Nevada (1995) (7 page)

Meanwhile the saloon and gambling room filled up. In the forme
r
there was raucous noise and in the latter a contrasting silence
,
broken by the low voice of a gamester now and then, and a clink o
f
coin, or the whir and rattle of the roulette wheel. During thi
s
period Nevada sat beside the fire, glancing at it occasionally, bu
t
seeing always those who came in and went out. The glowing ember
s
of any fire cast a spell upon Nevada, always bringing the fac
e
which haunted his waking and sleeping hours.

A little later Lize Teller returned, and before he could get up t
o
offer her the chair she had plumped herself over the arm.

"You sit still or I'll jump into your lap," she threatened, hal
f
petulantly and half merrily. She would have done it, too;
t
herefore Nevada decided he had better be quiet. What had onc
e
been shyness in him had now become aloofness.

"But, Lize, shore if you want to make a show of yourself, you don'
t
need to pick on me," mildly protested Nevada.

"Jim Lacy, there isn't a man in this room, except you, who wouldn'
t
put his arm around me if I sat like this on his chair."

"Wal, suppose you let me see some of them do it."

"Aha, you're the smart one. Listen! If you want to make me you
r
friend--I say FRIEND--forever, just be lover-like for a fe
w
minutes. Or if you can't be that, make a bluff at it."

Nevada laughed at her in spite of the annoyance he could scarcel
y
conceal. "What're you up to, Lize?"

"Link Cawthorne just came in," she replied, tossing her black hea
d
defiantly.

She still had some of the charms of girlhood left. With what pit
y
in his heart did Nevada recognize this, and contrast the havoc o
f
her face with the semblance of the thing she momentarily felt!

"So I reckoned," replied he. "Wal, Lize, it may be fun for you t
o
use me in your little tricks, but it mightn't be funny for me. An'
i
t might turn out bad for Link."

"That's why. He makes me sick. I'm so tired of him I ache. . . .

He's in there drinking. I want him to come in and find me wit
h
you. He was up all last night, in a card game, and he doesn't kno
w
you're here."

"Lize, it strikes me you don't want very much a-tall," returne
d
Nevada. "I hate to be rude to a lady, but _I_ want to get up."

"I'll make it worse," she almost hissed, with the somber fire i
n
her eyes leaping to a blaze. "You know me."

"All right. I reckon it's bad enough without you makin' it worse,"
h
e said, with a forced resignation.

"Bad? Bah! I can handle Link Cawthorne. All I want is for th
e
conceited lout to SEE I can like some other man."

"Lize, I reckon you must have given Link some reason for bein' s
o
conceited. Now didn't you?"

"I suppose I did. I thought I was mad about him, but I guess I wa
s
only mad at Cash Burridge. . . . Women are strange, Jim."

"Wal, you cain't prove it by me," answered Nevada.

"There he comes," she whispered, in fiendish glee, and then leane
d
over Nevada, radiant with some feeling quite beyond hi
s
comprehension.

Nevada looked up, not without a stir in his veins. Link Cawthorn
e
stood with the bead curtain parted. How well Nevada remembered th
e
heated face, the beady little eyes too close together, th
e
reckless, weak, leering lips, the choice and manner of garb tha
t
inclined to dandyism. Indeed, he had been called the dandy outlaw
,
an epithet far from displeasing to him.

Nevada doubted Lize's assertion that Link had been unaware of hi
s
return to Lineville. He certainly did not start, nor change hi
s
expression materially. But he looked steadily at Lize, while sh
e
babbled to Nevada, apparently oblivious to her lover's advent.

Nevada's feeling, in that moment, changed from a good-nature
d
contempt for Link and a vexation at his own part in this littl
e
farce to something vastly different. It seemed to be premonitio
n
that amounted to shock. He saw something, as a dream migh
t
foreshadow a future event--something that moved gray, cold
,
sickening across the swift stream of his consciousness. Th
e
sensation was so sudden and dismaying that Nevada heard nothing o
f
Lize's whispered pretenses. It took violent effort of will, whic
h
was effected with Cawthorne's stalking across the room, to retur
n
to his cool, keen self.

A year and more did not set lightly upon Link Cawthorne's features.

Nevada judged all these men by the changes that had risen i
n
himself. Cawthorne halted before Lize and Nevada, bending hi
s
lean, hawklike head, with his elbows crooked and his hands at hi
s
hips. His right hand covered the butt of a gun belted high.

Whatever he had intended to say or do manifestly yielded to th
e
passion which arose at close range. His gimlet-eyes fastened firs
t
upon Lize, who did not turn her face away from Nevada for a lon
g
moment. Then Lize's glance traveled from Cawthorne's! boots slowl
y
upward, at last to meet his piercing gaze with surprise that seeme
d
as genuine as insolent.

"Oh, you here?" she said. "Link, have you ever met my old friend
,
Jim Lacy?"

"Cat!" he spat out, fiercely, and his body jerked with th
e
liberation of something in the word.

"Howdy, Link!" interposed Nevada, thinking to pour oil on th
e
troubled waters. "Reckon Lize has forgotten you an' me wa
s
acquainted."

"Forget--hell!" responded Cawthorne, in hard scorn. "Never min
d
Lize. I'll settle with her. I'm addressin' you, Jim Lacy."

Nevada seemed a long moment in replying, during which he looke
d
steadily up at Cawthorne.

"Ahuh. Wal, strikes me you're not very civil aboot it."

"Strikes me you're too familiar with Lize," flashed Cawthorne
,
hotly.

"Familiar? Say, you're out of your haid. If it's any of you
r
business, we're old acquaintances. Shore I never had nothin' but
a
brotherly feelin' for her. An' if she wants to sit on the arm o
f
my chair--"

"Guff!" interrupted the other. "She was sittin' on your lap. An'
t
hat won't go with me."

"Link, look for yourself," returned Nevada, quietly. "There'
s
where she's been all the time. Shore that isn't anythin' to rais
e
a row, even if you an' she are engaged."

"Pooh!" burst out Lize, airily.

That word must have been a blow to Cawthorne, and his whole bod
y
leaped with a muscular violence.

"Jim Lacy, you're a liar!" he burst out, stridently.

Lize, swift as a panther, slid off Nevada's chair, to spring erec
t
like a released willow bough. Nevada could not see her. He hear
d
her panting breaths. He was gazing hard up at Cawthorne's face
,
which had suddenly turned white. In his ungovernable fury he ha
d
said what had not been calculated upon. A sudden cessation of al
l
sound from the gamesters was proof that they had heard him denounc
e
Nevada. Cawthorne stood a moment as one transfixed, if not wit
h
terror, then with the inevitableness of catastrophe.

"Now, Link, I'm not a liar an' you know it," replied Nevada
,
without evident stress. "Reckon I can make allowance for you
r
feelin's."

The young outlaw's face lost its pallor and rigidity. It wave
d
red, and all at once his hair appeared to bristle. His youth, hi
s
fury, his conceit, not to define his lack of penetration, misle
d
him into mistaking Nevada's reply.

"I'll have no allowances from you," he shouted. "I'm invitin' yo
u
for a little walk outdoors."

Chapter
four.

Nevada calmly rose to his feet and stepped aside from the chair.

He did not believe that Cawthorne would attempt to draw on him, bu
t
as there was no certainty, he wanted to be on his feet. Even a
t
the moment he seemed strange to himself. Yet after that firs
t
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'r
e
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 war
m
fire. If you've any more to say, why, go ahaid."

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

"Say?" he demanded, with hoarse and pompous contempt. "I've n
o
more to say. I've called you, an' you're yellow. That's all."

Whereupon he turned to the amazed and discomfited Lize and, hal
f
leading, half dragging her, left the room. The business of th
e
gamblers was resumed, with a loud laugh here and caustic remark
s
there. Nevada heard the content of some of them: "What the hell'
s
got into Lacy?" . . . "He always was a decent chap." . . . "Recko
n
he couldn't kill thet durn fool right before the girl's eyes." . . .

"You're wrong, gentlemen," said a cold-voiced gambler. "That wa
s
a little by-play between a real gunman and a would-be. I've see
n
it often."

As Nevada resumed his chair and drew it closer to the fire thes
e
and other remarks did not escape him, and that of the gamble
r
lingered with him moodily. Gradually his momentary depressio
n
passed away. He saw Hettie Ide's face in the golden glow of th
e
fire. How he quivered in heart and body! He had been put to th
e
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, wit
h
most of the daylight hours passed in manual labor, Nevada began hi
s
winter in Lineville.

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

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