Читать книгу "Nevada" - Zane Grey - Страница 6

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Nevada calmly rose to his feet and stepped aside from the chair. He did not believe that Cawthorne would attempt to draw on him, but as there was no certainty, he wanted to be on his feet. Even at the moment he seemed strange to himself. Yet after that first flash he felt coolly master of himself.

Cawthorne, more emboldened every instant, shouted the louder:

"I'm invitin' you outdoors."

"What for?" queried Nevada.

"You know what for."

"I haven't an idee, Link," went on Nevada. "Shore I see you're r'iled. But I reckon there's no call for me to get r'iled, too, aboot your mistake. It's cold outdoors. An' I like this warm fire. If you've any more to say, why, go ahaid."

Cawthorne expanded under this wholly unprecedented experience. A few drinks had addled his brains and an unreasonable jealousy had set them on fire. To realize Jim Lacy had refused the challenge born of wild haste had set him on the pinnacle of his dream of fame.

"Say?" he demanded, with hoarse and pompous contempt. "I've no more to say. I've called you, an' you're yellow. That's all."

Whereupon he turned to the amazed and discomfited Lize and, half leading, half dragging her, left the room. The business of the gamblers was resumed, with a loud laugh here and caustic remarks there. Nevada heard the content of some of them: "What the hell's got into Lacy?" . . . "He always was a decent chap." . . . "Reckon he couldn't kill thet durn fool right before the girl's eyes." . . . "You're wrong, gentlemen," said a cold-voiced gambler. "That was a little by-play between a real gunman and a would-be. I've seen it often."

As Nevada resumed his chair and drew it closer to the fire these and other remarks did not escape him, and that of the gambler lingered with him moodily. Gradually his momentary depression passed away. He saw Hettie Ide's face in the golden glow of the fire. How he quivered in heart and body! He had been put to the test and he had been true to what she would have expected of him.

Nevada went early to his lodgings and his sleep was untroubled. When he awoke in the morning he was glad to face the sun.

There was plenty of work for him to do, which he set about with a will. He found tasks that Mrs. Wood did not think of. Thus, with most of the daylight hours passed in manual labor, Nevada began his winter in Lineville.

For nearly a week he stayed away from the Gold Mine. Then one night at supper Mrs. Wood spoke up seriously:

"Jim, that big-mouthed Link Cawthorne is braggin' around you're afraid to come downtown."

"Wal, you don't say," drawled Nevada.

"Yes, I do say. I don't like it at all, Jim. You can't let him keep that up."

"Shore, I don't care what Link says."

"Son, that's not the way of the West," she went on, gravely. "I've lived all my life on the frontier. No man can afford to lose the respect of his associates, even if they are mostly a worthless outfit of gamblers, rustlers, an' sech. They can't understand it. Least of all Link Cawthorne can't. He's likely to shoot you from behind a corner an' swear he met you on an even break."

"But, Mother Wood, what can I do?" queried Nevada, robbed of his imperturbability.

"Well, as long as you're here in Lineville be Jim Lacy as they used to know him," she declared, forcefully. "If you let this towhead run amuck with his brag, pretty soon he'll get the nerve actually to draw on you. Now, Jim, you don't want to have to kill him. Lize was fond of him. An' if she's fond of anyone it keeps her straight. You go downtown an' slap Link's face. Take his gun away from him an' stick it down the back of his pants!"

Nevada laughed mirthlessly. "Wal, maybe you're right," he said, with a sigh. "By gosh; I wish spring would come, so I could hit the trail."

"Mark my words, son," she replied, earnestly, "the best way for you to make sure of spring an' summer an' fall is to be yourself!"

Nevada went back to the Gold Mine, dubious in mind, once more doubtful that he could ever escape the inevitable consequences of his name.

It chanced that Link Cawthorne was sober and deeply involved in a card game, where he was having a remarkable run of good luck. He merely sneered when Nevada strolled in.

Cash Burridge, however, made at once for Nevada, with all show of friendliness.

"Where you been, Lacy?" he inquired, disapprovingly. "We've certainly looked for you here."

"Aw, been workin' hard an' goin' to bed early," replied Nevada. "Then, Cash, I reckon I wanted to avoid meetin' Cawthorne."

"Bah!" snorted Burridge. "You'll have to shoot that damned brag, an' the sooner you do it the better we'll all be pleased."

"Wal, we won't argue aboot it, Cash, but I'm not seein' it that way."

"I'll bet you five to one Link will nag you to draw. I've seen a hundred four-flushers like him. An' they all got the same."

"Wal, I cain't bet with you, that's shore," returned Nevada, in good humor.

"Let's go up to my room, where we can have a quiet talk," said the other, and led the way through the hall and upstairs.

"Shore, you're comfortable heah," remarked Nevada, gazing around the room.

"I like it nice when I'm not in the saddle," returned Burridge. "Take a seat, an' if you won't drink have a smoke. . . . One more word about this Link Cawthorne. He was harmless enough until Lize made him a snake in the grass. That girl is a hell's rattler. My advice is for you to beat the daylights out of Link or call his bluff an' kill him."

"Reckon I'm some worried, Cash," admitted Nevada.

"A man like you must always worry," rejoined Burridge, with evident sympathy. "You can't ever be free unless you hide your name. It's bad enough to have sheriffs after you, an' natural enemies, but it must be hell to know there're men who want to kill you just because of your reputation."

"Wal, I hope I don't get sore an' go back to drinkin'," said Nevada, gloomily.

"Jim, I want to talk serious to you now," went on Burridge, with change of voice.

"Wal, fire away. You'll shore get my honest opinion, anyway."

"Lineville is gettin' a little too much travel to suit me. In another year it won't be any place for me, let alone you. Agree with me?"

"Shore do. When spring comes I go for good."

"Exactly. Same here. Now I want to tell you about my deal. I'll tell you straight. An' if you don't want to go in with me, it'll be all right, only I want you to respect my confidence here in Lineville. Will you do it?"

"I reckon," replied Nevada, soberly.

Burridge showed satisfaction at that assurance, but he plainly hesitated over the next disclosure. Little flecks of light danced in his eyes, suddenly to coalesce in a set, cold gleam.

"Jim, you knew Setter was shot over in California?" he queried, sharply.

"I heard it from Lize," rejoined Nevada, matter-of-factly.

"Killed by a wild-hoss hunter," went on Burridge, with emotion. "Jim, there are men who connect you with that gun-play."

"Shore. I get blamed for a lot of things," returned Nevada, imperturbably.

"Well, that's none of my business," spoke up Burridge, with more relief, "only I want to say that whoever killed Setter did me a good turn."

"Me too. Setter did me dirt once, over on the Snake River."

Burridge drew a long breath and laid aside his cigar.

"Listen," he began, with tenseness. "I was in on several deals with Setter. After he left here he sent for me to meet him at Klamath Falls. I did it. He had gotten in with big cattlemen an' had more money than he knew how to spend. He told me he wouldn't risk settlin' down in Oregon. He'd sell out there pretty soon, an' he wanted a new an' safe place. No more rustlin' or sharp speculation with other ranchers' money. He might marry. Anyway, he was goin' in for honest ranchin', an' wanted me as a partner. Well, the upshot was that he gave me a hundred thousand dollars to buy a well-stocked ranch in Arizona. I was to own half, an' to help him develop cattle an' horses on a big scale. He had never been in Arizona an' only knew it by hearsay. He left the choice of place to me, makin' the provision that I find a wild an' unsettled range, where money would develop water."

Burridge halted in his narrative, the recital of which manifestly stirred him deeply, and picking up his cigar he puffed on it a moment, and leaned back in his chair, with his light hard eyes intent upon his listener.

"Well," he resumed, "I went to Arizona an' rode hossback from the New Mexico border clear to the White Mountains. Talk about wild an' beautiful country! Arizona has everythin' beat. I bought out a rancher who wasn't keen to sell. He owned a big ranch, had miles of grazin' range, an' ten thousand head of stock. I ain't tellin' you the location until you decide to accept my offer. After the deal was settled an' property turned over to me I began to get a few hunches. But I hustled back here an' sent word to Setter. He hadn't consummated his deals over there. I waited. No word came from him. I went back to Arizona--that was early last summer. Then I had my eyes opened. It was funny. Such a joke on me, an' especially Setter. Well, I had been huntin' for wild country, an' you can gamble I'd hit on it. Our cattle were bein' rustled right an' left. I suspected the very cowmen I'd taken over with the property. It was a grand big country--desert, canyon, plateau. There were many more ranchers an' cattle than I'd suspected. Some of these ranchers were rustlers, thick with the worst of the outfits. You've heard of the Hash Knife gang an' the Pine Tree outfit. But nobody seemed to know just who belonged to them an' who didn't. Then there were some hard nuts known to everybody. This country around Lineville even in gold-rush days couldn't hold a candle to that neck of the woods in Arizona."

Burridge made a final flourish with the cigar he had let go out.

"Now when I got back here a few weeks ago I sent word to Setter an' waited. No reply. Then we heard Setter was dead. Hardy Rue brought the news. I've a hunch he's got somethin' up his sleeve. Anyway, he knew Setter, an' I'm not worryin'. That property in Arizona is mine. An' my job is to get back there to run it. Here's where you come in. Jim Lacy! That wouldn't sound so pleasant to those outfits. I'll make you foreman an' give you an interest. It'll take some fightin' to keep my cattle. I want a bunch of the hardest-ridin' an' hardest-shootin' boys that can be hired. An' you to lead them! . . . An' now a last word, Jim. You know that many an honest an' prosperous rancher was once a rustler. . . . What do you think an' what do you say?"

"Wal, Cash, reckon I'll think more'n I say," returned Nevada, ponderingly. "You shore talked straight. I savvy when a man's tellin' me the truth. It's a darn interestin' story. What the courts might say aboot it I cain't guess. But I reckon half that hundred thousand Setter gave you is honestly yours. Maybe the other half, too. Nobody could tell just how much money Setter earned an' what he got speculatin'. He was always careful to get the other fellow to take the risks. Yes, sir, I reckon the Arizona ranch is yours, all right."

"Good. I'm glad you see the deal that way," replied Burridge, rubbing his hands together. "An' you'll accept my offer?"

"Cash, I cain't promise that yet," responded Nevada, slowly. "Reckon to be honest, the day might come when I'd be glad to take you up. But now I want time to think aboot it."

"Take all the time you want," spoke up Burridge, heartily.

"Wal, I might need a lot. There's a couple of points that'll shore be hard to get over."

"What are they, Jim? I might help you."

"Wal, the first is--your past deals might crop up any day."

"I thought long about that," returned Burridge, earnestly. "An' at last I figured myself free of any worry. I'm not known in Arizona. Idaho never knew me as Cash Burridge. An' what do any two-bit deals here amount to? They'll be forgotten after I've gone."

"Reckon you don't miss it far," replied Nevada. "But my second point is the serious an' important one. That is, so far as I am concerned."

"Shoot!" replied Burridge, with good-natured impatience.

"Wal, Cash, I don't mean any offense, but I'm just plain doubtful that you can ever go straight."

Burridge threw his cigar at the stove and the dark blood waved over his face in a tide. "By Heaven! that sticks in my craw, too! I wonder. But I'm no damn fool an' I'm not without some brains."

"Shore. I admit that. But, Cash, you've asked my opinion an' heah it is. You've a weakness for women an' red liquor. An' the crux of the deal is--can you stand prosperity?"

"Ha! I never had a chance to find out," replied Burridge, clenching his fist. "I've got it now. We'll see. I swear I want to make the best of it. An' I'd do better with my chance if I had you beside me. That's all."

"Wal, I appreciate that, Cash, an' I'll think it over. What I hate aboot it is livin' up to my name."

Nevada went downstairs with Burridge and amused himself by standing and walking in front of Cawthorne for a while. Lize did not put in an appearance. It was mid-week and business was slack. Nevada left the Gold Mine early, not forgetful that Mrs. Wood surely would wait up for him. The night was dark and cold, with a hint of snow in the air. The wind whistled through the leafless trees. Excitement and distraction had somehow been good for him. He found his landlady waiting up beside the kitchen fire.

"Wal, Mother Wood, heah I am, standin' on both feet an' without any hole in my haid," he said, cheerily.

"So I see, Mr. Lacy," she returned. "But that might be only a matter of luck. Did you run into Link?"

"Shore. I stood around hours, but nothin' happened. So I reckon you got me all scared for nothin'."

"Scared! Pooh! I wish I could put the fear of the Lord in you," she replied.

"Wal, I'll agree to let you, if you will give me a piece of pie an' a mug of milk."

The short days passed, the snow fell, adding to Nevada's work. In the evenings, if the weather was not stormy, he would drop in at the Gold Mine. Burridge had made another strong plea for Nevada to join him, and then had left for Arizona, intending to make a wide detour through Oregon and California to avoid the snow.

Lize Teller had passed from jest to earnest in her mood toward Nevada. She was vain, willful, and malignant when under the influence of drink. Her life worked daily toward some final tragedy. During the early part of the winter she had made love to Nevada, more, he thought, to inflame Cawthorne than for any other reason. But the time came, which was coincident with Cawthorne's further bold attempt to force or aggravate Nevada into a fight, when she ceased wholly her flirting with Nevada. Soon after that she broke her engagement with Cawthorne and took to wild flirtations and drinking bouts with the gamblers. She lost all restraint and began to fail in health.

When Nevada at length took her to task, as if indeed he were a brother, he received an impression that gave him concern.

"No decent man wants me and I'm slated for hell," she told him, bitterly.

From this speech Nevada conceived the idea that somehow he had failed the girl. It could not have been otherwise, yet the fact hurt him. Another side of the situation was the peril she had incurred by jilting Cawthorne. There was, however, no use in talking to Lize about that. Whenever Cawthorne accosted her, whether humbly or harshly, or in a maudlin way, she flouted him as she would have a repulsive dog.

Days and weeks went by, and this situation wore on, growing toward its climax.

Nevada resisted his premonition of its outcome. Almost he yielded to the urge to leave Lineville even in the dead of winter. But the side of him that was Jim Lacy, brooding, augmenting, always in conflict with Nevada, would not let him run from a cheap bully and from a worthless girl whom he yet might help. Something held Nevada back from the easiest escape out of that dilemma.

Always there was encroaching upon his gentle kindly mood, eating like a poison lichen into the sorrow and dream of his love for Hettie Ide, lost to him forever, that dark instinctive fire of spirit, that antagonism of the gunman.

Nevada acquitted himself of any responsibility for what he had become. As a mere boy he had been thrown among brutal and evil men. He had worked himself above their influence time and time again, only to be thrown back, by accident, by chivalry in him to redress a wrong done some one, by passion to survive, into that character which fate had fastened upon him and to which he seemed unfortunately and wonderfully fitted.

"Reckon it'll always be so for me," he soliloquized, somberly. "I cain't get away from myself. . . . I wonder if Hettie would believe me false to her faith. No! No! . . . I'll always know, even if I'm forced to be Jim Lacy again, that I'm true to her."

One afternoon Nevada, actuated by an impulse beyond his ken, bent his steps toward the Gold Mine. All night an oppression had persisted through his slumbers, and all morning he had been restless, brooding.

He entered the place by the side door, and paused in the hall before the entrance to the gambling room. The usual quiet of that den had been disrupted.

With his left hand Nevada quickly opened the door and entered sidewise, his right arm crooked. The room was full of men, all standing. Cards, coins, chips, glasses on the tables showed evidence of having been violently abandoned. There followed whispers, a cough, shuffling of feet. The noise that had halted Nevada came from the saloon. Suddenly it augmented to a banging on the bar accompanied by the bellow of a harsh voice.

"Rum! Hand it out--er I'll bust your head, too!"

Nevada strode to the nearest group of men. Something terrible had happened. He saw it in their faces. Immediately he connected it with the raucous voice in the saloon.

"What's happened?" he queried.

"There's been a hell of a mess," replied one, wiping a moist face.

"Jim, we was playin' our card games, quiet as usual," spoke up the gambler, Ace Black, "when we heerd an awful row in the hall there. Then a woman's screams, quick hushed, I'll tell you. An' after that a heavy fall. We all jumped up an' some one rushed out to see what it was. An' by Gawd--"

"Wal?" broke in Nevada, cool and grim, as Black choked.

"Lize Teller! She was layin' half naked, streamin' blood. Link Cawthorne had beat her over the head with his gun. She'll die! . . . An' listen to him!"

In three long bounds Nevada had reached and split the beaded door-curtain. His swift eye swept all.

"Cawthorne!" he yelled, in piercing voice that brought an instant breathless silence.