Gambling Man (5 page)

“I guess the fixin's will be up to the boy,” Nathan said quietly. “The boots are for him.”

The old saddlemaker snapped his head around, peering incredulously at Nathan. “Bench-made boots? For that boy?”

Jeff could hardly believe that he had heard his pa correctly. Boots of that kind were very expensive, and he had never known a boy his age having a pair made just for him. Such extravagance would appall the citizens of Plainsville. Quality boots were made to last for years; all except the thin soles, of course, which had to be replaced from time to time.

Matt Fuller snapped, “I ain't in no mood for foolishness, mister. A boy like him would grow out of his boots in no time. Then what'll you do?”

“Then,” Jeff's pa said mildly, “I'll have you make another pair.” Nathan saw the glow of pleasure in his son's eyes and knew that he was doing the right thing.

Matt Fuller didn't take to this idea of spoiling a sprout of a boy with fancy footgear. It was a criminal waste of money. But, after all, he was in the business, and he went grumbling to his bench and gathered up the tools he needed for measuring and fitting.

“Make those vamps snug,” Nathan said as the old man made a paper cutout to fit the instep of the boy's foot. “And the arch high,” Nathan added.

The saddlemaker snorted. “He won't be able to walk from here to the bank buildin'!”

“Riding boots were never meant to walk in,”' Jeff's father answered.

To Jeff, it was as unreal as a dream, but better than any dream he could remember. The old man didn't slight him just because he was a boy. When Matt Fuller made a pair of boots, he made them right; and besides, Jeff's pa was right there to see that he didn't get shorted.

“Now, how about the fixin's?” Nathan asked, when the measuring was done.

“Could I have my initials stitched in red thread?”

“Absolutely,” Nathan smiled. “You want some do-dad stitchin'? Say a quilted pattern, or maybe a butterfly?”

It was a temptation, but Jeff decided he would rather have them like his pa's. Soft black kid from toe to tops.

At last they got it all settled with old Matt. It would take him two weeks to get them finished, the saddlemaker said, and Jeff didn't think he could possibly stand to wait that long. Already he was impatient to feel the tight fit of soft leather on his feet, but he didn't show it any more than he had to.

But just wait till Todd Wintworth and the others saw him in a pair of real bench-made boots! They'd be sick with envy, the whole bunch!

It was an odd thing, Nathan Blaine was thinking, how the glow in a boy's eyes could melt the winter in a man's soul. He guessed that he hadn't felt so good about a thing since the day he and Lilie were married.

He never should have run off, he thought, the way he had twelve years ago. But all that was in the past. Now he was determined to give the boy the best that was in him, teach him everything he knew.

It was a month to the day since Nathan Blaine had ridden unannounced and unwelcomed into Plainsville. Beulah Sewell had just brought in an armful of wood for the cookstove, and was stacking it neatly in the woodbox when Wirt came in the kitchen door. Beulah peered out the window and saw that the sun was almost an hour high.

“You locked shop early,” she accused her husband.

Wirt walked heavily across the kitchen and sat at the oilcloth-covered table. Only then did Beulah notice the bleakness of Wirt's eyes, the prominence of worry lines around his mouth.

“Oughtn't Jeff be bringing that wood in for you?” Wirt asked.

Beulah snorted. “Jeff Blaine's got too big for chores,” she said bitterly. “All he thinks about is rubbing his new boots and horseback riding.”

“That ain't all he thinks about,” Wirt said.

That was when Beulah Sewell knew that something was wrong. She turned to her husband, brushing stovewood chips from her apron. “What do you mean, Wirt?”

He moved uncomfortably on his chair, and Beulah could see that he was beginning to wish that he had never brought it up. But she waited patiently, and at last he started: “Probably it's nothing at all.” And that was the worst thing he could have said. All bad news, it seemed to Beulah, started with “probably it's nothing at all.”

“What I mean—”

Wirt tried again— “I got to talking with Marshal Blasingame, and somehow the subject of Nathan and Jeff came up—”

“I knew it!” Beulah said. “Nathan Blaine's in some kind of terrible trouble! I knew it the minute I laid eyes on him, when he came riding up here that day as big as you please, with that rifle on his saddle. I never saw the revolver at first, may the Lord help me, or I never would have let him in my house.”

“Beulah, Beulah,” her husband said wearily, “it's nothing like that at all. Leastwise, if Nate's in trouble, Elec Blasingame knows nothing about it.”

“Well, he ought to. There's plenty of talk!”

“But it's only talk,” Wirt said patiently. “When the railroad comes, and the telegraph, Elec will be able to track down what talk he hears, but not now. Anyway, what he was telling me is something entirely different.”

“Well, don't keep me in the air!” Beulah said. “Can't you come right out and say whatever it is?”

“I'm trying, Beulah. Well, the talk got around to Nate and Jeff, like I said, and Elec mentioned that he'd been up toward Crowder's Creek and had seen them there.”

“I'm not surprised,” his wife said shortly. “No time for anything but horseback riding, neither of them.”

“And target practice,” Wirt added.

Beulah blinked and looked puzzled.

“I'm putting it just the way Elec said,” Wirt told her. “He said he saw Nate and the boy there on the bank of the creek. They were shooting up just about everything in sight, according to Elec.”

His wife looked indignant at such a thought. “Why, Jefferson is just a child, not much more'n a baby! He can't shoot a gun!”

“What I'm trying to tell you,” Wirt went on, “is that his pa was teaching him how to shoot. They were having a regular drill, Elec said, with Nate showing the boy just how to aim and everything.”

Beulah was struck dumb at such a suggestion. Her mouth worked, but she made no sound. She sank slowly onto a chair across the table from her husband.

Wirt shook his head. “I know. I couldn't believe it, either. But Marshal Blasingame is not a lying man. He swore he saw Jeff firing Nate's revolver, and doing a better job at it than most men.”

Beulah Sewell's small round face was hard as concrete. “Wirt, we've got to do something.”

Only once before could Wirt remember seeing that bitter look of self-righteousness on his wife's face. That memory took him back ten years or more, and in his mind he could still see the stricken face of Widow Stover just before she'd been railroaded out of town. The “widow” had been known in Plainsville as a loose woman, though few, if any, could tell exactly how the epithet had been earned. She had worked a while at the Paradise eating house, where the rougher element congregated. On top of that, the widow's cheeks appeared unnaturally pink to some, and it was rumored that she painted them. Also, the widow had an exceptionally brassy voice and loved to laugh.

Wirt Sewell could not explain just why Widow Stover came to his mind at this moment, but he thought it had something to do with that set hardness in Beulah's face. That time so long ago she had looked at him in just the same way: iron-hard wrinkles around her small, pursed mouth, her pale eyes ablaze. “Wirt,” she had said that time, in just the same voice, “we've got to do something.” And the next day a delegation of Plainsville women had escorted Widow Stover to the stage office, where they purchased for her a one-way ticket out of the county.

What all this had to do with Nathan Blaine, Wirt was not sure, but his wife frightened him when she looked at him this way.

Wirt cleared his throat. “I was thinking,” he said uneasily, “maybe we ought to have a talk with Nate.”

“It's too late for talk,” his wife said stiffly.

“Now, Beulah,” he tried to soothe her. Let's don't look at this thing the wrong way. Nate's the boy's father; we can't forget that. It's only natural for a father to want his son to be proud of him. So we really can't blame Nate for showing off a little in front of the boy.”

“He's teaching his son to kill!”

“Now, Beulah,” Wirt said gently, “it ain't that at all. I guess guns are what Nate is best at. Now Mac Butler, the blacksmith, forges the best carving knives in the whole Southwest—that's what he's proud of, and that's what his son is proud of. It's the same with Nate, except Nate takes to guns instead of knives.”

“It ain't the same,” his wife said flatly.

Inwardly, Wirt knew that he was doing badly and would never get his point across the way he saw it. Still, something made him keep trying.

“I know it ain't the same, exactly,” he said, “but in a way it is. We ought to talk to Nate and make him see it ain't right for a boy Jeff's age to know so much about guns. We ought to get him to teach the boy something else, something he'll be able to use later in life.”

“You'd be wasting your time,” Beulah told him. “I know Nathan Blaine. He's a wild one and always has been. I warned Lilie against him, but she wouldn't listen to me. There's only one thing to do. We've got to separate Jefferson from his pa, and the sooner we get about it, the better!”

Her husband looked worried. “Beulah, what have you got in mind to do?”

“I don't know yet. Maybe we'll just have to wait for something. Meanwhile, we can be giving it some thought.”

She said no more. Her eyes burning a bit brighter, her back a bit stiffer, she went on about her work.

Jeff liked the feeling that went with being visible. It gave * a person a sense of importance to see heads turn when you walked past. He liked to watch mouths moving and know that they were talking about him. It didn't make much difference what they said. The knowledge that they were talking about him was the important thing.

His life had become a bit more complicated than it had been before, but Jeff didn't mind. If the boys at the academy wanted to be jealous of him, let them. He didn't need them. And if parents told their boys to steer clear of Jeff Blaine, that was all right too.

There was just one thing that bothered him. That was Amy Wintworth....

Jeff still remembered that birthday party of hers that should have been such a success, and wasn't. The party had been pretty much like a dozen others that Jeff had attended, with hand-turned ice cream, and cake, and paper napkins. No matter how hard Amy and Mrs. Wintworth tried to mix them up, the boys soon separated from the girls, starting their own strictly male game of one-and-over.

For the first time in his life Jeff felt out of place and uncomfortable. He felt superior to one-and-over, so he stood apart from the others, trying to be cool and aloof.

“This is terrible!” Amy told him. “Jeff, can't you get the boys to mix with the girls?”

And he had thrown back his head, exactly like Nathan Blaine. “I can't stop them from being kids all their lives, if that's what they want.”

“Well, won't you come over and talk to us?”

He had been outraged at this suggestion. “No, I can't,” he said, drawing himself up. And so he had cut himself away from the others and was left standing, one small island, between the two groups. He was lonely and angry in his chosen position of isolation, but he lounged against one of the clothesline posts, yawning with elaborate casual-ness to hide his feelings.

“Stuck up!” he heard Lela Costain hiss acidly.

And several of the girls gathered in a small cluster and Jeff knew they were talking about him. Amy and Mrs. Wintworth had still tried to draw the two groups together, but by then the girls were as interested in their sharp, pointed gossip as the boys were in their one-and-over. Amy pointedly ignored Jeff, and he knew that she was angry.

Well, he thought, she'd get over it. Just the same she had never been prettier than she was that night, and Jeff kept glancing at her when he thought she wasn't looking.

He wished that she would come over and talk to him again, but she was too proud for that.

Probably every party reaches a point where it seems to be falling to pieces, and that was the way it was then, on Amy's eleventh birthday. But you'd never know it to look at Amy. She carried herself straight and proud, and her bright smile seemed as permanent as a steel etching. Nothing could erase it.

And yet the smile vanished when she approached the group of girls. A grimness appeared at the corners of her mouth when she heard what they were saying. Her chin jutted with determination.

“That's enough,” Amy said quietly. There was a brittleness in her voice, an urgency, that made the girls look around.

“I was just saying—” Lela Costain started. “I heard!” Amy replied coldly.

The Wintworth back yard became suddenly quiet. The boys stopped their one-and-over and began moving forward to see what was wrong.

Lela Costain, a stocky, square-built girl, shot glances around the small circle, smiling when she saw that everyone was eagerly awaiting her next word. “Well,” she said primly, smoothing down her blue ruffled dress, “it's the truth. Everybody knows about Nate Blaine.”

“Lela Costain, I don't want to hear another word!” Amy said sharply, and the look of self-satisfaction dropped from Lela's face. She looked flustered and ready to cry, and suddenly she turned and ran from the back yard. That was the last they saw of Lela Costain that night. That was all there was to it, but the entire character of the party was changed. The rowdy boys now shuffled uneasily, the girls were strangely mute. The party was as good as dead.

In Jeff's ears the sound of his father's name was still ringing. Lela had said something bad about his pa—that much was clear. He hated the thought of having a girl take up a fight that was rightly his, and yet he was proud of Amy for doing it. He couldn't very well fight a girl himself.

Within a matter of minutes the Wintworth back yard was empty. Reasons were suddenly thought of for going home early that night, and soon only Jeff and Amy were left.

“I guess,” Amy said, “the party is over.”

“It sure looks like it,” he said awkwardly. “Well, J guess I'd better be going.” But he stopped before reaching the gate. “I'm proud of you, Amy. I guess Lela Costain won't be telling lies about people after this.”

“Proud of me!” He hadn't expected her sudden anger. “What happened was your fault, Jeff Blaine, not Lela's!”

“My fault?”

“How do you think the others felt, with you standing off to yourself, thinking that you were too good to mix with the rest of us? You can't do that and not get talked about!”

Jeff had never seen a girl as hard to make out as Amy. One minute she was on your side, and the next minute she was blaming him for everything. Now the fire of anger was in her eyes; he could almost feel the sparks fly as she glared at him. He felt that he had better leave as quietly as possible.

“Jeff!” He had just reached the gate when she called. Another girl would have cried her eyes out because her party had been ruined, but not Amy Wintworth. She came toward him, walking very straight. “I guess I didn't mean all the things I said, Jeff. It wasn't really your fault.”

He felt awkward, and did not know what to say.

“I'll make it up with Lela tomorrow,” she said. “Everything will be all right.”

He knew that it had been largely his fault and he wanted to tell her so. But the words would not come. He could only stand there looking at her, and the longer he looked the prettier she seemed to get. “Well—” he said, clearing his throat— “I guess I'd better go.”

For a long while that night, after going to bed, he thought over what had happened. Amy had nerve—and he had learned to appreciate nerve from his pa. Remembering how she had stepped in to take his part gave him a warm and pleasant feeling. Perhaps for the first time he actually thought of Amy Wintworth as his girl.

This thought so occupied his mind that it did not occur to him to wonder what Lela Costain had been saying about his pa. Probably he would have passed it off as nothing if it hadn't been for something that happened shortly after, at school.