Clifton Adams - Gambling Man

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 it 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?”