Free Novel 1981 - Comstock Lode (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page A

wagons, starting from there, only some of them never get started.”
    Rory lit the cigar and took up the cards. “You talkin’ or playin’ cards?”
    “Just thought you might remember Skinner,” Trevallion said.
    Rory rolled his cigar into the corner of his mouth and began to deal.
    They played silently, yet Rory kept glancing at him, growing increasingly nervous. Trevallion met his eyes and smiled and Rory’s jaw set; he started to speak, then changed his mind and ordered a drink.
    A man seated near him put down his cards and quietly withdrew from the game.
    Rory was winning and the winning seemed to give him confidence. His staring at Trevallion grew belligerent, but Trevallion seemed unaware. Again it was Rory’s turn to deal, and as he picked up the cards, Trevallion commented, “That was an ugly night.”
    Rory’s hands dropped to the table. His right hand slid back toward the edge of the table.
    Trevallion gestured toward the deck. “Come on, man, deal!”
    Rory took up the cards and dealt them, avoiding Trevallion’s eyes. They played the hand in silence and then another. Rory won several small pots and had another drink. He stared at Trevallion, frowning a little. Finally he said, “Do I know you?”
    Trevallion shrugged. “You’ve never seen me before tonight.”
    Rory dropped his hands to the discards and gave them a casual thrust toward Trevallion.
    Trevallion said, “But I’ve seen you before. One night back in Missouri—
what’s that in your left hand, Rory?
”
    Rory went for his gun, and Trevallion shot him.
    His left hand opened slowly and dropped two slightly crimped cards on the table.
    Rory’s eyes were on Trevallion’s with sudden attention. The hand that had reached the gun in his waistband fell away into his lap. There was a growing red stain on his shirt front. Men pulled slowly back from the table.
    “You…you…” Rory’s lips struggled for the words that would not come.
    “I was a boy then, Rory, but I was there. I saw it all.”
    There was dead silence in the room. Rory started to rise then slumped back in his chair.
    “You saw it,” Trevallion said, “he was cheating.”
    “I seen it before!” The speaker was the man who quit the game. “I saw him steal some cards from the discards!”
    “But,” a portly man with a heavy gold watch chain interrupted, “there was something else. What was all that talk?”
    Trevallion’s eyes were cold. “A private matter,” he said.
    He holstered his pistol, picked up the money from beside his cards, and walked from the room.
    That had been three years ago.
    He was jolted from his reverie by Ledbetter. “We’ll spend the night at Strawberry. I got my own corner there if somebody hasn’t beat me to it.”
    It was almost dark when they came up to Strawberry, and the fresh snow had already been churned into slush. From the building there was a sound of loud voices and a rattle of dishes.
    Ledbetter rode by and up into the trees on the slope. Not more than three minutes further on, he led them into an open place among the trees. At one side a row of trees had been pushed half over by an avalanche of snow in some bygone winter. A dozen or more of them leaned at a sharp angle, and behind them debris and fallen logs had reared a wall, offering shelter from the wind. Beneath it there was almost no snow.
    “Don’t cotton to crowds,” Ledbetter said, “so I found me this place.”
    “I’ll start a fire,” Trevallion offered.
    Melissa followed him and stood by. “If I can help?” she asked.
    He broke suckers from low on the trunks of the trees, gathered some dead, broken branches and chunks of bark. From a pocket he took a bit of tinder, part of an old bird’s nest.
    “Do you always carry something like that?”
    Without looking up, he nodded. “Can’t be sure of finding something dry.”
    When Trevallion had a fire started he led his mule to water, stripped off the gear, and located a place under the trees for his bed. It