If I’m
tired, he thought, think what she must be.

"It’s no good trying to fool ourselves,"
the mother said tonelessly. "Not after two days, and all this
snow."

"He’s been out longer’n that, lots of times,
Mother," Harold said. And if he doesn’t get back, he thought,
we won’t need any coffin.

"It was never like this," the mother said.
"I know. I can feel it. Well," she said, sighing, and
looking away from him at the proud unicorn in the center of the
bedspread, "it don’t matter right now. It’s just I keep
thinkin’ of things, settin’ here with nothin’ to keep me busy."
Then suddenly she buried her face in her hands, and cried thinly,
"Oh, what have I done, that the Lord should turn on me like
this?"

For a moment Harold could only stare at her, his own
will draining out with hers. Then he came back to her, trying to keep
his boots quiet on the floor. He wanted to kneel beside her and put
his arm around her, but even now he couldn’t make himself do that.
He put his hand on her shoulder, timidly.

"Mother, you got to get some sleep pretty quick.
Why don’t you go in your room right now, and try and get some
sleep? There’ll be plenty of time for everything in the morning."
He closed the hand gently on her shoulder. "Please, Mother."

She shook her head, and then slowly sat up and leaned
back, with her eyes closed and her hands in her lap, and Harold
thought, That’s the way she was when I came in. She wasn’t taking
it easy at all.

"I can’t sleep," the mother said. "I’m
better with something to keep me busy. If you’ll just bring me
those things when you come down." After a moment, she added
fretfully, "If only that wind would stop blowing. It keeps
blowing the snow against the window all the time."

Finally Harold said, "Well, we’ll bring it
down now."

"No," she said, without opening her eyes,
"there’s no such hurry as that about it. It’s way late for
your supper now. You get something to eat first."

When he still didn’t go, she added, "I’m
perfectly all right, I tell you. You go get your supper."

He thought, She’s poisoning herself in here, but he
couldn’t think of any way to say that either, and finally turned
and went back out as quietly as he could.

Grace and Gwen were already seated at the table, but
they were waiting for him. Grace looked up at him, but saw his face
and looked down again without asking the question. Joe Sam’s place
was still empty. Harold looked around. The old Indian was sitting
cross-legged
on the floor, with his back against
the wood-box. He still had on the big coat and the black sombrero.

"Come on, Joe Sam," Harold said. "Take
ojf your things and pull up a chair."

Joe Sam didn’t move. Not even the faint glitter of
his eyes changed. Harold went over to him and leaned down and put a
hand on his shoulder. Joe Sam came back slowly from the distance he
was watching, and looked up.

"Come to the table," Harold said. "Eat
supper."

"Table?" Joe Sam asked.

"It’s all right." He coaxed with his hand
under Joe Sam’s arm. Joe Sam did it easily, not using his hands, or
any help from Harold, but just uncrossing his feet and rising
silently, in one motion.

"Better take oif your hat and coat," Harold
said. “It’s hot in here."

"Hot," Joe Sam said. He took his hat off
and put it on the wood in the box, and then slowly took his coat off,
and folded it carefully, and laid it down beside the hat. He followed
Harold to the table like a sleep-walker, and sat down in the chair
beside Gwen, when Harold pulled it out for him. He didn’t look
around at anybody, but right across the table, over Grace’s
shoulder, at the stairs. Harold sat down between him and the father.
The father had finished already, and he was just sitting there now,
hunched over his plate and breathing heavily. He wasn’t paying any
attention to anyone else.

Harold glanced several times, out of the corners of
his eyes, at Joe Sam. It made him a stranger to see him sitting there
at the table, very upright, and blinking slowly against the light.
Grace and Gwen kept looking at him secretly too, staring at the blue
bandana and the hair that had come unbraided as if they had never
seen them before.

Finally Harold said, "You better eat something,
Joe Sam."

The old Indian looked down at his plate, and after a
moment, with all three of them watching him, picked up the two slices
of beef that Gwen had put on it, and began to chew at them. After a
couple of mouthfuls, he stopped chewing, and looked around at the
others. He was smiling, and he looked politely at each of them. "Good
meat," he said. They all looked away from him then, and he
finished the meat and sat there motionless and upright again, with
his hands in his lap. For a long time nobody else said anything. Then
Harold set down his coffee cup and cleared his throat. He didn’t
want to speak, but they had to know about it before the
hammering began.

"Mother wants the coffin down here tonight.
She’s going to line it."

They both looked at him, but then they looked down at
their plates again. Neither of them said anything. Harold knew they
didn’t understand what he meant, but after that he wasn’t
going
to say anything more. Even after they’d finished eating, though,
they all sat there staring into the shadow under the lamp. Finally
Harold roused himself and stood up. That motion, and the sound of his
chair scraping on the floor, woke Grace and Gwen too. Gwen glanced at
him quickly, but when she found him standing there watching her, she
looked down again at once. Her face was awake and guarded now, but
she sat as still as ever, and wouldn’t look
at
him again.

Well, he thought finally, if she thinks I’m going
to hang around here forever, like a bum waiting for handouts. Still,
he thought, looking at the father, I can’t leave her with that on
her hands again. Where’s he got to now? he thought, seeing the
blind eyes and the anger in the big red face, and the heavy lips
moving. Somebody’s getting the best of him, anyway.

“
Dad," he said.

The old man didn’t turn his head, and the look in
his eyes didn’t change, but he began to speak so they could hear
him. "The captain’s a fool, I tell you," he said thickly.
"Nineteen days now, and still nothing but the same goddam head
wind and the snow and the goddam axes going chop, chop, chop. When
you can hear anything but the wind, it’s just the goddam axes. And
we’re frosted up like a wedding cake. ‘Turn the ship around, you
goddam fool,’ I told him, and he just yelped at me. He’s crazy, I
tell you. He don’t even talk like a man any more; he barks like a
dog."

He paused, wheezing like a man enraged beyond speech.
"Drunk too," he added. "Drunk all the time."

Clean back to the Cape, Harold thought. He’s really
getting away from it this time. But not out of trouble.

"Dad," he said again.

The father drew himself up and turned his head slowly
and stared at the big nickel buckle of Harold’s belt. "No,
sir," he began, "I tell you if we don’t give. . ."
but then stopped, and tried to look up far enough to see who Harold
was.

"Don’t you want to go to bed now, Dad?"

After a moment the old man let his head swing back,
and nodded. "Go to bed," he said dully. "Never get any
sleep around here. Always . . ." He let it go, and then said,
more clearly, "Gotta go out first." He peered around over
the table. "Where’s my bottle?" he asked. "Somebody
took my bottle,” he muttered. "Damn, thievin’, female
tricks. If I . . ." but then stopped again, because he had found
the bottle. He poured his glass half full, spilling some over onto
the table this time. He drank the whisky off in two or three gulps,
and carefully let the bottle down onto the floor again, and got to
his feet very slowly, and breathing  erociously. He stood there
for a moment, balancing himself on his fists on the table, and then
swung around and started toward the door. He moved in wide lurches,
and twice he had to
stop, and peer around to
discover where he was, and start over again. Harold moved over and
followed close behind him, but the old man reached the door by
himself and leaned against it. His breathing was like snoring now,
and he rested there, with his head against the doorframe. Finally,
holding onto the handle of the door with one hand, he rolled around
with his back to the wall and raised the other.

"Evenin’ everybody," he said, "wonnerful
evenin’," and swung around to the door again and got it open.
The wind leapt in, nearly wrenching the door from him, and the snow
sprayed in over him, making a fine, glittering mist in the light. He
peered out into the darkness, and then
looked
back over his shoulder, more wakeful and completely astonished.

"Snowing," he told them.

He peered out again. "Wha’s a lil snow?"
he asked, and let go and stepped down into the shallow drift outside
the door. The door blew wide back, and the broken crest of the drift
slithered in across the floor. Harold caught the door, and went out,
dragging it closed after him. The old man’s voice, thin and small
in the gale outside, sang, ". . . play jack o’ diamonds and
trust to my luck," and then was gone, as the deep roaring came
down the mountain again. Without looking at Gwen, Grace said, "It’s
the worst I’ve ever seen him."

Gwen didn’t answer, but Joe Sam made a small, soft
sound in his throat. It might have been a chuckle, and it might not.
When they looked at him, his face didn’t tell them anything. His
good eye was looking at them now, though, and seeing them.

Gwen rose and began to clear the table. She moved
quickly and sharply, putting the plates together too hard, and
letting the knives and forks clatter on them. Grace got up slowly and
began to help her.

They were washing the dishes when Harold and the
father came back in. The father had a new bottle of whisky. He leaned
against the door and embraced the bottle while Harold brushed the
snow off him. He was quiet now, though, and his face was dull and
sleepy. He let Harold help him around the table and up the stairs
without saying anything. Only as they were going in through the door
from the landing, he said plaintively, "Curt should be back. No
night to be out. Nobody be out."

Harold came down again, and began to put on his coat
and cap. "He’ll stay there this time, I think," he said.
He went over and took the lantem down and lit it. "Joe Sam,"
he said. He had to speak three times, before Joe Sam looked at him
and stood up, and then he had to help him into his coat and put his
hat on him. They went out, letting the sound of the storm in, and a
gust filled with snow, and then shutting them away again.

Grace and Gwen finished the dishes in silence. Then
Gwen went into the bunk-room, though she left the door open. Grace
went slowly to the mother’s place at the table, and sat down. She
was still there when the heavy knocking came at the bottom of the
outside door. The knocking came a second time, even louder, before
she slowly got up and walked across and opened the door.