Free Track of the Cat - Walter Van Tilburg Clark by Clark

be thinking about the way its warmth
spread out in him. He didn’t look at the mother again, or speak to
her.
    "And eat something too, do you hear me?"
the mother said. She turned, drawing the bathrobe closer about her,
and came back to her place at the table and sat down.
    "Him and his black painters," she said, to
no one in particular. "Every winter we have to go through all
this nonsense all over again."
    Having said that, she put herself apart from the
others. The separation could be felt as much as if she’d gone into
another room. She closed her eyes and set one thumb against the edge
of the Bible, and opened the Bible where her thumbnail went between
the pages. She moved a finger down the page and stopped it, and
opened her eyes, and began to read where her finger pointed. She
moved her finger along under the words, and shaped each word slowly
and distinctly with her lips.
    "Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in
the days when God watched over me; when His lamp shined upon my head,
and by His light I walked through darkness." She pointed out the
words for herself with her left hand, and with her right hand she
held the dressing gown closed tightly at her throat, as if she were
threatened, or as if it were cold in the room.
    "It’s really quite all right, my dear,"
the father’s voice was saying. "It happens to him every year,
although, to be sure, he seems to be taken harder with it this time
than most." He chuckled.
    "This black painter Curt was teasing you about
invariably arrives with the first snow, arrives in Joe Sam’s mind,
that is, and apparently it requires strong medicine to get rid of it.
That’s all he’s doing now, making his spells against the black
painter. Actually a mountain lion, we gather. He took Mrs. Bridges’
word for it, calls it a painter. Mrs. Bridges’ family is Southern,
you know. For a good many years now, Arthur has whittled him a little
model of a lion each fall, so he could have it when the snow came. No
idea what it really means to him, of course, but apparently it’s a
comfort. He carries it around with him, in a little sack under his
shirt, as a sort of charm against the real lion, I suppose. Only this
year, with this unexpectedly early snow, Arthur doesn’t have his
charm finished, which aggravates his condition, I suppose. Sometimes
he recovers in an hour or so, but it looks as if we might be in for a
long spell this time. He’s gone as much as two or three days,
sometimes. But there’s nothing whatever to worry about. Only have
to keep an eye on him to see he doesn’t wander off or sit down
somewhere outside and freeze to death. He’s never violent; never
known him to lift a hand against anyone."
    Gwen looked across at Harold again, and this time he
was watching her and understood.
    "It’s all right," he said. "Joe Sam
doesn’t hear a word we’re saying when he’s like this. I don’t think he ever listens to us much anyway. He
doesn’t know enough English to guess what we’re talking about
usually, so he doesn’t pay any attention."
    "You never told me very much about him,"
Gwen said, keeping her voice low.
    "Well, now," said the father, "when a
young man has to ride all that way to get in a little courting, you’d
hardly expect him to spend many of his words on the hired help, would
you, my dear? Especially when he has as few as Harold has. Or want
him to, eh?"
    "There’s not much to tell about him,"
Harold said slowly, and looking at his hands again. "We don’t
any of us know much about him, except maybe Arthur."
    "Arthur," the father said, and snorted.
"I’d hesitate to put my faith in anything Arthur thinks he
knows."
    "Arthur knows quite a bit about him, I guess,"
Harold said to Gwen. "But he doesn’t talk much about it.
That’s why Joe Sam trusts him, I guess. He talks to Arthur a lot."
    After a moment, when Harold didn’t go on, Gwen
said,
    "He must be terribly old."
    "Well, now, as to that," the father said,
smiling at her, and then