Nevada (1995) (9 page)

"Shore. I admit that. But, Cash, you've asked my opinion an' hea
h
it is. You've a weakness for women an' red liquor. An' the cru
x
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 wan
t
to make the best of it. An' I'd do better with my chance if I ha
d
you beside me. That's all."

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

Nevada went downstairs with Burridge and amused himself by standin
g
and walking in front of Cawthorne for a while. Lize did not put i
n
an appearance. It was mid-week and business was slack. Nevad
a
left the Gold Mine early, not forgetful that Mrs. Wood surely woul
d
wait up for him. The night was dark and cold, with a hint of sno
w
in the air. The wind whistled through the leafless trees.

Excitement and distraction had somehow been good for him. He foun
d
his landlady waiting up beside the kitchen fire.

"Wal, Mother Wood, heah I am, standin' on both feet an' without an
y
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 recko
n
you got me all scared for nothin'."

"Scared! Pooh! I wish I could put the fear of the Lord in you,"
s
he 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. I
n
the evenings, if the weather was not stormy, he would drop in a
t
the Gold Mine. Burridge had made another strong plea for Nevada t
o
join him, and then had left for Arizona, intending to make a wid
e
detour through Oregon and California to avoid the snow.

Lize Teller had passed from jest to earnest in her mood towar
d
Nevada. She was vain, willful, and malignant when under th
e
influence of drink. Her life worked daily toward some fina
l
tragedy. During the early part of the winter she had made love t
o
Nevada, more, he thought, to inflame Cawthorne than for any othe
r
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 tha
t
she broke her engagement with Cawthorne and took to wil
d
flirtations and drinking bouts with the gamblers. She lost al
l
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 ha
d
failed the girl. It could not have been otherwise, yet the fac
t
hurt him. Another side of the situation was the peril she ha
d
incurred by jilting Cawthorne. There was, however, no use i
n
talking to Lize about that. Whenever Cawthorne accosted her
,
whether humbly or harshly, or in a maudlin way, she flouted him a
s
she would have a repulsive dog.

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

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

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

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

"Reckon it'll always be so for me," he soliloquized, somberly. "I
c
ain't get away from myself. . . . I wonder if Hettie woul
d
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, ben
t
his steps toward the Gold Mine. All night an oppression ha
d
persisted through his slumbers, and all morning he had bee
n
restless, brooding.

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

With his left hand Nevada quickly opened the door and entere
d
sidewise, his right arm crooked. The room was full of men, al
l
standing. Cards, coins, chips, glasses on the tables showe
d
evidence of having been violently abandoned. There followe
d
whispers, a cough, shuffling of feet. The noise that had halte
d
Nevada came from the saloon. Suddenly it augmented to a banging o
n
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 ha
d
happened. He saw it in their faces. Immediately he connected i
t
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 th
e
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' afte
r
that a heavy fall. We all jumped up an' some one rushed out to se
e
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. Lin
k
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-
c
urtain. His swift eye swept all.

"CAWTHORNE!" he yelled, in piercing voice that brought an instan
t
breathless silence.

Chapter
five.

It was springtime in northern California. Old Mt. Shasta stood u
p
grandly and took the morning light, his vast snowslopes beginnin
g
to be ridged by black. From the Tule Lake depression the lan
d
waved upward in wide belts, brown and gray, and at last green a
s
emerald.

Honk! Honk! Honk! The wild geese were coming from the south.

Great flocks in triangle formation, led by huge old honkin
g
ganders, came flying over the sage hills, to circle the grai
n
fields and drop down among their fellows.

The wide acres of the Ide ranch, mostly lake-bottom land that th
e
draining of Tule Lake had made available, spread rich and fertil
e
along the southern shore. The squares of brown soil but recentl
y
ploughed, the fields beginning to show a tinge of green, th
e
pasture lands, running far up on the gray sage slopes, the drove
s
of horses and herds of cattle, the hedge fences, the orchards
,
young and old, the neat sheds and the rambling red-roofed barn, an
d
the white house half hidden in a grove of maples and pines--al
l
these amply testified to the prosperity of the Ides.

Hettie Ide had awakened this morning twenty years old. The wil
d
geese that she had loved since childhood had come back from thei
r
pilgrimage to the south, and were honking as if they knew it wa
s
her birthday and that on this beautiful May day she must be joyou
s
with young life.

But Hettie had a secret sorrow, which she hid deep in her heart
,
while she ministered to her ailing mother, and shared with he
r
brother Ben the one bitter drop in his cup of happiness.

It wanted an hour yet before breakfast. As Hettie tripped down th
e
stairs she heard Ina shrieking with laughter, no doubt at littl
e
Blaine's pranks. How happy they were and how blessed by God! Bu
t
Hettie had no envy in her heart this birthday morning. She wa
s
closer to Ben than ever, and she loved Ina and the child as i
f
indeed they were her own flesh and blood.

Hettie went outdoors. What a glorious morning! Bright and war
m
was the sun; the birds were singing in the maples; violets lifte
d
their sweet faces out of the green; the wild-lilac buds wer
e
bursting into pink.

She knew where to find Ben. Down in the hedge-lined lane to th
e
corrals she strolled, her heart full, yet with the old pang keener
,
listening to the hum of bees and the honk of wild geese, the baw
l
of calves and the twittering of the swallows.

Above all these sounds, so sweet to her listening ears, she hear
d
the shrill whistle of Ben's great wild stallion, California Red.

He was trooping across the pasture in defiance of Ben, or ventin
g
his displeasure at the corral bars.

Hettie found Ben sitting on top of the corral fence. Californi
a
Red was inside, and indeed he did not like it. Hettie halted t
o
peep through at him. She loved this wonderful horse, too, for hi
s
beauty, his spirit, and for another reason which only Ben woul
d
ever have suspected.

California Red had been in captivity four years. He had bee
n
broken, yet never had lost his spirit. It took a halter to mak
e
him lower his ears and stop rolling his fine dark eyes. Red wa
s
never gentle, but, on the other hand, he had not one mean trait.

He shone red, glossy, silken, beautiful, and his long mane was
a
flame. He was a big horse, yet so perfectly proportioned that mos
t
observers would not have judged his size. High and rangy, wit
h
body round as a barrel, a wonderful deep wide chest, legs powerful
,
yet not heavy, and an arching neck and noble head, he looked indee
d
what he had been for years, the wild stallion king of the sag
e
hills of northern California.