Track of the Cat - Walter Van Tilburg Clark (6 page)

The father looked back at the mother and cleared his
throat. It was a loud sound in the room where for some time there had
been only the fluttering of the fire, the slow ticking of the big
pendulum clock on the wall behind Arthur, and the faint chipping of
Arthur’s knife, but neither Arthur nor the mother looked up. The
old man cleared his throat again.

Grace spoke in the north bedroom, near the door and
in a high, happy voice, so the words were quite distinct. "I
hope it snows for a week then."

The father glanced at the door and changed his mind
about speaking. After a moment, he drew a cigar out of his upper vest
pocket and clipped the end off it with a little silver knife that
hung with a lodge emblem on his watch chain. He closed the knife,
returned it to his pocket, and lit the cigar. When it was drawing
well, he leaned back in his chair and blew a great cloud of smoke up
around the lamp.

"Those young ladies are certainly taking their
time this morning," he said to the lamp.

Neither Arthur nor the mother looked at him or said
anything.

"But then," said the old man, genially, "I
suppose they must be hungry for women’s talk. Certainly Gwendolyn
must be, living month after month all alone in that family of sour
Welshmen."

The mother took one hand from her forehead, and began
to follow the words with her finger as well as her mouth.

"Though there’s little enough sociability to
be found in this house, for that matter," the father said more
loudly, staring across at her.

The mother’s finger went on moving a word at a time
across the page.

"Lettie," the father said.

"Yes?" the mother asked, without looking
up.

"If I might have another cup of coffee, please."

"It’s on the stove," the mother said, and
her mouth moved silently again.

Arthur laid the knife and the wooden lion on the
table and stood up.

"For one who pretends to be a wife and a
housekeeper," the father began loudly.

“
I’m getting it, Dad," Arthur said, and
picked up the old man’s coffee mug.

The old man paid no attention to him, but kept
staring at the mother while his jowls grew red and began to tremble.
 
"Lettie, what’s got into you this
morning?" he demanded finally.

The mother stopped her finger under a word, but
didn’t look up. " ‘What’s got into you?’ you’d better
ask."

"And since when has it become a misdemeanor to
ask for a cup of coffee?"

"I’m getting it, Dad," Arthur said.

"That is not the point," the old man said,
pressing himself back in his chair with one hand against the edge of
the table and the other, with the cigar in it, lifted at the mother.

"This life, which you seem to resent so
bitterly," he said to her, "was not, if you will kindly
keep that fact in mind, of my choosing. On the contrary . . ."

This time the mother looked across at him when her
finger stopped. The will like a weapon was in her thin face again.
"Don’t you come playing any of your bonanza kings on me this
morning, Harold," she said with soft, quick fury.

The old man withdrew the accusing hand, but began,
"As the nominal head of this family, if nothing more, I deem it
. . ."

"Don’t, I tell you."

Arthur came back with the filled coffee mug and set
it down at the old man’s place.

"Thank you," the old man said stiffly.
Looking back at the mother again, he added, "And now, if you
please, my bottle and a glass."

The mother returned his stare for a moment, but then
only set her mouth and looked down at her book again.

Arthur went to the big sideboard that stood against
the wall under the clock and opened the cabinet door at the end.
There were three whisky bottles in it, one partly empty and the other
two with unbroken seals. Arthur took out the opened bottle, closed
the cabinet with his knee, and took a glass from the row that stood
upside down on the marble top of the sideboard. He brought the bottle
and glass back to the table and set them down in front of the father.

The old man slowly, making a defiant ceremony of it,
uncorked the bottle, poured the glass a third full of whisky, corked
the bottle again and set it aside. He raised the glass as if to make
a toast, and squinted at the light coming through the whisky in it.

"With storms indoors as well as out, a man
deserves a little cheer. To better days," he said, looking at
Arthur, and then looked at the mother and added, with sudden fury,
"and a life somewhere out of this Godforsaken hole," and
drank off half the whisky and set the glass down sharply.

"Virginia City, maybe?" the mother asked,
without looking up.

"I can tell you one thing," the father
began, hoarsely, leaning forward and pointing at her again. "If
the life we are leading at present is the best your. . " but
broke off and looked around, hearing voices outside and the hollow
knocking of a boot against the sill.

Curt came in first, seeming to fill the doorway, and
then the room, because of his purpose and activity. He pulled off his
mittens and said, loudly and cheerfully, "Just a cup of coffee,
Ma, and we’ll be all set. You ready, old dream-monk?”

"Any time," Arthur said.

"That’s the first break this morning, then. We
had a hell of a time with the horses. All spooked up."

Harold came in with the lantern and closed the door,
and stayed there, leaning against it.

The mother got up and went to the stove. "Horses
is quick to sense things," she said.

Curt laughed. "You too now? Does it take
second-sight to know it’s snowing and something’s wrong with
cattle when they beller?"

He saw Arthur’s knife and the unfinished lion lying
on the table. He came over beside Arthur and picked up the lion and
looked at it, turning it over two or three times in his hand.

"Not bad," he said, "not bad. But a
long way from done yet. No wonder Joe Sam’s raising hell. All this
snow and no medicine puss. Well," he said, tossing the carving
back onto the table so that it turned over twice and slid out into
the shadow in the middle, "he’ll have to sweat it out a while
longer yet. We have to finish the real one first." He chuckled.
"So get your gown on, priest."

"You eat some breakfast first,” the mother
said. "It’s all ready for you." She brought a filled
plate and a mug of coffee to the table and set
them down in front of Curt.

"Make way for an ordinary cat-killer, priest,"
Curt said, pushing aside the knife.

Arthur stood up, and Curt pulled the chair in and
started to sit down, but then took the cowhide parka off the back of
the chair and held it out to Arthur.

"And take your gown too," he said. "I
can’t sit easy with a thing like that behind me."

Arthur took the parka, and Curt sat down and pulled
the chair in and began to eat at once, taking huge mouthfuls and
swallowing them half chewed.

"There’s no need to choke yourself," the
mother said.

"Storm’s letting up," Curt said thickly,
through the food in his mouth. "If we get out there by daylight,
there’s a chance we can catch him at it."

The mother sat down in her place again, and asked
him,

"What makes you so certain sure it’s a painter
that’s at ’em?"

"What else would they yell for? I killed every
wolf in this neck of the woods ten years ago. And I lost two damn
good dogs last spring too, if you remember, and there wasn’t much
question what got ’em, was there? Or those calves we found down the
south end." He took another mouthful and chewed for a moment,
and said, “No, sir, one of them bastards has been workin’ this
section for four or five months now, and this is him, all right. He’s
took over here, and I’ll get him this time if I have to chase him
to P1acerville."

"Could be a bear," the mother said.

Curt chuckled. "The only kind of bears I’ve
ever seen around here," he said, "was rugs before they was
shot. Sheep, maybe, if they could get close enough to ’em, but not
a steer."

"Could be just the snow worries ’em," the
mother said.

"You’re just tryin’ to talk me out of it,"
Curt said, grinning at her. "You know as well as I do that ass
to the wind and their eyes closed is all any snow ever got out of
'em. Nope, it’s that cat, and I’ll nail the bastard’s hide to
the wall this time. I owe him that for them two dogs." He took
another mouthful, and drank some coffee through it, and added, "I
only wish I had ’em now. I should of got me another right away. But
the snow’s next best."

"There’s no arguin’ with fools," the
mother said. "Especially when they’ve got used to bein’ boss
ahead of their time."

"No use," Curt agreed, grinning at her.

"Well there’s one thing I can tell you,"
the mother said. "You don’t nail the next hide up on
the
house."

"Not even if it’s black?"

"Not if it was red, white and blue," the
mother said. "Such a stink every time that door was opened."

Curt swallowed and leaned back and laughed and
slapped his thigh. Then he sat forward again and said, still
chuckling, and pointing his fork at the mother, "I remember you
was afraid to touch it to take it down yourself, on account of that
smell. But a black one," he said, suddenly solemn, "would
be good luck for the house. Wouldn’t it, medicine man?" he
asked, half turning to Arthur.

"I’ll take less luck, if it’ll make less
stink," the mother said. "If you bring anything back you
haven’t just imagined, you’ll spread it on the shed, not the
house, and on the back side too.

"All right, all right," Curt said,
grinning, and took another large mouthful of egg and potato.
"Anyway," he said thickly, "the way it’s been
growin’ lately, if we was to get the black one, his hide would
cover the whole house. We’ll have to peg it out on the meadows, eh,
preacher?"

"There’s nothing to worry about there,"
Arthur said. "If we ever get that one, it won’t be with
bullets."

"Nonsense," the father said. "Utter
nonsense. If. . ."

Curt pointed the fork at him now. "No, by God.
For once I agree with old whiskers, absolutely. If we ever get that
one, it won’t be with bullets." Bending his head toward the
plate again, he looked at the mother, grinning. "Which is why I
have to take old whiskers a1ong."

"This whole performance is ridiculous,"
said the father angrily. "In such weather as this. If there was
a grain of sense in the pair of you, you’d stay in the house and
make use of this opportunity for a little sociable . . ."

"But," Curt said, still grinning at the
mother, "I’ll take a gun along too, just in case it turns out
to be my kind of a cat. You know, an ordinary, yellow cattle-thief."

He scraped together the rest of the food on his
plate, but then raised only a small forkful of it to his mouth.
Chewing on it, he peered through the shadow of the lamp at the door
of the north bedroom. The father was staring angrily, but Curt paid
no attention, and after a moment the old man muttered something no
one could understand, drank off the rest of the whisky in his glass
in two swallows, set the glass down again, and once more filled it a
third of the way with the same slow, ceremonious defiance.

Arthur began to put the parka on. From the north
bedroom there came another little chorus
of
the two laughters.

"By golly," Curt said, "you’d think
it was a party in there, or something. Here I am, just waiting around
to pay my respects, and they go on gabbling in there like they had
all the affairs of the world to settle. What on earth do women find
to talk so much about, Ma?"

Harold stirred restlessly against the door, and then
stood away from it. The mother looked at him, and then back at Curt.

"They’re still on Gwen’s trip to San
Francisco, I expect," she said. She smiled a little, a tight,
downward grimace, and looked sideways at the father, not moving her
head, but only her eyes. "They didn’t much more than get
started on it last night."

The father’s jowls grew red again, but he pretended
not to understand, and fixed his attention on relighting his cigar,
which had gone out while he listened to Curt’s teasing.

"You’d think," Curt said, "they
could get all about frills and bustles that was any use to ’em in
this place settled pretty quick."

"Frills and bustles is a long subject," the
mother said dryly. "I wouldn’t figure on waitin’ it out, if
I was you."

Arthur came beside Curt, and picked up the unfinished
lion, and the knife, and put the lion in the pocket of his parka,
with the other two pieces, and closed the knife and slipped it into
his pants pocket.

“
Well, now," Curt said, grinning again, "I
just don’t like to go off without even a good mornin’. We gotta
be real careful nothin’ slips up just on account of bad manners.
Weddin’s are pretty rare things in this family."