Chapter 28
Basin Street jazz drowned the wind in the garden. The beat was solid, the music at once weeping and happy—primal music like a deep heartbeat. Braden, drowning in the good jazz, turned off the overhead studio lights and crossed the blowing moonlit garden, heading for Sam’s.
He paused beside the tool room door, watching wind shake the door and whip the vine that grew around it. Feeling spooked, he wanted to move on, yet was held a moment watching the blowing shadows that raced across the garden, shadows running like live things. In the restless light the carved cats’ faces seemed to move and change. Then from Sam’s a blast of trumpet and trombone rose against the wind. And the wind leaping from tree to tree suddenly stilled.
The shadows stopped running. The garden was silent, deadly still.
Elder wind. It’s an elder wind…
The term shocked him, surprised him. It was a term his Gram had used, a Welsh term from her girlhood. He hadn’t thought of it since she died.
He could see her beside him standing on the rocks above the sea, the wind whipping her carroty hair, her arm around him because he was small and the wind was strong, wind that died, then suddenly blew again, throwing salt spray in their faces. “An elder wind,” she said.
“What’s that, Gram?”
“An elder wind can speak to you, if you know how to listen.”
“How do you listen? I don’t understand.”
She had laughed, enjoying the wild evening. “You listen with something inside, the part of you that knows things.”
“But what would an elder wind say?”
“Something of the future, something that’s going to happen.” Then, seeing his expression, she had said, “Something good. Something—beyond everyday things. Something—not everyone can hear.”
He stood in the blowing garden, lost in that time that was forever gone. Lost to those he loved who were gone. Then, scowling at himself, he went on across the lane toward the warmth and the good, pure Dixieland. Above him the redwood forest loomed deep black, rattling and hushing as the wind once more tore at its branches.
Sam’s Bar was an old converted house, dark shingled, nestled alone against the redwood forest. It had no neon and needed no advertising. Its patrons parked in the lane or on the skirt of blacktop by the front door, or left their cars at home. Inside, walls had been removed to allow for a sprawling openness with quiet corners, and to make space for the bandstand. You could get dark stout on draft, and hardboiled eggs pickled in pale, hot pepper juice. You could get bock beer in the spring, and during legal crabbing months you could get a sandwich made of green olives and crab fresh from the San Francisco fleets. Sam, ex-stevedore, jazz buff, was a good listener, and held within his graying head half the secrets of the village.
Braden threaded between the cars parked tightly around Sam’s front door, and stood a moment awash in the plaintive, hypnotic rhythm of “Joe Avery’s Blues.” The porch was ten feet wide, with four steps leading up to it, and a dark wooden door with a small stained glass panel.
Inside, the room was warm, smoky, booze-smelling, and rocking with the gut-twisting music. He checked the bar, nodded to the band. Sam poured him a whisky, grinning through a short fringe of grizzled beard. The main room was to Braden’s right. There was a good blaze in the fireplace. Long windows faced the windy, moonlit forest. Morian and Bob were at the corner table. Carrying his glass, he joined them. He took the chair in the corner, laying a hand companionably over Morian’s. She was dressed in something white and low that showed off her beautiful umber skin. She was tall, not fat, but the sort of woman who, nude on the model stand, made fashionably skinny women look incomplete. After Morian, no model seemed worth drawing. No other model had the beautiful bones, the fine, long muscles and gorgeous breasts, the subtle turnings of shadows to study and capture and linger over. Her dark skin picked up reds, ambers: dark velvet skin clothing itself in deep lights and rich shadows, so any other clothing seemed out of place. She studied Braden.
“Work going badly, Brade?”
He looked at her; she always knew. She had been good friends with Alice, had always cared about their work, was a good critic. It was an experience to watch Morian rise from the model stand at break, slip on a wrap, walk around the classroom studying the work. A comment from Morian was always perceptive and valuable. She hugged a lot, companionably, as she admired and questioned. Low and velvet and fine, Morian was like a dark, rich sun rising in soft brilliance whenever she entered a classroom.
She watched him closely. “I suppose Rye’s been over.”
Braden nodded. “I told him to cancel the show.”
Morian scowled.
Bob leaned back in his chair, watching them. He was smaller than Morian, a well-knit man. Sandy hair, a look in his hazel eyes that was sometimes too understanding—that was the trouble with shrinks. He was seldom without Leslie in the evenings—trim, tanned Leslie—except when she worked late doing the endless paperwork of the small village library. “That’s pretty heavy, Brade. Rye’s likely to take you up on it.”
Braden gave him a questioning look.
Morian said, “Rye was over at school today. To see Garcheff’s new work.”
Braden put down his drink, instantly defensive. “He thinks I won’t get the work together. He’s planning to slip Garcheff in.” And he knew that wasn’t fair.
Morian said, “But you told him to cancel the show.”
Now for the first time he didn’t want to cancel. “Hell, I guess I had it coming.” He reached for his drink, and spilled it.
They helped him mop up the whisky with paper napkins, stuffing them in the ashtray. Morian said, “You have almost two months. You aren’t letting Garcheff take your date.” She laid her hand over his, giving him a black velvet look, a soothsayer’s look. Bob looked away, half embarassed, then left the table, muttering something about peanuts; Braden felt a quick, fleeting amusement because Bob was so straight. The band swung into “Just a Little While to Stay Here.” The heat of the music drew them closer. Morian started to say something, then stared past him across the room, frowning. When she kept staring, he turned to look.
The gardener was sitting by the door. Vrech. The dark, hunched man was alone at a small table against the wall. Morian watched him intently.
“What the hell are you looking at?”
“That bag under his table,” she said quietly.
“It’s just an old gunnysack. What do you think he’s got, Olive’s jewelry?”
“It moved.”
He hadn’t seen it move.
She put her hand on his knee. “Keep looking—he’s got something alive in there.” Her eyes flashed. “You don’t stuff a live creature into a gunnysack.” She was getting worked up; it didn’t take much.
“Listen, Mor—” He took her arm to keep her from getting up. “Wait a minute. At least be sure. What could he have?” He hadn’t seen the bag so much as flinch.
Bob returned with pretzels, two beers, and a bourbon. “That’s A’Plenty” ended in a high riff, the trumpet player mouthed inaudible words and they launched into “Salty Dog.” Bob looked at Braden and at Morian’s stormy face, and shifted his chair so he could glance across at the gardener.
Braden said, “She thinks the bag moved. Listen, Mor, just sit still a minute. What could he have?”
Morian picked up her purse. “There’s something alive in there. What does he—he was in the tool room all afternoon with the door closed. Until after dark. He came out carrying a bundle—not that one, a big bundle. And now he has something alive. He’s caught some poor animal…”
Bob looked mildly skeptical.
She scowled at him. “There’s something in the bag. And he was in the shed for hours; I could see the door from where I was sewing. I saw him come out, but I never did see him go in.”
Braden drained his glass and reached for the drink, amused at Morian. “You must have looked away once or twice.”
“It takes
more time than a glance away to go across the garden. I was watching the door.” She looked faintly embarrassed. “The door seems to draw me. I see anything that moves around it. Vrech didn’t go in while I was sewing. He came out well after dark, carrying a big, awkward bundle. The band was here, I could hear them warming up. Vrech came up across the garden carrying the bundle over his shoulder, then the moon went behind a cloud. When it cleared he was gone. I changed, made a phone call, and came on over. And there he was ordering a beer.”
Bob shifted his chair again so he could prop his feet on the one next to him and see the gardener more easily.
Braden said, “Alice felt that way about the door.”
Morian nodded. “I know.”
When Bob left to meet Leslie, the bag had still not moved. Morian wouldn’t leave. They sat quietly talking about the show at the de Young, obliquely watching the gardener. They avoided talking about Braden’s paintings. Their hands touched as they worked up comfortably to a night at his place; it had been a long time. The band was into “Tailgate Ramble” when the bag moved again; they both saw it twitch then twist, as if something inside had flopped over. When Vrech prodded it with his toe, it lay still. But Morian was up, easing around the table. “I heard a cat cry. He has a cat in there.” She stared at Braden, eyes flashing. “One of our cats?” He watched her, half amused, and followed her, hoping this wasn’t going to turn into a brawl.
The gardener watched Morian coldly. When she knelt reaching for the bag, he snatched it from her and stood up swinging it away. The bag began to thrash and yowl. Vrech pushed Morian out of the way and spun past them out the door. Morian lunged after him. Braden could do nothing but go with her. He grabbed Vrech, swinging him around, and Morian jerked the bag from his hands. The rest was a tangle. Vrech punched Braden in the face, the cat screamed and raked Braden’s cheek through the bag, then Vrech had the bag again, running. Morian ran after him; Braden, his jaw hurting, caught a glimpse of her face raging mad. He could only stay with her, knowing this was insane. As they crashed through the wood he gained on Vrech and tackled him running. He threw the bag clear, jabbing his knee in the man’s belly.
Holding the gardener down, he watched Morian tear at the bag, fighting the knots. Whatever was in there flopped and fought. Every time Vrech tried to jerk free, Braden twisted his arm tighter. He stared down at the man’s angry face, surprised that Vrech was so strong. He felt a powerful distaste at touching the man; he wanted suddenly to flatten that leering face.
“It’s open. Oh Brade…”
A cat looked out, crouching and terrified. Its ears were laid flat, its eyes immense with fear. Its face was part mottled dark, part white. As the wind hit it, it ducked down. But when it saw Vrech it exploded out of the bag, clawing Morian’s hand, leaped away, and ran. Like a streak it disappeared within the dark woods. Morian rose to chase after it, then turned back.
“She was terrified, Brade. If I chase her she’ll run forever.”
He looked at her, exasperated. “What the hell am I going to do with the gardener? What the hell are we doing out here?” He was drained suddenly, and perplexed. Something about the gardener sickened him. The man was tense as a spring—he knew if he let up only a little, Vrech would be all over him. He didn’t feel like fighting anymore. His jaw was already swelling and his fist felt like it was broken. “Christ, Mor…” But she wasn’t paying attention; she was staring off into the woods looking for the damned cat. The way the wind was tearing at the bushes, no one could see a cat running.
“It was hardly more than a kitten, Brade. Little white throat and paws. It was terrified.” She turned on Vrech, her black eyes blazing. “What did you want with it? What were you going to do to it?”
The gardener glared and didn’t answer. His dark eyes were chilling, there was a strangeness about him that made Braden force him harder against the earth.
Morian moved closer, touching Braden’s shoulder. “Let him up, Brade. The cat’s gone—he won’t catch her. Let him go.”
He didn’t want to let him go, he wanted to pound him.
“Brade, let him go.”
Unwillingly he loosed Vrech, ready to pulverize him if he so much as looked sideways.
Vrech moved away from him quickly, and headed back down through the blowing woods toward Sam’s. He looked back at them once. In the darkness Braden couldn’t see his face. The lights through the bar’s windows illuminated his slouching walk, then he was gone around the building, heading toward the lane.
“Brade, go ask Sam for some hamburger. I’ll go up in the woods, maybe she’ll come to me. I think she’s hurt. I couldn’t tell, she fled so fast.” She touched his face. “I can’t just let her go, if she’s hurt. Go on, Brade—cooked hamburger.”
In the bar he got some hamburger scraps and two double whiskeys, and borrowed a flashlight from Sam.
It wasn’t hard to find Morian in her blowing white dress, standing beside the spring. She took the hamburger, spread the wrapper out and weighted it with broken branches. She led him some distance away, into a shelter of wild azalea where the wind didn’t reach them so strongly. “Talk softly, maybe the sound of our voices will soothe her. Maybe once she eats, she’ll come to us.”
He felt ridiculous sitting in the middle of the woods waiting for a cat. Alice would be very amused. He wondered what the gardener had been going to do with it. “Why do you think it’s a female?”
“Most calico’s are. And that little face—very female.”
He didn’t know how she could be sure—it was just a cat. Frightened, though, and young. Its eyes had been huge. “It won’t come to you, Mor. It was too scared. Christ, what are we doing out here?”
“Just a little while, Brade.”
They sat in silence, their hands touching, chilled by the wind, waiting for a stray cat. She said, “It hurts me to see them like that, so afraid, and maybe injured. They’re so small; they weren’t meant for our cruelty. Tiger—he was so terribly hurt. I couldn’t help him. The vet says they go into shock, that they don’t feel the pain. I don’t know.” Her hand was holding his too tightly. “I couldn’t help him live, all I could do was help him die.”
He looked at her and said nothing. She had the same empathy for animals that Alice had had, a deep, intimate fellowship that he had never really felt and found hard to understand. After a long time she said, “I guess she isn’t going to come near the food while we’re here. Poor little thing. I wonder where she came from, where she belongs.”
“She’s just a stray cat, Mor.”
She gave him a hard look. “There’s no such thing as just a stray cat.” Then she grinned at him. “Are you just a stray person?” She rose and stood looking into the black woods.
“The wind makes her all the more frightened. Maybe if I put out food tomorrow when it’s calm, she’ll come to me.” She took his hand and they started down through the woods heading for his place.
The calico stalked the meat, but not until Braden and Morian had been gone for some time did she come near enough to gulp it. She ate all the hamburger, then drank from the spring, stopping several times to stare in the direction of the garden.
She was both drawn to the garden and afraid. She approached and shied away five times before she had worked her way down to the portal. Shivering, she smelled Vrech’s scent in the door and leaped away again, but she did not head back to the woods. She bolted down the hill toward the brick veranda, sensing safety there.
She avoided the lighted portion of the veranda where yellow squares from the windows angled across the brick, and took cover in the bushes at the far end. Safe in the familiar shelter, she washed, circled deep in the dry leaves and curled down, tucking her nose under her tail. With her white parts hidden, even in the invading washes of moonlight she looked like part of the dry leaves, her mottled coat the same color as the leaves.
Her dreams were filled with fear. She mewled sometimes, and her paws twitched and ran. But then as she slept more deeply t
he dreams became unclear to her cat nature. Meaningless dramas were played out, voices and scenes touched her which only the conscious Melissa would have understood.
Chapter 29
Braden was pulled out of a deep sleep, fighting to get his bearings. A sound had woken him—a scratching, clawing noise. Coming awake, he tried to figure out why he was sleeping on the model’s couch. Then he remembered, and reached for Morian. The next moment he came fully awake and saw that she had gone—her clothes were gone. He could smell coffee; she had made coffee. The scratching sound was like fingernails on glass. He stared toward the window wall.
There was a cat out there, rearing up, scratching at the glass. It was the cat from last night; the cat they’d sat up half the night trying to catch. The one he’d bruised his fist for. What was it doing here? He didn’t believe it was trying to get in through his door.
The cat had woken before daylight. The wind was gone. The garden was littered with broken branches, and birds flitted across them, searching for insects. She had started out from the bushes to hunt when a sound from the house made her draw back.
A figure had come out, her white dress rustling. She had crossed the veranda and headed up the hill, her scent on the still air familiar and comforting. The little cat rose to follow her, but then she glanced again toward the studio and settled down, yawning and stretching. She was dozing when a sparrow flew onto the veranda.
It took her some time to maneuver the sparrow into position. Skillfully she pounced, bit it behind the head, carried it into the bushes, and ate it. This morsel stirred her hunger, and she began to watch the studio. There was food there—she had gotten food there. Her green eyes blazed as she slipped out of the bushes onto the veranda and peered in through the glass door. She pressed against the door, and when no one came to let her in, she began to claw at it.
The Catswold Portal Page 18
