Instantly, he remembered the “spin” that Nathan had shown him so long ago, that miraculous trick of reversing a pistol in your hand while seeming to hand it over butt first.
But Elec was not to be caught off guard this time. He increased the pressure slightly, pressing the muzzle a bit harder in Jeff's back.
“Don't bother handing it to me,” he said dryly. “Just slip the buckle.” The marshal took the revolver. “All right —march.”
“I didn't do anything. You can't lock me up.”
“I can. And I will,” Elec said flatly.
There was nothing to do. With a gun in his back, Jeff focused his hate on Chet Blakely, as though to warn him the fight wasn't over. Then he shrugged and walked stiffly out of the saloon.
The marshal put him in the cell with two drunk cowhands and locked the door. Jeff grabbed the bars and glared. “You'll be sorry for this, Elec!”
The marshal sighed heavily and shook his head. “I just don't know what to do with you, Blaine, and that's the gospel truth. Can't you see you're not hurting anybody but yourself?”
“I figure that's my business.”
“Not when you go on the prod. Then it gets to be my business. Do you know what's going to happen if you don't take that chip off your shoulder? You'll end up like your pa; you'll let your hate get you in so-deep that you'll never be able to get out. One of these days some drunk cowhand'll get the notion he's a gunfighter and force you to show your hand.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Blasingame smiled bitterly. “So could Nate, but what did it prove? Your pa's a wanted killer. With telegraph wire strung all over the Southwest, he doesn't dare come back to his own country, to the place where he was born and raised, not even to see his son.”
“My pa will come back when he gets ready.”
The marshal nodded. “Maybe. But it'll be the last trip he'll ever take. The law will be waiting for him.” He turned and walked heavily back to his office....
It was midafternoon when Amy Wintworth came to the office to see him. Elec touched his hatbrim with a forced smile. “Come in, Amy. It's not often we get such pretty visitors down here.”
Amy could offer no smile in return. “I heard that Jeff was—”
“Locked up,” the marshal finished for her. “A little to-do over at Bert's place. Nothing serious.”
“But serious enough to lock him up.”
Blasingame looked at her, saw the urgency behind her eyes. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I guess it was. Have a chair, Amy.” He waited until she was seated.
“May I see him?”' she asked.
“I don't think it would be wise; he's pretty worked up. What did you want to see him about?”
“I want to ask him to make up with his Aunt Beulah,” Amy said tightly.
Elec whistled softly in surprise. “I don't think he'd ever do that, Amy. He hates Beulah Sewell as much as I ever saw one person hate another. That's the seat of all his trouble, I think—he's so full of hate that it spills over onto everybody he crosses. ”
“Marshal, have you seen Beulah Sewell recently?”
He frowned faintly. “No, I don't think so. Not since—”
“Not since the town learned Nathan wasn't the one who killed Jeff Harper and robbed the bank? No one has seen her since then except Wirt, and me. I just came from the Sewell house.”
Amy closed her eyes for a moment, her thoughts flying back to that bleak little house, locked and sealed and quiet as a tomb. She said slowly, “I don't think you'd know her, Marshal. She's as unreal as a corpse; she hates herself more than Jeff ever could.”
Elec rubbed his face thoughtfully. “I guess I haven't thought much about Beulah except to despise her for what she did. Like everybody else.” Gazing up at the ceiling, he smiled thinly. “It's a funny thing. You can fight with a man, or steal from him, or even shoot him, and the chances are pretty good that he'll forgive you if you give him a chance. But prove a man a fool and he'll hate you all his life. That's what Beulah did. We all swallowed that lie of hers, and then looked like fools when the truth came out.”
“But,” Amy asked, “don't you think it would be a better town if people would forgive her?”
“Sure,” Elec shrugged, “but it's a big order. Especially for Jeff.”
“Impossible?”
“Just not very likely, let's say.”
She sat straight, her mouth compressed to a grim, determined line. One moment she had all the poise and steel of a queen, and the next moment she was a frightened young woman, sobbing.
Elec moved uneasily. “Now, now, Amy, there's no use in that.” He tugged at a red handkerchief in his hip pocket and handed it to her across the desk.
“I'm sorry. That was a foolish tiling to do,” she said.
“You like the boy, don't you, Amy?”
She nodded. “But not the way he's going. Not what I see for him in the future. Sometimes I see so much of Nathan in him that it frightens me.”
