The Double Hook by Sheila Watson Read Free Book Online

doings on him, Kip said.
    You wanted the old woman out of the way, didn’t you? Kip asked. You wanted to see the girl, didn’t you?
    How can a man know what he wants? James said.
    The girl didn’t move.
    Greta had gone back into the house. She sat in her mother’s chair, the folds of her housecoat falling between her knees.
    Send them away, James, she called out. Drive them off the place.
    Oh-ho, Kip said. Just the same old Greta. The same old Greta inside some plants and bushes.
    You’d best take us in, he said to James. We can’t just keep standing about. Tell her we came to help you.
    He lifted his face. Smiling.
    That Greta, he thought. Standing there proud like the glory. Fitting herself into a glory the way a man fits himself into a shirt and pants.
    James stood uncertain before the door.
    Come in, James, Greta said. Come in and shut away the moon.
    Did you forget, he asked, I’ve others with me?
    How could I forget? she called out. How could I forget with their noise still in my ears. Yelling and shrieking outside in the night like cats in torment. Can you think that I didn’tsee with my own eyes what was going on out there in the moonlight. It’s Kip should have known better since he knew there was death in the house. It’s not as if there weren’t plenty of hollows in the hills where he could chase his mares.
    Let me go, James, the girl said. Just let me go.
    Let’s all walk in and set down, Kip said. She’s got her rope on the wrong horse.
    No. No, the girl said, loosening as she pulled forward James’s hold on her wrist.
    Who’s dead? she asked Greta. Is it your Ma? Is that why you didn’t come? she said to James.
    Come, Greta said. Come where, you little fool?
    The girl turned to James.
    Say something, she said. Haven’t you anything to say?
    I told you not to come here, he said. And you come tonight of all nights.
    I had nowhere else to go, the girl said. I thought you might open the door with your own hands. I didn’t want anybody to make you open the door, she said. No one but myself. What do you want me to do now? she asked.
    James looked at Greta.
    She sat there, her face flat above the fierce twist of printed flowers.
    Tell Kip to water the stock, she said. No one has done anything. Go with him. What use is the night to me now?
    Kip had set the lamp on the table. He took the lantern from the shelf and lit it.
    He thought: He’s only to loose the force in his own muscles. But a horse stays under the cinch because it’s used to it from a colt.
    He turned down the wick of the lantern. Waiting.
    The door was still open. James turned into his shadow and walked out of the house with Kip at his heels.
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    Greta got up and closed the door. Then she turned and caught the girl by the shoulder.
    Keep on looking, she said. And think what you want. I don’t care. It’s what I am, she said. It’s what’s driven him out into the creek bottom. Into the brush. Into the hogpen. A woman can stand so much, she said. A man can stand so much. A woman can stand what a man can’t stand. To be scorned by others. Pitied. Scrimped. Put upon. Laughed at when no one has come for her, when there’s no one to come. She can stand it when she knows she still has the power. When the air’s stretched like a rope between her and someone else. It’s emptiness that can’t be borne. The potholes are filled with rain from time to time. I’ve seen them stiff with thirst. Ashed white and bitter at the edge. But the rain or the run-off fills them at last. The bitterness licked up. I tell you there was only James. I was never let run loose. I never had two to waste and spill, like Angel Prosper.
    She pulled the girl over to the foot of the stairs.
    I heard her breath stop, she said. And the cold setting her flesh. Don’t believe what James might say. She’s not looking still. I heard what we’d been waiting to hear. What James and me had been waiting to hear all these years. There was only James, she said. Only James