The Track of the Cat by Walter van Tilburg Clark

Author:Walter van Tilburg Clark [Clark, Walter van Tilburg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Literary
ISBN: 9780874172300
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
Published: 1993-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

He had to speak a third time before Joe Sam raised his head.

"We have to get done before it’s too dark."

"Get done," Joe Sam said, and came around the grave slowly, moving in the thin, darkening air like a swimmer treading water.

Harold took the first shovelful of earth, and then paused for a moment, holding it above the open grave. Then he leaned far down and spread it quietly the length of the coffin. He kept on letting the earth down that way, instead of dropping it, until the lid of the coffin was covered and the space around it was filled. Joe Sam did the same thing at the other end. Then they both stood by the mound and just tossed the earth in. They both swung rhythmically, but their rhythms weren’t quite the same, so that sometimes the two shovels swung together, and sometimes first one and then the other would swing. As the darkness increased on the hillside, the pines around them became great black columns against a white wall, and below them the small, orange window of the kitchen grew brighter, and so did the longer, yellow window it made on the snow.

20

Once more there were only the three of them at the table for supper, Gwen and Harold and Joe Sam. And Joe Sam just sat there again, too, not eating anything, and with his coat and the blue bandana and the black sombrero on. The curving light of the lamp crossed his breast, showing the big wrinkles of the worn coat, and the long hair of the braid that had come undone, lying loose and ilat over them. The other braid was beginning to loosen now too, so the ends of the red and blue ribbons stood out from it. In the double shadow of the lamp shade and the brim of the sombrero, both his eyes appeared to be alive and staring with horror, because the irises made single big centers with the pupils. The big centers were looking right at Harold all the time, or through him at something they saw where the stairs went up against the wall. Harold kept looking away, but every time he looked back, the two big pupils in the faintly glittering whites were still staring at him.

Staring back at them, Harold thought, For a while up there, I had a notion he was coming out of it, but I guess it just set him off again.

Then he had to look away from the eyes again. He looked at Gwen, but she was keeping her head down over her plate, and picking at her food, as if she were all by herself. In the long silence, the fluttering of the lamp and the fire and the slow ticking of the clock became voices he or didn’t want to listen to. Several times he started to say something to Gwen, but then, each time, thought how loud and foolish it would sound, and didn’t speak.

He had become afraid

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