Clifton Adams - Gambling Man

But. in spite of all the pledges of loyalty that he had meant to voice, the words were stuck in his throat as he gazed up at those cruel, burning eyes on the other side of the bars. The lines of hate in his pa's face were as deep and hard as chiseled stone. Involuntarily, Jeff took a stumbling step backwards as Nathan grasped the bars in his two hands as though he meant to rip them apart.

“You're not in school!” Nathan accused him roughly.

Jeff swallowed. “It ain't time yet. I came here...”

“... to see what a jailbird looks like? his pa shot at him.

Jeff felt sickness working within him; his throat was choked and swollen. He said, “I wanted to tell you I don't believe it, any of it! All the things people are sayin'!”

He was shocked when his pa threw his head back and laughed harshly. The stubble of beard gave Nathan's face a sunken, wolfish look. Sleeplessness had made his eyes bloodshot and mean.

“So you don't believe it, do you?” Nathan laughed again.

The chill of that underground cage breathed a stickiness of death in Jeff's face. His heart hammered. It was impossible to believe that iron bars could make such a change in a man. He saw his pa as he had never seen him before—a cruel, ruthless man, quick and mean in every move he made. Jeff felt himself shaking. He could no longer look up into those slitted, bloodshot eyes, but turned his gaze helplessly to the floor.

Nathan said harshly, “I don't need you to worry about me, boy. Nate Blaine can take care of himself!”

Now Jeff's whirling thoughts formed words and the words came blurting out. “But it isn't true, is it, what they're saying about the bank! You couldn't shoot an old man like Jed Harper!”

The look that Nathan threw at him made Jeff cringe. “Couldn't I? Maybe Harper was a fool, maybe he tried something that wasn't very smart. Anyway, what can a kid understand about such things!”

Abruptly, Nathan threw himself away from the barred door, facing the opposite wall of his cell. “You better get started for the academy,” he said sharply. “I've got important things to think about.”

Elec Blasingame sat like a block of granite as the boy stumbled blindly through his office and up the cement steps to the street. At last he looked at Ralph Striker, his deputy.

“I believe in giving the devil his due. I guess I didn't figure Nate Blaine had the guts for a thing like that.”

Through the office door they could see Nathan stretched stiff as a corpse on his board bunk, facing the wall. It was one of those rare times when Elec Blasingame felt helpless and did not know what to do. At last he got up and said, “Go on home, Ralph. The town is mine for the day.”

Most of the time the Plainsville marshal was a plodding, methodical man, and that was the way he went about his business today. A nagging seed of doubt had been planted in his mind, and he didn't like it. Elec Blasingame wanted things as clean-cut as possible, either black or white.

His first stop that day was Bert Surratt's saloon, where he stated his problem bluntly.

“Think back, Bert, to just before the bank fracas yesterday. Do you remember a hardcase stranger buyin' a drink or so off you?”

The saloonkeeper rubbed a hairy fist across his mouth, thinking. “There was a stranger in, all right, but I wouldn't peg him as a hardcase. Oh, he was heeled, but all travelers go heeled unless they're fools. Gray-haired geezer, as I remember, about fifty. Looked harmless enough to me.”

“Did you get a look at his animal or rig?”

“No,” Bert said slowly. “Guess I didn't pay him much attention, Marshal. Why do you ask?”

“Was Nate Blaine in here the same time the stranger was?”

Surratt thought about it, scowling. “Sure. I remember because Nate was giving the old bird a goin' over. I figured Nate might have known him from somewhere, but they didn't speak. The stranger pulled out maybe fifteen minutes before Nate did.”

Blasingame listened to the sound of hammering in the alley behind the saloon. “What's that noise?” he asked.

The saloonkeeper smiled. “Carpenters. They're buildin' Jed Harper's casket.” He took a swipe at the bar with a dirty towel. “That damn Blaine; they should have strung him up the minute they caught him.”

“But you wouldn't want to try it single-handed, would you, Bert?” Blasingame turned and walked out of the saloon.

He made several stops between the saloon and the bank building. A clerk in Baxter's store claimed he caught a glimpse of the stranger riding up the street away from Bert's place. Old Matt Fuller, in the saddle shop, had seen the drifter watering his horse at the trough in front of the bank building; he had paid strict attention to the rig because of its quality workmanship, but had hardly noticed the man himself. After that, the stranger could have dissolved in thin air, for all anyone, saw of him.

Just a drifter passing through. There was no telling where he was by now.

But the marshal didn't let it go at that. He went to the bank and stared at the bleak two-story brick building with cool, impersonal eyes. Aside from the Masonic Temple, it was the only brick building in town. Now it was locked tight. There was a black-bordered funeral notice on the door.

For the sake of supposing, Elec tried to reconstruct a situation as it might have been. The stranger had been seen watering his horse in front of the bank some time after he had left Surratt's which would put it close to four o'clock. Now, Blasingame reasoned, it's just possible that he was here when Jed let Beulah Sewell in the bank to deposit her money.

Stretching it a bit further, it's just possible that he could have heard Jed Harper telling Beulah that his help had gone and he was alone. Now, if this drifter had been a hardcase type, as Nate swore he was, maybe that was all the invitation he needed. When he saw the banker leave the door unlocked, maybe he just walked in.

That much Elec might be made to swallow. But how this stranger could have shot the town banker and pulled out of town without a person laying eyes on him—that was the bone that caught in the marshal's throat. He went around behind the bank building and studied the lay of the ground. Now, Nate claimed he saw the man hightailing it out of the side door, probably crossing the street. That being the case, where had the stranger kept his horse?

Blasingame crossed the street where the Ludlow Dry Goods sprawled into the tall weeds of the alley. Not a chance of finding any tracks there; Phil Costain's dray wagon had been back there earlier in the morning.

Anyway, the chance that the killer would run across the street and simply sit tight while the whole town looked for him was a very long one. Not many men had the nerves for that kind of waiting.

There was not an ounce of solid evidence to back up Nate Blaine's story. On the other hand, there was the money that hadn't been found, and Nate's gun, which had been fully loaded when they found him. Those things would be explained easily enough—still, the marshal didn't like the smell of it. He didn't like the doubts that were growing in his mind. Elec headed back to the office to see if Kirk Logan, his day deputy, had showed up yet.

Kirk, a towheaded youngster in his middle twenties, was just strapping on his cartridge belt when the marshal came in. He grinned, but it turned uneasy when he saw the glint in Elec's eyes.

“Sorry I'm late, Elec. But the baby had the croup and I had to rout out Doc Shipley—”

“Never mind,” the marshal said shortly. “I want you to round up some men and scour every inch of this town between the bank and the public corral. If that bank money is hidden in Plainsville, I want it. Understand?”

Logan swallowed. “Sure, Elec. I'll get right to work.” He turned to go out of the office, but stopped when he reached the steps. “I just thought of something. What if somebody has already found that money?”