by Grey, Zane
The time came when solitude seemed no longer endurable. Nevada knew that if he lingered there he would go mad. For there encroached upon his dream of Hettie Ide and Ben, and that one short beautiful and ennobling period of his life, a strange dark mood in which the men he had killed came back to him. Nevada had experienced this before. The only cure was drink, work, action, a mingling with humankind, the sound of voices. Even a community of the most evil of men and women could save him from that haunting shadow in his mind.
Somberly he thought it all out. Though he had deemed he was self- sufficient, he found his limitations. He could no longer dwell alone in this utter solitude, starving his body, falling day by day deeper into melancholy and mental aberration. There seemed to be relief even in the thought of old associations. Yet Nevada shuddered in his soul at the inevitable which would force him back into the old life.
"Reckon now it's aboot time for me to declare myself," he muttered.
"I cain't lie to myself, any more than I could to Hettie. I've changed. I change every day. Shore I don't know myself. An' this damned life I face staggers me. What am I goin' to do? I say find honest work somewhere far off. Arizona, perhaps, where I'd be least known. That's what Hettie would expect of me. She'd have faith I'd do it. . . . An', by Gawd! I WILL do it! . . . But for her sake an' Ben's, never mindin' my own, I've got to hole up till that last gun-throwin' of mine is forgotten. If I were found an' recognized as Jim Lacy it'd be bad. An' if anyone did, it'd throw the light on some things I'd rather die than have Hettie Ide know."
Chapter two.
It was a cold, bleak November day when Nevada rode into Lineville.
Dust and leaves whipped up with the wind. Columns of blue wood smoke curled from the shacks and huts and houses of the straggling hamlet. Part of these habitations, those on one side of the road, lay in California, and those on the other belonged to Nevada. Many a bullet had been fired from one state to kill a man in the other.
Lineville had been a mining town of some pretensions during the early days of the gold rush. Deserted and weathered shacks were mute reminders of more populous times. High on the bleak drab foothill stood the ruins of an ore mill, with long chute and rusted pipes running down to the stream. Black holes in the cliffs opposite attested to bygone activity of prospectors. Gold was still to be mined in the rugged hills, though only in scant quantity. Prospectors arrived in Lineville, wandered around for a season, then left on their endless search, while other prospectors came. When Nevada had last been there it was possible to find a few honest men and women, but the percentage in the three hundred population was small.
Nevada halted before a gray cabin set well back in a large plot of ground just inside the limits of the town. The place had not changed. A brown sway-back horse, with the wind ruffling his deep fuzzy coat, huddled in the lee of an old squat barn. Nevada knew the horse. Corrals and sheds stood farther back at the foot of the rocky slope. Briers and brush surrounded a garden where some late greens showed bright against the red dug-up soil. Nevada remembered the rudely painted sign that had been nailed slantwise on the gate-post Lodgings.
Dismounting, Nevada left his horses and entered, to go round to the back of the cabin. A wide low porch had been stacked to the roof with cut stove wood, handy to the door. Nevada hesitated a moment, then knocked. He heard a bustling inside, brisk footsteps, after which the door was opened by a buxom matron, with ruddy face, big frank eyes, and hair beginning to turn gray.
"Howdy, Mrs. Wood!" he greeted her.
The woman stared, then burst out: "Well, for goodness' sake, if it ain't Jim Lacy!"
"I reckon. Are you goin' to ask me in? I'm aboot froze."
"Jim, you know you never had to ask to come in my house," she replied, and drew him into a cozy little kitchen where a hot stove and the pleasant odor of baking bread appealed powerfully to Nevada.
"Thanks. I'm glad to hear that. Shore seems like home to me.
I've been layin' out in the cold an' starvin' for a long time."
"Son, you look it," she returned, nodding her head disapprovingly at him. "Never saw you like this. Jim, you used to be a handsome lad. How lanky you are! An' you're as bushy-haired as a miner. . . . What've you been up to?"
"Wal, Mrs. Wood," he drawled, coolly, "shore you've heard aboot me lately?" And his gaze studied her face. Much might depend upon her reply, but she gave no sign.
"Nary a word, Jim. Not lately or ever since you left."
"No? Wal, I am surprised, an' glad, too," replied Nevada, smiling his relief. "Reckon you couldn't give me a job? Helpin' around, like I used to, for my board."
"Jim, I jest could, an' I will," she declared. "You won't have to sleep in the barn, either."
"Now, I'm dog-gone lucky, Mrs. Wood," replied Nevada, gratefully.
"Humph! I don't know about that, Jim. Comin' back to Lineville can't be lucky. . . . Ah, boy, I'd hoped if you was alive you'd turned over a new leaf."
"It was good of you to think of me kind like that," he said, moving away from the warm stove. "I'll go out an' look after my pack an' horses."
"Fetch your pack right in. An' I'll not forget you're starved."
Nevada went out thoughtfully, and slowly led his horses out to the barn. There, while he unpacked, his mind dwelt on the singular effect that Mrs. Wood's words had upon him. Perhaps speech from anyone in Lineville would have affected him similarly. He had been brought back by word of mouth to actualities. This kindly woman had hoped he would never return. He took so long about caring for his horses and unpacking part of his outfit that presently Mrs.
Wood called him. Then shouldering his bed-roll and carrying a small pack, he returned to the kitchen. She had a hot meal prepared. Nevada indeed showed his need of good and wholesome food.
"You poor boy!" she said once, sadly and curiously. But she did not ask any questions.
Nevada ate until he was ashamed of himself. "Shore I know what to call myself. But it tasted so good."
"Ahuh. Well, Jim, you take some hot water an' shave your woolly face," she returned. "You can have the end room, right off the hall. There's a stove an' a box of wood."
Nevada carried his pack into the room designated, then returned for the hot water, soap, and towel. Perhaps it was the dim and scarred mirror that gave his face such an unsightly appearance. He was to find out presently that shaving and clean clothes and a vastly improved appearance meant nothing to him, because Hettie had gone out of his life forever. What did he care how he looked? Yet he remembered with a twinge that she would care. When an hour later he strode into the kitchen to confront Mrs. Wood, she studied him with eyes as speculative as kind.
"Jim, I notice your gun has the same old swing, low down. Now that's queer, ain't it?" she said, ironically.
"Wal, it shore feels queer," he responded. "For, honest, Mrs.
Wood, I haven't packed it at all for a long time."
"An' you haven't been lookin' at red liquor, either?" she went on.
"Reckon not."
"An' you haven't been lookin' at women, either?"
"Gosh, no. I always was scared of them," he laughed, easily. But he could not deceive her.
"Boy, somethin' has happened to you," she declared, seriously.
"You're older. Your eyes aren't like daggers any more. They've got shadows. . . . Jim, I once saw Billy the Kid in New Mexico.
You used to look like him, not in face or body or walk, but jest in some way, some LOOK I can't describe. But now it's gone."
"Ahuh. Wal, I don't know whether or not you're complimentin' me," drawled Nevada. "Billy the Kid was a pretty wild hombre, wasn't he?"
"Humph! You'd have thought so if you'd gone through that Lincoln County cattle war with me an' my husband. They killed three hundred men, and my Jack was one of them."
"Lincoln County war?" mused Nevada. "Shore I've heard of that, too. An' how many of the three hundred did Billy the Kid kill?"
"Lord only knows," she returned, fervently. "Billy had twenty-
one men to his gun before the war, an' that wasn't countin' Greasers or Injuns. They said he was death on them. . . . Yes, Jim, you had the look of Billy, an' if you'd kept on you'd been another like him. But somethin' has happened to you. I ain't inquisitive, but have you lost your nerve? Gunmen do that sometimes, you know."
"Shore, that's it, Mrs. Wood. I've no more nerve than a chicken," drawled Nevada, with all his old easy coolness. It was good for him to hear her voice and to exercise his own.
"Shoo! An' I'll bet that's all you tell me about yourself," she said. "Jim Lacy, you left here a boy an' you've come back a man.
Wonder what Lize Teller will think of you now. She was moony about you, the hussy!"
"Lize Teller," echoed Nevada, ponderingly. "Shore I remember now.
Is she heah?"
"She about bosses Lineville, Jim. She doesn't live with my humble self any more, but hangs out at the Gold Mine."
Nevada found a seat on a low bench between the stove and the corner, a place that had been a favorite with him and into which he dropped instinctively, and settled himself for a talk. This woman held an unique position in the little border hamlet, in that she possessed the confidence of gamblers, miners, rustlers, everybody.
She was a good soul, always ready to help anyone in sickness or trouble. Whatever her life had been in the past--and Nevada guessed it had been one with her outlaw husband--she was an honest and hard-working woman now. In the wild days of his former association with Lineville he had not appreciated her. She probably had some other idler or fugitive like himself doing the very odd jobs about the place that he had applied for. Nevada remembered that her kindliness for him had been sort of motherly, no doubt owing to the fact that he had been the youngest of the notorious characters of Lineville.
"Lize married yet?" began Nevada, casually.
"No indeed, an' she never will be now," replied Mrs. Wood, forcibly. "She had her chance, a decent cattleman named Holder, from Eureka. Reckon he knew he was buyin' stolen cattle. But for all that he was a mighty fine sort for Lineville. Much too good for that black-eyed wench. She was taken with him, too. Her one chance to get away from Lineville! Then Cash Burridge rode in one day--after a long absence. 'Most as long as yours. Cash had been in somethin' big, south somewhere. An' he came back to lie low an' gamble. He had plenty of money, as usual. Lost it, as usual Lize was clerk at the Gold Mine. She got thick with Cash. He an'
Holder had a mixup over the girl, an' that settled her. Maybe I didn't give her a piece of my mind. But I might as well have shouted to the hills. She went from bad to worse. You'll see."
"Cash Burridge back," rejoined Nevada, somberly, and he dropped his head. That name had power to make him want to hide the sudden fire in his eyes. "Reckon I'd plumb forgot Cash."
"Ha! Ha! Yes, you did, Jim Lacy," replied the woman, knowingly.
"No one would ever forget Cash, much less you. . . . Dear me, I hope you an' he don't meet again."
"Wal, of course we'll meet," said Nevada. "I cain't hang round your kitchen all the while, much as I like it."
"Jim, I didn't mean meet him on the street, or in the store, or anywhere. You know what I meant."
"Don't worry, Mother Wood. Reckon Cash an' I won't clash. Because I'm not lookin' for trouble."
"You never did, my boy, I'll swear to that. But you never run from it. An' you know Cash Burridge. He's bad medicine sober, an' hell when he's drunk."
"Ahuh, I reckon, now you remind me. Has Cash been up to his old tricks lately?"
"I haven't heard much, Jim," she returned, thoughtfully. "Mostly just Lineville gossip. No truth in it, likely."
Nevada knew it would do no good to press her further in this direction, which reticence was proof that Cash Burridge had been adding to his reputation one way or another. Nevada had a curious reaction--a scorn for his own strange, vague eagerness to know.
Old submerged or forgotten feelings were regurgitating in him. A slow heat ran along his veins.
"Lineville shore looks daid," he said, tentatively.
"It IS dead, Jim. But you know it's comin' on winter. An' this Lineville outfit is like a lot of groundhogs. They hole up when the snow flies. There's more travel along the road than ever before.
Three stages a week now, an' lots of people stop here for a night.
I get a good many; been busy all summer an' fall."
"Travel on the road? Wal, that's a new one for Lineville.
Prospectors always came along. But travel. What you mean, Mother Wood?"
"Jim, where have you been for so long?" she asked, curiously.
"Sure you must have been buried somewhere. There's a new minin' town--Salisbar. An' travel from north has been comin' through here, in spite of the awful road."
"Salisbar? Never heard aboot it. An' stagecoaches--goin' through Lineville. By golly!"
"Jim, there's been only couple of hold-ups. None of this outfit, though. We hear the stage line will stop runnin' soon, till spring."
"You mentioned aboot a cattleman named Holder buyin' heah since I've been away. Shore he's not the only one?"
"No. But cattle deals have been low this summer. Last bunch of cattle come over in June."
"Wal, you don't say! Lineville is daid, shore enough."
"Jim, that sort of thing has got to stop sometime, even if it is only a lot of two-bit rustlin'."
"Two-bit? Ha! Ha!"
"Jim, I've seen thousands of longhorns rustled in my day."
"Ahuh! Reckon you have, I'm sorry to say," responded Nevada, looking up at her ruddy face again. "Shore you never took me for a rustler, did you, Mother?"
"Goodness, no! You was only a gun-packin' kid, run off the ranges.
But, Jim, you'll fall into it some day, sure as shootin'. You'll be in bad company at the wrong time. Now I'm from Texas an' I always loved a good clean hard-shootin' gunman, like Jack was.
There wasn't nothin' crooked about Jack for years an' years. But he fell into it. An' so will you, Jim. I want you to go so far away from Lineville that you can't never come back."
"I'll go in the spring. Shore I'm not hankerin' for the grabline ride these next few months."
"Fine. That's a promise, my boy. I'll not let you forget it. An' meanwhile it'll be just as well for you to be snug an' hid right here. Till spring, huh?"
"Mother Wood, you said you wasn't inquisitive," laughed Nevada, parrying her question. Then he grew serious. "When was Hall heah last?"
"In June, with the last cattle that come over the divide. An', Jim, the right queer fact is he's never been back."
"Wal, I reckon that's not so queer to me. Maybe he has shook the dust of Lineville. He rode in heah sudden, so I was told. An' why not ride off that way? To new pastures, Mother Wood?"
"No reason a-tall," she said, reflectively. "Only I jest don't feel that way about Hall."
"An' that high-flyin' Less Setter from the Snake River country.
Did he ever come again?"
"No. That time you clashed with Setter was the only time he ever hit Lineville. No wonder! They said you'd kill him if he did. I remember, Jim, how that night after the row you talked a lot. It was the drink. You'd had trouble with Setter before you come to these parts. I never told it, but I remember."
"Wal, Mother, I came from the Snake River country, too," replied Nevada, with slow dark smile.
"It was said here that Less Setter was too big a man to fiddle around Lineville," returned the woman, passing by Nevada's cryptic remark, though it was not lost upon her. "Hall said Setter had many brandin' irons in the fire. His game, though, was to wheedle rich cattlemen an' ranchers into speculations. He was a cunnin' swindler, low-down enough for any deal. An' he had a weakness for women. If nothin' else ever was his downfall, that sure would be.
He tried to take Lize Teller away with him."
"Wal, you don't say!" ejaculated Nevada, trying to affect interest and surprise that were impossible for him to feel. Again he casually averted his face to hide his eyes. F
or that cold, sickening something had shuddered through his soul. Less Setter would never have a weakness for women again. He would never weave his evil machinations around Ben and Hettie Ide, or anyone else, for he and two of his arch conspirators had lain dead there in the courtyard before Hart Blaine's cabins on the shores of Wild Goose Lake Ranch. Dead by Nevada's hand! That was the deed that had saved Ben Ide, and Hettie, too. It seemed long past, yet how vivid the memory! The crowd that had melted before his charging horse!
The terror of the stricken Setter! Revenge and retribution and death! Those villains lay prone under the drafting gunsmoke, before the onlookers. Nevada saw himself leap back to the saddle and spur his horse away. One look back! "So long, pard!" One look at Ben's white, convulsed face, which would abide with him forever.
"Lineville has had its day," the woman was saying, as if with satisfaction at the fact. "Setter saw that, if he ever had any idea of operatin' here. Hall saw it, too, for he's never come back. Cash Burridge knows it. He has been away to the south--
Arizona somewhere--lookin' up a place where outside travel hasn't struck. He'll leave when the snow melts next spring, an' he'll not go alone. Then decent people won't be afraid to walk down to the store."
"Good luck for Lineville, but bad for Arizona somewhere," returned Nevada, dryly. "Shore, I feel sorry for the ranchers over there."
"Humph! I don't know. There are wilder outfits in Arizona than this country ever saw," rejoined the woman, contemptuously. "Take that Texas gang in Pleasant Valley, an' the Hash Knife outfit on the Tonto Rim, not to speak of the Mexican border. Cash Burridge isn't the caliber to last long in Arizona. Waters an' Blink Miller are tough nuts to crack, I'll admit. I suppose Hardy Rue will trail after Burridge, an' of course that loud-mouthed Link Cawthorne. But there's only one of the whole Lineville outfit that could ever last in Arizona. An' you know who he is, Jim Lacy."
"Wal, now, Mother, I shore haven't the least idee," drawled Nevada.
"Go long with you," she replied, almost with affection. "But, Jim, I'd rather think of you gettin' away from this life than lastin' out the whole crew. I've heard my husband say that gunmen get a mind disease. The gunman is obsessed to kill. An' if another great killer looms on the horizon the disease forces him to go out to meet this one. Jest to see if he can kill him! Isn't that terrible? But it was so in Texas in the old frontier days there."
