Track of the Cat - Walter Van Tilburg Clark (5 page)

"I don’t know what else you are. You was born
in this valley, in that very room where they’re so busy chatterin’
now, and you never been out of it, more’n to drive stock to Reno or
sit in the Williams' kitchen. You don’t know nothing but ranchin’
this valley. What would you do anywhere e1se?"

"This isn’t the only ranch in the world,"
Harold said.

"It’s the only one you’re ever likely to
see, though. Or was you figurin’ on keepin’ a wife on a cow
hand’s wage?"

"I wouldn’t be the first that started that
way."

"I know," the mother said. "It was
simple once. All they had to do was make ’em an iron with the right
curves to fit over somebody else’s brand, and they was set. But the
country you could do that on’s all took up now, all that’s any
use for anything. And the open range has got outfits runnin' on it
that ain’t exactly honin’ to share it with rustlers, not that
I’ve heard tell of."

Harold sat staring at his plate and didn’t answer.

"It’s practical facts I’m tryin’ to get
straight," the mother said, "not dreams."

Still Harold didn’t say anything, and finally,
before the mother could speak again, Arthur said, "This is a big
valley. It could carry a lot more stock than we’ve ever run on it."

The mother looked at him, and smiled tightly, and the
triumph was already in her eyes. "I had a notion that’s where
we was headin’," she said.

"Well, why not?" Arthur asked mildly. "We
could all help with a house-raising, like old times."

"And divide up the valley, maybe?" the
mother asked, before he could go on.

Arthur smiled, seeing how she followed her planned
line, and shook his head. "We wouldn’t any of us like to see
the valley fenced, I guess. There’s no need of it. We could have
one roundup and one drive, the same as ever, only let Hal take his
share out, that’s all."

"Like you been takin’ yours out the last
twenty years," the mother said.

"It doesn’t matter to me," Arthur said.
“I’d just as soon see mine in the kitty. But it does matter to
Hal now, and Dad owes him the start."

"It’s some time since your pa’s had anything
to say about it," the mother said dryly. "Or cared anything
about it either, for that matter." She finished her coffee and
set the cup down. "He never did care, far as that goes,"
she said. "The money don’t come sudden enough in ranchin’
to
suit him. Not around here, anyway. Your pa’s a man to think in big
figures. But if he did have any say," she concluded, "he
wouldn’t be for splittin’ up the holdin’s. Nor I wouldn’t
neither. Once the splittin’ up starts, there’s no end to it."

"There’s no need to split, Mother,"
Arthur said. "Hal takes his share of every sale separate; that’s
all the change there’d be."

The mother made the thin, concluding smile again.
"Have you spoke to Curt about that yet?" she asked.

Harold spoke suddenly and angrily. "Sure, that’s
where it sticks, all right. That’s where it always sticks.
Everything."

"Curt has big ambitions," Arthur said
softly. He stood up. "More coffee, Mother?" he asked.

The mother nodded. "Thank you," she said.
She looked at his plate. "You ain’t ate hardly anything,"
she said.

Arthur grinned down at her. "Look at your
plate," he countered.

"It’s this wakin’ up so early," she
said, "I ain’t ready to eat yet."

Arthur shook his head at her. "When did you last
have anything but coffee for breakfast?" he asked.

"Go on with you," she said, smiling in
spite of herself.

"You see," he said. "You can’t
remember yourself." He went to the stove and came back with the
coffee pot and poured the mother’s cup full, and said, "Hal?"

Harold pushed his cup toward him and Arthur filled it
too, and looked down at Harold, smiling, and said, "Someday,
boy."

"That’s our motto here," Harold said.
"Some day."

Arthur crossed behind the mother and filled his own
cup.

"It happens," he said softly, and nodding.
"It happens in anything. It can go on one way just so long, and
then it happens. Curt will see that too, when the time comes."
He carried the coffee pot back to the stove and set it just off the
firelids to keep hot.

"Curt will see it when he’s made to see it and
not before," Harold said. “That’s one place where I agree
with Mother anyway. And if that’s what you mean," he added,
doubling one big hand into a fist on the table, but not moving the
fist, "I agree with you too. It’ll happen."

"You wouldn’t want to see it broke up
yourself, would you, son?" the mother asked.

In the north room Grace laughed shrilly, and upstairs
the floor boards creaked, and then slow, heavy footsteps crossed the
room and paused and crossed back, as if the laughter had started the
moving up there. Arthur returned to his place and sat down.

Harold sat staring at his coffee for a time. Then he
picked up the mug and emptied it without pausing and set it down hard
and stood up. "If that’s the only way to do it, yes," he
said. "Curt’s had his way around here too damn long. And he
don’t give a damn about the ranch either. Only what he can get out
of it for himself. If he got an offer he liked, he’d sell it right
out from under us, and not ask anybody about it either."

"No," the mother said, shaking her head at
him. "No, he wouldn’t, son. He talks that way sometimes, but
he wouldn’t. You know that."

"I know he won’t," Harold said softly. "I
know he won’t, but it isn’t because he wou1dn’t like to."

"It’s just talk," the mother said. "He
loves the place."

Harold shook his head. "No," he said.
"There’s only two things Curt loves: money and his own way.
Well," he said, "talking about it’s not gonna do any
good. I’d better get at the chores, I guess." He started
around the table.

"You ain’t goin’ to say anything to Curt
now?" the mother asked quickly.

"No. I’ll wait till Gwen’s gone. But we’re
gonna settle it then. One way or another, we’re gonna settle it
then." He crossed to the pegs by the outside door and took down
a green plaid mackinaw that hung there, and put it on.

"If Joe Sam’s out there, bring him in when
you’re done." the mother said. I’d sooner not have him
around when he’s like this, but can’t let him sit out there and
starve. He never touched his supper last night. There’s gotta be
somebody there to make him eat.

"All right," Harold said. He pulled a fur
cap with ear flaps out of his pocket and put it on and went out,
letting in the sound and the cold of the wind for a moment, and then
closing it off.

Arthur had both his hands around his coffee mug on
the table, as if to warm them. "Sounds like the storm’s
letting up some," he said.

"It ain’t done yet, by a long ways," the
mother said. "If Curt had the sense he was born with," she
said angrily.

"Harold won’t start anything now," Arthur
said. "He’s . . ."

"I ain’ worrying myself none about that,"
the mother said sharply. "Curt can take care of anything that
young one’ll start for a long while yet. It’s this fool goin’
out in the dark in a blizzard."

"Oh," Arthur said softly, as if he saw more
than she meant in what she said. He looked at her with that squint to
his eyes again, and smiling a little. "I wouldn’t worry myself
any about that, Mother. We’ll be all right."

The mother shook her head. "I don’t know,"
she said. "It‘s that dream, I guess. I can’t get it out of
my head somethin’s gonna happen."

"You’d better go back to bed, mother. We’re
fixed up now."

The mother shook her head again. "It ain’t
that," she said.

"I can feel in my bones somethin’s gonna
happen, like I felt this snow comin’ two days ago."

The floor boards upstairs creaked again under the
heavy tread.

"Dad’s getting up too," Arthur said.

"He was awake when I got up," the mother
said, and added dryly, "He’s fixin’ himself up in front of
the lookin’ glass."

Arthur grinned. "Having Gwen here cheers him up
a lot."

"Don’t it," the mother said.

The heavy tread stopped, and the door on the high
landing creaked. The mother began to sip at her coffee, but Arthur
looked up and saw the big figure in the shadow on the landing,
against the lamplight in the bedroom.

"Have the girls come out yet?" the father
asked.

"Not yet,” Arthur said.

"They’re gettin’ dressed, though," the
mother said. "They’ll be out any minute." She didn’t
look up.

"Then I’d better have my hot water up here,"
the father said. "And bring up my shaving things too, will you,
Lettie?"

The mother lifted her cup slowly, and sipped slowly
at the coffee, and slowly set the cup down again, and didn’t say
anything.

"Lettie," the father said, "I asked
you . . ."

"I heard you. I don’t see no reason to change
our regular ways. Gwen’s seen a man shave before this, I guess. She
has a father and three grown brothers, and they don’t keep up heat
except in the kitchen, I don’t imagine."

“
As if it weren’t enough to be roused out at this
hour," the father said angrily. "Now a man must shave in
the midst of a flock of women."

"Who are we this morning?" the mother
asked, looking up at him. "John Mackay seeing Paris? Or Leland
Stanford on a private train? There’s no law says you have to shave
at all, that I’ve heard tell of. It was long enough since you had,
up to yesterday, goodness knows."

"It seems to me," the father said, "that
with company in the house, it would do no harm for one member of the
family to make a decent appearance."

Arthur sighed softly, and pushed his chair back and
stood up. "I’ll bring your things up, Dad."

"Thank you, son, thank you," said the big
voice in the upper shadow. "It is gratifying to receive some
consideration in one’s own home."

The father went back into the bedroom, only partly
closing the door behind him, and they could hear him clearing his
throat repeatedly, like a man about to begin a public address.

"And him seventy-one years old this last
summer," the mother said.

Arthur didn’t answer, but took the shaving mug and
brush and razor from the shelves by the sink, and made lather in the
mug with hot water from the kettle.

The mother, still sitting at the table, with her back
to him, said, "There’s no call you should wait on him either.
He’s not helpless yet."

"I don’t mind," Arthur said.

He dipped hot water from the reservoir of the stove
into a white enameled pitcher, and started up the stairs with the
pitcher in one hand and the shaving things in the other.

"You’d better take him up a towel too,"
the mother said, rising, "or he’l1 be bellerin’ for that,
next thing."

She went around the table to the big oak chest under
the front window, and took a towel out of it, and brought it back to
Arthur on the stairs.

"It’s wonderful how little it takes to put
some people in mind of their pride," she said, tossing the towel
over his arm. Arthur grinned down at her, but didn’t answer. He
went on up slowly into the shadow on the landing, and knocked twice
with the toe of his boot against the door frame, and pushed the door
open with his shoulder and went in. The father’s oratorical thanks
rolled out through the open doorway.

3

Old Bridges sat in his place at the table, with
darkness still in the big window behind him. He scraped together the
last forkful of egg and potato on his plate and raised it and took it
into his mouth quickly, his head reaching for it like a turtle’s.
Then he laid the fork down and
leaned back,
chewing, and tugged at the corners of his worn, brocaded vest, trying
to smooth it over his paunch, and looked across the table at the
mother. She was sitting with her head between her hands over a big,
leather-covered Bible. It was open to the gospel by Matthew, with the
words of Jesus printed in red, and she was reading slowly, shaping
each word silently with her lips. Her gray hair was still hanging
loose and she still had on the old gray bathrobe. The father’s pale
eyes, watering a little in the light and from the pleasure of his
meal,  examined her attentively, as if they hadn’t seen her
for a long time, and then his eyebrows rose slightly. They were
impressive brows, thick, black and peaked, and the lifting gave them
the appearance of leading independent lives on the big, sagging face,
which was otherwise dull and heavy. With the black brows still
raised, the old man smoothed first one wing and then the other of his
long, white moustache. Still the mother didn’t feel his attention,
but went on reading silently with her lips. The old man glanced
sideways at Arthur, but Arthur wasn’t paying any attention either.
He was sitting there, his chair drawn back from the table now,
whittling slowly on the wooden lion.