Track of the Cat - Walter Van Tilburg Clark (60 page)

Gwen nodded without looking at him.

"Only I was a little afraid all the time that
something was going to happen, because I’d never seen any animals
like that before, and even in the dream I couldn’t quite believe
they were real, so I was afraid the whole valley wasn’t real. As if
I halfway knew all the time it was just a dream."

Gwen nodded again, and looked at him. "What were
the animals like?"

"They were all white, was the main trouble, I
guess," Harold said. He made a soft chuckle of embarrassment.
"There were a lot of white deer down in the meadow, and they all
had gold hoofs, and the bucks had gold horns too. And there was a
white panther lying on the meadow too, with gold eyes. He wasn’t
after the deer, just watching as if he was their best friend."

"The lion and the lamb," Gwen said.

"Something like that. Only they all looked like
just pretty little toys. The grass in the meadow was so green it
didn’t look real either, green as the cloth on a billiard table,
and they showed up on it so tiny and white. There were white birds
flying around in the trees too, and white snakes, with gold eyes,
like the panther had, sliding around on the branches. But they all
got along together."

"Only then something happened?" Gwen asked,
when he didn’t go on.

"Yes, but I can’t remember just how lt was. It
was something about Curt, I think. Oh, it was just a fool dream,"
he said suddenly, as if he meant to drop it because he had remembered
something he didn’t want to talk about.

"But what made you feel so bad?" Gwen
asked.

"Wel1, all of a sudden it just all changed. The
valley got all dark, and all the animals and birds and things began
to run around, scared to death, and then it wasn’t even the same
place. It was a kind of jungle, full of animals and flowers and trees
I’d never even seen—nobody ever saw such things, for that
matter—and they were all blue, dark blue. That’s what I meant
about the bedspread. At first, when I woke up, I could remember all
that as if I was still seeing it, and I remembered there was a
unicorn right in the middle of it, so I knew I must have been just
dreaming about that bedspread.

"I guess," he said slowly, "that’s
what I meant talking to you about Arthur, because when the valley
turned into that blue jungle, like the one on the bedspread, Arthur
changed too. He was still standing up there on the cliff with us, but
his eyes were closed, and he had his hands crossed on his chest, and
he couldn’t talk to us any more. It was just because mother had
that spread on the bed in there all the time, I guess."

Gwen nodded again, without looking at him.

"Well, that’s all there Was to it,” Harold
said. "I got scared because Arthur looked so different, and then
he just wasn’t there at all. You know how things change in dreams?
That must have been when I said your name, and you woke me up."

Gwen looked at him, and made the quick smile, and
blinked quickly, and put her hand over his on the table for a moment.
Then she stood up and said, "Well, I’m glad I did."

She came around beside him, holding her coffee cup,
and put her arm around his neck and
kissed him on
the forehead.

"I’m glad I was there too, anyway," she
said softly. "I’m glad it didn’t all happen to you alone.
It’s worse in dreams than if it was real, sometimes.

"You want some more coffee now?" she asked.

"I guess I’d better go see what Mother wants
first."

Gwen went back to the stove, and he finished his
coffee and stood up and came behind her. He thought of the open door,
but defiantly, and took both her shoulders in his hands.

"I’m glad you were there too," he said.

Gwen pressed her head back against him and rolled it
slowly, but didn’t say anything. They stood that way, close
together, for a moment, and then Harold kissed the top of her head,
just a soft touch, but leaving his lips there a long time, and
released her and turned away.

Without turning her head, and speaking very low, Gwen
asked, "It was Curt that made it all change?"

"Wel1," Harold said, after a moment, "I
guess it was. I can’t remember that part. I never saw him in it
anywhere, I don’t think, just you and Arthur. But it seems as if it
was just after Arthur said something about him, and I thought he must
be down in the valley there somewhere."

"And that was when it all changed?"

"I guess it was," Harold said. "Well,
it was just a fool dream," he said uneasily.

Gwen still didn’t look around at him, but she
reached a hand back and found his belt, and slipped two fingers over
it, and gave it the little tug that meant they were together.

"I’m glad I was in it, anyway," she said,
and let go of him.

Harold stood undecided. At the little tug on his
belt, he wanted very much to turn around and take her in his arms,
but then she’d let go of him too soon. Now his arms felt empty, and
the front of him felt useless and exposed, as if he’d lost part of
his own strength because he hadn’t done it. But the north door was
open, and that made a difference again, now, and he felt a little
ashamed and apart from her because he’d talked about the dream.
Finally he just took hold of her shoulder with one hand, and pressed
it hard for a moment, and let go of her and went on into the dark
north room.

He could see the light of the fire still flickering
in the window, making moving tongues of light across the ceiling and
across the snow outside. He thought of when he had last tended the
fire, and felt guilty because somebody else must have tended it
since, and Gwen was the only one who could have done it.

He came to the side of the bed and stood there. He
could just see, by the light from the kitchen door and the firelight
on the ceiling, the mother’s face rising out of the pillow like a
mask with no head behind it. Her eyes were closed, and there was a
white blanket pulled up to her chin.

"You want to see me, Mother?" he asked
finally.

The mother lay quiet, and with her eyes closed, for
so long he thought she had fallen asleep again. He had started to
turn away when she asked, "What was it got the horses stirred up
so?" Her voice was toneless, and the words hardly shaped, as if
both her mind and her tongue found them difficult.

That’s not what she wanted, Harold thought. She’s
putting it off.

"Oh, Joe Sam was pestering them," he said.

"That old fool Indian," the mother said
more strongly.

She turned her head slowly in the pillow and opened
her eyes and looked up at him. He could see the faint glittering in
the hollow sockets. "You said Kentuck was hurt?"

"Joe Sam was after him, I guess."

"How do you mean after him? What’s he want to
bother the horses for, let alone that time of the night?"

"He had a knife. He said he thought it was the
black painter. Kentuck will be all right. It isn’t too bad."

"The black painter," the mother said. "A
likely story."

She lay there thinking about it for a moment. "What
did you think it was? Some notion about getting even with Curt?"

"I don’t know, Mother. It might be. But he
could have been seeing things, I guess. He was out there without a
stitch on."

"I’ve told your father a hundred times..."
the mother began, but then closed her eyes and let her head roll back
again, and didn’t finish.

"He still ain’t straightened out then?"
she asked at last.

"He’ll probably be all right in the morning,"
Harold said. "It’s done snowing, and when I got him into his
bunk, he went right off to sleep."

"If he ain’t shammin’ again."

"No, I don’t think so. He’s really asleep."

Once more he blamed himself silently because he had
gone to sleep himself. He should have tended to the fire, and then
gone up to the bunk-house and made sure Joe Sam was there and that he
was all right.

They heard the outside door slam, and heavy steps in
the kitchen, and the father’s voice, thick and cheerful, asking

"Getting breakfast already, young woman?"

Gwen said something they couldn’t understand, and
the father answered, "That’s fine, fine. I could do with a
good breakfast. A man needs extra food to keep him going when he
loses sleep." And then, "Where’s Harold disappeared to?
Go out to look for Curt?"

Once more they could hear Gwen’s voice, but not her
words.

"Well, he’d better be getting out there,"
the father said. "That young fool’s been gone all night now.
He must have got into some trouble. Somebody ought to take a horse
out to him anyway. That was his horse came in last night; the black
one."

The mother said, "You’d better go, I guess,
Harold. Your father isn’t going to give us any peace till you do."

That’s what she really wanted, Harold thought. The
old man just gave her a good lead. Thinking again about the
hopelessness of looking, after all that wind and snow, seeing in his
mind how the mountains and the upper valleys would be covered and
blown smooth now, he didn’t answer.

"He’s your born brother, Harold, if he does
take a lot on himself sometimes."

"It isn’t that," Harold said.

"You think it’s no good looking for him now?"

"There wouldn’t be much to go on," he
said.

After a time, the mother Said, "No, I don’t
guess there would. Only it does seem like we oughta do something. Not
just leave him in his trouble."

She’s got herself around to thinking there’s
still a chance, Harold thought.

"All right," he said. "I’ll go."

"I been thinkin’," the mother said
quickly. "Curt’s not one to let himself get caught bad by no
storm. He’s too old a hand, Curt is. He’d find a way to wait it
out. Only if he’s got hurt. That’s what I fret about, and then
he’d think up a signal of some kind."

She’s got it all figured out now, Harold thought.
She’s rubbing out three days almost as easy as the old man does. He
uses whisky and she uses hope. He didn’t say anything.
 
"It does seem like we oughta do something,"
the mother said again.

"Sure," Harold said. "I wouldn’t
feel right not to."

"For the peace of our souls," the mother
said.

Never mind our souls, Harold thought sharply. For
Curt’s body. But that’s what she means, he rebuked himself, that
we couldn’t stand not to know.

"Only how’re you ever going to get a start
after all that snow?" the mother asked.
 
"There’s only one chance, as far as I can
see," Harold said slowly. "Go up to the creek canyon and
try and find something to go on."

"And if there ain’t?"

"Well, I could take a look from up top. The cat
would head up with somebody after him, anyway."

"You got to believe it, though, Harold,"
the mother said, nearly begging him. "You got to believe he’s
out there somewhere. If you don’t, you won’t half look. He’s
alive, I tell you. A mother’s got a feelin’ for those things. A
bit ago I didn’t think so, but now I do, strong. I been thinkin’
pretty near the whole night, and I got a strong feelin’ he’s
alive, only hurt. He’ll think of some way to make a sign for you."

She pushed herself up to a sitting position as she
spoke, and threw back the blanket and swung herself around until she
was sitting on the edge of the bed, and he could see how her hair had
been loosened again by the restless night. She clung to the edge of
the bed with a hand on each side of her, and bowed her head and sat
still for a moment. Then she raised her head very slowly.

"I don’t know what ails me," she said. "I
get so dizzy when I set up. Seems like I can’t even think
straight."

A reluctant pity moved in him then, not so much for
his mother as for so strong a woman forced into complaining. He said
what he didn’t believe to reassure her.

"I’ll find him. Don’t you worry, Mother,"
and then, having spoken, came near to sharing her faith for a moment.

"You just lie back there now," he said,
"and get yourself a rest. Gwen’ll bring you some breakfast. No
wonder you don’t feel good. You’ve hardly slept or eaten anything
for three days."

"I keep wonderin’," the mother said,
scarcely more than whispering. "Seems to me sometimes like I
ain’t seen a single thing clear for what it really was. Your Dad
didn’t want to come out here, clear into the middle of no place. It
was all my doing. I seen him gettin’ like all the others there,
with his big talk and his godlessness and his fine clothes, and money
the only thing that mattered to him, and every cheap little whore and
thievin’ flatterer in town emptyin’ his pockets when he had it.
But I guess it was my good I was lookin’ after more’n his. Now
all he does is remember them times for a lot bigger’n they was, and
get to drinkin’ for any little thing comes up. And it ain’t been
much better for the rest of you. Curt’s a line man, a man to do big
things, but out here he’s got nothin’ to put himself against. It
all turns mean and hard inside him. He ain’t a man can be by
himself and think straight. He’s gotta be doing somethin’ all the
time to be happy."