Part 51 (2/2)

Jack, Bascom Hardy?”

The rich man looked up at the roof poles. A strip of bullhide dangled from them, the horns at the top and the coa.r.s.e hairs of the bull's tail-tip brus.h.i.+ng the floor. ”I reckon,” he lied, ”Jack went off on his own.”

”He hung hisself,” said the cunning man.

”And what if he did?” Bascom Hardy shouted. ”Hit was his own choice, warn't it? Just like the poor folk, they don't hoe their crop 'n thin they blame me when I buy their land at the sheriff's sale!”

”Was a woman the next time,” said Old Nathan as the images in his silver-washed mind changed. ”Old Mamie Fergusson from Battle Branch down Columbia way.”

Bascom Hardy had come to Old Nathan because of the cunning man's reputation, but he squirmed nonetheless at proof of the reality behind that reputation. ”Guess. .h.i.t might hev been. She come t' me. I reckon she thought she'd find the gold herse'f, but what she said was she'd sit up fer me.”

”Calls herse'f a witch,” Old Nathan said quietly. ”There's other folks as call her worse.”

”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 s.h.i.+ver 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 t.i.tmouse 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 t.i.tmouse, ” '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 s.h.i.+fted 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 d.a.m.n 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.

Bascom Hardy scrambled to his feet when he saw Old Nathan mounted on the mule. His bodyguard Ned was a step slower, but that was because the half-breed's first thought was to point the musket toward the sudden sound. Ned had a hard man's instincts, but he warn't sharp enough nor quick enough t' be a problem if he decided to try conclusions at the small end of a rifle.

Folk hereabouts hed got soft. Back in the days when he followed Colonel Sevier to King's Mountain, then men were men.

The hillside had never been cut for planting. Bynum Hardy's cabin was just out of sight among pines and the dogwoods which had grown up where the narrow clearing let in the sun. Old Nathan knew the building was there, though, because he'd seen it in the silver s.h.i.+eld of his knife. The well that he'd seen also, just downslope of the dwelling, set right there next the trail where Bascom Hardy and his man waited.

Hardy tugged out his watch, gold like the chain on which it hung, and flipped up the cover of its hunter case. ”I figgered I'd come t' make sure you kept your bargain,” he said irritably. ”I'd come t' mis...o...b.. thet you would.”

”You keep yer britches on,” snapped the cunning man. A feller who used a watch t' tell time in broad daylight spent too much of his life with money in tight-hedged rooms. . . . ”I said I'd be here, 'n here I am-”

He looked pointedly up at the sky. The sun was below the pine-fringed rim of the notch, but the visible heavens were still bright blue ”-well afore time.”

”Could use a drink,” the mule grumbled. It kept walking on, toward the well. There wasn't a true spring house, but the well had a curb of mud-c.h.i.n.ked fieldstones and a shelter roof from which half the s.h.i.+ngles had blown or broken.

”Us too,” whickered Bascom Hardy's walking horse, tied by his reins to a trailside alder. He jerked his head and made the alder sway. ”Didn't neither of 'em water us whin we got here, 'n thet was three hours past.”

”Lead yer horses t' me,” Old Nathan grunted as he swung off the mule. ”I'll water the beasts like a decent man ought.”

The curb's c.h.i.n.king was riddled with wasp burrows. The well rope had seen better days, but it was sound enough and the wooden bucket was near new. The old one must uv rotted clean away, for a man as tight as Bynum Hardy to replace it.

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