Hardy was a tall, hollow-cheeked man, near as tall as Old Nathan himself. He wore good store-bought clothes, but he seemed to have wizened up after the garments were fitted; now they hung loose. A gold chain with several gold seals swung across Hardy’s narrow chest to a pocket of his waistcoat.
Old Nathan looked his visitor up and down. There were those who accused the cunning man of hating all mankind; but there were sure-God some folk easier t’ hate than others.
“Thin I guess,” Old Nathan said, “thet you kin leave, for I druther have your space thin your presence.”
The cat sauntered in, licking cobwebs from his fur. He’d hidden under the cabin when the strangers arrived, showing that he didn’t care any more for the folk than his master did.
“Wouldn’t mind a bowl of milk,” the cat yowled. “Seein’s as you won’t fetch me a dollop of good bloody meat.”
Old Nathan bent sideways to scratch the ears of the big yellow tom. He kept his eyes on the human visitors and didn’t answer the animal.
For a moment, the two men were all stillness and silence. Then Bascom Hardy shook the tension loose with a laugh and said, “Didn’t mean to start off on the wrong foot. My name’s Bascom Hardy, and I’ve come t’ make a business offer t’ you. Ned”—he didn’t look around at the half-breed—”whyn’t you set on the porch while me ‘n Mister Nathan, here, we talk business.”
“No more juice to either of ’em thin woods rats,” the cat remarked scornfully. “Though they might be fun t’ kill, specially”—he eyed the half-breed slouching onto the porch as ordered—”the squatty one.”
“Set, then,” the cunning man said grudgingly. He gestured his visitor to the straight-backed chair and sat in the rocker himself. “What is it you come t’ see me for?”
Hardy lifted the offered chair closer to the table in the center of the single room. He glanced around with a false smile as he seated himself.
The cabin had few amenities, though they were all the owner required. Two chairs—the rocker to set in, and the straight chair by the table for when he ate, wrote, or did figures. Chests along one sidewall with stored clothing and a handful of personal items—nothing that would tempt a thief. On the table, an alcohol lamp; and on the chimney board above the walk-in fireplace, five fine porcelain cups, a plate, and a few knickknacks of less obvious purpose.
Hardy focused again on the cunning man’s hot green eyes. “Waal,” he said, “I guess you’re a man wouldn’t be feared of a spook, now, would ye?”
He thought nothing of the sort. His voice cajoled, encouraging Old Nathan to create a fearless self-image which would agree to do whatever the rich man wanted done—but feared to do himself.
“Say yer piece,” Old Nathan said flatly. The chair rocked minutely beneath him, scritch-scritch; the high pine back moving no more than an inch at a stroke.
A pair of titmice, blue-gray with a black tip to their crests, flew in the cabin’s open front door and perched for a moment—one on the underside of a roof pole and the other on the muzzle of the cunning man’s rifle.
“My brother Bynum died over t’ Maury County nigh three months ago,” Bascom Hardy said. “A day past the new moon. He was a rich man, rich as rich.”
“Tsk! There’s a cat here,” chirped one of the titmice as it fluttered from the gun to the roof, then out the back door in concert with its companion. “Tsk! But he can’t ketch us!”
“Like you are yerse’f,” Old Nathan stated flatly. He knuckled his beard, black despite his age, with his knobby right hand.
The cat’s head turned to watch the birds. His tail beat twice. The second time it made a soft thump against the puncheon floor. The big tom got up from beside the rocker and walked toward the visitor’s chair with an evil look in his eyes.
“That’s true, I am,” Bascom Hardy said. His tone was half between irritation at being interrupted and pride at what he took for flattery. “But that’s not a speck t’ do with my brother, and my brother Bynum’s the reason I’m here.”