The bullets threw Dort over backward and he lay on the ground, his body twitching slightly.
Max walked closer and stood over him, looking down, the smoking gun still in his hand.
Two days later, Max was given his choice of joining the Army or standing trial.
There was a lot of talk about a war with Cuba and the judge was very patriotic.
The chances were Max could have got off on self-defense, but he didn't dare take the chance even with witnesses.
He had a date he had to keep, with a man whose name he didn't even know.
7.
NEVADA STIRRED RESTLESSLY, WITH THE VAGUE feeling that someone else was in the room with him.
Automatically he reached for a cigarette, and when his hand hit empty air and fell downward against the side of the couch, he came awake.
It was a moment before he remembered where he was, then he swung his legs off the couch and reached for his pants.
The cigarettes were in the right-hand pocket. He put one in his mouth and struck a match.
The flame flared in the darkness and he saw Rina sitting in the deep chair, looking at him.
He drew deeply on the cigarette and blew out the match.
"Why ain't you sleeping?" he asked.
She took a deep breath. "I couldn't sleep," she said.
'I’m afraid." He looked at her quizzically.
"Afraid, Rina?
Afraid of what?"
She didn't move in the chair. "I'm afraid of what will happen to me."
He laughed quietly, reassuringly.
"You're all set and you're young. You got your whole life in front of you."
Her face was a luminous shadow in the darkness.
"I know," she whispered. "That's what I tell myself.
But the trouble is I can't make myself believe it." Suddenly, she was on her knees on the floor in front of him. "You've got to help me, Nevada!"
He reached out and stroked her hair. "Things take time, Rina," he said.
Her hands caught at his.
"You don't understand, Nevada," she said harshly. "I've always felt like this.
Before I married Cord, before I ever came out here.
Even when I was a little girl."
"I reckon, sometime or other, everyone's afraid, Rina."
Her voice was still hoarse with terror. "But not like me! I'm different. I'm going to die young of some horrible disease.
I know that, Nevada. I feel it inside." Nevada sat there quietly, his hand absently stroking her head as she cried.
"Things'll be different once you get back East," he said softly.
"There'll be young men there an- "
She raised her hand and looked up at him.
The first faint flicker of morning light illuminated her features.
Her eyes were wide and shining with her tears.
"Young men, Nevada?" she asked and her voice seemed to fill with scorn. "They're one of the things I’m afraid of.
Don't you think if I weren't, I'd have married Jonas instead of his father?" He didn't answer. "Young men are all alike," she continued.
"They only want one thing from me." Her lips drew back across her white teeth and she spat the words out at him. "To fuck! To do nothing but fuck, fuck, fuck!"
He stared at her, a kind of shock running through him at hearing her clear and venomously ladylike articulation of the so familiar word.
Then it was gone and he smiled.
"What do you expect, Rina?" he asked.
"Why are you tellin' me all this?"
Her eyes looked into his face.
"Because I want you to know me," she said.
"I want you to understand what I'm like. No man ever has."
The cigarette scorched his lips. He put it out quickly.
"Why me?"
"Because you're not a boy." The answer came quickly. "You're a grown man."