Gambling Man

by Clifton Adams

  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.

  “Where are you?” a voice yelled hoarsely. “Damn it, where are you?”

  Bud and Rob looked at each other and then at Jeff. It was a man's voice, and i
t sounded mean. Then a tall, angry figure broke into the clear and stood on the ridge for a moment in an angry crouch. It was Feyor Jorgenson, Alex's old man.

  Bud Slater and Rob Lustrum jumped to their feet as if to run, and then they stood frozen as old Feyor came tramping savagely down the slope in their direction.

  Jeff saw at a glance what had happened. Either Alex had gone yellow and blurted the whole story to his pa, or old Feyor had caught him sneaking his pistol and had beat the truth out of him. It didn't matter which. Jeff saw that he was in a spot.

  Old man Jorgenson's temper was legend in Plainsville, but Jeff had never seen him quite as mad as he was now. His small bloodshot eyes seemed to be spurting fire from beneath his shaggy brows. His heavy blacksmith's shoulders were hunched like some big cat ready to spring, the hard muscles standing out like knotted rope beneath his sweat-stained hickory shirt. Feyor raked Bud and Rob with one savage look and then ignored them. To Jeff he snarled, “You're that damn outlaw's kid, ain't you?”

  Jeff felt something go hard inside him. He stood slowly, wondering if he could draw and trigger the Colt's before old Feyor could spring.

  “My name is Jefferson Blaine,” Jeff said clearly.

  He did not think it strange that a mere boy should stand there coolly, facing up to an ox of a man like Feyor Jorgenson. Jeff carried the difference in his waistband. Let old Feyor start something, if he wanted to. Just let him start it.

  “You no-account young whelp!” Jorgenson shouted. “You want to fight, do you? You want to fight with guns, do you? Well, by hell, I'm goin' to teach you there's somethin' more dangerous than guns! I aim to give you the whallopin' of your life!”

  Within Jeff's rigid frame a fuse was burning. Not yet, he thought coldly. Not yet... Wait for him to come at me. He's almost ready. The fuse is burning short. Now!

  Old Feyor sprang at him.

  Jeff grabbed the Colt's from his waistband, cocked it hard with the heel of his left hand and triggered with his right. The explosion was like thunder, but the shot was wild, and Jorgenson did not stop. The bulk of him loomed like a thunderhead and he came down on Jeff like a mountain.

  An enormous fist lashed out, and Jeff's pistol flew from his hand. Feyor cuffed with his other hand, like a grizzly ripping out a deer's belly, and the world spun.

  Jeff struck the ground with the side of his face. His head rang. He fell head over heels and couldn't seem to stop rolling. There was no breath in his lungs.

  Old Feyor stood over him, cursing like a madman. He grabbed the front of Jeff's shirt and jerked him to his feet. Jeff saw the huge openhanded fist loom in his face and explode again. He went spinning, tumbling, falling in the other direction.

  He was helpless. There was thundering pain in his head and a razor in his side. And every time he hit the ground, old Feyor would grab him to his feet, the open fist looming up again.

  Through it all he could hear Feyor cursing. “You try to kill my boy! You are evil! You are like your pa, an outlaw! A killer! I teach you! Pull a gun on Feyor Jorgenson, will you!”

  How long it lasted Jeff could not say. The awful shocks of Feyor's powerful slapping became unbearable. He tried to run but Feyor caught him. He tried to scramble down the creek bank, but Feyor jerked him up and slapped him again. Shamelessly, Jeff wanted to cry, but there was no breath in his lungs for crying. He wanted to beg for mercy but could not speak. Suddenly it stopped.

  Jeff lay on the ground, his head throbbing, his mouth salty with blood. A pair of strong hands took his shoulders and turned him over.

  “You all right, son?”

  It was Nathan Blaine, his pa.

  Jeff opened his eyes and saw others coming down the slope to the cottonwoods. Phil Costain, Mac Butler, old Seth Lewellen, Elec Blasingame, and several others. Marshal Blasingame and Mac Butler were holding Feyor by his arms and Feyor was still cursing.

  “Jeff, are you all right?” Nathan asked again, anxiously.

  Jeff nodded. He tried moving his legs and arms and they seemed to be all right. His pa took a red handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped some of the blood and dirt from Jeff's face. Nathan helped his son to sit up and he said, “You'll be all right when you get your breath.”

  The voice was gentle, but Jeff had never seen a fire so bright as the one that showed in his pa's eyes. Nathan said, “Just sit where you are. I'll take you down to the Sewells' in a minute.”

  Nathan Blaine rose to his feet, taller by inches than any man present. His head thrown back, he glared his hate at Feyor Jorgenson. The other men seemed uneasy, not knowing exactly what to do.

  “Jorgenson,” Nathan said, his voice as cold and brittle as winter ice, “I never want to see your face again. Do you understand?”

  Marshal Blasingame said, “Just a minute, Nate.”

  “I mean it, Jorgenson,” Nathan added. “If I ever see your face in Plainsville again...” He left the words hanging, the frosty silence more expressive than anything he could say.

  Elec Blasingame's face was flushed. “You hold your tongue, Nate!” he said sharply. “And for you, Jorgenson, I'm not standing for what you did to this boy, no matter what cause you might have had. You'll likely get your day in court for this, but it'll be square and legal.”

  Nathan said nothing, but twin seas of rage were in his eyes, a silent warning to Jorgenson. Elec said shortly, “Nate, you'd better take the boy home.”

  Nathan stood like stone, making his warning absolutely clear. Jorgenson squirmed as these fierce eyes fixed themselves upon him. He looked down at the ground, his face slightly gray.

  Blasingame shot an angry glance at Nathan, then turned to Feyor. “Get this straight, Jorgenson; you don't have to be afraid of anybody but the law.”

  But Jorgenson did not look up or indicate in any way that he had heard. Nathan Blaine's deadly warning had reached him, sapping his anger and his strength. Feyor was a strong, proud man, and he had no wish to die. He said emptily, “I guess I better get back to my work.” Restraining hands fell from his arms, and he turned and tramped heavily up the grade.

  The marshal glared his anger at Nathan, but he knew there was nothing he could do unless a more tangible form of violence arose from this. He threw a hard glance around at the other men and said, “All right, it's all over. Get on back to town.”

  After the others had gone, Blasingame stood looking down at Jeff. “Are you all right, boy?”

  Jeff nodded and rose stiffly to his feet. The marshal said abruptly, “Take him home, Nate. Then I want to see you in my office.”

  Nathan gave him a short nod as if to say maybe he'd come and maybe he wouldn't. Red in the face, Blasingame left them.

  There was a strange gray look around the edges of his pa's lips, Jeff noticed, as Nathan picked his spare Colt's out of the grass and put it into his back pocket. He did not mention the gun at all, nor the fact that Jeff had taken it from the saddlebag. All he said was: “I left my black down the creek a piece. We can ride double to town.”

  They had hardly more than reached the cowshed when Beulah flew into them. Jeff had never heard such carrying on. She was red in the face and her eyes popped, and that tight little mouth of hers spewed the meanest things Jeff had ever heard—even for Aunt Beulah.

  The way she pitched into them, you'd get the idea that Jeff had been at fault all the way and Feyor Jorgenson was as white as snow. And it beat Jeff why his pa took everything she had to say and didn't come back with a word of his own. Aunt Beulah was going at it so hard that Jeff didn't have time to wonder how the news had got around so fast. It seemed as if the whole town knew about it.

  When his aunt started accusing Nathan of being a murderer and of teaching his son to kill, Jeff started to pitch in with a piece of his own. But his pa squeezed his shoulder with a hard, lean hand, and Jeff shut his mouth without saying a word.

  The same thing happened when Aunt Beulah told his pa that he was a disgrace to the family and she didn't want him in her house any more.

&n
bsp; Jeff was going to tell her that he wasn't going to stay either if his pa couldn't. But that strong hand on his shoulder silenced him.

  Then Nathan said, “All right, Beulah, that's enough.” There was something in the quiet way he said it that made Aunt Beulah pull up short. She scowled, her round little mouth as hard as a knothole in an oaken plank.

  Nathan said, “I'll get out of your house, Beulah. You don't have to say any more.”

  Jeff pulled himself up as tall as possible, filled with anger. “I'll go, too!”

  “No,” Nathan said quietly. “Not now. I'll tell you when.” Beulah looked as though she had been slapped, but Nathan did not look at her again. Jeff wanted to argue, but he watched his pa turn and walk ramrod-straight to the cowshed, and decided against it.