Nevada (1995) (31 page)

"Hello, you-all!" she called, merrily. "See, Ben, I'm right on th
e
dot. Now, sir." As she reached the buck-board she suddenly halte
d
aghast. "Why, Hettie! . . . You look terrible. Are you ill? Oh
,
what has happened?"

"Ina, I'm a poor pioneer," said Hettie, with rueful smile.

"Nothin' to upset you, wife," replied Ben. "Hettie had a scare.

There was a shootin' fray downtown, an' she fainted. Climb up, an'
w
e'll be off pronto. These ponies are sure rarin' to go."

As soon as Ina had climbed up she turned solicitously to Hettie an
d
reached for her hand. "You poor dear! I never saw you look lik
e
this. Fainted! That's strange. You never fainted in your life."

"I did this time, all right," returned Hettie.

"Why? What happened? Did you see a fight?" queried Ina
,
excitedly.

"No. I didn't see--the fight," replied Hettie, shutting her eye
s
tight. "But I heard it. . . . Then I peeped out--to see a--a dea
d
man lying in the street."

"How dreadful! Oh, this wild Arizona! It's worse than Forlor
n
River when we were girls."

"Worse?" laughed Ben, grimly. "Say, Ina, California in our da
y
could never hold a candle to Arizona."

"Did you see this fight?"

"No. I missed it."

"Did you, Marvie? Oh, I hope you didn't."

"All I saw of it was the dead man. I walked by him. He had
a
bloody hole in the top--"

"Shut up, you infant gun-slinger," interrupted Ben.

"Did you know the fighters, Ben?" went on Ina, curiously.

"No. Some one told me Jim Lacy had come to town, lookin' fo
r
trouble. He gave a rustler named Hardy Rue choice of leavin' tow
n
or throwin' a gun. Rue chose to stick, an' it cost him his life.

Had no chance on earth, some one said. They met in the street.

Even break, of course, as these Arizonians call a fair fight. Bu
t
Rue was fallin' when his gun went off."

"Terrible," said his wife, shuddering. "But a rustler cannot be
a
very great loss to the community."

"Ina, I sure hope Mr. Jim Lacy sticks around for a while," replie
d
Ben, laconically. "Tom Day told me Hardy Rue might be the leade
r
of the rustlers who've been pinchin' me so hard. But Dillo
n
scouted the idea."

During this conversation Hettie was glad to have the support o
f
Marvie's arm and shoulder. She had not opened her eyes. But he
r
ears rang acutely with the words she heard.

"Ben, I reckon you an' sis might shut up, yourselves," declare
d
Marvie, significantly, "or talk about somethin' else."

"Sure, sonny," agreed Ben. "It's no pleasant subject."

The spirited team drew the light buckboard at a rapid pace over th
e
smooth, hard road. The breeze stirred by this pace was cool an
d
pleasant to Hettie's throbbing brow. After a long rest, she opene
d
her eyes and sat up again. Already the dark line of cedars was i
n
sight, and beyond them the uneven timbered ridges that ran up t
o
the black frowning Mogollons. How vast and wild that range!

Hettie's heart seemed to come to life again. It had been locked
,
clamped, frozen. What was it that had stricken her, almost unt
o
death? If she were only alone in her room, so that she could fac
e
the catastrophe, so that she could give way to her agony! But man
y
miles and hours lay between her and seclusion. She essayed to mak
e
conversation with Marvie.

"Your girl is very pretty, Marvie," she said, close to his ear.

Marvie actually blushed and squirmed in his seat, and grippe
d
Hettie's arm so hard under the robe that it hurt.

"You had met her before last night," whispered Hettie.

"Ahuh!" he replied.

"Marvie, you are no longer a boy. You're a young man wit
h
prospects. And she--forgive me--she belongs to that notorious Hat
t
family. I don't blame you for--for admiring her; she's like a wil
d
rose. But say it's not serious."

"I wish I could," whispered Marvie, swallowing hard.

"Marvie! Tell me."

"Not now. I can't, Hettie," he said, huskily. "But I will when w
e
get home."

"I'm on your side, Marvie," concluded Hettie, pressing his arm.

For a while she was able to concentrate her thoughts upon this la
d
and the girl, Rose Hatt, and the unhappiness that might accrue fo
r
both. Marvie was under probation. Yet it would not be long unti
l
he was of age and his own master. It seemed altogether unlikel
y
that he would ever return to California. The rich acres of Har
t
Blaine had no hold upon Marvie.

Soon Hettie's will succumbed to the tremendous pressure o
f
recurring thoughts and emotion. She gave up. She had to le
t
herself go. Then while her gaze strained out over the yellow an
d
green prairieland, and the rolling ridges with their slopes o
f
sage, and the miles of white grass where herds of cattle grazed
,
and on and on, and ever upward to the purple ranges lost in th
e
rosy pearly clouds of hot afternoon, while she saw these beautifu
l
characteristics of Arizona, she was confronting herself with th
e
staggering truth.

She had seen Nevada. She could not torture herself with a though
t
of doubt--that she might have been mistaken. Sight and heart an
d
mind, her whole being had recognized him in one terrible instant.

He was in Winthrop. He was Jim Lacy. Jim Lacy, whom range rumo
r
had long made mysterious, famous, ruthless. Jim Lacy was Nevada.

Back in those Forlorn River days, when she and Ben and Ina an
d
Marvie had loved him as Nevada, even then he had been Jim Lacy.

Why was she stunned? Ever since Nevada had killed Setter an
d
ridden away never to be heard of again Hettie had realized he ha
d
borne a name he could not endure for her or Ben to know. That wa
s
not so astounding. Nevada might have been any one of the note
d
desperadoes of the West. The overwhelming thing was that Nevad
a
was here in Arizona, alive, virile, stone-faced as she had seen hi
m
but once, here in Winthrop, close to the home she and Ben ha
d
chosen almost solely in the hope that they might find him some day.

What if she had seen him? A sickening helpless impotence assaile
d
her. All the longing of years wasted! All the hope and prayer an
d
faith wasted! Vain oblations. Nevada had been false to her, fals
e
to the best she had helped to raise in him, false to the blesse
d
conviction she had always entertained--that whoever he was an
d
whatever he had done, out of love for her and assurance of he
r
faith, he would go on to disappear from the evil roads of the Wes
t
and turn to an honest life. Hettie would have gambled her soul o
n
that. And now the soul she would have staked grew sick with horro
r
and revulsion. Nevada was a consort of rustlers, a bloodthirst
y
killer, a terrible engine of destruction.

But perhaps he had only killed another man! A bad man--a thief--
e
ven as Less Setter had been! The insidious small voice beat a
t
the gate of her consciousness of faithlessness. And she listened
,
she clutched at it with the hope of a drowning woman, she hugged i
t
to that soul which seemed to be freezing. So with unseeing eyes o
n
the rolling, darkening desert, she admitted more and keener anguis
h
into this strife of love and faith. How could she be faithless i
n
hope, in trust? Had she not sworn, with her lips close to his
,
that she would die before she ever failed him? What if he had use
d
his deadly gun again? He had killed, as before, perhaps more tha
n
once in his life, a worthless wicked man, whose death must serv
e
some good purpose. Nevada had once saved Ben and Ina and her, al
l
of them, from grief and misery. Who could tell what the killing o
f
Hardy Rue might be to some one? No! Nevada had not sunk to th
e
companionship of evil men and women, to drinking, gambling
,
rustling, to the vile dregs of this wild West.

Over and over again this stream of consciousness eddied throug
h
Hettie's mind, like conflicting tides, now rushing, again receding
,
now full and devastating.

Through the waning afternoon, sunset, twilight, dusk, on into th
e
night Hettie acquired deeper insight into the gulf which yawne
d
beneath her.

The swift horses had swung into the home stretch, over the short-
c
ut road that had been one of Ben's achievements. How the nigh
t
wind moaned in the lofty pines! It seemed the moan of the world.

The fragrance of sage filled the air. Down through the pale aisle
s
of the forest moved shadows, unreal, grotesque, things as strang
e
as shadows of the mind.

Marvie now leaned against Hettie's shoulder, sound asleep. Ina ha
d
not spoken for hours. Ben, tireless and silent, kept the horses a
t
a steady clip-clop, clip-clop. He always took pride in driving t
o
town in eight hours and home in nine. A good road, a stanch fas
t
team, a light vehicle, had conquered the one drawback to Ben'
s
wilderness ranch.

When at last they arrived Hettie crept exhausted to her room, an
d
falling upon her bed, she lay quiet, wanting to rest and thin
k
before she undressed. But she fell asleep.

When she awakened the sun was shining gold in at her window, an
d
the fresh sweet cool fragrance of the forest blew over her.

Instead of being beautiful they seemed dreadful. She dreade
d
wakefulness, the daylight, the many duties to be met, th
e
imperative need of action, the facing of her family and of life.

But she could not keep them back. And with the truth there surge
d
over her the catastrophe that had fallen.

"Maybe it's not a catastrophe," she whispered to the faithful
,
waiting silence of her room.

Hettie sensed then that her greatest trial was yet to come, and
a
faint intimation of what it might be appalled her. It roused he
r
to battle. Dragging her aching body off the bed, she undressed
,
and bathed her hot face, and brushed out her tangled hair, and pu
t
on her outdoor clothes.

Then she slipped out without awakening her mother in the adjoinin
g
room. What was it that she must do? Find him, save him, o
r
perish! All that she faced in the golden morning light seemed t
o
mingle in one subtle whisper. There was no deceit, no blindness
,
no vacillation in the nature that spoke to her.