“Well, Beulah Sewell's got a temper. Anybody in town will tell you that.”
Jeff let it slide, suggesting that he had more important matters on his mind.
“Say,” Bud said, holding the best for the last, “did you hear Alex Jorgenson and his old man lit out of town last night?”
This was news to Jeff, and he didn't try to hide it. “They did? When?”
“In the middle of the night some time; nobody knows for sure. Sam Baxter's raisin' ned, they say. Old Feyor pulled out owin' him thirty-four dollars at the store.”
Jeff felt himself smiling, felt himself growing big inside. It was a strong, good feeling. Big, tough, hard-drinking Feyor Jorgenson pulling up stakes and leaving town in the middle of the night, just because Jeff's pa warned him he'd better! Jeff had known all along that his pa was a powerful man, but he hadn't been sure that he was this powerful.
The excitement of the thought made him want to laugh. Think what it meant having a father who could do things like that! No wonder all the other boys in Plainsville were jealous.
A change came over Bud's face when the two boys turned the corner at the Masonic Temple. “Say, I thought of something,” Bud said. “See you later, maybe.” He wheeled and hurried across the street, hands in pockets, elaborately casual.
That was a strange thing for him to do, Jeff thought, for Bud was heading for the schoolhouse, the same as Jeff was. But the reason for Bud's abrupt action was soon clear. Forrest Slater, Bud's old man, was coming toward him from the other end of the street.
It gave Jeff a queer feeling for a minute when he realized that Bud was afraid to be seen with him. But that hard core of bigness kept him from showing it. He looked old man Slater right in the eye as they passed.
A short way past the temple building Jeff saw Amy Wintworth come out of her house and head toward the academy. He quickened his step along the dirt path, coming up beside her. “Hello,” he said.
She gave him a cool glance. “Todd's gone on ahead,” she said, her chin in the air.
“I'm not lookin' for Todd.”
“Oh,” she said, walking on.
They walked silently. It grated Jeff's nerves that she wouldn't look at him but stared straight ahead. She didn't even notice the bruises that Jorgenson had put on his face.
There seemed no graceful way to fall back or hurry on past her, so he walked forward stiffly, throwing her a glance from the corner of his eye. Surely she had heard about his standing up to Alex Jorgenson, something not many boys his age and size would have done.
At last he felt that the silence had lasted long enough.
“My pa was busy this morning,” he said. “That's why I'm walking instead of riding the bay.”
All he got was a sour look.
“Well, can't you say something?”
“About what?” she demanded.
He shrugged uncomfortably and thought that he never should have caught up with her. She was in a mood, all right, but it did not prepare him for what was to come. She turned on him suddenly, and her eyes glistened with indignation.
“You're right proud of yourself, aren't you?” she snapped. “You think you're something big, don't you, because your father scared a drunken old smithie out of Plainsville?”
Jeff felt the heat anger in his face. “I didn't say a thing about old man Jorgenson, or Alex either!”
“But you were thinking it!” she accused unreasonably. “Oh, I can see the smugness on your face, Jefferson Blaine!”
How could a man defend himself against an assault like that?
“And another thing,” she said. “I heard my father tell Todd not to have anything to do with you or your pa. So don't go running after him.”
If she were a boy, Jeff thought angrily.
But she wasn't. She was a frail girl with pink lips and flashing brown eyes and a yellow ribbon in her hair. Just the same, her words hurt. So Ford Wintworth, her pa, had forbidden Todd to have anything to do with him! And that probably went for Amy too.
Jeff looked at her, then turned suddenly in anger and started to walk away.
He had taken fewer than a dozen paces when his feet began to drag. Darn it, he thought, he'd never understand girls if he lived to be a hundred. She had ruined her birthday party only to take his part—now he couldn't even get her to look at him!
Yet he consciously slowed down until she caught up with him again. “What're you mad about?” he demanded.
“I didn't say I was mad,” she said coolly.
“I've got eyes. What difference does it make, anyway, what happens to Alex Jorgenson and his old man?”
“If you don't know, I can't tell you.”
There seemed to be nothing else to say. Amy could use words like a lash, but they made clean wounds that healed quickly. Whatever's ailing her, Jeff thought, she'll soon get over it. They walked the rest of the way to the academy in silence.
In Elec Blasingame's office, where the county rented space in the basement of the Masonic Temple, Nathan Blaine took a chair and waited. After a minute the marshal came in from another room and said shortly, “You took your time about getting here.”
“I didn't know it was urgent,” Nathan said quickly.
“Old Feyor Jorgenson and his kid pulled out of town in the middle of the night; scared for their lives. That's how urgent it is.”
Nathan's hand moved toward a tobacco sack in his shirt pocket. He said nothing.
Elec Blasingame was a bulldog of a man. He was squat and thick, almost completely bald. He had the enlarged, blue-veined nose of a heavy drinker, but few had ever seen him drunk. He had been marshal of Plainsville for fourteen years, through good times and bad. There were four graves on the wrong side of the town cemetery, four dead men who had thought Blasingame was just another town marshal who would back down when the going got tough.
Elec's jaws bulged as he glared at Nathan. “Nate,” he said, “we've had a quiet town here since the cow outfits shifted away from Plainsville; people have got to like it that way. Now what you've been doing the past twelve years ain't much my business; I'm just the town marshal. But if you ever bear down on your gun again, the way you did with Jorgenson, you're going to have me to contend with. Is that clear?”
Nathan held a sulphur match to his cigarette and shot the stick on the floor. “Did you see me throw down on Jorgenson?”
“You know what I mean,” Blasingame said harshly. “A name followed you to Plainsville when you came back. When you use a hardcase reputation to scare a man, it's the same as pulling a pistol.”
Nothing showed in Nathan's face. “I'll remember. Is that all, Elec?”