The Carpetbaggers Page 6

  "Yeah," I answered. "I finished sooner than I thought"

  "Oh," he said and continued down the steps to his car. He put the valises in the back.

  I followed him down and I could see the back of his car was filled with luggage. "Where you going with all that stuff, Nevada?"

  "It's mine," he said gruffly.

  "I didn't say it wasn't," I said. "I just asked where you were going."

  "I'm leavin'."

  "On a hunting trip?" I asked. This was the time of the year Nevada and I always used to go up into the mountains when I was a kid.

  "Nope," he said. "Fer good."

  "Wait a minute," I said. "You just can't walk out like that."

  His dark eyes bore into mine. "Who says I can't?"

  "I do," I said. "How'm I going to get along without you?"

  He smiled slowly. "Real good, I reckon. You don't need me to wet-nurse you no more. I been watchin' you the last few days."

  "But- but," I protested.

  Nevada smiled slowly. "All jobs got to end sometime, Jonas. I put about sixteen years into this one and now there's nothing left for me to do. I don't like the idea of drawing a salary with no real way to earn it."

  I stared at him for a moment. He was right. There was too much man in him to hang around being a flunky. "You got enough money?"

  He nodded. "I never spent a cent of my own in sixteen years. Your pappy wouldn't let me."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Join up with a couple of old buddies. We're takin' a Wild-West show up the coast to California. Expect to have a real big time."

  We stood around awkwardly for a moment, then Nevada put out his hand. "So long, Jonas."

  I held onto his hand. I could feel the tears hovering just beneath my eyelids. "So long, Nevada."

  He walked around the car and got in behind the wheel. Starting the motor he shifted into gear. He raised his hand in farewell just as he began to roll.

  "Keep in touch, Nevada," I yelled after him, and watched until he was out of sight.

  I walked back into the house and went into the dining room. I sat down at the empty table.

  Robair came in with an envelope in his hand. "Mr. Nevada left this for you," he said.

  Numbly I opened it and took out a note written laboriously in pencil:

  Dear Son,

  I ain't much of a man for good-bys, so this is it. There ain't nothing any more for me to do around here so I figure it's time I went. All my life I wanted to give you something for your birthday but your pappy always beat me to it. Your pappy gave you everything. So until now there was nothing you ever wanted that I could give you. In this envelope you will find something you really want. You don't have to worry about it. I went to a lawyer in Reno and signed it all over good and proper.

  Happy birthday.

  Your friend,

  Nevada Smith

  I looked at the other papers in the envelope. They were Cord Explosives Company stock certificates endorsed over to my name.

  I put them down on the table and a lump began to come up in my throat. Suddenly, the house was empty. Everybody was gone. My father, Rina, Nevada. Everybody. The house began to echo with memories.

  I remembered what Rina had said, about getting out from under the shadow of my father. She was right. I couldn't live in this house. It wasn't mine. It was his. For me, it would always be his house.

  My mind was made up. I'd find an apartment in Reno. There wouldn't be any memories in an apartment. I'd turn the house over to McAllister. He had a family and it would save him the trouble of looking for one.

  I looked down at Nevada's note again. The last line hit me. Happy birthday. A pain began to tie up my gut. I had forgotten and Nevada had been the only one left to remember.

  Today was my birthday.

  I was twenty-one.

  The Story of

  NEVADA SMITH

  ____________________

  Book Two

  1

  IT WAS AFTER NINE O'CLOCK WHEN NEVADA PULLED the car off the highway onto the dirt road that led to the ranch. He stopped the car in front of the main house and got out. He stood there listening to the sounds of laughter coming from the casino.

  A man came out on the porch and looked down at him. "Hello, Nevada."

  Nevada answered without turning around. "Hello, Charlie. It sounds like the divorcees are having themselves a high ol' time."

  Charlie smiled. "Why shouldn't they? Divorcin' is a pretty good piece of business for most of 'em."

  Nevada turned and looked up at him. "I guess it is. Only, I can't get used to the idea of ranchin' women instead of cattle."

  "Now, mebbe, you'll get used to it," Charlie said. "After all, you own fifty per cent of this spread. Time you settled down and got to work on it."

  "I don't know," Nevada said. "I kinda got me the travelin' itch. I figger I been in one place long enough."

  "Where you goin' to travel?" Charlie asked. "There ain't no place left. The country's all used up with roads going to every place. You're thirty years late."

  Nevada nodded silently. Charlie was right but the strange thing was he didn't feel thirty years late. He felt the same as he always did. Right for now.

  "I put the woman in your cabin," Charlie said. "Martha and I been waitin' supper for you."

  Nevada got back into the car. "Then I better go an' get her. We'll be back as soon as I git washed up."

  Charlie nodded and went back inside as the car started off. At the door, he turned and looked after it as it wound its way up the small hill toward the back of the ranch. He shook his head and went inside.

  Martha was waiting for him. "How is he?" she asked anxiously.

  "I don't know," he answered, shaking his head again. "He seems kinda mixed up an' lost to me. I just don't know."

  The cabin was dark when Nevada went in. He reached for the oil lamp beside the door and put it on a table. He struck a match and held it to the wick. The wick sputtered a moment then burst into flame. He put the chimney back on and replaced the lamp on the shelf.

  Rina's voice came from behind him. "Why didn't you turn on the electricity, Nevada?"

  "I like lamp light," he said simply. "Electric light ain't natural. It's wearin' on the eyes."

  She was sitting in a chair facing the door, her face pale and luminous. She was wearing a heavy sweater that came down over the faded blue jeans covering her legs.

  "You cold?" he asked. "I’ll start a fire."

  She shook her head. "I'm not cold."

  He stood there silent for a moment, then spoke. "I’ll bring in my things an' wash up. Charlie and Martha waited supper for us."

  "I’ll help you bring them in."

  "O.K."

  They came out into the night. The stars were deep in the black velvet and the sound of music and laughter came faintly to them from down the hill.

  She looked down toward the casino. "I'm glad I'm not one of them."

  He handed her a suitcase. "You never could be. You ain't the type."

  "I thought of divorcing him," she said. "But something inside me kept me from it even though I knew it was wrong from the beginning."

  "A deal's a deal," he said shortly as he turned back into the cabin, his arms full.

  "I guess that's it."

  They made two more trips silently and then she sat down on the edge of the bed as he stripped off his shirt and turned to the washbasin in the corner of the small bedroom.

  The muscles rippled under his startlingly white skin. The hair covering his chest was like a soft black down as it fell toward his flat, hard stomach. He covered his face and neck with soap and then splashed water over it. He reached for a towel blindly.

  She gave it to him and he rubbed vigorously. He put down the towel and reached for a clean shirt. He slipped into it and began to button it.

  "Wait a minute," she said suddenly. "Let me do that for you."

  Her fingers were quick and light. He felt their touch against
his skin like a whisper of air. She looked up into his face, her eyes wondering. "How old are you, Nevada? Your skin is like a young boy's."

  He smiled suddenly.

  "How old?" she persisted.

  "I was born in eighty-two, according to my reckoning," he said. "My mother was a Kiowa and they didn't keep such good track of birthdays. That makes me forty-three." He finished tucking the shirt into his trousers.

  "You don't look more than thirty."

  He laughed, pleased despite himself. "Let's go and git some grub."

  She took his arm. "Let's," she said. "Suddenly, I'm starving."

  It was after midnight when they got back to the cabin. He opened the door and let her enter before him. He crossed to the fireplace and set a match to the kindling. She came up behind him and he looked up.

  "You go on to bed," he said.

  Silently she walked into the bedroom and he fanned the kindling. The wood caught and leaped into flame. He put a few logs over it and got up and crossed the room to a cupboard. He took down a bottle of bourbon and a glass and sat down in front of the fire.

  He poured a drink and looked at the whisky in the glass. The fire behind it gave it a glowing heat. He drank the whisky slowly.

  When he had finished, he put the empty glass down and began to strip off his boots. He left them beside the chair and walked over to the couch and stretched out. He had just lighted a cigarette when her voice came from the bedroom door.

  "Nevada?"

  He sat up and turned toward her. "Yeah?"

  "Did Jonas say anything about me?"

  "No."

  "He gave me a hundred thousand dollars for the stock and the house."

  "I know," he replied.

  She hesitated a moment, then came farther into the room. "I don't need all that money. If you need any- "

  He laughed soundlessly. "I'm O.K. Thanks, anyway."

  "Sure?"

  He chuckled again, wondering what she would say if she knew about the six-thousand-acre ranch he had in Texas, about the half interest in the Wild-West show. He, too, had learned a great deal from the old man. Money was only good when it was working for you.

  "Sure," he said. He got to his feet and walked toward her. "Now go to bed, Rina. You're out on your feet."

  He followed her into the bedroom and took a blanket from the closet as she got into bed. She caught his hands as he walked by the bed. "Talk to me while I fall asleep."

  He sat down on the side of the bed. "What about?" he asked.

  She still held onto his hand. "About yourself. Where you were born, where you came from – anything."

  He smiled into the dark. "Ain't very much to tell," he said. "As far as I know, I was born in West Texas. My father was a buffalo-hunter named John Smith and my mother was a Kiowa princess named- "

  "Don't tell me," she interrupted sleepily. "I know her name. Pocahontas."

  He laughed softly. "Somebody told you," he said in mock reproach. "Pocahontas. That was her name."

  "Nobody told me," she whispered faintly. "I read it someplace."

  Her hand slipped slowly from his and he looked down. Her eyes were closed and she was fast asleep.

  Quietly he got up and straightened the blanket around her, then turned and walked into the other room. He spread a blanket on the couch and undressed quickly. He stretched out and wrapped the blanket around him.

  John Smith and Pocahontas. He wondered how many times he had mockingly told that story. But the truth was stranger still. And probably, no one would believe it.

  It was so long ago that there were times he didn't believe it himself any more. His name wasn't Nevada Smith then, it was Max Sand.

  And he was wanted for armed robbery and murder in three different states.

  2

  IT WAS IN MAY OF 1882 THAT Samuel Sand came into the small cabin that he called home and sat down heavily on a box that served him for a chair. Silently his squaw woman heated some coffee and placed it before him. She moved heavily, being swollen with child.

  He sat there for a long time, his coffee growing cold before him. Occasionally, he would look out the door toward the prairie, with its faint remnant patches of snow still hidden in the corners of rises.

  The squaw began to cook the evening meal. Beans and salt buffalo meat. It was still early in the day to cook the meal, because the sun had not yet reached the noon, but she felt vaguely disturbed and had to do something. Now and then, she would glance at Sam out of the corners of her eyes but he was lost in a troubled world that women were not allowed to enter. So she kept stirring the beans and meat in the pot and waited for his mood and the day to pass.

  Kaneha was sixteen that spring and it was only the summer before that the buffalo-hunter had come to the tepees of her tribe to purchase a wife. He had come on a black horse, leading a mule that was burdened heavily with pack.

  The chief and the council of braves came out to greet him. They sat down in a circle of peace around the fire with the pot of stew cooking over it. The chief took out the pipe and Sam took out a bottle of whisky. Silently the chief held the pipe to the glowing coals and then, when it was lit, held it to his mouth and puffed deeply. He passed it to Sam, who puffed and in turn passed it to the brave seated next to him in the circle.

  When the pipe came back to the chief, Sam opened the bottle of whisky. He wiped the rim of it carefully and tilted it to his lips, then offered it to the chief. The chief did the same and took a large swallow of the whisky. It burned his throat and his eyes watered and he wanted to cough, but he choked back the cough and passed the bottle to the brave seated next to him.

  When the bottle came back to Sam, he placed it on the ground in front of the chief. He leaned forward and took a piece of meat out of the pot. He chewed elaborately on the fatty morsel with much smacking of his lips and then swallowed it.

  He looked at the chief. "Good dog."

  The chief nodded. "We cut out its tongue and kept it tied to a stake that it would be properly fat."

  They were silent for a moment and the chief reached again for the bottle of whisky. Sam knew it was then time for him to speak.

  "I am a mighty hunter," he boasted. "My gun has slain thousands of buffalo. My prowess is known all across the plains. There is no brave who can feed as many as I."

  The chief nodded solemnly. "The deeds of Red Beard are known to us. It is an honor to welcome him to our tribe."

  "I have come to my brothers for the maiden known as Kaneha," Sam said. "I want her for my squaw."

  The chief sighed slowly in relief. Kaneha was the youngest of his daughters and the least favored. For she was tall for a maiden, almost as tall as the tallest brave, and thin, her waist so thin that two hands could span it. There was not enough room inside her for a child to grow, and her face and features were straight and flat, not round and fat, as a maiden's should be. The chief sighed again in relief. Kaneha would be no problem now.

  "It is a wise choice," he said aloud. "The maiden Kaneha is ripe for child-bearing. Already her blood floods thickly to the ground when the moon is high."

  Sam got to his feet and walked over to the mule. He opened one of the packs and took out six bottles of whisky and a small wooden box. He carried them back to the circle and placed them on the ground before him. He sat down again.

  "I have brought gifts to my brothers, the Kiowa," he said. "In appreciation of the honor they show me when they allow me to sit in their council."

  He placed the whisky bottles in front of the chief and opened the little box. It was filled with gaily colored beads and trinkets. He held the box so that all could see and then placed it, too, before the chief.

  The chief nodded again. "The Kiowa is grateful for the gifts of Red Beard. But the loss of the maiden Kaneha will be a difficult one for her tribe to bear. Already she has won her place among us by her skills in her womanly crafts. Her cooking and sewing, her artistry in leather-making."

  "I am aware of the high regard in which the Kiowa hold
their daughter Kaneha," Sam said formally. "And I came prepared to compensate them for their loss."

  He got to his feet again. "For the loss of her aid in feeding the tribe, I pledge the meat of two buffalo," he said, looking down at them. "For the loss of her labor, I give to my brothers this mule which I have brought with me. And to compensate them for the loss of her beauty, I bring them- "

  He paused dramatically and walked back to his mule. Silently he untied the heavy rolled pack on its back. He carried the pack back to the seated council and laid it on the ground before them. Slowly he unrolled it.

  A sigh of awe came unbidden from the circle. The chief's eyes glittered.

  "… the hide of the sacred white buffalo," Sam said. He looked around the circle. Their eyes were fixed on the beautiful white skin that shone before them like snow on the ground.

  The albino buffalo was a rarity. The chief that could be laid to rest on such a sacred hide was assured that his spirit would enter the happy hunting grounds. To the skin-traders, it might be worth almost as much as ten ordinary hides. But Sam knew what he wanted.

  He wanted a woman. For five years, he had lived on these plains and had been able only to share the services of a whore once a year at trading time in the small room back of the skin-trader's post. It was time he had a woman of his own.

  The chief, so impressed with the munificence of Sam's offer that he forgot to bargain further, looked up. "It is with honor that we give the mighty hunter Red Beard the woman Kaneha to be his squaw."

  He rose to his feet as a sign that the council was over.

  "Prepare my daughter Kaneha for her husband," he said. He turned and walked toward his tent and Sam followed him.

  In another tent, Kaneha sat waiting. Somehow, she had known that Red Beard had come for her. In keeping with maidenly modesty, she had gone into the waiting tent so that she might not hear the bargaining. She sat there calmly, for she was not afraid of Red Beard. She had looked into his face many times when he had come to visit her father.