After a long while Beulah turned her head to look at him. “Jefferson,” she said weakly, “no matter what happens, I want you to remember something. I love you like you was my own son. I love you more than anything in the world, I guess.”
Jeff squirmed uncomfortably. He didn't like this kind of talk, and it didn't sound like his aunt at all.
“Will you remember that, Jefferson?”
“Yes, ma'am,” he said self-consciously.
She smiled then—the strangest, saddest smile that Jeff had ever seen. “That's good,” she said. “Just so you remember.” And then she went back to staring at the ceiling....
Almost an hour passed before his uncle returned. “Well,” Wirt said heavily, “they got him.”
He did not look at Beulah. He cast his gaze all about the room, everywhere but the couch on which his wife was lying. Slowly she brushed the wet towel from her head and sat up..
“Wirt, what happened?”
Her husband glanced sharply at Jeff and said, “Not now, Beulah.”
Some of the old fire returned to Beulah's eyes. And when she jutted out her small chin and stared her husband down, Jeff knew that she couldn't be hurt very bad. She said, “The boy has to know some time. It might as well be now.”
Wirt Sewell looked as though he had gained ten years in age. He dropped heavily to a cane-bottom chair. “It was not a pretty thing,” he said flatly. “They were going after Nate with ropes. They would have strung him up if it hadn't been for Elec Blasingame.”
The mention of his father's name set Jeff's heart to hammering. He wanted to leap up and demand to know what they were talking about, but he was unable to move or make a sound. It was almost as if he were frozen in one position, his throat paralyzed and dry.
His uncle turned to him and said with gentleness, “You'll have to know it, Jeff; your pa's in bad trouble. He robbed the bank and killed Jed Harper. Now they've caught him and got him locked up.”
Jeff stared at his uncle through a sudden haze of anger. He heard himself shouting, “It's not. true! You're lying!” Wirt stared at the floor, his face gray. “You're lying!” Jeff shouted again. “Jefferson, you hush up!” Beulah said. Unsteadily, she stood up and took Jeff's shoulders in her hands. “It's true,” she said shortly. “I tried to warn you that your pa was worthless and no good, but you wouldn't listen to your Aunt Beulah. Well, maybe now you'll listen!”
Chapter Nine
SHORTLY AFTER SUN-UP Elec Blasingame arrived at his office in the basement of the Masonic Temple, to relive the night deputy.
“Any trouble, Ralph?”
Ralph Striker, Elec's second in command, was dozing on his shotgun at the plank desk. Now he blinked and rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. “Morning, Elec. No trouble to speak of. Plenty of talk, but that's about as far as it went.”
“Lynching talk?”
The deputy shrugged. “I guess so, but they've cooled off by now.”
“How about Nate Blaine; has he cooled off any?”
The deputy, a tall, gaunt man in his late forties, smiled faintly. “I don't know. I haven't been near him since midnight!”
“Did he talk?”
The smile widened, wearily. “He cusses anybody that comes within yellin' distance of his cage, if you can call that talking.”
“I see,” the marshal said heavily.
The deputy got up from the desk and racked his shotgun on the wall. As Ralph Striker tramped out of the office, the marshal took the chair and scowled. Almost immediately he got up again, took the cell keys from his desk and headed down the corridor toward the single iron cage which was the Plainsville jail.
Nathan Blaine lay stretched out on a board bunk, one arm flung over his eyes. When he heard the rap of boot heels on stone, he snapped to a sitting position, his eyes bitter. The marshal paused at the iron-barred door.
“Nate, you ready to talk?”
Nathan stood up in his cage. “You haven't caught him?”
“Caught who?” the marshal asked.
“The man that robbed the bank and killed old man Harper.” All the bitterness was in his eyes—his voice was only slightly edged with anger.
Elec rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I figured we had the killer in jail,” he said mildly. “However, I'm willing to listen to anything you've got to say, Nate.”
With an iron will, Nathan clamped down on his nerves and anger. He forced himself to remain calm, knowing that his very life depended on how clearly he was able to think this thing out. He made himself look into the marshal's eyes and say, “You've got the wrong man, Elec.”
“I'm listening.”
“All right; this is what happened. I'm not a drinking man, but like a fool I got tanked up yesterday after leaving your office. I got to thinking about something, and the more I thought the more I drank. Around four o'clock I was feeling sick. I needed air. I walked to the end of the block, went around behind the bank building where the grangers hitch their teams, and was heading for the corral when I heard the shooting.”
“Then what did you do?” the marshal asked.
“I couldn't tell where the shot came from. I wasn't thinking very straight. Anyway I started running the other way, toward the public corral. Then I realized I was going the wrong way. I stopped and turned around, and that was when I saw this drifter hightailing it out of the bank's side door.”
“What drifter was that?” Blasingame put in.
“The one that was in Bert Surratt's place just a few minutes before. I saw him; one of those cool-eyed boys that you run across sometimes in the Indian Nations, about fifty years old, with long gray hair and a sharp face. He rode a good-looking dun with an expensive rig, and he had a Model Seven Winchester on his saddle. Surratt saw him; he can tell you.”
The marshal's face had gone bland, showing nothing. “What happened to this drifter after you saw him come out of the bank's side door?”
“Nathan shrugged. “I don't know. He must have lit out across the street. I figure the shooting must have been something he hadn't intended. When it happened, he figured he'd best lie low for a while and see if he could slip out of town in. the confusion. I'd say that's just what he did. Before I could go after him, a lot of damn fools were trying to lynch me.”
Blasingame continued to rub his chin thoughtfully.
“Look here,” Nathan said, “you believe me, don't you?”
A long moment of silence passed. “Maybe I would, Nate, except for one thing. Beulah Sewell swears you're the one that gunwhipped her and shot Jed Harper.”
Nathan had known this would come up, and he tried desperately to hold back his rage. He couldn't do it. He felt a wildness swarming over him and suddenly he grabbed the iron bars and began shaking the door like a madman.