Clifton Adams - Gambling Man

“I ain't blind,” the old man snapped. “T can see bow they're made. Well, you'll have to let me measure your foot. And if you want fancy stitchin' or colored insets, that'll cost you extra.”

“I guess the fixin's will be up to the boy,” Nathan said quietly. “The boots are for him.”

The old saddlemaker snapped his head around, peering incredulously at Nathan. “Bench-made boots? For that boy?”

Jeff could hardly believe that he had heard his pa correctly. Boots of that kind were very expensive, and he had never known a boy his age having a pair made just for him. Such extravagance would appall the citizens of Plainsville. Quality boots were made to last for years; all except the thin soles, of course, which had to be replaced from time to time.

Matt Fuller snapped, “I ain't in no mood for foolishness, mister. A boy like him would grow out of his boots in no time. Then what'll you do?”

“Then,” Jeff's pa said mildly, “I'll have you make another pair.” Nathan saw the glow of pleasure in his son's eyes and knew that he was doing the right thing.

Matt Fuller didn't take to this idea of spoiling a sprout of a boy with fancy footgear. It was a criminal waste of money. But, after all, he was in the business, and he went grumbling to his bench and gathered up the tools he needed for measuring and fitting.

“Make those vamps snug,” Nathan said as the old man made a paper cutout to fit the instep of the boy's foot. “And the arch high,” Nathan added.

The saddlemaker snorted. “He won't be able to walk from here to the bank buildin'!”

“Riding boots were never meant to walk in,”' Jeff's father answered.

To Jeff, it was as unreal as a dream, but better than any dream he could remember. The old man didn't slight him just because he was a boy. When Matt Fuller made a pair of boots, he made them right; and besides, Jeff's pa was right there to see that he didn't get shorted.

“Now, how about the fixin's?” Nathan asked, when the measuring was done.

“Could I have my initials stitched in red thread?”

“Absolutely,” Nathan smiled. “You want some do-dad stitchin'? Say a quilted pattern, or maybe a butterfly?”

It was a temptation, but Jeff decided he would rather have them like his pa's. Soft black kid from toe to tops.

At last they got it all settled with old Matt. It would take him two weeks to get them finished, the saddlemaker said, and Jeff didn't think he could possibly stand to wait that long. Already he was impatient to feel the tight fit of soft leather on his feet, but he didn't show it any more than he had to.

But just wait till Todd Wintworth and the others saw him in a pair of real bench-made boots! They'd be sick with envy, the whole bunch!

It was an odd thing, Nathan Blaine was thinking, how the glow in a boy's eyes could melt the winter in a man's soul. He guessed that he hadn't felt so good about a thing since the day he and Lilie were married.

He never should have run off, he thought, the way he had twelve years ago. But all that was in the past. Now he was determined to give the boy the best that was in him, teach him everything he knew.

It was a month to the day since Nathan Blaine had ridden unannounced and unwelcomed into Plainsville. Beulah Sewell had just brought in an armful of wood for the cookstove, and was stacking it neatly in the woodbox when Wirt came in the kitchen door. Beulah peered out the window and saw that the sun was almost an hour high.

“You locked shop early,” she accused her husband.

Wirt walked heavily across the kitchen and sat at the oilcloth-covered table. Only then did Beulah notice the bleakness of Wirt's eyes, the prominence of worry lines around his mouth.

“Oughtn't Jeff be bringing that wood in for you?” Wirt asked.

Beulah snorted. “Jeff Blaine's got too big for chores,” she said bitterly. “All he thinks about is rubbing his new boots and horseback riding.”

“That ain't all he thinks about,” Wirt said.

That was when Beulah Sewell knew that something was wrong. She turned to her husband, brushing stovewood chips from her apron. “What do you mean, Wirt?”

He moved uncomfortably on his chair, and Beulah could see that he was beginning to wish that he had never brought it up. But she waited patiently, and at last he started: “Probably it's nothing at all.” And that was the worst thing he could have said. All bad news, it seemed to Beulah, started with “probably it's nothing at all.”

“What I mean—”

Wirt tried again— “I got to talking with Marshal Blasingame, and somehow the subject of Nathan and Jeff came up—”

“I knew it!” Beulah said. “Nathan Blaine's in some kind of terrible trouble! I knew it the minute I laid eyes on him, when he came riding up here that day as big as you please, with that rifle on his saddle. I never saw the revolver at first, may the Lord help me, or I never would have let him in my house.”

“Beulah, Beulah,” her husband said wearily, “it's nothing like that at all. Leastwise, if Nate's in trouble, Elec Blasingame knows nothing about it.”

“Well, he ought to. There's plenty of talk!”

“But it's only talk,” Wirt said patiently. “When the railroad comes, and the telegraph, Elec will be able to track down what talk he hears, but not now. Anyway, what he was telling me is something entirely different.”

“Well, don't keep me in the air!” Beulah said. “Can't you come right out and say whatever it is?”

“I'm trying, Beulah. Well, the talk got around to Nate and Jeff, like I said, and Elec mentioned that he'd been up toward Crowder's Creek and had seen them there.”

“I'm not surprised,” his wife said shortly. “No time for anything but horseback riding, neither of them.”

“And target practice,” Wirt added.

Beulah blinked and looked puzzled.

“I'm putting it just the way Elec said,” Wirt told her. “He said he saw Nate and the boy there on the bank of the creek. They were shooting up just about everything in sight, according to Elec.”

His wife looked indignant at such a thought. “Why, Jefferson is just a child, not much more'n a baby! He can't shoot a gun!”

“What I'm trying to tell you,” Wirt went on, “is that his pa was teaching him how to shoot. They were having a regular drill, Elec said, with Nate showing the boy just how to aim and everything.”

Beulah was struck dumb at such a suggestion. Her mouth worked, but she made no sound. She sank slowly onto a chair across the table from her husband.

Wirt shook his head. “I know. I couldn't believe it, either. But Marshal Blasingame is not a lying man. He swore he saw Jeff firing Nate's revolver, and doing a better job at it than most men.”

Beulah Sewell's small round face was hard as concrete. “Wirt, we've got to do something.”

Only once before could Wirt remember seeing that bitter look of self-righteousness on his wife's face. That memory took him back ten years or more, and in his mind he could still see the stricken face of Widow Stover just before she'd been railroaded out of town. The “widow” had been known in Plainsville as a loose woman, though few, if any, could tell exactly how the epithet had been earned. She had worked a while at the Paradise eating house, where the rougher element congregated. On top of that, the widow's cheeks appeared unnaturally pink to some, and it was rumored that she painted them. Also, the widow had an exceptionally brassy voice and loved to laugh.

Wirt Sewell could not explain just why Widow Stover came to his mind at this moment, but he thought it had something to do with that set hardness in Beulah's face. That time so long ago she had looked at him in just the same way: iron-hard wrinkles around her small, pursed mouth, her pale eyes ablaze. “Wirt,” she had said that time, in just the same voice, “we've got to do something.” And the next day a delegation of Plainsville women had escorted Widow Stover to the stage office, where they purchased for her a one-way ticket out of the county.