Amy had run blindly from the house, both hate and pity churning within her. Not until she had reached the marshal's office did she fully realize that Nathan had planned it so. He was used to being hated, feared—but Nathan Blaine was not the kind of man to accept pity.
So she tried to tell Elec Blasingame what had happened, but there was no way she could communicate to another what she had seen and felt instinctively. She ended lamely, “I think Jeff's in trouble, and that's what Nathan wants to talk to you about.”
“That boy's been getting deeper in trouble for a long time,” Elec scowled. “I think this is a trick of Nate's.”
But he wasn't sure. And if he had been sure, there was very little he could do about it, with Wirt and Beulah Sewell being held as hostages.
He would have to play it Nate's way, whether he liked it or not. “All right,” he said finally. “I'll go. But you stay here, Amy, until I get back.” Before heading for the stairs, he called to Kirk Logan. “Get on the street, Kirk, and see if you can find young Blaine. Keep your eye on him, but don't let him see you watching him. Understand?”
The deputy nodded, puzzled. “Sure, but why?”
“Never mind; just do as I say.” Then, halfway up the steps, Elec thought of something else. He wasn't sure that it meant anything, but this was no time to take chances. “By the way, Kirk, that gambler in town that goes under the name of Milan Fay—the one that hangs out at the Green House. Keep an eye on him too, if you can. Let me know what they're doing—I'll be at the Sewell place.”
It was a quiet day for Plainsville. The homesteaders were out working the land; the cattle shipping was about over till the next season. A merciless sun blazed down on the town and on Elec Blasingame as he tramped up the plank walk to the bank corner, then cut across town toward the Sewell place. The marshal had no choice in the matter. Nate was calling the tune this time, and Elec had to dance to it.
But that didn't mean that Elec was helpless, trick or no trick. As he went up the path to the Sewell house he loosened his revolver in its holster. His duty was to arrest Nate Blaine, and he was going to do it if he could.
The front door stood open because of the heat, but the front parlor was as dark as a cave to the marshal's sun-blinded eyes. Now he unholstered his .45 and held it at his side as he stepped up to the front porch. Suddenly the doorway was filled with Nate Blaine's big figure, and Elec immediately snapped his gunhand to the ready and said, “Don't move, Nate! You're under arrest.”
Now, if it was a trick, he would soon know it.
Nathan glared at him for a moment, angrily. “I'm not armed, Elec. You can put your gun away.”
But Elec made no move to holster the gun. He hooked the screen door with the toe of his boot and kicked it open. “Back in the room, Nate,” he said sharply, “and don't try anything.”
He came to Nathan like a hull, shoving him back in the room with the muzzle of his .45. From the corner of his eye he saw Wirt and Beulah standing pale and frightened against the far wall. He saw Nate's revolver hanging harmlessly on the hatrack in the hall. Quickly but methodically, the marshal added up every fact within the range of his senses.
It didn't seem like a trick, which made him believe all the more that it was one. “Wirt,” he said, without shifting his gaze from Nathan, “what's he up to? Are you and your wife all right?”
Wirt swallowed hard. “We're all right, Marshal. He had me find the Wintworth girl for him, then he sent her to bring you. That's all I know.”
Nathan said angrily, “I wanted to talk to you. Can't you understand a simple thing like that?”
“No, I can't,” Blasingame said harshly. “You know you're wanted in Texas, as well as some other places. You knew I'd put you under arrest. I've never seen the man who'd deliberately ask for twenty years in prison, or maybe even a hangman's noose.”
With fire and danger swimming in those black eyes, Nathan snarled, “Stop being a fat fool, Elec, and put that gun away! If I'd wanted to kill you I'd have shot you from the window as you came up the walk. I'm not an idiot; I know I'm under arrest. But I'll be arrested under my own conditions, Marshal Blasingame, and don't you forget it!”
It had been a long, long time since any man had talked that way to Elec Blasingame. He was more startled than angered. And then, surprisingly, he found himself reholstering his Colt's. In some way it was impossible to explain he knew that this was no trick, no trap. After a long, careful moment of thought, he said, “All right, Nate, what's on your mind?”
“It's the boy,” Nathan said bluntly.
“What about the boy?”
Nathan rubbed a hand over one lean, hard cheek. “I'm not sure. I don't think he's in any big trouble yet, but he's headed there. News like that travels fast in the out-country. Do you know a hardcase by the name of Bill Somerson, heavy-set, red face?”
Elec's eyes narrowed. “What about him?”
“He rode with my outfit in Mexico till they sent him packing. He knows what happened to me up here, about the bank—all of it. I told him, under a load of wine, and it gave him ideas. The story I heard from the other side of the Border was that Somerson was fixing up something with my boy.”
“And you came all the way from Mexico to stop it?” Elec asked.
“Wouldn't you, if he was your boy?”
The marshal let that pass. “I don't believe you, Nate,” he said flatly. “The boy's been heading for trouble ever since you went to work on him five years ago.”
“Damn it!” Nathan exploded, his powerful shoulders twitching. “He's heading for trouble on my account; that's the reason I came back! He knows I'm in Mexican trouble and that I need money to get out of it. So he's going after the money.”
“By throwin' in with this man called Somerson?”
“How many times do I have to tell you?”
Elec could not miss the note of desperation in Nate Blaine's voice. And in his quick, methodical brain he remembered other things that might tie in with what Nate was telling him. He asked suddenly, “You know a man named Milan Fay?”
Nathan blinked. “Sure. He sided Somerson for a while in Chihuahua.”
More facts added up, and Elec felt a vague uneasiness tugging at the ends of his nerves—the ride Jeff had taken on Fay's horse, the fact that Fay and Somerson had arrived in Plainsville on the same train. It could be that the boy was headed for real trouble—trouble that he'd never get out of. Trouble, Elec thought, like his pa is in now.
He studied Nate quietly for a long while, and once more his memory took him back five years. At that time Nate had all the reason in the world to be full of hate, but he hadn't loaded it on his son. He had kept it bottled within himself and had sent the boy back to Beulah and Wirt.