Gambling Man (6 page)

“It's a fact,” Alex was saying. “My pa told me, and he says it's the gospel truth.”

Jeff stood back a little from the group, assuming an attitude of cool disinterest. He wore new jeans that his pa had bought him, and his fine black boots, and he had a belt with a genuine Mexican silver buckle. A person dressed in such fine clothes could hardly afford to mix with barefoot urchins. He kept his distance.

“What did your old man say?” one of the boys asked Alex Jorgenson.

“Well, he got it straight from the traveler,” Alex said. “This traveler'd been up in New Mexico Territory, so he knew what he was talking about.”

“What was the story?” someone asked impatiently.

“Hold your horses, will you?” Alex said, loving the attention, wanting to draw it out as long as possible. “I'm tellin' you about the traveler so you'll know the story's straight and I'm not making it up. This traveler's horse'd thrown a shoe, and he'd stopped at Butler's to get it fixed up—that's where my pa works.”

“We know your pa works for Mac Butler,” Todd Wintworth said. “But what has it got to do with Blaine?”

Jeff felt his scalp tingle at the mention of his father's name. He was afraid that they were going to look around and see him standing there—but they didn't.

“This is the way it happened,” Alex said confidentially, dropping his voice so that Jeff could barely hear him. “This traveler claimed he'd been in this town, a place called Limerock, up in the New Mexican country. When the name of Nate Blaine turned up in the talk, my pa said this stranger turned green around the gills and said he wouldn't stay overnight in a town where Nathan Blaine lived.”

“Why not?” Todd Wintworth put in again.

“Because Blaine killed a man in Limerock!” Alex said, pausing a moment for dramatic effect. “The traveler swore it was the gospel truth; he was there. Shot this man dead, Nate Blaine did, in a poker game. The stranger said they were still looking for him over New Mexico way.”

For one long moment Jeff stood still as stone.

“I've heard that story before,” one of the boys said.

“But not from a man that was actually there!” another one said.

“That's what I'm telling you!” Alex said importantly. “This is the truth; you've got to believe it.” Then he drew himself up, scowling. “Unless somebody wants to call me a liar.”

Alex was a good deal bigger than the others. “Wait a minute, Alex. Nobody said you was a liar.”

“Well, they better not!”

Jeff spoke. “And what if they do?”

All heads snapped in Jeff's direction. They saw him then for the first time, and some of them looked worried.

Jeff hardly recognized the voice that came from his throat. He stood so stiff and straight that his back began to ache. A cold fury raged within him.

He said, “I call you a liar, Alex. I call you a double damn liar.”

Alex Jorgenson looked startled.

“Do you admit you're a liar?” Jeff demanded.

Alex sneered. He was heavier and older, but he wasn't sure that he liked what he saw in Jeff's eyes.

“Admit it!” Jeff said hoarsely.

“Are you crazy?” Alex tried to laugh.

“You admit it, or you'll be sorry.”

Alex tried to blow himself up. He glanced at the others, drew in a deep breath and swaggered forward. “Just what do you think you're going to do about it? You want to fight, that's fine with me!”

“Gentlemen don't fight with their fists.”

The words surprised Jeff almost as much as they did Alex and the others. Then he remembered that he had heard his father say it several times in describing men like Longley and Hardin.

The shadow of worry vanished from Alex Jorgenson's eyes. He laughed. “You're yellow, Jeff Blaine! You're afraid to fight.”

“You admit you're a liar,” Jeff repeated grimly.

“And what if I don't?”

“I'll kill you.”

Alex did not hear the danger in the words. He laughed once more. “You're yellow!” he said again, and then he lunged at Jeff, hitting him solidly in the face with his big right fist.

Jeff reeled back under the impact, stumbled and fell to the ground. Anger was hot within him. He lost sight of Alex's advantage in age and weight. He was ready to shove himself up and fly into the grinning red face that leered down at him. Then, in his mind, he heard his father saying: “Gentlemen don't fight with their fists.” He stayed down.

Alex Jorgenson was pleased and surprised with his easy victory. He looked at the others, grinning.

“What did I tell you? He's yellow!”

Todd Wintworth was the only one among them to see the danger. He stepped forward, shoving at Alex. “Get away from here, fast! Before somebody gets hurt!”

Alex pushed him away. He strutted now, savoring the situation. “Nobody's going to get hurt,” he bragged. “Jeff Blaine's too yellow to get up and take his beating.”

Jeff spoke hoarsely from the ground. “We'll see who's yellow, Alex! I'll meet you at the cottonwood grove on Crowder's Creek when school gets out. And you'd better bring a gun!”

Jeff would not soon forget the look on Alex Jorgenson's face as the blood drained from it.

Jeff picked himself off the ground and carefully brushed the dust from his new jeans. “I know your pa's got a forty-five,” he said coldly. “It won't be any trouble to snitch it.” He allowed himself a thin smile, not realizing how much he resembled his father at that moment. “I'll see you at the creek,” he said. “Unless you're yellow, Alex.” Then he turned and walked away.

That day, sitting there at his plank bench in the crowded schoolhouse, Jeff could feel the shocked and frightened stares of the pupils upon him. But he didn't care what they thought of him.

He was young Blaine, the son of Nate Blaine. From time to time he would look around to see how Alex Jorgenson was taking it. The boy was still pale. Alex was scared half to death and everybody in the room knew it.

He'll never meet me at the creek, Jeff thought with a sneer. He's yellow clear through.

But Jeff was wrong. At the end of the day Alex and several other boys came up to him in the schoolyard.

Jeff said, “You backing down?”

Alex swallowed. “No. It'll take a little time to get my pa's gun. But I'll be there.”

Jeff would have sworn that Alex never would have gone through with it. But there was a saying that cornered rats would fight, and maybe that accounted for it. Jeff tried not to show his surprise. “Well, just see you don't take too long. I can't wait all day.”

He turned and walked off from the others. Todd Wintworth ran across the yard to catch up with him.

“You're not really going through with it, are you, Jeff?”

Jeff almost laughed. Todd's eyes were popping. “I'm going through with it, all right. I'll teach him to go around telling lies about the Blaines.”

“Are you sure it's lies?”

Jeff stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean by that?”

Todd Wintworth was no coward. He had fought plenty of boys bigger than himself and usually came out on top. But there was something about the set of Jeff's mouth that made him back water.

“I didn't mean anything.”

Jeff stepped out again, walking on hard ground when he could, to keep the red dust from settling on his boots.

“Jeff,” Todd said, “will you tell me something?”

“Sure.”

“Are we friends, or not? You've been acting so funny lately—”

Jeff looked at him. “Sure we're friends. We've always been friends, haven't we?”

“Will you do something for me?” Todd asked.

“What?”

“Go after Alex and tell him not to get the gun.”

Jeff turned on him. “Are you crazy?”

“Go after him, Jeff, before it's too late!” His voice had a curious twang to it, like a fiddle string about to snap. “Fight him with your fists. I know you're not afraid of him.. He's mostly blubber and you can whip him easy.”

“I don't want to whip him with my fists,” Jeff said grimly. He started walking again, and this time Todd stood where he was, letting Jeff go on alone.

Well, to hell with him! Jeff told himself. I don't need Todd Wintworth or anybody else!

Today he did not take the street that went past Jed Harper's bank building, because he knew his pa would be waiting there for him. He cut up the wide alley behind Baxter's store, circled in front of the public corral and headed toward the Sewell house. He was careful not to go past the tin shop and not to let Aunt Beulah see him when he got home.

When he was sure that nobody was watching, Jeff headed for the cowshed where Nathan had hung his saddlebags from a rafter. He knew that his pa kept an extra .45 and several boxes of cartridges in one of the bags.

Sure enough, when he got the leather pouches down he found a heavy Colt's Cavalry carefully wrapped in oiled rags. He loaded it with five rounds from the ammunition carton, easing the hammer down on the empty chamber. He carefully wiped the oil from the revolver and then hid it away inside his shirt.

He felt his heart hammering with excitement, but he was not nervous or scared. His hands were perfectly steady. He peered around the shed wall to make sure Aunt Beulah hadn't seen him, and then he darted around the front of the house and headed toward Harkey's pasture. If anybody wanted to know, he was just heading to the pasture to fetch Bessie.

But nobody wanted to know.

When he reached the barbed-wire gate, he turned north and followed the fence toward Crowder's Creek. When he was sure no one could see him, he took out the revolver and tried to hold it the way his pa did.

His hands were large for a boy of thirteen, but not large enough to handle a gun as big and heavy as a Colt's .45. He could cock it with his thumb, but it was a strain and took some time. It would be better, he decided, to cock with the left hand and trigger with the right, a technique known as fanning.

Nathan Blaine did not like fanning as a technique for rapid shooting. There were only two excuses for using it: one was when you were standing belly to belly with the man you were shooting at, and the other was when your hand wasn't big enough to cock with the thumb on recoil, in the accepted fashion.

Jeff's hand simply wasn't big enough, so he would have to fan.

Not that it bothered him. His pa had taught him more about guns than most people learn in a lifetime.

As he neared the creek, Jeff practiced rolling the gun in his right hand. But two and a quarter pounds, plus the added weight of the ammunition, was a lot of weight to spin on one finger, even for a man. Jeff stopped it and was carrying the revolver at his side when he arrived at the grove of cottonwoods.

Bud Slater and Rob Lustrum, two boys from the academy, were already there. Jeff scowled as he saw them.

“Did anybody see you coming this way?”

“No,” Bud Slater said. “We come up the path as if we was goin' to the pasture. Gee, is that a real Colt's?”

“Sure. What did you think it was?” He enjoyed watching their eyes grow wider.

“Do you think Alex'll show up?” Rob Lustrum wanted to know.

“Maybe. If he doesn't lose his guts,” Jeff said. He spun the revolver once for their benefit. Then his trigger finger began to weaken from the weight and he shoved the revolver into his waistband.

“Is that your pa's gun?” Bud asked in awe.

But Jeff was here on serious business; he had no time for talking. He walked off to the crest of the rise, and looked down toward the town. He could see no one.

Alex wasn't going to show up. He had known it all along. Well, he'd wait a while longer. He didn't much care whether Alex showed up or not. He wanted to feel the Colt's in his hand but he was afraid his arm would get tired, and that was a chance he couldn't take. A person couldn't hit anything if his arm was weak and shaking.

After fifteen minutes had passed, Rob Lustrum said, “Looks like nobody else is coming.”

“I'm not surprised,” Jeff said coolly. “I didn't think Alex Jorgenson had all the guts he brags about.”

“Wait a minute,” Rob said, jogging up the ridge. “I think I see somebody. Yes sir, he's headin' this way, all right. But it ain't Alex.”

Jeff walked back down to the cottonwoods. He would wait another fifteen minutes, he thought, and then to hell with Alex Jorgenson.

“It looks like a man,” Rob said from the ridge.

“Come on down from there,” Jeff said shortly. “We don't want to cause a commotion. If it ain't Alex, then it makes no difference who it is.”

Rob came down from the ridge and the three boys squatted under the trees. A few minutes passed and the silence became uneasy. “Maybe I'd better go up and have another look,” Bud Slater said.

Jeff just looked at him and Bud made no move toward the ridge. Then they heard somebody crashing through the undergrowth along the creek bank.