The boy cocked his head aside and started to comb his fingers through his hair in what Old Nathan had learned was a gesture of embarrassment. He looked from the pointer to his bandaged finger, then began to rub his scalp with the heel of his right hand. “Well . . .” he said. “I want ye t’ know thet I . . .”
Bowsmith grimaced and looked up to meet the eyes of the cunning man squarely. “Lot uv folk,” he said, “they wouldn’t hev let me hep. They call me Simp, right t’ my face they do thet. . . . En, en I reckon there’s no harm t’ thet, but . . . sir, ye treated me like Ma used to. You air ez good a friend ez I’ve got in the world, ‘ceptin’ the Neills.”
“So good a friend ez thet?” said the cunning man drily. He had an uncomfortable urge to turn his own face away and comb fingers through his hair.
“Well,” he said instead and cleared his throat in order to go on. “Well. Ye remember what I told ye. Ye don’t speak uv this t’ ary soul. En by the grace uv yer Ma in heaven whur she watches ye—”
Old Nathan gripped the boy by both shoulders, and the importance of what he had to get across made emotionally believable words that were not part of the world’s truth as the cunning man knew it “—don’t call t’ Jen and foller the pinter to her without ye’ve the sheriff et yer side. Aye, en ef he wants t’ bring half the settlement along t’ boot, thin I reckon thet might be a wise notion.”
“Ain’t goin’ t’ fail ye this time, sir,” promised the boy brightly. “Hit’ll all be jist like you say.”
He was whistling again as he strode up the hill into the dusk. Old Nathan imagined a cabin burning and a lanky form dangling from a tree beside it.
He spat to avoid the omen.
* * *
Old Nathan sat morosely in the chimney corner, reading with his back to the fire, when his cat came in the next night.
“Caught a rabbit nigh on up t’ the road,” the cat volunteered cheerfully. “Land sakes didn’t it squeal and thrash.”
He threw himself down on the puncheon floor, using Old Nathan’s booted foot as a brace while he licked his belly and genitals. “Let it go more times thin I kin count,” the cat went on. “When it wouldn’t run no more, thin I killed it en et it down t’ the head en hide.”
“I reckon ye did,” said the cunning man. To say otherwise to the cat would be as empty as railing against the sky for what it struck with its thunderbolts. He carefully folded his reading glasses and
set them in the crease of his book so that he could stroke the animal’s fur.
“Hev ye seen thet young feller what wuz here t’other day?” the cat asked, pawing his master’s hand but not—for a wonder—hooking in his claws.
“I hev not,” Old Nathan replied flatly. He had ways by which he could have followed Bowsmith’s situation or even anticipated it. It was more than the price such sources of information came with that stayed him; they graved an otherwise fluid future on the stone of reality. He would enter that world of knowledge for others whose perceived need was great enough, but he would not enter it for himself. Old Nathan had experienced no greater horror in his seventy years of life than the certain knowledge of a disaster he could not change.
“Well,” said the cat, “reckon ye’ll hev a chanct to purty quick, now. Turned down yer trail, he did, ’bout time I licked off them rabbit guts en come home myself.”
“Halloo the house!” called Eldon Bowsmith from beyond the front door, and the cat bit Old Nathan’s forearm solidly as the cunning man tried to rise from the rocking chair.
“Bless en save ye, cat!” roared the old man, gripping the animal before the hind legs, feeling the warm distended belly squishing with rabbit meat. “Come in, boy,” he cried, “come in en set,” and he surged upright with the open book in one hand and the cat cursing in the other.