OLD NATHAN(19)

"What's thet to me?" his visitor demanded. "Anyhow, who're you to speak?"

"The Devil's loose in the world, Bascom Hardy," Old Nathan said without emotion, staring into the silver pool. "But I'm the Devil's master, depend on it."

Hardy grimaced, upset by the thought and the turn of conversation. "Don't signify," he muttered. "Anyhow, she didn't he'p neither. Guess she run off too."

"Guess she would hev chose to," said Old Nathan, "but she didn't get thet pick. Hit was at the door, and she hid in an old chest while hit et her supper. Your brother Bynum did."

"Warn't nothing in thet chest worth hauling off," Bascom Hardy said uncomfortably. "Nor the chest itself, neither."

Forestalling the next question, he added, "The old woman, she went off with her daughter. I reckon they'll put her in the State Farm if she don't quit shoutin' and carryin' on, but thet's not my business neither!"

Layers of thick gray felt peeled back one by one from around the cunning man. Sunlight streamed into his consciousness, but for a moment he could only shiver despite its warming impact. The knife trembled in his hand, but he didn't trust his control to put it away just yet.

Birds chirped in fear and anger. One of Old Nathan's heifers complained loudly at a rabbit which had hopped across the meadow and startled her.

"What's the matter with you?" Hardy demanded. He was concerned not with his host's condition, but that the condition might somehow threaten him.

Old Nathan shook himself. He gripped the back of the rocking chair. The solid contact was all that had kept him upright for a moment. "You mind yerself," he muttered. "Nothin's the matter with me."

The yellow tomcat stepped into the cabin again with his head high. There was a titmouse in his jaws. It peeped and fluttered one wing minusculy.

"Whyn't you set up fer your brother yerse'f, Bascom Hardy?" the cunning man asked.

His visitor looked away from the probing green eyes. "Bynum 'n me, we didn't git along when he was alive," Hardy said. "Don't guess him bein' dead ud change thet fer the better now—ifen it is him comin' back, the way he said he would."

Hardy lost the aura of discomfort which had momentarily softened his angular body. "Look here," he said. "Thet gold's mine now, not some dead man's. Mine by law and mine by right. I mean t' have it!"

He leaned forward again. "Now, you know about spooks, I reckon. Nothing there t' skeer you. You set up in Bynum's cabin when the moon's dark these three nights from now, and I'll see you right of it. D'ye hear me?"

I hear more 'n you think you're saying', Bascom Hardy, the cunning man thought as he looked down at the other man. Aloud he said, "Reckon I kin git a neighbor t' milk the cows fer a few days."

When he smiled, as now, Old Nathan's mouth looked like an axe-cut in a block of walnut heartwood. "I don't know thet I'd claim t' hev friends hereabouts. But airy soul knows I pay my debts . . . and there's none so sure of hisse'f thet he don't think he might need what I could do fer him one day."

Bascom Hardy stood up. "Waal," he said, though the words were flummery, "I'm a businessman and I like t' see another businessman. Will ye come with me now t' Bynum's cabin?"

"I reckon I kin find it myse'f," Old Nathan said. "I'll be there afore the new moon."

"I'll look for ye," Hardy said in false joviality.

He opened the front door wider to leave. The motion pulled a breeze that scattered a slush of gray pinfeathers across the cabin floor. It was always amazing to see how many feathers a bird had, even a small bird.

"He had his say," muttered the cat past a mouthful of titmouse, " 'n I had mine."

Old Nathan scowled—at the cat's ruthlessness, and at the image of that same set of mind which he knew was within his own soul.

* * *

"Thur's horses waitin' up around the next bend," said the mule as his shoes click-clicked down the loose stones of the sloping trail. "Thur's men with 'em too, I reckon."

"Thankee," said Old Nathan.

He shifted his flintlock so that it lay crossways to the saddle horn, not slanting forward. The undergrowth springing from this rocky clay soil was open enough that the long barrel wouldn't catch; and it was neither polite nor safe to offer a stranger his first view of you over a rifle's muzzle.

"Thet mean we're goin' t' set a piece, thin?" the mule asked.

"I reckon it does," the cunning man agreed.

The mule blew its lips out. " 'Bout damn time," it muttered.

It was a good beast. Always grumbling, but no worse than any other mule; and always willing to do its job, though never happy about it.