Gambling Man (4 page)

Nathan's dark eyes were blazing as he wheeled to face his son. “Your Uncle Wirt never taught you to do a thing like that, did he?”

Jeff swallowed hard. He discovered that his voice was missing; he could make no sound. He shook his head.

“I didn't think so,” his pa said proudly. “You don't see shooting like that around Plainsville, do you?”

Still dumb, Jeff shook his head again.

“Well, where I've been you have to learn to shoot that way or you don't stay alive.” His mouth was not so grim now, and some of the fire left his eyes. He laughed shortly. “I didn't scare you, did I?”

At the very bottom of his stomach Jeff found his voice. “No. It didn't scare me a bit!”

“That's good,” his pa said. “I'd hate to think a Blaine let himself be scared by a little noise.”

It seemed to Jeff that he could still hear the sound of those shots rolling through the cottonwoods. It had not sounded like the cowhands shooting off their guns as they raced their horses through Plainsville. This had been sudden. And there had been no laughter to go with it.

“One of these days,” Nathan told his son, “I'll show you how it's done. Let me see your hands.”

Jeff held out his hands, and his pa whistled softly. “Good and big. That's good. You need big hands to squeeze the butt and catch the hammer.” He held the revolver out to the boy, butt first. “Would you like to try it?”

Jeff blinked in disbelief. He had seen guns all his life, of course, but he had never had a chance to hold one.

“You mean I can shoot it?”

“Sure.” His pa laughed. “Go on, take it.”

Eagerly, Jeff reached for the revolver. Then, with the suddenness of lightning, the revolver blurred in Nathan Blaine's hand and the butt smacked into his palm. Hammer cocked, the muzzle snapped into position directly in front of Jeff's startled eyes.

Jeff had never known pure terror before that moment, with the muzzle so close to his nose that he could smell the burned powder, could feel the heat of the smoking barrel. He felt the blood drain from his face.

Nathan Blaine said, “The muzzle of a gun is not a pretty thing to look into, is it?”

His voice was deadly serious as he lowered the revolver. “Well, that's the first lesson a man has to learn, Jeff, if he wants to stay alive. Don't let yourself get in a position like that again.”

Nathan held the revolver as he had before, by the barrel, upside down, butt extended forward. With one finger hooked in the trigger guard, he gave the gun a flip with his other fingers and wrist. The butt snapped into his palm and the hammer came back on the crook of his thumb at the same moment, and the gun was ready to fire.

“That's called the road agents' spin by some,” Nathan said. “It's sudden death in any language. There's only one way to disarm a man, and that's to make him drop his gun to the ground. When a gunshark makes to hand you his gun, even when it's butt first, you're just a split second away from death.”

Jeff cleared his throat. “I'll—I'll remember.”

“I know you will.” Nathan Blaine smiled quietly. “Do you still want to try it?”

Jeff stared at his father as though he had never seen him before. The boy was not afraid of him, but he understood that the dark look of danger was never far behind Nathan Blaine's black eyes.

“Do you mean it?” Jeff asked.

“I mean it. No tricks this time.”

Jeff jumped from the saddle and took the heavy revolver. That thing of glued steel and polished walnut seemed almost alive, and he had never known that such a thrill of power could come from merely holding a cold, inanimate object. He had not guessed, either, that a .45 could be so heavy. He could hardly keep his arm from trembling as he held the revolver out in front of him. “What'll I shoot at?”

Nathan laughed. “It makes no difference; you won't hit it anyway. This is just to show you what it feels like to have a gun go off in your hand.”

Jeff picked out a cottonwood trunk across the creek. He had to wrestle the hammer back with both hands; then he held the revolver in front of him, aimed it and pulled the trigger.

He had not been prepared for the violent reaction in his hand. He almost dropped the gun. He could feel the shock of the explosion all the way to his shoulder. When the hammer fell, his gun hand leaped up almost over his head, and the roar was deafening.

He had no idea where the bullet went, but the cotton-wood was standing solid and unshaken.

“Try it again,” Nathan said mildly.

This time Jeff was better prepared for the violence of the. recoil. He planted his bare feet solid on the ground, raised his arm slowly and sighted along the barrel, but after the explosion there was no sign that he had hit anything on the other bank. There wasn't even a spray of dust to show where the bullet hit the ground.

“Once more,” his pa said quietly. “This time don't pull the trigger with your finger; just squeeze the butt with your whole hand.”

Jeff tried it the way his pa said, and this time he was delighted to see dirt kick up near the base of the cotton-wood.

“Not bad!” his father said, taking the revolver. He punched out the empty cartridge cases and reloaded the chambers with five rounds from his belt. The hammer went down on the empty chamber and the Colt's went into its holster.

“Could I try it again?” Jeff asked eagerly. “I bet I could hit it the next time!”

But Nathan shook his head. “You've had enough for one day. Just think over what I told you—-that'll do you more good than burnin' up a wagonload of ammunition.”

Jeff noticed that his pa was smiling and seemed to be in high spirits. “Yes, sir,” he said, stepping up to the saddle, “Wirt Sewell is all right as a tinsmith, I guess, but I'll bet he can't teach you to shoot the way your pa can!”

“Shucks,” Jeff said, “Uncle Wirt doesn't even own a gun.

Nathan Blaine laughed. And from the sound, it was easy to tell that he was not a man who laughed often. But now he looked upon his boy with a gentleness that was surprising; the tense line of his mouth was relaxed and the fire behind his eyes was almost invisible.

Jeff climbed up on the bay feeling more a man than he had ever felt in his life. He had felt a good horse between his legs, he had felt the buck of a .45 in his hand, and he had heard a savage music more enticing than a siren's song.

He rode erect arid proud beside the tall figure of his pa.

Nathan was still smiling to himself when they reached the pasture gate. Jeff was put out because this was the one day that Bessie had to be waiting at the gate for him, robbing him of his chance to ride after her on his fine bay mare.

“Seems to me that mare's taken a liking to you, son,” Nathan said. “What do you say I make arrangements to keep her for a while?”

Jeff knew that his eyes were bugging. “You really mean it?”

“Sure I mean it. Look, we'll have a fine time together. Why, you'll be the best rider and the best pistol shot in this part of Texas when your pa gets through with you. And I'll teach you other things, too. Things your Uncle Wirt never even heard about!”

Jeff was stupefied with pleasure. A fine horse to ride all the time! A real Colt's revolver to shoot! Who could tell, maybe his pa would even buy him some thin-soled boots. It seemed that all good things had come at once!

They jogged Bessie almost all the way home. Aunt Beulah was going to raise ned when she found out about it, but Jeff didn't care. Within Jeff's chest there was a kind of pleasant swelling he had never known before. And once his pa reached out and punched him very gently on the shoulder, grinning. It was the only time Nathan had touched him, except for that cool handshake when they had first met in Aunt Beulah's parlor.

He had learned his trade in many schools and from many teachers. He had plied his art in cow camps and on the trail, in the deadfalls of Dodge, around mess fires of the Mexican Army, unconsciously increasing his knowledge of faro, stud, twenty-one and all the other gambling games.

His natural, aptitude for cards was excellent; he had patience, stamina, an alert brain and a long memory. He had never used a holdout harness, and he never wore one of those deadly little derringers tucked away in his vest.

He depended on his skill and knowledge of cards to provide a winning margin in poker, as he depended on his nerve and speed with guns to provide the winning margin in a far more deadly game.

Nathan Blaine could not recall the exact moment when his handling of cards and firearms had acquired the polish of a professional. His school had been a violent one and only the quickest and the toughest had lived—there was a grave in Sonora to mark the success of his first examination, and another in the Indian country, near the end-of-track shantytown, and in New Mexico still another.

There were many places in the Southwest where the name of Nathan Blaine had meaning and was respected and even feared. He had hoped that Plainsville would be different.

This was a town of squatters who never looked beyond their own barbed-wire fences. He had returned to Plainsville just because it was the kind of place it was. To tell the truth, he was tired and needed rest.

Now he sat day after day in Bert Surratt's saloon, stark and bleak as a squatter's barn, turning a dollar now and then with the “grangers,” as the newspapers were beginning to call them. When he fled the town twelve years ago, he hadn't thought he would ever return. When Lilie died he had not imagined that the black despair would ever lift, or that some day he would want to look upon the baby that had killed her.

He had never amounted to much in Plainsville. A livery boy, a part-time rider for the big outfits. Only Lilie had believed in him, had seen anything in him.

And when Lilie died...

He remembered that day all too well; all the grief and helpless rage that had followed him down the years. His wife was dead. The baby—his son—had killed her. In the darkness of his soul he had craved violence, he had longed to lash out and cause hurt, as he had, been hurt. But how could a man hurt a baby; how could a man direct all the hate in his brain against his own new-born son? Yet Nathan could not bear to look at that small, red face; so he had left Plainsville and his son behind, taking his wildness and rage with him.

But now he was back.

He sat at one of Surratt's plank tables riffling a deck of cards over and over in his hands, waiting for someone to come in and start a game. It was a slow way to make a living, being a gambler in a place like Plainsville.

If it wasn't for the boy, he thought, I'd pack up and leave right now!

He'd have to keep clear of the New Mexico country, of course, because he'd heard the marshals were looking for him over there. But there were plenty of other places. If worst came to worst he could always head back for Sonora or Chihuahua—or Indian Territory. The Federal court at Fort Smith wasn't as powerful as it used to be, so the Territory might be a pretty good place.

But Nathan could hardly believe the hold his son had got on him. He had not been prepared to find so much of Lilie in the boy. Even now, after all these years, the sound of her name could squeeze his heart dry, leaving him bloodless and cold, savage with loneliness.

Bert Surratt, the only other person in the place, came over to Nathan's table and took a chair. The saloonkeeper was a beefy man in his late fifties, an early settler.

“Slow today.”

“Every day's slow.”

“Maybe Plainsville will get the railroad,” the saloonkeeper speculated. “There's been talk in that direction.”

“It's just talk,” Nathan said. “Why would a railroad want to lay track out here to the very center of God's nowhere?”

Surratt shrugged. “Well, there's still plenty of cattle around here, if you can get to them through the barbed wire. The town would make a fine shipping center for this part of Texas.”

Nathan gazed without interest at the dirty, flyspecked mirror behind the bar. “Don't you believe it. Plainsville will go on dying until some day they'll have to bury it to keep it from smelling.”

The saloonkeeper looked indignant, although he cursed the town himself for running off the cattle trade. “Now if Plainsville's as bad as all that, why did you come back, Nate?”

Nathan smiled thinly and shrugged. “It's a long story, Bert. Have you got some black coffee over there in that pot?”

The saloonkeeper was annoyed with Nate Blaine. Oh, he'd heard the stories that had been circulating about Nate killing a man in New Mexico—and maybe that wasn't the only one, either. Bert wasn't sure that he liked having a man like that sitting in his saloon day after day taking hard-earned money from the squatter men. Not that he cared for squatters, but they were the only customers he had, just about.

Groaning, Bert lifted himself from his chair and tramped heavily to the end of the bar where he kept the coffee hot over a coal-oil lamp.

And there was another thing he didn't like, Bert thought as he poured the muddy liquid into two thick cups. Plainsville had got over the notion that a man had to have a gun strapped around his middle every time he stepped out of the house. Not many of his customers were heeled these days. He was afraid Nate was going to scare all his trade away.

No doubt about it, Blaine could look plenty dangerous when he wanted to, with that revolver tied down on his right thigh like a Territory gun, and the way he looked at you out of those dark eyes.

If he had his way about it, Bert would just as soon have Nate take his business someplace else.

Surratt put the crock mugs on the table and eased into the chair again. The two men sipped at the scalding coffee, thinking their own thoughts.

It's kind of a funny thing, Bert mulled, that the Sewells would keep a case like Nate Blaine in their house. It was the boy, he guessed. They'd raised the kid like one of their own, and he had heard that kids could get a grip on you if you didn't watch them, like a good horse or a hunting dog. Maybe Wirt and Beulah were afraid Nate would take the boy away if they got his back up.

Well, it was none of his business, Bert decided. As long as Nate behaved himself and didn't start any trouble, he guessed it wouldn't hurt much to have him sitting around the saloon. It wasn't likely that some tanked-up cowhand would come in on the prod, like they used to do.

Nathan Blaine riffled the cards in his strong, lean fingers. Phil Costain, the drayman, came in, and Surratt had to get up again to wait on him.

“Howdy, Blaine,” Phil said from the bar.

Nathan nodded. He did not ask Costain to the table, for the drayman would only be full of questions. Since his arrival in Plainsville, Nathan had had his fill of questions, spoken and unspoken. He knew it would be smart to pack his revolver away in a saddlebag and leave it there, but he'd be damned if he would go about half undressed just because some squatters became uneasy at the sight of a gun.

One thing he had to be proud of, anyway; his son was not afraid of guns. He had been working with the boy just a few days, and already the kid could handle the Colt's as well as a lot of men Nathan could mention.

Jeff had a knack with guns and horses—and with cards, too, for that matter. Nathan smiled quietly to himself, remembering back two days when he had been showing the boy some card tricks in the Sewell parlor. Beulah Sewell had caught him at it, and you'd have thought that Satan himself had put an evil spell on the kid, from the way she had taken on....

“What time is it, Bert?” Nathan called to the saloonkeeper.

Surratt looked at the big key-wound watch that he carried in his vest pocket. “Gettin' on toward four, Nate.” Almost time for the academy to let out, Nathan thought. He blocked the deck of cards that he had been riffling, and slipped them into his shirt pocket. He paid Surratt for the coffee and walked out.

Since coming to Plainsville, Nathan had set a schedule for himself that the citizens could set their watches by. At nine in the morning he rode with Jeff to the academy, then he left the horses in the public corral and took a table in Surratt's place, where he stayed until a few minutes before four. At four o'clock Nathan took his black and Jeff's bay mare out of the corral. He walked the horses up to the head of Main Street, where the boy would meet him.

“Now look here, Nate,” Wirt Sewell had told him a day or so after he had started this schedule. “Jeff's got work to do at the tin shop, and he has to do it after school. A boy can't spend all his free time riding horseback and doing as he pleases.”

Nathan had fixed his dark stare on Wirt and said, “Jeff's my boy. I figure I've got a say in what he can do and what he can't.”

“He's living under my roof!” Wirt said angrily.

“I can take him out from under your roof. Is that what you and Beulah want?”

Wirt Sewell had melted like wax. He had blinked in disbelief and the features of his face seemed to run together. That had been the last Nathan had heard about Jeff's working in the tin shop.

Now Nathan waited with the horses at the watering trough in front of Baxter's store. Pretty soon he saw Jeff coming toward him, up the dusty side street from the clapboard schoolhouse.

This was the moment that Nathan waited for, that first sight of his son coming to meet him. The first day or two there had been other boys with him, excited and green with envy when they saw that glossy bay that Jeff could ride whenever he felt like it. It had given Nathan a warm feeling of pleasure to see his son sitting proud as a prince on that horse while the other boys danced like excited urchins around his feet.

But the other boys had stopped coming. Sometimes the Wintworth boy would come with Jeff as far as Jed Harper's bank, but he would turn off there and head for home without giving the horse or Nathan a second glance.

Nathan Blaine was not blind; he knew what had happened. He did not know how his reputation had reached all the way to Plainsville, but he did know that it had. He could tell by the uneasy way people sidled away from him. He suspected that Beulah Sewell had started the gossip herself without a speck of evidence, but there was no way of proving it. Anyway, he didn't give a damn what these people thought about him. And neither did Jeff.

The boy was a Blaine. He didn't need anybody to lean on.

But as Nathan waited by the watering trough he thought that there was not quite the spring to the boy's step that there had been before. He looked lonesome, plodding barefoot in the deep red dust of the street.

“You look like you had a hard day,” Nathan said, grinning faintly.

“It was all right.”

“Would you like to ride up to Crowder's Creek with me?”

“I don't care,” Jeff said, stroking the bay's glossy neck.

At that moment Nathan could see so much of Lilie in the boy that his arms ached to reach out and hold his son hard against him. But, of course, a twelve-year-old boy would never stand for a thing like that.

At that moment Nathan had a flash of inspiration. He said, “What do you say we let the horses stand a while? I just thought of some business I have to take care of.”

The boy looked completely crestfallen until his pa said gently, “You come along, Jeff. The business has to do with you.”

Nathan stepped up to the plank walk and Jeff followed, puzzled. Side by side they walked along the store fronts, and they could have been the only two people in the world for all the attention they paid the curious eyes that followed them from behind plate-glass windows. Nathan stopped in front of Matt Fuller's saddle shop, which was mostly a harness shop now that squatter trade had taken over the town.

Jeff's eyes widened as his pa turned in and motioned for him to follow. They walked into a rich smell of tanned leather. On the walls of Fuller's shop there hung horse collars of all sizes, and all kinds of leather harnesses and rigging. The floor was littered with scraps of leather and wood shavings; two naked saddletrees stood on a bench, and there were boot lasts and knives and all kinds of tools for the cutting and trimming and dressing and tooling of leather.

When they walked into the shop a bell over the front door jangled and Matt Fuller came up front to see what they wanted.

“I want some boots made,” Nathan said.

Matt squinted over the steel rims of his spectacles. He was a wrinkled, white-haired little man who had been up in years when he first came to Plainsville fifteen years ago. But his hands were still good and strong and he was a fine leather worker when he got hold of a job that pleased him.

“You want 'em made like the ones you're wearin'?” Matt said. When Nathan said yes, the old man took his arm and led him over to where the light was better and studied the boots carefully.

“In front,” Nathan said, “I want them to come about an inch short of the knee, right where the shin bone ends. The back should be cut about an inch lower. The vamps must be made of the thinnest, most pliable leather, and the tops of your best kid.”

“I ain't blind,” the old man snapped. “T can see bow they're made. Well, you'll have to let me measure your foot. And if you want fancy stitchin' or colored insets, that'll cost you extra.”