Track of the Cat - Walter Van Tilburg Clark (47 page)

Lying on his side, facing the tiny fire and the new
wall, he drew out his packet of food, unrolled it, and began to eat.
He ate slowly and speculatively, his eyes dreaming upon the fire all
the time, and at intervals he held his hands out to the flame, first
one and then the other. He didn’t allow this triumph of comfort to
destroy his judgment, however. Although his stomach, after the first
mouthful of food rumbled and begged for more, at times paining him
sharply, like a cramp, he ate only one slice of the bread and butter,
and four strips of the jerky. While he was eating, he went over his
directions three times like a man saying a rote prayer, in order that
he shouldn’t forget them while he slept.

The third time, having reduced them to a simple and
memorable formula, he spoke them softly aloud, "Turn right out
of the cave, go to the end of the pass, turn left and follow the
ridge half a day, turn right and keep going till you see it."

While he ate and prayed, he fed the little fire now
and then, from the reserve of twigs beside it.

Once more the salt jerky taught him that he was
thirsty. He remembered that he hadn’t even sucked a handful of snow
since breakfast under the fir tree. He cursed himself for not having
thought of this need before he finished the wall. Now he’d have to
sleep thirsty, or put out the fire and lose all his stored warmth
when he opened the wall, or allow a great deal of light to show in
the opening, and lose most of his heat anyway. It was a complex
problem, and he lay there for some time, debating it to no
conclusion. His thirst increased greatly while he thought, and
finally became so insistent that it drove him to act upon a
compromise plan which would also be the quickest and least
troublesome solution. He drew the carbine up into the head of the
cave where it could be reached from the entrance, and lifted down the
two top slabs of shale and quickly set them on edge before the fire,
to cut off the light from the opening. Then, with one hand on the
carbine, he rose to a stooping position on his knees and peered out
of the slot he had made. He remained there until his eyes were used
to the
darkness outside, and then removed two
more slabs and poked his face into the hole and studied the white
slope under him and the dark and moving bottom of the pass. At last
he lowered the wall still further, thrust the carbine forward, and
slowly leaned out of his shelter behind its defending barrel. He was
startled into swinging the carbine around, and nearly into firing, by
a dark projection from the face of the cliff beside him, but he held
himself, and then it hadn’t moved after all, and finally it became
only rock.

Balancing the carbine on the remaining slabs of the
wall, he began to scoop up snow from below and from the side with
both hands. He couldn’t take time there to warm it into a more
profitable ice-ball, so he decided to make three snow-balls, and melt
them down when he was safely walled in again. When the three
snow-balls had been made and set inside without incident, success led
him on to an act of bravado. He continued to lie there on his belly
on the wall making snow-balls, until he had a dozen of them piled up
inside, like a pyramid of small, white cannon balls. Then, restored
even more by his daring than by his success, he drew back into his
hole, and brought the carbine in after him, and set the slabs of
shale in place once more. Still huddled on his knees, he surveyed the
repaired defenses, and spoke aloud and happily.

"Now, you stinking black bastard, I could last
you out a week, if I had to."

He set the snow-balls in a row around the fire, to
hasten their melting. He wanted to suck and chew at one immediately,
light and unpromising though they were, but now, all snug and
supplied in his shelter, he took pride in denying himself. It seemed
a gain against all the difficulties of his situation that he should
act without haste and only for the best result.

"Lots of time, all the time in the world,"
he told himself, and put a few more fragments of wood from his
reserve into the little fire, and lay watching the snow-balls darken.

The cave was very cold again, though, and his hands
were wet and cold from the snow. The violent shivering, even jerking,
returned, and his cheerfulness was almost extinguished. It was
alarming, with a long night in the cave ahead of him still, and
another whole day of hard, watchful slogging, that he should exhibit
such weakness. At last it occurred to him that he would get warm much
faster with his mittens on.

As he reached into his pocket to draw out the second
mitten, his fingertips felt something hard and edged below it.

Now what the hell did I put in there? he thought,
and  drew the object out. As he did so, he heard others rattling
faintly below it. He held the first object down into the light of the
fire. It was a little, crouching, wooden panther, not quite finished,
but with the planes of the body blocked out enough to show the crouch
all right, and the flat, serpent head, thrust forward in fixed
attention, completed in detail. "Joe Sam’s medicine, by
golly," he said, and then, after
a
moment of consideration, "Late is right, old dreamer."

Finallly he said, "Well, I’m the one can use
it now, that’s a cinch."

He set the panther up on one of the narrow ledges in
the higher end of the cave, moving it about until it lay so that head
and shoulders appeared in the light. It crouched there at the edge of
its ledge, staring down at him, and the moving shadows gave it life
and color.

It was just like that, he thought, and was obscurely
moved that his arrangement had taken on such an uncomfortable
meaning.

"The hell you say," he told the wooden
panther, and added, "And you’re the only one will ever get in
here, too, believe you me."

He removed the other two carvings from the pocket of
the parka, and held them down to the light as he had the panther. One
was heavier and darker than the other, and the whittling only started
on it. He could make nothing of it at first glance, and gave his
attention to the other. It was unfinished also, not even so far along
as the panther, but it had emerged from the block enough to show
itself on the way to being a kneeling Indian, a thin, young-bodied
man, wearing only a breech-clout, and bending over an
indistinguishable victim which he had begun to skin with a tiny,
rough knife, meant to be flint, perhaps.

"A buck, maybe," Curt said, studying the
uncertain victim. "No, by God," he corrected himself. "That
damned cat again."

He held the carving farther out, and viewed it whole.

"Yes-sir," he said, "and he’s
skinning the bastard." He chuckled softly.

"The real big medicine," he said. "The
medicine to end all medicine.

"And that makes you Joe Sam, don’t it?"
he asked the kneeling Indian. He chuckled again, as he surveyed the
smooth, lean limbs, and the square face.

"Only about ninety-seven years younger," he
said.

He set the Indian up on the ledge beside the panther,
and viewed them both.

"Much medicine," he said, grinning. "A
regular, damn Joe Sam’s Holy Family." He was pleased by the
wit of this definition.

"Old whiskers sure could whittle, I’ll say
that much," he announced. "Only, like with everything
else," he added, "more dreaming than work. He didn’t get
it finished."

He remembered Arthur lying on the trail after he had
rolled him over, so that he was face up, with his beard thrusting
ridiculous defiance at the mist of snow and light above him. He was
moved nearly to tears by the recollection, and rebuked himself
without words for his previous censure, and then added aloud, "Well,
what was the hurry? He had plenty of time, as far as he knew."

The thought of Arthur’s tranquil future so abruptly
cut off actually brought the tears to his
eyes.

"Poor bastard," he said. "Poor goddam
bastard. Not a chance in the world."

His sympathy seemed about to overwhelm him, and even,
possibly, to produce an uncomfortable return of his own feeling of
guilt.

"Just never could learn to keep his eyes open,
poor devil," he said, and was satisfied.

He began to study the piece he was still holding. He
turned it this way and that, and held it closer to the fire, but
still he could make nothing of it. There were only the first tiny,
smooth cuts visible, like ripples on a wave, which did nothing but
follow the natural shape of the piece.

"Hardly started," he said. He tossed the
shapeless piece upon his hand. "Heavy damn stuff. Mountain
mahogany, or something. Well, old whiskers must of had some idea
about you. Get up there with the rest of the family."

He set the shapeless piece into an upright crevice
above the other two, and regarded the completed arrangement.

"A regular blamed art ga1lery," he said.
"Damned if I ain’t even got a regular blamed art gallery. I
got everything; the luxuries with the comforts."

His shelter had already warmed up again a good deal.
He laid the last twigs on the fire, tucked the mittens back into his
pocket, and began to pack the snow-balls together with his bare
hands. At last he had four dark, dripping ice-balls.

"Yessir," he said, "the luxuries with
the comforts. Damned if I won’t have a smoke with my drink."

He wiped his hands on his pants and got out his
tobacco and pad of papers. This time, with the light to work by, he
made a good cigarette. He returned the makings to his shirt pocket,
and rolled over and lighted the cigarette from the fire. Then he lay
back and inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke out slowly, and watched
it spread and disappear under the low ceiling of rock. After the
third draw, he blew the smoke in a long, narrow jet toward the
un-sealed portion of the wall, and watched it eddy out at the top.

“
Snuff that, you black bastard," he said
happily. "And that’s all the good it will do you, too."

At once he felt that he had gone too far, that he had
foolishly laid himself open to the malicious god.

"Says you," he added quickly.

After that he lay there, alternately drawing at the
cigarette and sucking and chewing at the ice-balls. Twice he twisted
over and gazed up at the three little carvings in their niches. He
was pleased to have them there in his refuge. He
felt a fondness for them that he had never felt for any of Arthur’s
finished pieces.

"Yessir," he said, after the second look,
"like a regular damn millionaire or a duke or something. Private
statue collection and everything."

The cigarette lasted through two of the ice-balls,
and then he dropped the butt into the fire and consumed the other two
ice-balls slowly, even holding a portion of the last in his cupped
hand until it melted completely, so that he was able to finish with a
real sip of water.

The warmth was making him drowsy again, and the
memory of his bewilderment and fear down in the darkness of the
canyon made his weariness pleasant. He lay there staring dreamily at
the fire. It was almost down to embers by now, and he regretted this.
It would have been nice to keep it going. It would have made his
sleep a lot more restful.

"By golly," he said suddenly and wakefully.
He reached back over his head and took down the heavy, dark whittling
that had only been started.

"Lord only knows what you were meant to be,"
he told it, "but I know what you’re going to be now."

He set it against the best burning side of the
embers. It lay there darkly resistant, not even a wisp of smoke
rising from under it.

Curt took down the Indian, and used him as a scraper
to heap the coals together under the dark piece. Still it wouldn’t
take. He was profoundly disturbed. It became more important than
anything else in the world to him that the stubborn mahogany should
catch fire.

"Stuff’s harder than coa1," he muttered.
"Burn all night, if I could once get it started."

He regarded the unfinished Indian in his hand.
"Well," he said finally, "can’t be too finicky in a
pinch," and laid the Indian beside the formless piece.

After a little, the Indian began to smoke on the
inside, but it wasn’t lighting fast enough to suit him. The embers
beneath it were dying already.

"Shoot the works," he said, and took down
the panther and laid it beside the Indian, and leaning to the fire,
blew cautiously between them into the embers. Smoke began to curl up
around both sides of the cat. He squinted his eyes against the smoke,
and continued to blow. At last a little flame leaped up between the
cat and the Indian, and he transferred his blowing to the space
between the Indian and the mahogany. Shortly the cat and the Indian
were both wrapped in flame, but the dark piece still lay there, solid
and impregnable.

"Goddam stuff," he muttered, and thought
about the problem for a moment.

Then, saying, "I’11 get You this time, damn
you," he took the knife out of his pocket and pushed the cat and
the Indian closer together and then quickly lifted the dark piece and
laid it
upon them. He pushed the embers together
under the three with the knife. The mahogany began to smoke.