Gambling Man

by Clifton Adams

  For a moment she slipped into a dense mist of pain. What was the matter with that Jed Harper? Why didn't he help her? Why did he leave her lying on the floor like this, helpless?

  She didn't dare move her head. Every move she made caused the floor to lurch sickeningly and increased the agony in her head.

  Through the mist she heard a voice snarling angrily, “I said open that vault! And be quick about it!”

  Beulah heard Jed Harper's voice, sputtering and scared. A fine man he is, Beulah thought, for people to leave money with! She'd tell Wirt about this! They'd take their money out of this bank and put it somewhere else!

  Still, she was afraid to move. When she opened her eyes the lurching of the room made her violently sick, and she decided to lie quietly. Sooner or later someone would come to help her. But she wouldn't depend on Jed Harper!

  Then she heard boot heels running away from the vault. Beulah made herself open her eyes again, and saw a hazy, distorted form that hardly looked like a man at all. A voice shouted, “Don't try it, mister!”

  A revolver exploded. The crashing sound made Beulah cringe, her eyes tightly closed. The side door of the bank opened and closed j then there was complete silence in the building.

  Several seconds must have passed before realization drifted through the pain. The thief was gone. But it was so quiet....

  Finally she realized that Jed Harper must be dead. Beulah lay like stone, her mind racing. She discovered that she could move now and the pain was not so bad. But she lay there thinking....

  Her small, pale eyes took on the cast of steel. Every nerve in her tight-wound body twanged like a fiddle string. She made herself sit up. Her heart hammered, her head throbbed, but she forced herself not to think so much of the pain. Slowly, inch by inch, she gained her feet and stumbled to the bank's front door. She fell almost into the arms of Phil Costain.

  “Miz Beulah!” the big drayman said, startled. “You better stay inside; there's shootin' goin' on somewhere!”

  Beulah's throat felt raw. “Get Elec Blasingame,” she said. “Get him here quick!”

  Other men were gathering around. Some were running up the street trying to find out where the shot had come from. “Miz Beulah,” Phil said, “you better sit down; you don't look so good to me.”

  “You fool!” she told him angrily, “get me the marshal! I think Jed Harper's just been killed!”

  It didn't take Blasingame long to get there. His face was redder than usual, and the smell of whisky on his breath was enough to make Beulah reel. She said, “Did you get him?”

  “Not yet, but we will. Did you see him, ma'am?”

  Beulah locked her jaws for a moment. Then she snapped, “Aren't you going to take a look at Mr. Harper?”

  The marshal turned on Bert Surratt, who had just come up. “Bert, see if you can locate Doc Shipley. Mrs. Sewell, you'd better come back into the bank and sit down.”

  Beulah followed Elec Blasingame into the building and sank weakly into a chair by the rail partition. Elec went to the other side of the partition, stayed a moment and came back. “Jed caught it just over the heart: never knew what hit him.”

  The throbbing in Beulah's head got worse. She tried to think. The most important thoughts she'd ever had were now swimming in her brain, but it was hard to keep them straight in all that pain.

  “Mrs. Sewell,” the marshal said, “did you get a look at this killer, the one that shot Harper?”

  Beulah's thin lips compressed, her small mouth almost disappeared. She looked hard at Elec Blasingame. “Marshal,” she snapped, “don't you think you ought to be out looking for the killer instead of pestering a poor hurt woman like me?”

  “I just want to know if you saw the killer, ma'am.” He waited a moment, then added, “There are plenty of men scouring the town, but it would help if we knew who to look for.” Beulah Sewell's jaws locked again. It gave Elec Blasingame a chill to see her sitting there as cold as a block of stone. “Please, Mrs. Sewell,” he said with great patience, “this is important. You are the only one alive who could have seen him.”

  Still, Beulah said nothing. A glassiness appeared in her pale eyes. She sat staring... staring... Elec had the chilly feeling that she was looking right through him at something on the other side of the world. Anger and impatience swelled within him.

  “Look,” he said shortly. “Every minute counts, ma'am. Surely you can understand that. Now please, as quick as you can, tell me exactly what happened.”

  Wirt Sewell burst through the front door at that moment, pale and frightened. “Beulah, you're all right!”

  “My head hurts,” his wife said peevishly.

  Elec Blasingame, outwardly, remained calm. “Wirt, Doc Shipley'll be here directly to look her over. Now it's important that she tell us what she saw.”

  “Even if she's hurt?” Wirt demanded.

  “Even if she's hurt!” Elec said.

  After a tense moment, Beulah said, “All right, I guess I'd have to tell sooner or later, anyway.”

  “You don't have to talk if you don't feel like it,” her husband told her.

  “Damn it, Wirt!” the marshal exploded. “You stay out of this!”

  By this time a good-sized crowd had gathered in the bank building, tensely waiting for what Beulah Sewell had to say. “My head hurts,” she said weakly. “It must have been a gun he hit me with.”

  “Who hit you?” Elec put in quickly.

  “I'll have to tell it my own way, Marshal. You see, Jed was locking up when I got to the bank. He let me in and was about to make me a receipt when the door opened again and in came this—”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He told me not to turn around,” Beulah went on, as though she hadn't heard the question. “But I did. He didn't want me to look at his face; that's why he hit me. It didn't do him any good,” she added grimly. “I got a good look at him. I stared right to the bottom of his mean eyes before he hit me. I guess he thought he'd killed me. He wouldn't have run off the way he did if he'd known I was alive to tell about him.”

  The marshal sensed that she had reached the end. “Mrs. Sewell,” he said gently, “who was it?”

  “May the good Lord help him,” Beulah said grimly. “It was my own brother-in-law, Nathan Blaine.”

  Chapter Eight

  A SOUND OF AMAZEMENT rose inside the building. Elec Blasingame had been prepared for almost anything—but not this. When he spoke, his voice held the rasp of urgency. “Mrs. Sewell, are you absolutely certain?”

  “Of course I'm certain. I looked right at him.”

  “You also told me that it must have been a gun that he hit you with,” Blasingame shot at her. “Seems to me that you'd have known it was a gun if you were looking at him.”

  Beulah's small eyes bored into the marshal's face. “You're not calling me a liar, are you, Elec Blasingame?”

  “You know better than that, ma'am. I just wonder if you actually turned and looked at this man, or if you merely thought you did. Put a person's mind under a strain and it sometimes plays funny tricks.”

  The look she gave him chilled the marshal like a cutting rain. “My mind wasn't playing tricks!” she bit out. “I turned and looked at Nathan Blaine, and that's why he tried to kill me.” She raked the crowd with her anger. “You think I wouldn't recognize my own brother-in-law? You think I like dragging my family's name in the mud? And the boy Wirt and I raised like our own—do you think I'd hurt him like this if I didn't have to?”

  “All right, ma'am,” Elec said heavily. “I just wanted to make sure.” He turned to Bert Surratt, who was standing at his elbow. “Nate Blaine couldn't have been in your place while the bank was being robbed, could he?”

  Bert shook his head. “Funny thing. Blaine started drinkin' the minute he come in from your office. He left the saloon before the shootin'. Said he needed some air.”

  Elec watched Beulah's face carefully, but it was set like iron and told him nothing. He turned shortly and he
aded for the door. “It looks like Nate Blaine's our man.”

  As soon as school let out Jeff headed for the bank corner where Nathan usually waited for him. His pa wasn't there today. Instead, there was a scattering crowd of angry-eyed men, most of them carrying shotguns or rifles. There was a hoarse yell from the far end of the street, near the public corral, and old Seth Lewellen came hobbling out of the bank building and said, “By golly, it sounds like they found him!”

  Not since the cattle trade had quit Plainsville had Jeff seen so much excitement in the town. He pushed up to the door of the bank, trying to see what was going on. He almost ran into his Uncle Wirt and Aunt Beulah, who were just coming out.

  “Jeff,” Wirt said roughly, “what are you doing here?”

  “The academy just let out,” Jeff said, puzzled. “I always come this way. What's all the excitement about?”

  “Never mind that,” Wirt said. “Help me get your Aunt Beulah home; she's had an accident.”

  “What kind of an accident?”

  Wirt looked at him, and Jeff had never seen such fire in those usually mild eyes. “Stop asking questions,” he said shortly, “and take your aunt's arm.”

  Aunt Beulah looked kind of funny too, Jeff was thinking. She was leaning on her husband, her eyes almost closed, her face as pale and bloodless as bone china. She hardly even looked at Jeff as he got on her left side and took her arm.

  “I want to go home,” she almost whimpered.

  “It's all right, Beulah,” Wirt said gently. “Do you feel like walkin'?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I can hustle down to the corral and rent a hack of some kind.”

  “No,” Beulah said weakly, “I can walk all right. Don't joggle me like that, Jefferson; it hurts my head.”

  Jeff held her steady by the elbow. “What happened, Uncle Wirt?” he asked again, bursting with curiosity.

  His uncle's voice turned harsh. “Never you mind!”

  Together, they helped Beulah down the steps and began moving slowly along the walk. Jeff kept looking back at the gathering crowd at the far end of the street. It was growing larger and had a mean, rough sound to it. There was something in that sound that started a chill at the base of Jeff's spine.

  They crossed the street, took short cuts toward home, and finally got Beulah to the house. Wirt made his wife he down on the couch in the small parlor and sent Jeff to draw a bucket of cold water from the well. Wirt dipped a towel in the water and wrapped it around Beulah's head.

  “How does that feel?” Wirt wanted to know.

  There was a strange emptiness in her eyes. “I'm all right,” she said lifelessly.

  “I think I ought to see what's happened,” Wirt said. “Jeff will be here if you want anything.”

  Jeff wanted to cry out in protest. He was crawling with curiosity and nobody would tell him anything. But he couldn't miss the urgency in his uncle's voice when Wirt turned to him and said, “You watch after her, Jeff. I won't be long. If anything comes up, you hightail it after Doc Shipley, understand?”

  Reluctantly, Jeff nodded. But how could he be expected to do anything when he didn't even know what was wrong with his aunt? After Wirt was gone Jeff took a chair on the other side of the room and began his uneasy vigil. Aunt Beulah didn't do a thing but stare up at the ceiling.

  This wasn't at all like his aunt; there was something about the way she lay there, motionless as a corpse, that gave him a spooky feeling. Soon he looked away and tried to fix his mind on something else.

  After a long while Beulah turned her head to look at him. “Jefferson,” she said weakly, “no matter what happens, I want you to remember something. I love you like you was my own son. I love you more than anything in the world, I guess.”

  Jeff squirmed uncomfortably. He didn't like this kind of talk, and it didn't sound like his aunt at all.

  “Will you remember that, Jefferson?”

  “Yes, ma'am,” he said self-consciously.

  She smiled then—the strangest, saddest smile that Jeff had ever seen. “That's good,” she said. “Just so you remember.” And then she went back to staring at the ceiling....

  Almost an hour passed before his uncle returned. “Well,” Wirt said heavily, “they got him.”

  He did not look at Beulah. He cast his gaze all about the room, everywhere but the couch on which his wife was lying. Slowly she brushed the wet towel from her head and sat up..

  “Wirt, what happened?”

  Her husband glanced sharply at Jeff and said, “Not now, Beulah.”

  Some of the old fire returned to Beulah's eyes. And when she jutted out her small chin and stared her husband down, Jeff knew that she couldn't be hurt very bad. She said, “The boy has to know some time. It might as well be now.”

  Wirt Sewell looked as though he had gained ten years in age. He dropped heavily to a cane-bottom chair. “It was not a pretty thing,” he said flatly. “They were going after Nate with ropes. They would have strung him up if it hadn't been for Elec Blasingame.”

  The mention of his father's name set Jeff's heart to hammering. He wanted to leap up and demand to know what they were talking about, but he was unable to move or make a sound. It was almost as if he were frozen in one position, his throat paralyzed and dry.

  His uncle turned to him and said with gentleness, “You'll have to know it, Jeff; your pa's in bad trouble. He robbed the bank and killed Jed Harper. Now they've caught him and got him locked up.”

  Jeff stared at his uncle through a sudden haze of anger. He heard himself shouting, “It's not. true! You're lying!” Wirt stared at the floor, his face gray. “You're lying!” Jeff shouted again. “Jefferson, you hush up!” Beulah said. Unsteadily, she stood up and took Jeff's shoulders in her hands. “It's true,” she said shortly. “I tried to warn you that your pa was worthless and no good, but you wouldn't listen to your Aunt Beulah. Well, maybe now you'll listen!”

  Chapter Nine

  SHORTLY AFTER SUN-UP Elec Blasingame arrived at his office in the basement of the Masonic Temple, to relive the night deputy.

  “Any trouble, Ralph?”

  Ralph Striker, Elec's second in command, was dozing on his shotgun at the plank desk. Now he blinked and rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. “Morning, Elec. No trouble to speak of. Plenty of talk, but that's about as far as it went.”

  “Lynching talk?”

  The deputy shrugged. “I guess so, but they've cooled off by now.”

  “How about Nate Blaine; has he cooled off any?”

  The deputy, a tall, gaunt man in his late forties, smiled faintly. “I don't know. I haven't been near him since midnight!”

  “Did he talk?”

  The smile widened, wearily. “He cusses anybody that comes within yellin' distance of his cage, if you can call that talking.”

  “I see,” the marshal said heavily.

  The deputy got up from the desk and racked his shotgun on the wall. As Ralph Striker tramped out of the office, the marshal took the chair and scowled. Almost immediately he got up again, took the cell keys from his desk and headed down the corridor toward the single iron cage which was the Plainsville jail.

  Nathan Blaine lay stretched out on a board bunk, one arm flung over his eyes. When he heard the rap of boot heels on stone, he snapped to a sitting position, his eyes bitter. The marshal paused at the iron-barred door.

  “Nate, you ready to talk?”

  Nathan stood up in his cage. “You haven't caught him?”

  “Caught who?” the marshal asked.

  “The man that robbed the bank and killed old man Harper.” All the bitterness was in his eyes—his voice was only slightly edged with anger.

  Elec rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I figured we had the killer in jail,” he said mildly. “However, I'm willing to listen to anything you've got to say, Nate.”

  With an iron will, Nathan clamped down on his nerves and anger. He forced himself to remain calm, knowing that his very life depended on
how clearly he was able to think this thing out. He made himself look into the marshal's eyes and say, “You've got the wrong man, Elec.”

  “I'm listening.”

  “All right; this is what happened. I'm not a drinking man, but like a fool I got tanked up yesterday after leaving your office. I got to thinking about something, and the more I thought the more I drank. Around four o'clock I was feeling sick. I needed air. I walked to the end of the block, went around behind the bank building where the grangers hitch their teams, and was heading for the corral when I heard the shooting.”