The Double Hook Read Online Free PDF Page A

best put your beast in, he said. The far stall’s empty.
    The boy walked towards the steps.
    I’m not stopping, he said.
    You’d best come in, James said, till it blows over.
    What I’ve come about won’t blow over, said the boy.
    Then you’d best go away with it, James said.
    The boy saw the door closing. He jumped the steps and caught at the handle, pulling the door open into the wind.
    Behind the metal tank Greta stood fingering the knob. Angel sat at the table. And Ara, in the darkness of the room, her eyes wide under her shaggy bangs.
    Ara! The boy laughed.
    Ara laughed too.
    What’s so funny, she said.
    By God, Ara, the boy said, when I saw you glaring from under that forelock –
    You thought, said Greta, coming round the tank and reaching to pull the kettle over the flame – you thought that James had rounded up the herd. An animal can hide in a herd.
    Angel stood. She picked up the teapot.
    Let it down, Greta said. In this house if tea’s offered –
    I’m clearing away, Angel said.
    I’m come to tell you, the boy said turning to James.
    What won’t blow will keep, James said. Set down.
    I’m come to tell you, the boy said.
    He hesitated. He felt the women about him leaning against his silence.
    His voice dropped. He turned to James.
    I came to tell you, he said, that your Ma’s out in the storm. Before it broke she was down to our place fishing in our pool.
    Not at your place, Ara said. Up beyond us. Up the elbow-joint towards the hills. Up to the source.
    Greta looked at James. Then she turned to the others.
    I ask you, she said, if knowing Ma was out in this I’d not look for her? Do you think James would stand there letting her come to harm? I told you she didn’t go out.
    But it’s easy enough to find out if Ma’s here, Ara said. All we’ve got to do is call her. All we’ve got to do is look. I’ve not been up in your house, Greta. It’s not my place to go.
    I’ve not been up myself lately, Greta said. The thing about stairs is that they separate you from things.
    If your Ma is still sleeping this late in the day, Angel said, she’s sleeping quieter than most living things. There’s no living being don’t turn and creak the bed a little.
    How could we both have seen her? Ara asked. How would we have seen her at both our places? She wasn’t fishing downstream. She was fishing up, and I saw her ahead of me and moving on. Greta just doesn’t know, she said. Go back down to your own creek, James. I saw her there too. There by the cottonwoods when Kip was telling you –
    Oh Kip, said James. It’s always Kip, Kip, Kip.
    Get out, he said, turning to Angel. Go home. The rain’s stopped. Is this the first time it has rained? Is this the first time that no one knows where Ma is? She’ll come back. She always comes back.
    A person has to go out to come back, Greta said.
    She walked across the kitchen and stood by James.
    Go home, Ara, she said.
    Go home, she said to the boy. Ma’s my business and James’s business. Who’s had the care of her all these years that you bother yourself about her now? What makes you choose today to bother?
    It was Ma herself, Ara said.
    James moved away from Greta.
    She’ll be back, James said.
    He opened the door as if to look out.
    Kip was standing on the doorstep, peering into the darkness of the room. Light flowed round him from outside. The sun was shining again low in the sky. The mist rose in wisps from the mud of the dooryard and steamed off the two horses standing there.
    If you want to go down to Wagner’s now, Kip said, I saw your old lady climb down through the split rock with Coyote, her fishes stiff in her hand.
    He smiled.
    The boy’s here, he said. There’s nothing stopping you. I just came to tell you, he said.
    Greta looked at James.
    I knew what you wanted, she said.
    She went to the foot of the stairs and turned to Kip.
    You didn’t see her, she said. You couldn’t. I tell you she’s here.
    Get out, she said. Go way. This is my house.