Gambling Man (2 page)

“Too late for a boy to be traipsing about,” Aunt Beulah put in firmly.

“Oh,” Nathan said quickly, drawing himself a little taller. “Yes, I guess it is. Well, maybe tomorrow, boy.”

Then he bolted, as though the house were choking him. He grabbed his revolver from the rack and buckled it as another man would put on a hat. “Don't wait up for me,” he said. “I'll spread my roll in the kitchen.”

After he had left, Jeff said, “Aunt Beulah, why didn't you tell me about—”

“He's your pa,” his aunt snapped. “You might as well call him that. I didn't tell you about him because I didn't know anything to tell. He ran off from you when you were just a baby. It's the Lord's working that you didn't dry up and die, like your mother, and I guess you would have if it hadn't been for me and your Uncle Wirt.”

She turned and went to the kitchen. In a minute she was back with a pan full of green beans to be snapped. “Ain't you gone to bed yet?”

“I was going,” Jeff said wearily.

He went out to the back porch and washed his dusty feet in a bucket of water that had been set out for that purpose. He had to lather them good and scrub hard because Aunt Beulah would inspect them before she let him get between her clean sheets. He heard his Uncle Wirt come in from the front gallery and say:

“Well, he's headed straight for Bert Surratt's.” Aunt Beulah snorted. “Where did you expect he'd head for?”

Jeff could almost see his uncle's shrug of uneasiness. “I was hoping he'd changed, but I guess he hasn't. The way he wears that gun—I don't like it. That's something new since we saw him last.”

“Twelve years,” Aunt Beulah said, “and gone downhill all the way, if you ask me.”

“Now, Beulah, don't be too tough on him. He took it harder'n most when Lilie passed on. We got no way of knowing what things goes on in a man's mind at a time like that.”

Jeff could hear the beans thudding against the side of the tin pan as his aunt snapped them expertly and quickly, the way she did all things.

“Twelve years,” she said again. “Seems to me that's enough time to get over what was bothering him. Lilie was my baby sister, remember, but I got over it.”

“I'm not standing up for him, but—” Then Jeff came into the room and Uncle Wirt was suddenly quiet.

“Let me see your feet,” Aunt Beulah said.

Jeff had a thousand questions to ask, but he knew they would get no answers. He trudged to his room when his aunt had finished her inspection.

He lay in bed straining his ears to hear what his aunt and uncle were saying, but they were being careful and keeping their voices low. He thought, I wish I could have gone to town with him.

He'd never seen the inside of Bert Surratt's saloon, and that would have been something to brag to Todd Wintworth about. He'd heard tell of gambling and drinking and all kinds of carrying on, but you couldn't be sure unless you'd actually seen it.

Aunt Beulah was dead set against Bert Surratt, and so was Uncle Wirt. They were both good church-going people, and they hated drinking about as much as they hated anything. Jeff closed his eyes and tried to imagine what his father could be doing in a place like Surratt's.

He imagined a scene of painted dancing girls and piano music and lots of laughing and maybe a cowhand shooting at the ceiling with his Colt's revolver.

But he knew that it wasn't really that way. He had passed in front of Surratt's place many a time and hardly ever heard a sound, except maybe some casual talk and the click of a roulette ball.

He listened to the night and let vagrant thoughts drift through his mind.

There was that business at the Wintworth's. Lemonade and gingercakes and paper lanterns hanging on clothesline poles in the Wintworth back yard—that was what they called a Japanese garden party in Plainsville. And there were always a lot of girls, too, wanting to play some fool game or other. Certainly he had outgrown kid stuff like that long ago.

He'd be expected to take a present, because it was Amy Wintworth's eleventh birthday. Whatever the present cost, sure as shootin' Uncle Wirt would take it out of the dime he got every two weeks for working at the tin shop and bringing in the cow.

After a while he got to thinking about Amy, and the party didn't seem so bad. He remembered seeing some Indian gewgaws in Baxter's store; bright colored beads and horn knitting needles and all kinds of stuff that Sam Baxter had got off an Indian trader up in the Territory. Indian stuff was pretty scarce in Texas now, and women seemed to take a shine to anything that was scarce. Maybe he'd ask Mr. Baxter how much the gewgaws cost.

Now Jeff became aware of the talk in the other room. Aunt Beulah and Uncle Wirt were still at it and had unconsciously raised their voices.

“It's that pistol that bothers me,” Uncle Wirt was saying. “To look at him you'd think he was afraid of appearin' indecent without he had that gun strapped around his middle. Beulah, do you reckon he's in trouble?”

“Nathan Blaine has always been a trouble and a worry,” Aunt Beulah answered shortly. “The older he gets, the bigger his troubles grow. That's the way it is with his kind.”

Jeff could hear the parlor rocker squeaking, and he could almost see his aunt pushing rapidly back and forth, as she always did when she was upset.

“Maybe we oughtn't jump at conclusions,” Uncle Wirt said thoughtfully. “Maybe he's been down south where a strapped gun is still the normal thing.”

Jeff's aunt snorted. “I can tell by looking at him how much downhill he's gone. If he's robbed or killed somebody, I guess it wouldn't surprise me much.”

“Beulah!”

“I mean it, every word!”

The rocker stopped for a moment, then started again harder than ever.

“But I guess it's too late to do anything for Nathan Blaine,” she added grimly. “It's the boy I'm worrying about. It scares me to think what evil influence he could work on Jeff if he ever got a hold on the boy.”

“I don't think we have to worry about that,” Uncle Wirt said. Jeff could imagine them looking knowingly at each other, thinking each other's thoughts.

The tall man with the dark eyes was his pa, all right. Aunt Beulah had owned to that herself. Still, after twelve years, the idea took some getting used to.

Jeff's room was a small lean-to affair that had been added to the Sewell house long ago, when he got big enough to have a room of his own. Jeff lay staring out his window, listening to the muffled night sounds that hung over Plainsville. He wondered why his aunt didn't like his pa, and why her small eyes glinted every time she looked at Nathan Blaine. And, for the first time since he could remember, Jeff thought about his mother.

Lilie Blaine had died when Jeff was born. There was an old daguerreotype picture of his mother that had stood on the parlor library table ever since he could remember, so he knew pretty well what she had looked like. But practically nothing had been told him of his father. Wirt Sewell was his father—that's the way the Plainsville folks thought of it, and the way Jeff had thought of it too.

Where had Nathan Blaine, his real pa, been?

Nathan must have left Plainsville right after Lilie Blaine had died. And nobody around these parts had seen hide nor hair of him since. Jeff would have heard about it.

Jeff decided that he liked the idea of having a pa of his own. He had never given it much thought before—it was surprising how much pleasure it gave him. He didn't try to explain it, and it didn't make much difference that Nathan had deserted him twelve years ago. He was just glad that his pa had decided to come back to Plainsville.

Jeff was still awake when the whack of built-up heels sounded on the clay walk in front of the Sewell house. Nathan Blaine's spurs made tinkling silver sounds in the night, and for a moment Jeff was reminded of the cow hands that he had once admired so much. He remembered that very afternoon he had wished for boots exactly like the ones his pa was wearing, and he had thought what fun it would be to race through Plainsville on a painted horse and maybe shoot off his Colt's at the ceiling of Surratt's saloon.

A lot had happened since then.

Nathan Blaine was standing on the front gallery now. Jeff could see him through the window. He stood there, a tall, dark man against the night, as though he were trying to make up his mind to go inside where Aunt Beulah and Uncle Wirt were waiting. He made a small sound, almost like a groan, and opened the door.

“You back already, Nathan?” Uncle Wirt asked with false heartiness. Jeff heard the whack of something solid on wood, and he knew that his pa had hung up his revolver.

Nathan said mildly, “Nothing much to the town this time of night.”

“Bert Surratt's still open, though, I guess,” Aunt Beulah said pointedly.

“Yes,” Jeff's pa said, and his voice sounded tired. “Bert's still open. How's the boy?”

“Jefferson is asleep.” It was Uncle Wirt this time, and his voice was not quite so hearty. “Why don't you sit down, Nathan. We can talk a spell before bedtime.”

“About me?”

“Well— Yes, I guess so, Nathan. Beulah and me was wondering, kind of—- Well—”

“You were wondering why I came back to Plainsville, and what I intend to do about my boy?” Nathan Blaine's voice was practically toneless, but there was a sting to it and Jeff could feel it. “I reckon,” he went on, “your answers will have to come from Jeff. Now I think I'll spread my roll, if you don't mind.”

That had been over an hour ago, and Jeff was still awake. His uncle and aunt had gone to bed in their room on the other side of the house, and his pa had spread his roll in the kitchen.

Doggone it! Jeff found himself thinking, why can't they leave him alone?