Clifton Adams - Gambling Man

“Somerson?” Jeff called.

“Who wants to know?”

“Jefferson Blaine. Nate Blaine's my father.”

Somerson stepped through the doorway, a snub-nosed carbine on his hip at the ready. “Who sent you?”

“A man called Fay. Milan Fay.”

Somerson laughed and slung the carbine in the crook of his arm. “I would of knowed you anyway, kid; you've got the Blaine mark stamped all over you. Tie your animal to a brush and climb down.”

Somerson waited by the corner of the shack as Jeff left the claybank in a thicket of blackjack. He held out a big hand as Jeff came up to him. “By hell, you're Nate all over again. I'm proud to shake hands with you, son; that business of turnin' the posse just about saved this dirty neck of mine!”

Jeff studied the man quietly, his hand smothered in Somerson's bearlike fist. “I didn't know who they were after,” he said.

Somerson laughed again. “No matter. It showed clear enough whose side you're on, and that's good enough for Bill Somerson. Yes sir, you're Nate Blaine all over again. Come on in and we'll have breakfast.”

Somerson turned abruptly and lunged back through the doorway. Jeff followed him inside and was hit by the pungent smell of frying salt pork. The shack itself had the powdery smell of bleached bones about it; the dirt floor had grown up in weeds which had been tramped down. A small smokeless fire of carefully selected hardwood was going in the fireplace, where fat pork sizzled in an iron skillet.

Jeff turned his attention on Somerson, who was turning the meat with the point of his pocket knife. He saw a florid man in his early forties, bulging and heavy with hard fat; his long, pale hair was as fine as silk, flowing and drifting about his head with every slight breeze within the shack.

Jeff squatted beside the fireplace, putting his back against the sod wall. “The man called Fay said you had a message for me.”

“That's right.” Somerson opened a can of hardtack and dumped the rocklike biscuits onto a saddle blanket. From a scant store of provisions in the comer of the shack, he found some coffee. “Me and Nate rode for the same bunch down in Chihuahua. When he heard I was headed back this way, he wanted me to look you up.” He poured coffee into the hardtack can and added water from a canteen. “This ain't much of a way to live,” he said blandly, putting the can on the fire to boil. “But I figure to do better before long. Is that fat marshal still lookin' for me?”

“Elec Blasingame doesn't give up easily.”

The outlaw laughed. “He'll never find me here. Wouldn't do him any good if he did; I'm out of his county.”

“I wouldn't count too much on that,” Jeff said. “Elec's just a town marshal; doesn't have any legal authority outside the limits of Plainsville. But that didn't stop him from bringing a posse after you before.”

Somerson frowned. “I thought you didn't like lawdogs.”

“I don't, but it would be a mistake not to give Elec his due. Once he gets his teeth into something, he's hard to break loose.”

Somerson rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That might be a good thing to know. But I was talkin' about your pa, not the marshal.” He busied himself with the pork, not looking at Jeff. “I guess you know Nate had a little trouble over in the New Mexico country. He's got an idea the government marshal would like to get his hands on him; that's why he's stickin' below the Border. Your pa'd like to see you, son.”

Jeff felt his heart hammering. “When?”

“Pretty soon, I guess. I can take you south when the time comes—but first Nate wants you to do him a favor— a big one.” Somerson set the skillet off the fire, and now he turned his eyes directly on Jeff. “I'll tell you the truth, kid. Your pa's pretty hot about the way they tried to railroad him in this town. He said he wants you to settle the score for him. Nate Blaine wants that town of yours turned upside down and shook till its teeth rattles. You understand?”

Jeff heard his own breath whistle between his teeth. It didn't sound like Nate, putting his work on somebody else. “He said that?”

Somerson stared at him. “Would I have a reason to he to you?”

“No. I guess not.”

“And hasn't Nate got plenty of right to his hate?”

“Yes. Both of us have.”

“Now you sound like your pa!” the outlaw grinned. He speared a piece of fat pork with his knife, clamped it between two pieces of hardtack and began eating. “Help yourself,” he said, nodding. “You know, I rode a long piece out of my way just to see you, kid. But I told Nate I'd look you up, and I don't go back on my word.”

“You still haven't given me the message.”

“Don't be in such a hurry; I'm just gettin' to it. We'll have to go back a way to get at the beginning. Me and Nate were ridin' together for this reb general on the other side of the Border, and that's how I came to find out how they railroaded him up here.”

“He told you?”

“That, and plenty more. The more he thought about it the madder he got, I guess, and a man like Nate can get pretty mad in five years' time. Now, it was a bank job they tried to stick him with, wasn't it?”

“And murder.”

“The banker—I almost forgot about him. Anyway, down there in Mexico, Nate stews about it, and after a while he gets to thinkin' what a hell of a thing it would be if he could come back here and really rob that bank. Of course, what with telegraph wires strung all over Texas these days, he couldn't show his face up here. That's where you come in kid. Are you beginnin' to see the way Nate figured it out?”

Jeff stared. “He wants me to rob the bank?”

Somerson's laughter was a sudden outburst that was over almost as soon as it started. “You're gettin' the idea, kid, but it's not as risky as you make it sound. I'm here to help you.”

Jeff glared at the outlaw in disbelief. His memory went back five years, and again he saw the way Nathan had looked at him from behind the bars of Blasingame's jail. At a time like that, when he could have drenched his son with his own hate, Nathan had chosen to tell him nothing. Nathan had let him walk away hating him, because he had thought it would be better for the boy that way.

It didn't stand to reason for that kind of man to ask the things that Somerson claimed for him. Slowly, stiffly, Jeff got to his feet.

“What's the matter?” The outlaw frowned.

“I guess I'll head back for Plainsville.”

Somerson folded his pocket knife, and Jeff could almost see the thoughts racing behind his eyes. At last he slipped the knife into his pocket and rose to his feet, surprising Jeff with a mild grin.

“I didn't fool you, did I? Well, I should have known better than to try to fool a kid of Nate Blaine's.”

“He never said anything about that bank, did he?” Jeff asked tightly.

Somerson shook his head, as though in wonder. “You're just like Nate, all right. Want to see all the cards on the table, don't you? I'll give it to you straight, kid. Nate never sent me up here to look you up, and he never said he wanted you to rob a bank for him. I made that up out of my head, but the rest is the truth. The way he hates this town of yours, especially. Sometimes I thought he was goin' to come back and settle the score himself, government marshal be damned.” He was not grinning now. His face was hard and sober. “You believe that much, don't you?”

“If I did, what difference would it make? I've got no business with you, Somerson.”

“Just a minute; you haven't heard it all yet. Remember, this is the truth—your pa's in trouble, kid. The rebel army we rode for in Mexico got whipped; the ringleaders are bein' shot where they find 'em. That's why I came north. But your pa's not so lucky; he's got no place to run.”