Gambling Man

by Clifton Adams

  Wirt's voice cracked. “Nate, you know I wouldn't do a thing like that.”

  Nathan looked at him, then he closed his eyes and rested his head back against the chair. “Get going,” he said quietly, and Wirt stumbled over his own feet on the way for his clothes.

  Jeff was in his bunk, but not asleep; he heard the loose boards creek as Wirt made his way up the outside stairs. He lay for a moment, tensely alert, as the footsteps came nearer. There was a timid rap at the door.

  Jeff reached for his revolver. “Who is it?”

  “It's Wirt. I've got to talk to you, Jeff!”

  “Get away from me!”

  “Jeff, it's important!”

  Jeff lay on one elbow, listening to his own breathing. What could be important enough to bring Wirt Sewell here at this time of night? At last he got up and slipped the inside latch. “What do you want?”

  “Jeff, your pa's back. He's at the house right now!”

  For several seconds Jeff did not move. Nathan was back! Didn't he know that the law was looking for him?

  His calmness surprised him. “Wait,” he said, then he got into his pants and shirt, and pulled on his boots. Buckling his cartridge belt, he turned back to Wirt. “How is he? Is he all right?”

  “I—I guess so.”

  “You guess so? Don't you know? He's not hurt, is he?”

  “No, Jeff, he's not hurt. Not in body.” Jeff gave him a hard, savage look, but said nothing. Why had Nathan come back?

  He said, “We'll go out the back way. Follow me.”

  At the far end of the hall there was a window, with a plank ladder outside that served as a fire escape. It was late, and the town was quiet. Jeff stepped through the open window, grabbed the ladder and swung out. When he reached the ground he didn't look back to see if Wirt had made it—he didn't care.

  The pounding of his heart was the only sound he heard as he slipped behind the building and up the alley. At the end of Main Street he cut across town, heading toward the Sewell house, vaguely aware of Wirt stumbling behind.

  The Sewell house was the only place in that part of town that still had a light burning. Jeff came in behind the cowshed, noted the trail-shaggy calico standing hipshot and weary beside the Sewell cow. When he reached the back door he went through without knocking.

  Nathan had just finished washing and shaving. His face looked sunken, raw and red, and he stood motionless for a moment, a towel over his shoulder, looking steadily at his son. Then, with that old gesture that Jeff remembered so well, he threw back his head and searched Jeff's face. And he was the same Nathan Blaine that Jeff remembered, big and proud and dark with danger.

  “You're a man,” Nathan said at last. “I don't think I'd figured on that.”

  “Almost nineteen,” Jeff said evenly.

  “Plenty old enough for a man in these parts.”

  “Pa,” Jeff said, suddenly uncomfortable, “you're all right, aren't you? I mean—

  “I'm fine! A little trail dirty, maybe, but fine.”

  And then, as though a wall between them had been scaled, Nathan came forward and took his son's hand, and all the fierce love that was in them expressed itself in that one hard clasp.

  They heard Wirt stumbling across the back yard, and suddenly both men, father and son, let go and made an elaborate show of being casual. Nathan turned to the table, where greens and cornbread had been set out by Beulah. “I hear the government boys are looking for me,” he said mildly, beginning to eat.

  “They've contacted the marshal here,” Jeff said. “Now he's looking for you, too.”

  “Elec Blasingame? He couldn't find his nose with both hands.”

  Both of them laughed, but it had a false ring. Nathan's danger increased with every minute he stayed here, and Jeff knew it.

  They looked hard at Wirt as he came in the back door and said nothing more until he had passed through to the parlor. Jeff said, “I guess you heard what happened'”

  “About them finding the man that killed Jed Harper? Yes, I heard.” His voice was mild enough, but Jeff noticed that Nathan kept his eyes on the plate before him and did not look up. “How did the town take it?”

  “I guess Beulah Sewell will never be able to look the people of this town in the eye again,” Jeff answered with sudden bitterness.

  Now Nathan did look up, faintly surprised. “Is that so? And what did you do, Jeff, when you found out?”

  “I did what anybody would have done. I got out of the Sewell house! I never wanted to see them again.”

  A fine network of lines appeared around Nathan's eyes. “You hate them, don't you?”

  “Sure I hate them! Don't you?”

  The question seemed to surprise Nathan. He put his fork down slowly and seemed to study the question in all its aspects, and only then did he answer. “Yes. I hate them.” Abruptly, he stood up and shouted, “Beulah, bring some coffee to the parlor!”

  With cool authority, Nathan ordered Wirt and his wife to another part of the house when he and Jeff came to the parlor. Not until then did Jeff see how much older his father looked, how tired his eyes were, how deep in his face were the lines of anger. “Yes,” Nate said again, sinking heavily into a chair, “I hate them. There's no sense denying it.”

  “Why should you, “after what Beulah did?”

  Nathan smiled thinly, almost to himself. “Hate, as you'll learn, gets to be a heavy load when you can't put it down.” Then he asked bluntly, “How well do you know Bill Somerson?”

  Jeff blinked in surprise. How could Nathan know about Somerson?

  Again Nathan smiled his thin smile. “Among Indians and outlaws, word has a way of traveling fast. What you and Somerson are cooking together, I don't know, but I know it's something.”

  Jeff felt the breath of warning in Nathan's smile. “I turned a posse off Somerson's trail once,” he said carefully. “That's about all I know about him.”

  Surprisingly, his father let it drop. He sat in silence for a moment, his eyes closed. Then he said, “I know how you feel about this town, but there's something I want to know. Is there anything about it that you like and would hate to leave?”

  As though a door in his mind had been opened, the vision of Amy was suddenly there. Too late did Jeff realize that Nathan's eyes were not completely closed and that he was watching his face intently from under his black lashes. And then Nathan did close his eyes, and for a moment the deep lines around his mouth did not seem so harsh.

  “I remember,” he said, “when I wasn't much older than you are now and I had a reason for staying in Plainsville. But when your mother died—” Then he discarded the thought as suddenly as he had dropped Somerson.

  Jeff shook his head, bewildered. “Why did you take the chance of coming back here? Was it because of me?”

  Nathan only looked at him.

  “Are things so bad in Mexico that you couldn't stay there?”

  His father seemed surprised. “You know about that?”

  “Everybody does, I guess. Elec Blasingame does; that's why he expects you to head back for Texas.”

  Unexpectedly, Nathan laughed. “Nothing ever gets so bad in Mexico that you can't put it right with money.”

  “And you have the money?”

  “Of course.”

  But Jeff could see that it was a brazen lie. That stunted calico in the cowshed, the clothes that Nathan wore— those things did not suggest money. And perhaps Nathan could see what was in his son's mind, for the worry lines around his eyes seemed to deepen.

  “Don't you start worrying about your pa,” he said sternly. “Nathan Blaine can take care of himself. It's you I'm worried about.”

  “Why should you worry about me?”

  For a moment he thought he would get no answer. Nathan shoved himself forward in his chair and studied his lean, strong hands. “Will you make me a promise?” he finally asked. “Don't act the fool, the way I did at your age, and get yourself into trouble that you can't get out of. Don't listen to stor
ies about Nate Blaine being in bad with the Mexicans, either.”

  He laughed shortly, but not with his eyes. “I can't imagine how that story got started. Why I'm heading back for the Border tomorrow as soon my horse gets rested up. Would I be doing a thing like that if there was trouble?”

  Jeff cleared his throat, but said nothing.

  “What I'm trying to say,” Nathan continued, “is that I don't need your help. Nate Blaine needs help from nobody. Is that clear?

  Jeff nodded.

  “If you hate this town, that's all right with me. But think it over before you kick it for the last time and put it behind you.”

  Puzzled, Jeff didn't know what the talk was getting around to.

  “All I want is your promise,” Nathan said.

  “You oughtn't worry about me,” Jeff said evasively. “You said yourself I was a man.”

  “But I still want the promise that you're not headed for trouble on my account. I rode a long way just to hear it.”

  Jeff thought, When it comes to lying, I can do it just as brazenly as he can. “Sure,” he said, “I promise.” He did not realize how tense Nathan had been until he watched him now slowly relaxing, unwinding painfully, like a taut steel spring.

  “Good,” Nathan said. “Now you'd better go back to your room—we can't attract attention by keeping these lights on.”

  “When will I see you again?”

  “I don't know. Maybe you'll come to Mexico Some time and look me up.”

  “You're leaving so soon?”

  His anxiety was all too obvious in his voice, and Nathan smiled faintly. “Don't look as though you'll never see me again. It's just Mexico—not so far.”

  Nathan had said it,' and the dead coldness in the pit of his stomach told Jeff that it was true. If his pa went back to Mexico without the money to pay for his life, he would never see him again. They shook hands silently.

  At the door, Nathan said, “There's just one more thing...” Jeff thought that Nathan had forgotten it, but what he said, “Somerson's bad medicine. Have nothing to do with him.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  IT WAS THE FIRST OF THE month. Milan Fay was on time.

  “Somerson's got everything set, kid. You ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know how it's going? Exactly?”

  “Yes.”

  Fay shook his head in faint surprise. “Damn if you don't look ready, at that. I guess you're Nate Blaine's boy, all right.”

  “Don't worry. I'll be in place at four o'clock.”

  The tall outlaw grinned. “That's the kind of talk I like to hear. But don't make a move until I get the wagon in place.”

  “I know my part of it,” Jeff said shortly. “Just make sure you and the horses are where they're supposed to be.”

  “It's not me or Somerson or the horses that I'll be thinkin' about, kid; you're the one. Just remember your pa's life depends on whether or not we bring this off without a hitch.”

  Jeff watched Fay's broad, arrogant back as he turned and sauntered up the plank walk toward the public corral. No one had to tell him to be careful, or how dangerous this thing was going to be. Plainsville was no longer a one-horse cowtown. It was a railroad town and farm town as well, and the bank was no longer the flimsy unprotected affair that it had once been.

  But it was set. There was no backing out. And he wouldn't have done it if he could....

  In his basement office of the Masonic Temple, Elec Blasingame heard the click of heels on the stone steps and knew that they were not boot heels. Breathlessly, Amy Wintworth came into the room, and the marshal looked up in surprise.

  “What's the matter, child? You look as if somebody's chasing you.”

  “Marshal, I've got to talk to you! Alone.” Kirk Logan, who was nailing a calendar to the far wall of the office, looked around at the last word. The marshal frowned slightly, but then nodded to his deputy, and Logan put his hammer down and walked out. During those few seconds Elec made a close study of the girl before him. He noted her tenseness, the look of urgency in her eyes.

  “Now,” he said, “what is it, Amy?”

  “Nathan Blaine is in Plainsville.”

  Blasingame was startled. “Nate Blaine! How do you know?”

  “I saw him. I talked to him.”

  “Here in Plainsville?” His voice was incredulous. But before Amy could answer one question he asked another. “Where's he hiding?”

  “He was at the Sewell house—” Amy started, and the marshal lunged up from his desk and bellowed, “Kirk, get in here on the run!”

  But there was something about the quick, hard look that the girl threw at him that made him look at her again. “Marshal,” she said tightly, “you don't understand. Nathan Blaine isn't hiding. He asked me to come here and tell you he wants to see you.”

  Elec didn't believe it. “Nate Blaine wants to see me?”

  “Please believe me!” she said anxiously. “He wants to talk to you about Jeff.”

  Then a frowning Kirk Logan came back in the office. “What's the trouble, Marshal?” For a moment Elec was undecided. It didn't make sense that Nate Blaine would walk into a sure arrest—an arrest that could possibly end with a hangman's noose around his neck. Still, there was something about the urgency in Amy's face that made him pause. At last, against his better judgment, he waved the puzzled deputy away again.

  “If Nate's here in Plainsville,” he said, “I guess a few minutes one way or the other won't make too much difference. Now, Amy, start at the beginning and tell me all you know.”

  Amy looked nervously at her hands, wondering how she could explain it to the marshal when she was unable to explain it to herself. “I was shopping this morning,” she began slowly. “I was in Baxter's when Mr. Sewell found me and said Jeff's father was at their house and wanted to see me.”

  Elec scowled. “Why did he want to see you?”

  “I'm not sure.”

  “But you did talk to Nate? What about?”

  He realized too late that this was no cowhand that he could shout at and bully into telling him what he wanted to know. He saw the spark of resentment in those clear eyes, and the haughty tilt of her chin.

  “I'm sorry, Amy,” he said lamely. “Tell it your own way.”

  She didn't know how or where to start. She could still feel the shock of Nathan's fierce gaze upon her. The depression that came from staring too deeply into the bitterness of those dark eyes was still within her.

  “So you're the girl my boy loves,” he had said, and the gentleness of his-voice had startled her. She had hated Nathan Blaine for so long, and she could not believe that such contradictions as gentleness and violence could live together within one body.

  But when Nathan Blaine had spoken of his son, he was gentle. And then he had asked with crude bluntness: “Do you love my boy, Amy?” She had never been talked to like that before. She had tried to wither him with her anger, but he stood like a statue hacked from steel.

  “Do you love him?” he had asked again, coldly. His question demanded the truth, and left no way for a middle ground of indecision. Wirt and Beulah had stood looking on, frightened.

  She had answered, “Yes.”

  “I don't believe it!” he replied brutally. “When Jeff needed you most, you deserted him. When he wanted understanding, you wrapped yourself in pride.”

  Deep within her conscience she knew he was right, and it had made her furious. “And what about you?” she'd flared. “You, his own father—what have you done for him?”

  In dismay she had watched the power seep out of him as he smiled thinly and sank into one of the uncomfortable parlor chairs. “Yes,” he had said, almost absently. “I guess I ought to stop blaming others and do something myself. Do you know where Elec Blasingame's office is? Would you tell the marshal I'd like to see him? In private.”

  She had stood woodenly, with pity in her eyes. Nathan had seen it and was furious. “What are you waitin' on?” he had demanded harshl
y. “I thought you'd jump at the chance to turn me in!”

  Wirt had started to go with her, but Nathan had barked “Stay here, Wirt.” Then, to Amy: “Remember, tell the marshal I want to see him in private. If you tell anybody else, or if he brings a posse with him—” He had smiled. “Remember I've got Wirt and Beulah right here with me.”

  Amy had run blindly from the house, both hate and pity churning within her. Not until she had reached the marshal's office did she fully realize that Nathan had planned it so. He was used to being hated, feared—but Nathan Blaine was not the kind of man to accept pity.