Free The Double Hook by Sheila Watson Page B

Bascomb had given him. He tried again. This time he got a couple of tens. He gave one to Pockett.
    Why don’t you take out all those bills and put them in the wallet? Pockett asked.
    The men at the window shifted round again.
    I’ve got to be moving on, James said. I’ve got business.
    Of course, Pockett said. I’m uncertain in speaking on these things, but you’ve sure got my black-edge sympathy. When’s the funeral for?
    James turned away from the counter.
    How long, he said, do you think a body would keep in this heat? Up above we do what we can.
    It doesn’t bear thinking on, Pockett said.
4
    Outside in the distance the hills bent to the river. There were no trees at all. Only sagebrush. From the street James could see a single sinuous curve of the river, the shadows of the clouds passing over the water as the shadow of the branches had lain for a moment on Lenchen’s throat. The river lay still in the sunlight, its thousand pools and eddies alive beneath its silver skin.
    James wanted to go down to the river. To throw himself into its long arms. But along the shore like a night-watch drifted the brown figure he sought to escape.
    He asked himself now for the first time what he’d really intended to do when he’d defied his mother at the head of the stairs.
    To gather briars and thorns,
said Coyote.
To go down into the holes of the rock
and into the caves of the earth.
In my fear is peace.
    Yet as James stood looking at the river, his heart cried out against the thought: This bed is too short for a man to stretch himself in. The covering’s too narrow for a man to wrap himself in.
5
    From Pockett’s window eyes watched him through the crotches of the hanging chaps. Along the street in front of him was the hotel. To the right the railway tracks disappeared in abend of the land. The train would go through in the early morning, some minutes past one o’clock.
    James walked down the street towards the hotel. He fingered the pocket of his shirt. He had no idea what a railway ticket would cost. He’d no idea where to buy a ticket to. He knew nothing about the train except that it went to the packinghouse, no way of boarding it except through the loading-pens. All he’d done was scum rolled up to the top of a pot by the boiling motion beneath. Now the fire was out.
    He heard a voice at his elbow. One of the men who had been sitting in Pockett’s store was standing beside him. Friendly now. Had come cat-footing through the dust and stood at James’s shoulder.
    What you need, boy, he said, is a drink: I’d hate to think that a near stranger had come from above and no one laid a dime on the table to help him through his trouble.
    Who said I was in trouble? James asked.
    You yourself, the man said. A fellow can’t help hearing what’s said across a counter. There’s no one really wants death. It’s trouble whichway you look at it.
    He shook his blond head.
    My name is Traff, he said.
    Well, James said, let’s go. It’s out of the sun in there. It’s away from the dust.
    He turned to Traff.
    It’s what might be called friendly of you, he said.
6
    The hotel lobby was empty. The calendar marked the month. The clock the hour. It was quarter to five.
    Through the open doors of the lobby and dining-room James could see the Chinese cook slipping about in his black cotton shoes. The cook’s apron was untied and hung loosely from a tape which circled his neck. Everything had a hanging and waiting look.
    I want to get a bed for myself, James said.
    Paddy’s probably in the bar, Traff said. It’s not always handy being clerk and bartender in one.
    When they opened the door into the beer parlour Paddy was leaning across the bar talking to Shepherd and Bascomb. His parrot sat hunched on his shoulder.
    It was the parrot who noticed James and Traff first. It raised a foot.
    Drinks all round, it said, falling from Paddy’s shoulder to the counter and sidling along.
    Paddy looked up.
    James Potter, he said. What’s