“Go rout him out and tell him his pa's come home.”
“Now, Nate?” Wirt said uneasily. “This time of night?”
“Right now! And don't let Elec Blasingame see you, either. Or anybody else.”
Wirt swallowed. “I'll be careful, Nate.”
“You'd better! And if you've got any ideas about turnin' me in to the law, you better think about it a long time. Remember, I'll be waitin' here with Beulah, and I haven't got much cause to like her.”
Wirt's voice cracked. “Nate, you know I wouldn't do a thing like that.”
Nathan looked at him, then he closed his eyes and rested his head back against the chair. “Get going,” he said quietly, and Wirt stumbled over his own feet on the way for his clothes.
Jeff was in his bunk, but not asleep; he heard the loose boards creek as Wirt made his way up the outside stairs. He lay for a moment, tensely alert, as the footsteps came nearer. There was a timid rap at the door.
Jeff reached for his revolver. “Who is it?”
“It's Wirt. I've got to talk to you, Jeff!”
“Get away from me!”
“Jeff, it's important!”
Jeff lay on one elbow, listening to his own breathing. What could be important enough to bring Wirt Sewell here at this time of night? At last he got up and slipped the inside latch. “What do you want?”
“Jeff, your pa's back. He's at the house right now!”
For several seconds Jeff did not move. Nathan was back! Didn't he know that the law was looking for him?
His calmness surprised him. “Wait,” he said, then he got into his pants and shirt, and pulled on his boots. Buckling his cartridge belt, he turned back to Wirt. “How is he? Is he all right?”
“I—I guess so.”
“You guess so? Don't you know? He's not hurt, is he?”
“No, Jeff, he's not hurt. Not in body.” Jeff gave him a hard, savage look, but said nothing. Why had Nathan come back?
He said, “We'll go out the back way. Follow me.”
At the far end of the hall there was a window, with a plank ladder outside that served as a fire escape. It was late, and the town was quiet. Jeff stepped through the open window, grabbed the ladder and swung out. When he reached the ground he didn't look back to see if Wirt had made it—he didn't care.
The pounding of his heart was the only sound he heard as he slipped behind the building and up the alley. At the end of Main Street he cut across town, heading toward the Sewell house, vaguely aware of Wirt stumbling behind.
The Sewell house was the only place in that part of town that still had a light burning. Jeff came in behind the cowshed, noted the trail-shaggy calico standing hipshot and weary beside the Sewell cow. When he reached the back door he went through without knocking.
Nathan had just finished washing and shaving. His face looked sunken, raw and red, and he stood motionless for a moment, a towel over his shoulder, looking steadily at his son. Then, with that old gesture that Jeff remembered so well, he threw back his head and searched Jeff's face. And he was the same Nathan Blaine that Jeff remembered, big and proud and dark with danger.
“You're a man,” Nathan said at last. “I don't think I'd figured on that.”
“Almost nineteen,” Jeff said evenly.
“Plenty old enough for a man in these parts.”
“Pa,” Jeff said, suddenly uncomfortable, “you're all right, aren't you? I mean—
“I'm fine! A little trail dirty, maybe, but fine.”
And then, as though a wall between them had been scaled, Nathan came forward and took his son's hand, and all the fierce love that was in them expressed itself in that one hard clasp.
They heard Wirt stumbling across the back yard, and suddenly both men, father and son, let go and made an elaborate show of being casual. Nathan turned to the table, where greens and cornbread had been set out by Beulah. “I hear the government boys are looking for me,” he said mildly, beginning to eat.
“They've contacted the marshal here,” Jeff said. “Now he's looking for you, too.”
“Elec Blasingame? He couldn't find his nose with both hands.”
Both of them laughed, but it had a false ring. Nathan's danger increased with every minute he stayed here, and Jeff knew it.
They looked hard at Wirt as he came in the back door and said nothing more until he had passed through to the parlor. Jeff said, “I guess you heard what happened'”
“About them finding the man that killed Jed Harper? Yes, I heard.” His voice was mild enough, but Jeff noticed that Nathan kept his eyes on the plate before him and did not look up. “How did the town take it?”
“I guess Beulah Sewell will never be able to look the people of this town in the eye again,” Jeff answered with sudden bitterness.
Now Nathan did look up, faintly surprised. “Is that so? And what did you do, Jeff, when you found
