Clifton Adams - Gambling Man

“I'm not going to the yard just yet,” Ford said. “Todd, tell me something, will you?” Then he rubbed the stubble on his face, not knowing exactly how to say it. “What I mean is—”

His son smiled faintly. “I think I know. It's Amy and Jeff Blaine.”

Ford was surprised that his son could read him so clearly. “I didn't know it showed. But you're right. Look here, Todd, is Amy serious about this Blaine boy?”

His son shrugged. “It looks that way. After that affair at the dance, I thought maybe she'd be cured. But I guess I don't know much about women.”

Todd took makings from his shirt pocket and thoughtfully rolled a thin cigarette in his lean, brown fingers. He looked as though he wanted to say something more, then thought better of it and merely nodded. “I guess I'd better get on to the corral, Pa. You going to talk to Amy about this?”

Ford grunted, and didn't answer.

Several minutes later Ford was still on the porch when his daughter came outside. “Pa, I thought you'd gone back to work.”

Ford hesitated, feeling ridiculous. The subtle approach was not a part of the Wintworth make-up, and finally he blurted: “Damn it, Amy, I want to talk to you about this Blaine boy.”

A shade of caution seemed to lower behind his daughter's eyes. But she only said, “All right, Pa.”

“I'll come right out with it,” Ford stated. “I don't think you ought to be seeing young Blaine any more. His reputation was none too good to start with, and it's getting worse every day. That business at the dance was bad enough, but now he's taken to carrying a gun and hanging out in Bert Surratt's place. Amy, I don't believe you ought to see him any more.”

His daughter said quietly, “You aren't ordering me not to see Jeff, are you, Pa?”

Ford Wintworth was far from deaf. He heard the warning tone in Amy's voice with perfect clarity and it brought him up short. He looked at his daughter as though he had never seen her before.

“You know I wouldn't order you to do anything,” Ford said nervously.

Amy smiled. Suddenly she kissed her father on the cheek.

“Don't worry so much about me, Pa. I'm not a young girl who doesn't know what she's doing. I'm a woman.”

For the first time in his life, Ford Wintworth had lost the upper hand with one of his children, but he was smart enough to know it. He murmured something and tried to give the impression that everything was fine and that nothing had changed. As he started back toward town he walked a bit straighter than usual, with great dignity. But within his own mind he knew that his daughter had defeated him.

On the porch of the Wintworth house, Amy also knew that she had won, for the moment. But the victory was not sweet. It is only the beginning, she thought soberly. More lines will be drawn, more battles fought.

Amy loved her father, and her brother, and she had no wish to hurt them or fight with them. But she was also a woman and she knew what she wanted.

Amy still shrank within herself whenever she remembered Jeff Blaine's actions of a week ago. She had been so angry at the time that she swore to herself that she would never speak to him again... but that was before Elec Blasingame had talked to her—before she had heard the story of Beulah Sewell and what she had done to Jeff's father and to Jeff.

Now she could understand the rage that Jeff Blaine had unleashed that night. She could not condone it, but she could live with it for a little while, until the rage had burned itself out.

Mrs. Wintworth, a onetime beauty who had grown heavy and placid, came to the front door. “Amy, there are dinner dishes to be done.”

“All right, Mother.”

“Didn't I hear your father out here?”

“Yes, but he's gone now.” Amy was sure that her mother had heard everything that had been said. But Mrs. Wintworth chose to believe that no problem existed and that Jefferson Blaine was merely a name that came up now and then in quilting gossip. In a vague sort of way Mrs. Wintworth foresaw her daughter marrying one of the acceptable, well-to-do boys of Plainsville and living out her days in a white frame house exactly like the one Ford Wintworth had built for himself and his family—and Amy had learned long ago that it was just as well to let her mother believe what she would.

“All right, Mother,” Amy said again and turned to go in the house.

“Isn't that buggy stopping at our gate, Amy?” Mrs. Wintworth asked.

Amy turned, surprised to see Jeff Blaine draw up at the front gate in a glistening black buggy. Hurriedly, Mrs. Wintworth ducked back into the house, but Amy knew that she would be listening on the other side of the door. Jeff sat for a moment, a tight little smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Am I welcome?” he asked.

It was the first Amy had seen of him since the night of the dance. “Of course,” she said quietly, betraying none of the excitement that hammered within her.

It had always been so. Jeff Blaine could look at her and her blood would race through her veins. Even as children, when he had elaborately refused to admit that she was alive, it had been so. Amy Wintworth understood it better now than she had then.

Abruptly, with nervous quickness, Jeff vaulted out of the buggy and walked unsmiling to the gate. Amy felt something cry out within herself when she saw the tense, hard lines around his mouth. He was so young—and looked so old! Since the coming of the railroad, armed men were no longer novelties in Plainsville, but the sight of the heavy revolver on Jeff's right thigh frightened her. She hoped the fear did not show in her face when she swung open the gate and asked quietly, “Won't you come in?”

“I'm not sure your folks would like it,” he said Stiffly.

“You didn't come to see my folks, did you?”

He did not smile. He looked as though he had forgotten how. “I guess,” he said grimly, “I ought to apologize for —for what happened at the dance.”

His voice and his face are so hard, Amy thought. But she said in the same quiet voice, “Not unless you want to.”

“Well, I apologize.” As though he were reading it from a book. “I didn't mean for you to get mixed up in it.” They stood for a moment in uneasy silence. Then he added, “I rented this rig for the rest of the day. I thought maybe you'd like to ride over toward Stone Ridge with me.”

Amy's eyes widened in surprise. “Stone Ridge?”

“I won a piece of land over there last night. I thought I might as well see what it looks like.”

So he has won some land, Amy thought slowly. Over a gambling table in Bert Surratt's place, probably. A little chill went over her, and she saw for the first time how much he resembled his father.

“Of course,” he said bluntly, “if you don't want to go...”

But Amy knew that she would go. Never in her life had she turned down one of Jeff Blaine's rare invitations. She said, “I'll have to get a bonnet, and tell Mother.”

Mrs. Wintworth looked at her daughter in dismay. “Stone Ridge! Amy, the whole town will talk!”

“The town will talk anyway,” Amy said. Then she turned to her mother and added gently, “Don't you see? He's hurt and angry and thinks the whole world is his enemy. If I turned against him now, there's no telling what he'd do.”

Her mother blinked in disbelief. “Amy, you can't mean that you actually care what happens to a ruffian like Jeff Blaine!”

Amy's face turned blank as she put on her bonnet. “I'll do the dishes when I get back,” she said quietly.

They rode in silence along Main Street. Heads turned to watch as they passed. Amy could feel their disapproving stares. She could almost hear their clucking tongues as they shook their heads from side to side. The corners of Jeff's mouth lifted slightly in a cold, humorless smile.