Bowsmith looked up in sudden horror.
“Don’t stop, damn ye!” growled the cat and kicked a knuckle with a hind paw.
“Is he . . . ?” the boy asked. “I mean, I thought he wuz a cat, but . . . ?”
“He’s a cat, sure ez I’m a man—” Old Nathan snapped. He had started to add “—and you’re a durn fool,” but that was too close to the truth, and there was no reason to throw it in Bowsmith’s face because he made up to Old Nathan’s cat better than the cunning man himself generally did.
“Spilesport,” grumbled the cat as he rolled to his feet and stalked out the door.
“Oh, well,” said the boy, rising and then remembering to pick up the horseshoe nail. “I wouldn’t want, you know, t’ trifle with yer familiars, coo.”
“Don’t hold with sich,” the cunning man retorted. Then a thought occurred to him and he added, “Who is it been tellin’ ye about familiar spirits and sechlike things?”
“Well,” admitted the boy, and “admit” was the right word for there was embarrassment in his voice, “I reckon the Bar’n might could hev said somethin’. He knows about thet sort uv thing.”
“Well, ye brung the horsehair,” said Old Nathan softly, his green eyes slitted over the thoughts behind them. He took the material from the boy’s hand and carried it with him to the table.
The first task was to sort the horsehair—long white strands from the tail; shorter but equally coarse bits of mane; and combings from the hide itself, matted together and gray-hued. The wad was more of a blur to his eyes than it was even in kinky reality. Sighing, the old man started up to get his spectacles from one of the chests.
Then, pausing, he had a better idea. He turned and gestured Bowsmith to the straight chair at the table. “Set there and sort the pieces fer length,” he said gruffly.
The cunning man was harsh because he was angry at the signs that he was aging; angry that the boy was too great a fool to see how he was being preyed upon; and angry that he, Old Nathan the Devil’s Master, should care about the fate of one fool more in a world that already had a right plenty of such.
“Yessir,” said the boy, jumping to obey with such clumsy alacrity that his thigh bumped the table and slid the solid piece several inches along the floor. “And thin what do we do?”
Bowsmith’s fingers were deft enough, thought Old Nathan as he stepped back a pace to watch. “No we about it, boy,” said the cunning man. “You spin it to a bridle whilst I mebbe say some words t’ help.”
Long hairs from the tail to form the reins; wispy headbands and throat latch bent from the mane, and the whole felted together at each junction by tufts of gray hair from the hide.
“And I want ye t’ think uv yer Jen as ye do thet, boy,” Old Nathan said aloud while visions of the coming operation drifted through his mind. “Jest ez t’night ye’ll think uv her as ye set in her stall, down on four legs like a beast yerself, and ye wear this bridle you’re makin’. And ye’ll call her home, so ye will, and thet’ll end the matter, I reckon.”
” ‘Bliged t’ ye, sir,” said Eldon Bowsmith, glancing up as he neared the end of the sorting. There was no more doubt in his eyes than a more sophisticated visitor would have expressed at the promise the sun would rise.
Old Nathan wished he were as confident. He especially wished that he were confident the Neill clan would let matters rest when their neighbor had his horse back.
* * *
Old Nathan was tossing the dirt with which he had just scoured his cookware off the side of the porch the next evening when he saw Bowsmith trudging back down the trail. The boy was not whistling, and his head was bent despondently.
His right hand was clenched. Old Nathan knew, as surely as if he could see it, that Bowsmith was bringing back the fetch bridle.