Gambling Man (15 page)

He was sluggish from a sleepless night, and that unreal feeling of hollowness was growing again within him.

As he stood there he caught the sidelong glances thrown in his direction. There was new respect, even fear, in those glances. Here was the man who had made Flee Blasingame back down. Here was a dangerous man, even though he looked like a kid. With elaborate unconcern, grangers, cowhands, and townspeople sidestepped when they approached him, careful not to jostle him.

Jeff smiled faintly and without humor. Without firing a shot he had suddenly acquired a reputation as a dangerous gunman. The name of Blaine had made it so, at one quick impulsive draw on the marshal.

For a long time they had wondered. For a long time they had considered his arrogance, quietly pondering the question of whether Nate Blaine's violent blood actually flowed in his son's veins. Now they knew, or they thought they did.

Only Jeff and Elec Blasingame knew that the show of deadliness had been mostly luck, because Elec had not been prepared for the draw. Ignoring such an obvious truth would be suicide, and Jeff instinctively knew it. What would happen another time, with Elec ready for him, he could not say; he hoped he'd never have to find out.

Only after it was over, in the thoughtful hours of a restless night, had he realized how close he had come to killing a man. This was something that he had not considered until now, and the thought was terrifying.

Ralph Striker was in the Paradise when Jeff came in for breakfast. The lawman threw him a quick, hard glance. Then, with faked good humor, Striker walked down to Jeff's end of the counter. “Morning, Blaine,” he said casually, helping himself to several toothpicks.

Jeff nodded.

“Do me a favor, will you?” the deputy asked, his thin smile a bit forced. “Try to stay out of trouble. I'd like to get in a full day's sleep for a change.”

Jeff frowned as Striker got his hat and went out. Not until later did he learn the meaning behind the deputy's quiet warning.

Out of the Paradise, Jeff fingered the few bills and loose silver in his pocket. Because of that piece of land, he had almost tricked himself into thinking that he was a successful gambler, but those few dollars that made up his bankroll proved otherwise. He did not have the experience to sit in on high stake games, and dollars came slow and hard from the cautious store clerks and farmers. He had been able to hold off the urge to plunge, but now he felt impatience gnawing at him.

If he only had a stake, he thought, he could stock his land and have the beginning of a brand of iris own. One thing he had learned—gambling as seen from a felted table in Bert Surratt's wasn't as exciting as he had imagined. Also, he remembered the way Amy's eyes had lighted up when she had looked down on that valley of grass.

But you need more than land to make a place pay. He could not go to Amy and say, “Come with me, Amy, and we'll live in the squatter's broken-down shack, and maybe the bank will loan us enough to get started on.”

The bank hadn't helped Nathan Blaine when he had needed it, and it wouldn't help his son. A man needed a stake before he could go to a girl like Amy, before he could face the fierce rejection in Ford Wintworth's eyes.

Frowning, he walked into Bert Surratt's, raked the crowded bar with a practiced glance, and studied the tables and the men playing at them. To get what he wants, a man has to take a chance, he told himself.

He moved back to where a crowd of idlers stood watching the play at one table. Jeff studied the litter of silver, gold, and a few greenbacks on the table and thought, With a little luck a man could stock a good-sized range out of a game like this. He moved forward, noting how the idlers split away from him. “Room for one more?”

Chet Blakely, Snake range boss, looked up coldly. “This is no game for boys.”

It was a cold, seasoned bunch at the table. Blakely, who had won and lost outfits of his own in his time; Bus Cheetham, who could gamble for a living with the best of them if he didn't own a piece of the Cross 4 where he worked as foreman. Besides the two cattlemen, there was a railroad man from Landow; Brad Littlefield, the stage agent; and two hands from Big Hat who were pushing strings of luck. All of them looked up, smiling thinly at Blakely's small joke.

Jeff felt his face grow warm. “Do you want another player, or don't you?” he asked.

“He's old enough to tote a gun,” Bus Cheetham drawled; “he's old enough to lose his money. Sit in, Blaine; we'll see how much Nate taught you about the game.”

It did not take Jeff long to learn that it had not been enough.

With appalling efficiency they took his cash and then began taking great bites at the two sections that he had won less than two days before. And soon it was gone—all gone.

Jeff felt shaken and weak. He had planned so boldly, and now he had nothing. He owned less than he had the day he had hurled curses at Wirt and Beulah Sewell and turned his back on their house. A few pieces of clothing, he thought angrily, a second-hand Colt's—that's what I've got. Not even a horse and rig!

Chet Blakely grinned as Jeff signed over the deed to the land. “Here, kid,” he said harshly, “don't say we tried to clean you.” He flipped a gold double eagle at him.

Only then did anger come. Jeff kicked his chair back, grabbed the edge of the table and shoved. The amazed range boss caught the table in his lap and fell back. He sprawled on the floor, showered with money and cards.

“You can keep your money!” Jeff said tightly.

“God damn you!” Blakely snarled. With a savage swipe of his arm he brushed money from his chest and sprang to his feet. He rushed blindly but Jeff kicked the table in his way and Blakely sprawled again.

Once more he got up, raging, big and ugly as a bull buffalo. Within the range boss's two big arms was enough strength to break a man in half, and that was his intent as he rushed again.

But this time something stopped him. The fire in Jeff Blaine's eyes, the pale gray line of his tightly compressed mouth. Blakely saw that right hand cupped at the hip, ready to grab, and he sensed the violence that was ready to burst. He stopped. He had the good sense to realize that size and strength were no advantages. Colonel Colt's deadly two pounds of steel had equalized all that—victory went to the quick and eager.

Chet Blakely was quick enough for a man his size, but he was not eager. He had laughed about Elec Blasingame letting a punk kid throw down on him, but he wasn't laughing now. He made no move toward his own revolver. Instead, he held his hand well away from his side.

It was clear to all in the room that Chet was buffaloed. The range boss was not going to be the first to test the untried speed of a wild kid's draw; he gambled only with money. Nor did any other man in the saloon seem anxious to try his hand.

At last Blakely forced an uneasy laugh. “Relax, kid. I'm not going to hurt you.”

“I know,” Jeff said coldly.

Chet swallowed. “You lost that land fair and square.”

“I'm not saying I didn't.”

Then something happened in Blakely's eyes. It was the quick but cautious look of a wolf, and Jeff studied it. Too late did he realize that someone had got behind him.

He jumped as a cold, hard muzzle jammed into the small of his back, and at the same time a voice said: “Hold your hands in front of you.”

It was Elec Blasingame.

The suddenness of the action left Jeff stunned. Elec said mildly, “You've got a lot to learn, boy; Nate never would have let a man get behind him by the back door. Now drop your gun.”

The gray shade of death had slipped from Chet Blakely's face, and now he gloated. “Marshal, that kill-crazy kid ought to be run out of town!”

Elec glanced at him. “Has he killed somebody?”

“No, but—”

“Then,” the marshal said gently, “I guess I'll handle it my own way. Drop the gun, son.”

Jeff was surprised to discover his mind working with the clean, polished precision of a fine watch. Instantly, he remembered the “spin” that Nathan had shown him so long ago, that miraculous trick of reversing a pistol in your hand while seeming to hand it over butt first.

But Elec was not to be caught off guard this time. He increased the pressure slightly, pressing the muzzle a bit harder in Jeff's back.

“Don't bother handing it to me,” he said dryly. “Just slip the buckle.” The marshal took the revolver. “All right —march.”

“I didn't do anything. You can't lock me up.”

“I can. And I will,” Elec said flatly.

There was nothing to do. With a gun in his back, Jeff focused his hate on Chet Blakely, as though to warn him the fight wasn't over. Then he shrugged and walked stiffly out of the saloon.

The marshal put him in the cell with two drunk cowhands and locked the door. Jeff grabbed the bars and glared. “You'll be sorry for this, Elec!”

The marshal sighed heavily and shook his head. “I just don't know what to do with you, Blaine, and that's the gospel truth. Can't you see you're not hurting anybody but yourself?”

“I figure that's my business.”

“Not when you go on the prod. Then it gets to be my business. Do you know what's going to happen if you don't take that chip off your shoulder? You'll end up like your pa; you'll let your hate get you in so-deep that you'll never be able to get out. One of these days some drunk cowhand'll get the notion he's a gunfighter and force you to show your hand.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Blasingame smiled bitterly. “So could Nate, but what did it prove? Your pa's a wanted killer. With telegraph wire strung all over the Southwest, he doesn't dare come back to his own country, to the place where he was born and raised, not even to see his son.”

“My pa will come back when he gets ready.”

The marshal nodded. “Maybe. But it'll be the last trip he'll ever take. The law will be waiting for him.” He turned and walked heavily back to his office....

It was midafternoon when Amy Wintworth came to the office to see him. Elec touched his hatbrim with a forced smile. “Come in, Amy. It's not often we get such pretty visitors down here.”

Amy could offer no smile in return. “I heard that Jeff was—”

“Locked up,” the marshal finished for her. “A little to-do over at Bert's place. Nothing serious.”

“But serious enough to lock him up.”

Blasingame looked at her, saw the urgency behind her eyes. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I guess it was. Have a chair, Amy.” He waited until she was seated.

“May I see him?”' she asked.

“I don't think it would be wise; he's pretty worked up. What did you want to see him about?”

“I want to ask him to make up with his Aunt Beulah,” Amy said tightly.

Elec whistled softly in surprise. “I don't think he'd ever do that, Amy. He hates Beulah Sewell as much as I ever saw one person hate another. That's the seat of all his trouble, I think—he's so full of hate that it spills over onto everybody he crosses. ”

“Marshal, have you seen Beulah Sewell recently?”

He frowned faintly. “No, I don't think so. Not since—”

“Not since the town learned Nathan wasn't the one who killed Jeff Harper and robbed the bank? No one has seen her since then except Wirt, and me. I just came from the Sewell house.”

Amy closed her eyes for a moment, her thoughts flying back to that bleak little house, locked and sealed and quiet as a tomb. She said slowly, “I don't think you'd know her, Marshal. She's as unreal as a corpse; she hates herself more than Jeff ever could.”

Elec rubbed his face thoughtfully. “I guess I haven't thought much about Beulah except to despise her for what she did. Like everybody else.” Gazing up at the ceiling, he smiled thinly. “It's a funny thing. You can fight with a man, or steal from him, or even shoot him, and the chances are pretty good that he'll forgive you if you give him a chance. But prove a man a fool and he'll hate you all his life. That's what Beulah did. We all swallowed that lie of hers, and then looked like fools when the truth came out.”

“But,” Amy asked, “don't you think it would be a better town if people would forgive her?”

“Sure,” Elec shrugged, “but it's a big order. Especially for Jeff.”

“Impossible?”

“Just not very likely, let's say.”

She sat straight, her mouth compressed to a grim, determined line. One moment she had all the poise and steel of a queen, and the next moment she was a frightened young woman, sobbing.

Elec moved uneasily. “Now, now, Amy, there's no use in that.” He tugged at a red handkerchief in his hip pocket and handed it to her across the desk.

“I'm sorry. That was a foolish tiling to do,” she said.

“You like the boy, don't you, Amy?”

She nodded. “But not the way he's going. Not what I see for him in the future. Sometimes I see so much of Nathan in him that it frightens me.”

Elec nodded, knowing what she meant. It wasn't Jeff's blood that made him act the way he did, it was that element of pure tragedy—circumstance. The same kind of circumstance that had made Nate the kind of man he now was.