Gambling Man (12 page)

“I locked the shop,” he called toward the kitchen. “When Uncle Wirt didn't come back—”

That was when he noticed the unnatural quiet of the room—it seemed to be an uneasy hush. Jeff frowned, listening for the familiar sounds that were not there, the rattle of pans, the shaking of the grate in the cookstove. But there was only silence—and still he could feel that the house was not empty.

He walked across the small parlor and into the kitchen, and there was Wirt sitting at the table, seeming even more shrunken and smaller than usual, his face grayer. Beulah was standing beside the cookstove staring dully straight ahead.

Jeff's frown deepened. He shot a quick glance at Beulah, then at Wirt. “What's the matter?”

Wirt cleared his throat, but did not look toward the door where Jeff was standing. “Jeff, you'd better sit down.”

Then the hush came down again, but it was not a passive silence. The very air seemed to crackle. The muteness that had seized his aunt and uncle began to rub on Jeff's nerves. “What's the matter here?” he said again, looking at Wirt. “You didn't come back to the shop. Now I come home and find you and Aunt Beulah looking like you were holding a wake.” When they made no sound, his impatience grew more demanding. “I want to know what's wrong!”

Then, for the first time, Wirt looked up at him. “Jeff, there's something we've got to tell you...”

“No!” The sound was small and thin, almost a wail. Jeff turned quickly to see his aunt cover her face with her hands.

Wirt sighed heavily. “It's no use, Beulah. He'll hear it anyway. Better for it to come from us.”

Jeff was aware of an excited hammering in his chest, and then a sudden silence, as though his heart had stopped its beating. “Is it something about Pa? Is that the trouble?”

Wirt glanced quickly at his wife. “Yes—” he said— “It's something about your pa, Jeff.”

“Then what is it?”

Wirt sat perfectly still, his eyes faded and old. “Do you remember the business about the bank, Jeff? When Jed Harper was killed?”

The hammering began again in Jeff's chest. “I remember.”

“And how your Aunt Beulah identified Nate as the killer?”

For five long years he had trained himself not to think of that day. He had smothered the fire of his anger in the darkest part of his mind, and he had thought until now that the fire was dead. Now he drew himself tall and straight. He said coldly, as though he already knew: “Go on.”

Wirt saw that he could stall no longer. “It appears,” he said quietly, “that Beulah made a mistake that day.”

The working of the mind is a strange thing. Sometimes it accepts only the things it wants to accept and rejects all others—and that is the way it was with Jeff at that moment. He heard the words but could not make himself accept their meaning. He said stiffly, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

But everything about him, from the rigidity of his body to the iron-hard cast of his face, said that he knew. And Wirt saw that telling him was going to be more difficult than he had imagined.

“It was a mistake, Jeff,” Wirt said. “I know it was a terrible thing for Nate, but mistakes sometimes happen. Your aunt simply mistook another man for your pa.”

It was strange that he felt no anger; there was only shock and emptiness as full realization forced its way through the barriers of his mind. It was the wounded man's instant of numbness before the pain begins. He turned slowly away from Wirt and faced his aunt.

“Was it a mistake, Aunt Beulah?”

Beulah could not take her hands from in front of her face. She could not look at him.

“Was it a mistake, Aunt Beulah, or did you do it on purpose?”

She ducked her head quickly, like a child that had been scolded. To Jeff the gesture seemed ridiculous. Then her shoulders began to jerk and he knew that he was seeing his aunt cry for the first time in his life, and that seemed ridiculous too. Suddenly Beulah made that thin little wailing sound again. She threw her apron over her face and ran blindly from the room.

There was a look of worry, almost fear, in Wirt's eyes as he quickly shoved himself up from the table. “Jeff, whatever she did, she did because she loved you. She didn't want anything to hurt you.”

Jeff turned and looked at Wirt without actually seeing him. Then he turned and walked stiffly, out of the kitchen and through the parlor. The front door closed quietly, and Wirt Sewell bent over the table and struck it several times with his fist....

A shocking thing happened later that night. The regular Saturday-night dance on the second floor of the Masonic Temple building was going full swing when Jeff Blaine arrived half drunk and mean, spoiling for a fight. When one of the Cross 4 hands asked Amy Wintworth to dance, Jeff hit him full in the face with his fist. A brawl was started and Elec Blasingame and his night deputy had to break it up, barring all Cross 4 men from the hall and locking Jeff up until he cooled off. “Blood will tell!” the dancers sniffed in disgust.

“Young Blaine—exactly like his pa! They'll both hang at the end of a rope before it's over!”

Elec and Ralph Striker wrestled Jeff out of the hall fighting and kicking, swearing to kill every man in sight. When Amy Wintworth tried to talk to him, he snarled like a tiger.

Striker had his big right fist cocked. “Let me take care of this young tough, Elec!”

“Let him alone!” the marshal snapped. Together, they fought him down the stairway, down to the basement and into the cell.

“What that kid needs,” Striker said angrily, “is a good beating.”

“Ralph,” the marshal answered wearily, feeling the heavy weight of his age, “I figure young Blaine has taken enough beating for one day. Go back to the dance and keep the boys under control. And,” he added, “see if you can find Amy Wintworth—that's Ford Wintworth's girl. Tell her I want to see her.”

A few minutes later Amy and her brother Todd came timidly into the marshal's office. Elec brightened a bit, for he was not so old that he could not appreciate the freshness and beauty of young womanhood. “Thanks for coming,. Amy. And you too, Todd. If young Blaine has any friends in Plainsville, I guess it's you two. And he needs friends now about as much as anybody I ever saw.”

Todd shook his head with a solemn, bitter smile. “Sometimes I wonder if it's possible to be Jeff's friend.” He laughed quietly, without humor. “It's like trying to tame a coyote. No matter how well you think you know him, he's sure to snap at you when you least expect it.”

“And you, Amy?” Elec said quietly. “Long as I can remember, almost, you've been seein' quite a lot of Jeff Blaine. Do you think he's a wild thing that can't be tamed?”

Amy's eyes were wide and hurt by what had happened. A tall, graceful girl with gentle features, she dropped her gaze and murmured, “No, I don't think that.”

“You like him, don't you?” Elec asked bluntly. And when color suddenly came to her cheeks, he said with surprising gentleness, “Never mind an old man's clumsy questions. Sit down, both of you.”

Amy and her brother sat uneasily on the edges of leather-bottom chairs, and Elec Blasingame wondered where all the years had gone. It seemed only yesterday that they had been children—now Todd was a young man, and his sister was old enough to think about getting a husband. Now, with these two youngsters before him, Elec felt vaguely restless and did not know what to say. He wasted a minute lighting a frayed cigar, and then turned to Amy.

“Maybe I'm just an old fool,” he said. “In a way, I'm responsible for the way Jeff Blaine acted tonight. I won't tell you why—more than likely, though, the story will be around town by tomorrow. Anyway, I've got no right to ask you and your brother to help patch up a mistake of mine. If you want to leave, it's all right.”

Amy and Todd looked puzzled, and did not move.

Amy asked quietly, “Is there something I should know, Marshal?”

“Yes, Amy, but it's not my right to tell you. All I can do is ask you to try to understand young Blaine. He's had a hard knock—-he'll need all the help he can get.”

Todd, with a touch of self-righteousness in his voice, said, “There's no excuse for what Jeff did tonight. The Mason's dance is the only place left for decent people in Plainsville, and he did his best to ruin that. If he's going to behave like a dancehall tough, then let him hang out in Bert Surratt's place.”

The marshal sighed. “I was afraid that's the way you'd take it.”

“And I don't think it would be good for Amy to see so much of Jeff,” Todd added with a note of male authority.

Elec noticed that Amy's back stiffened, although she did not look in Todd's direction. She came to her feet, smiling faintly. “Todd, perhaps you should take me home.” She added to the marshal: “Thank you for what you tried to do for Jeff. I understand more than you might think.”

Blasingame sat in deep thought after Amy Wintworth and her brother disappeared up the steps to the street. He was disappointed with his efforts to get the Blaine boy straightened out. He could only hope that Amy Wintworth was wiser and more understanding than he had any right to believe a young girl could be.

The story had made all the rounds by now, about how they had wrongly accused Nate Blaine of murder and robbery. Ford Wintworth had heard it a dozen times—every man had his own version of what had happened. Ford had noted with some interest how, at first, the people had felt the hand of shame upon them, especially the ones who had been so strong for lynching. Then, in some ingenious way, they had converted their shame to anger, which they aimed at Beulah Sewell.

In a completely impersonal way, Ford felt sorry for Beulah, for he knew that she would pay many times over for what she had done. The citizens of Plainsville did not like being shown off as fools, and they would not soon forget.

The Sewells, however, held only a minor place in Ford Wintworth's interests. It was his daughter who worried him. Oh, he had known for a long time that Amy had been casting glances in Jeff Blaine's direction, but he had figured it was a schoolgirl thing and amounted to nothing. Until a day or so ago Ford had thought of his daughter as still a little girl, and it shocked him slightly to realize that she was a young woman with a mind of her own—and old enough to think of marriage.

Todd, who now worked for his father at the corral, came out to the porch. “I'll walk with you as far as the bank, Pa.”

“I'm not going to the yard just yet,” Ford said. “Todd, tell me something, will you?” Then he rubbed the stubble on his face, not knowing exactly how to say it. “What I mean is—”

His son smiled faintly. “I think I know. It's Amy and Jeff Blaine.”

Ford was surprised that his son could read him so clearly. “I didn't know it showed. But you're right. Look here, Todd, is Amy serious about this Blaine boy?”

His son shrugged. “It looks that way. After that affair at the dance, I thought maybe she'd be cured. But I guess I don't know much about women.”

Todd took makings from his shirt pocket and thoughtfully rolled a thin cigarette in his lean, brown fingers. He looked as though he wanted to say something more, then thought better of it and merely nodded. “I guess I'd better get on to the corral, Pa. You going to talk to Amy about this?”

Ford grunted, and didn't answer.

Several minutes later Ford was still on the porch when his daughter came outside. “Pa, I thought you'd gone back to work.”

Ford hesitated, feeling ridiculous. The subtle approach was not a part of the Wintworth make-up, and finally he blurted: “Damn it, Amy, I want to talk to you about this Blaine boy.”

A shade of caution seemed to lower behind his daughter's eyes. But she only said, “All right, Pa.”

“I'll come right out with it,” Ford stated. “I don't think you ought to be seeing young Blaine any more. His reputation was none too good to start with, and it's getting worse every day. That business at the dance was bad enough, but now he's taken to carrying a gun and hanging out in Bert Surratt's place. Amy, I don't believe you ought to see him any more.”

His daughter said quietly, “You aren't ordering me not to see Jeff, are you, Pa?”

Ford Wintworth was far from deaf. He heard the warning tone in Amy's voice with perfect clarity and it brought him up short. He looked at his daughter as though he had never seen her before.

“You know I wouldn't order you to do anything,” Ford said nervously.

Amy smiled. Suddenly she kissed her father on the cheek.

“Don't worry so much about me, Pa. I'm not a young girl who doesn't know what she's doing. I'm a woman.”

For the first time in his life, Ford Wintworth had lost the upper hand with one of his children, but he was smart enough to know it. He murmured something and tried to give the impression that everything was fine and that nothing had changed. As he started back toward town he walked a bit straighter than usual, with great dignity. But within his own mind he knew that his daughter had defeated him.

On the porch of the Wintworth house, Amy also knew that she had won, for the moment. But the victory was not sweet. It is only the beginning, she thought soberly. More lines will be drawn, more battles fought.

Amy loved her father, and her brother, and she had no wish to hurt them or fight with them. But she was also a woman and she knew what she wanted.

Amy still shrank within herself whenever she remembered Jeff Blaine's actions of a week ago. She had been so angry at the time that she swore to herself that she would never speak to him again... but that was before Elec Blasingame had talked to her—before she had heard the story of Beulah Sewell and what she had done to Jeff's father and to Jeff.

Now she could understand the rage that Jeff Blaine had unleashed that night. She could not condone it, but she could live with it for a little while, until the rage had burned itself out.

Mrs. Wintworth, a onetime beauty who had grown heavy and placid, came to the front door. “Amy, there are dinner dishes to be done.”

“All right, Mother.”

“Didn't I hear your father out here?”

“Yes, but he's gone now.” Amy was sure that her mother had heard everything that had been said. But Mrs. Wintworth chose to believe that no problem existed and that Jefferson Blaine was merely a name that came up now and then in quilting gossip. In a vague sort of way Mrs. Wintworth foresaw her daughter marrying one of the acceptable, well-to-do boys of Plainsville and living out her days in a white frame house exactly like the one Ford Wintworth had built for himself and his family—and Amy had learned long ago that it was just as well to let her mother believe what she would.

“All right, Mother,” Amy said again and turned to go in the house.

“Isn't that buggy stopping at our gate, Amy?” Mrs. Wintworth asked.

Amy turned, surprised to see Jeff Blaine draw up at the front gate in a glistening black buggy. Hurriedly, Mrs. Wintworth ducked back into the house, but Amy knew that she would be listening on the other side of the door. Jeff sat for a moment, a tight little smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Am I welcome?” he asked.

It was the first Amy had seen of him since the night of the dance. “Of course,” she said quietly, betraying none of the excitement that hammered within her.

It had always been so. Jeff Blaine could look at her and her blood would race through her veins. Even as children, when he had elaborately refused to admit that she was alive, it had been so. Amy Wintworth understood it better now than she had then.

Abruptly, with nervous quickness, Jeff vaulted out of the buggy and walked unsmiling to the gate. Amy felt something cry out within herself when she saw the tense, hard lines around his mouth. He was so young—and looked so old! Since the coming of the railroad, armed men were no longer novelties in Plainsville, but the sight of the heavy revolver on Jeff's right thigh frightened her. She hoped the fear did not show in her face when she swung open the gate and asked quietly, “Won't you come in?”

“I'm not sure your folks would like it,” he said Stiffly.

“You didn't come to see my folks, did you?”

He did not smile. He looked as though he had forgotten how. “I guess,” he said grimly, “I ought to apologize for —for what happened at the dance.”

His voice and his face are so hard, Amy thought. But she said in the same quiet voice, “Not unless you want to.”

“Well, I apologize.” As though he were reading it from a book. “I didn't mean for you to get mixed up in it.” They stood for a moment in uneasy silence. Then he added, “I rented this rig for the rest of the day. I thought maybe you'd like to ride over toward Stone Ridge with me.”

Amy's eyes widened in surprise. “Stone Ridge?”

“I won a piece of land over there last night. I thought I might as well see what it looks like.”

So he has won some land, Amy thought slowly. Over a gambling table in Bert Surratt's place, probably. A little chill went over her, and she saw for the first time how much he resembled his father.

“Of course,” he said bluntly, “if you don't want to go...”

But Amy knew that she would go. Never in her life had she turned down one of Jeff Blaine's rare invitations. She said, “I'll have to get a bonnet, and tell Mother.”

Mrs. Wintworth looked at her daughter in dismay. “Stone Ridge! Amy, the whole town will talk!”

“The town will talk anyway,” Amy said. Then she turned to her mother and added gently, “Don't you see? He's hurt and angry and thinks the whole world is his enemy. If I turned against him now, there's no telling what he'd do.”

Her mother blinked in disbelief. “Amy, you can't mean that you actually care what happens to a ruffian like Jeff Blaine!”

Amy's face turned blank as she put on her bonnet. “I'll do the dishes when I get back,” she said quietly.

They rode in silence along Main Street. Heads turned to watch as they passed. Amy could feel their disapproving stares. She could almost hear their clucking tongues as they shook their heads from side to side. The corners of Jeff's mouth lifted slightly in a cold, humorless smile.

They took the old stage road out of town and headed north toward the hills. The parched land lay spread out before them, dazzling yellow and shimmering in the sun. There was a great silence broken only by buggy wheels and hoofs, and now and then a field lark's cry. Some of that big country's lonesomeness fell around Amy as the noisy activity of the town fell behind them.

Amy found herself thinking back to other times, to the years of her childhood. She found herself watching Jeff Blaine's hard young face, wondering what it was about those intense eyes and thin mouth that had always drawn her to him.

Being wise in so many things, it was strange that she understood so little of the man himself. Amy, whose young will could control a headstrong man like Ford Wintworth, learned early that the harder you held to Jeff Blaine the easier he slipped away. He was quicksilver; he was mystery. And within his strong body was locked the secret of his own doom.

Much of this was foolishness, of course, the product of a romantic girl's too-active imagination, and in an objective way Amy knew it. Certainly there was nothing mysterious about a barefoot boy who was too muleheaded and stubborn to come to one of her parties—the kind of boy Jeff had once been, before Nathan Blaine had filled him with his own importance, spoiled him and brought to life an arrogance and violence that most men were content to leave sleeping.

In her quiet way, Amy hated Nathan Blaine. She hated the man's arrogance, and the way he had tossed his big head and stared down at you with those dark eyes. Most of all she hated him for the bragging bully that he had made of his own son, and for this she would not forgive him.

In Amy's cold, woman's logic, she could almost admire Beulah Sewell for the thing she had done! With Nathan out of his life, Jeff had become a boy again with normal feelings and emotions.

Now Amy wished for the impossible. Gladly would she have stood up for Beulah's lie, but she knew that it would only bring Jeff's rage down upon her. And besides, lies were not practical. Despite all good intent, their cut was cruel when they were found out, as Beulah Sewell came to know.

Still, Amy admired Beulah's courage. Beulah had seen what Nathan Blaine was doing to the boy and she had done what she could to stop it.

At the moment it did not occur to Amy that Beulah had self-righteously taken the law into her own hands. The end, it seemed to Amy, was_ worth the means, and that the plan had failed was its only fault.

Now, as the buggy rolled across that wide prairie, Amy gazed out over the shaggy grassland dotted here and there with patches of nester corn. Jeff had not said more than a dozen words since the town had fallen behind them, but now he waved abruptly toward the fields of corn.

“Good grassland. Soon it'll all be plowed up and blown away.”

That was what the cattlemen had been saying since the first nester sank his dugout in Landow County, but the land was still there and the corn thrived. Amy looked at him, but said nothing. Sooner or later he would get around to telling her of other things. She was good at waiting.

“There's Stone Ridge,” he said after a while, pointing to a hogback hump of scrub and sandstone in the distance. “Two sections over there somewhere were deeded to me this morning. Not much to graze beef cattle on, but it's something.”

Amy spoke for the first time. “Two sections is a lot of land to some people. You haven't said how you got it.”

Jeff shot her a quick glance. “I told you I won it. At poker, from a nester.”

Amy felt that small chill go over her again, and she looked away from those intense eyes that reminded her so much of his father. She heard herself saying quietly, “I didn't know you were such a good gambler.”

“Good?” He laughed shortly. “I was lucky. I'm no great shakes as a gambler right now, but I'll learn. My pa said I had a natural talent for it.”

“Oh,” she said softly, but if he heard the note of dismay in her voice, he did not show it. “Is that what you mean to make of yourself, a gambler?”

Now he did look at her, levelly. “Is there anything wrong with that?”