“Admit it!” Jeff said hoarsely.
“Are you crazy?” Alex tried to laugh.
“You admit it, or you'll be sorry.”
Alex tried to blow himself up. He glanced at the others, drew in a deep breath and swaggered forward. “Just what do you think you're going to do about it? You want to fight, that's fine with me!”
“Gentlemen don't fight with their fists.”
The words surprised Jeff almost as much as they did Alex and the others. Then he remembered that he had heard his father say it several times in describing men like Longley and Hardin.
The shadow of worry vanished from Alex Jorgenson's eyes. He laughed. “You're yellow, Jeff Blaine! You're afraid to fight.”
“You admit you're a liar,” Jeff repeated grimly.
“And what if I don't?”
“I'll kill you.”
Alex did not hear the danger in the words. He laughed once more. “You're yellow!” he said again, and then he lunged at Jeff, hitting him solidly in the face with his big right fist.
Jeff reeled back under the impact, stumbled and fell to the ground. Anger was hot within him. He lost sight of Alex's advantage in age and weight. He was ready to shove himself up and fly into the grinning red face that leered down at him. Then, in his mind, he heard his father saying: “Gentlemen don't fight with their fists.” He stayed down.
Alex Jorgenson was pleased and surprised with his easy victory. He looked at the others, grinning.
“What did I tell you? He's yellow!”
Todd Wintworth was the only one among them to see the danger. He stepped forward, shoving at Alex. “Get away from here, fast! Before somebody gets hurt!”
Alex pushed him away. He strutted now, savoring the situation. “Nobody's going to get hurt,” he bragged. “Jeff Blaine's too yellow to get up and take his beating.”
Jeff spoke hoarsely from the ground. “We'll see who's yellow, Alex! I'll meet you at the cottonwood grove on Crowder's Creek when school gets out. And you'd better bring a gun!”
Jeff would not soon forget the look on Alex Jorgenson's face as the blood drained from it.
Jeff picked himself off the ground and carefully brushed the dust from his new jeans. “I know your pa's got a forty-five,” he said coldly. “It won't be any trouble to snitch it.” He allowed himself a thin smile, not realizing how much he resembled his father at that moment. “I'll see you at the creek,” he said. “Unless you're yellow, Alex.” Then he turned and walked away.
That day, sitting there at his plank bench in the crowded schoolhouse, Jeff could feel the shocked and frightened stares of the pupils upon him. But he didn't care what they thought of him.
He was young Blaine, the son of Nate Blaine. From time to time he would look around to see how Alex Jorgenson was taking it. The boy was still pale. Alex was scared half to death and everybody in the room knew it.
He'll never meet me at the creek, Jeff thought with a sneer. He's yellow clear through.
But Jeff was wrong. At the end of the day Alex and several other boys came up to him in the schoolyard.
Jeff said, “You backing down?”
Alex swallowed. “No. It'll take a little time to get my pa's gun. But I'll be there.”
Jeff would have sworn that Alex never would have gone through with it. But there was a saying that cornered rats would fight, and maybe that accounted for it. Jeff tried not to show his surprise. “Well, just see you don't take too long. I can't wait all day.”
He turned and walked off from the others. Todd Wintworth ran across the yard to catch up with him.
“You're not really going through with it, are you, Jeff?”
Jeff almost laughed. Todd's eyes were popping. “I'm going through with it, all right. I'll teach him to go around telling lies about the Blaines.”
“Are you sure it's lies?”
Jeff stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean by that?”
Todd Wintworth was no coward. He had fought plenty of boys bigger than himself and usually came out on top. But there was something about the set of Jeff's mouth that made him back water.
“I didn't mean anything.”
Jeff stepped out again, walking on hard ground when he could, to keep the red dust from settling on his boots.
“Jeff,” Todd said, “will you tell me something?”
“Sure.”
“Are we friends, or not? You've been acting so funny lately—”
Jeff looked at him. “Sure we're friends. We've always been friends, haven't we?”
“Will you do something for me?” Todd asked.
“What?”
“Go after Alex and tell him not to get the gun.”
Jeff turned on him. “Are you crazy?”
“Go after him, Jeff, before it's too late!” His voice had a curious twang to it, like a fiddle string about to snap. “Fight him with your fists. I know you're not afraid of him.. He's mostly blubber and you can whip him easy.”
“I don't want to whip him with my fists,” Jeff said grimly. He started walking again, and this time Todd stood where he was, letting Jeff go on alone.
Well, to hell with him! Jeff told himself. I don't need Todd Wintworth or anybody else!
Today he did not take the street that went past Jed Harper's bank building, because he knew his pa would be waiting there for him. He cut up the wide alley behind Baxter's store, circled in front of the public corral and headed toward the Sewell house. He was careful not to go past the tin shop and not to let Aunt Beulah see him when he got home.
When he was sure that nobody was watching, Jeff headed for the cowshed where Nathan had hung his saddlebags from a rafter. He knew that his pa kept an extra .45 and several boxes of cartridges in one of the bags.
Sure enough, when he got the leather pouches down he found a heavy Colt's Cavalry carefully wrapped in oiled rags. He loaded it with five rounds from the ammunition carton, easing the hammer down on the empty chamber. He carefully wiped the oil from the revolver and then hid it away inside his shirt.
He felt his heart hammering with excitement, but he was not nervous or scared. His hands were perfectly steady. He peered around the shed wall to make sure Aunt Beulah hadn't seen him, and then he darted around the front of the house and headed toward Harkey's pasture. If anybody wanted to know, he was just heading to the pasture to fetch Bessie.
But nobody wanted to know.
When he reached the barbed-wire gate, he turned north and followed the fence toward Crowder's Creek. When he was sure no one could see him, he took out the revolver and tried to hold it the way his pa did.