“Seems like I’ve seen the selfsame coin before,” he commented. “Surely now, you wouldn’t go and risk it. It’s led you quite a piece, that dollar has.”
“But maybe not in just the right direction,” Carver said. His thoughts reverted to the day he had acquired it.
“What depends upon the outcome?” old Joe inquired. “Which way will you leap?”
“Just this one stack,” said Carver. “If I double it I stay. If I lose I go. It means the difference between here and somewhere else; pumpkins or tumbleweeds, cows or crops—for one more year.”
An hour later he cashed in a double stack and the cards had decreed that he stay for another year.
Bart Lassiter leaned back in his chair and grinned sympathetically.
“My year has another six months to run,” he said. “I’ll be free before you regain your liberty. You’ll find me waiting for you somewhere out yonder when your sentence has expired.”
XIV
Two settlers stood in the saloon in Alvin. The proprietor lowered his voice and leaned across the bar.
“Look you, now—there’s going to be a killing,” he predicted. He jerked a thumb toward the rear door. “Right out there is where he left his horse and for two days he set there at that table waiting for Carver to come in.”