Jeff thought, When it comes to lying, I can do it just as brazenly as he can. “Sure,” he said, “I promise.” He did not realize how tense Nathan had been until he watched him now slowly relaxing, unwinding painfully, like a taut steel spring.
“Good,” Nathan said. “Now you'd better go back to your room—we can't attract attention by keeping these lights on.”
“When will I see you again?”
“I don't know. Maybe you'll come to Mexico Some time and look me up.”
“You're leaving so soon?”
His anxiety was all too obvious in his voice, and Nathan smiled faintly. “Don't look as though you'll never see me again. It's just Mexico—not so far.”
Nathan had said it,' and the dead coldness in the pit of his stomach told Jeff that it was true. If his pa went back to Mexico without the money to pay for his life, he would never see him again. They shook hands silently.
At the door, Nathan said, “There's just one more thing...” Jeff thought that Nathan had forgotten it, but what he said, “Somerson's bad medicine. Have nothing to do with him.”
IT WAS THE FIRST OF THE month. Milan Fay was on time.
“Somerson's got everything set, kid. You ready?”
“Yes.”
“You know how it's going? Exactly?”
“Yes.”
Fay shook his head in faint surprise. “Damn if you don't look ready, at that. I guess you're Nate Blaine's boy, all right.”
“Don't worry. I'll be in place at four o'clock.”
The tall outlaw grinned. “That's the kind of talk I like to hear. But don't make a move until I get the wagon in place.”
“I know my part of it,” Jeff said shortly. “Just make sure you and the horses are where they're supposed to be.”
“It's not me or Somerson or the horses that I'll be thinkin' about, kid; you're the one. Just remember your pa's life depends on whether or not we bring this off without a hitch.”
Jeff watched Fay's broad, arrogant back as he turned and sauntered up the plank walk toward the public corral. No one had to tell him to be careful, or how dangerous this thing was going to be. Plainsville was no longer a one-horse cowtown. It was a railroad town and farm town as well, and the bank was no longer the flimsy unprotected affair that it had once been.
But it was set. There was no backing out. And he wouldn't have done it if he could....
In his basement office of the Masonic Temple, Elec Blasingame heard the click of heels on the stone steps and knew that they were not boot heels. Breathlessly, Amy Wintworth came into the room, and the marshal looked up in surprise.
“What's the matter, child? You look as if somebody's chasing you.”
“Marshal, I've got to talk to you! Alone.” Kirk Logan, who was nailing a calendar to the far wall of the office, looked around at the last word. The marshal frowned slightly, but then nodded to his deputy, and Logan put his hammer down and walked out. During those few seconds Elec made a close study of the girl before him. He noted her tenseness, the look of urgency in her eyes.
“Now,” he said, “what is it, Amy?”
“Nathan Blaine is in Plainsville.”
Blasingame was startled. “Nate Blaine! How do you know?”
“I saw him. I talked to him.”
“Here in Plainsville?” His voice was incredulous. But before Amy could answer one question he asked another. “Where's he hiding?”
“He was at the Sewell house—” Amy started, and the marshal lunged up from his desk and bellowed, “Kirk, get in here on the run!”
But there was something about the quick, hard look that the girl threw at him that made him look at her again. “Marshal,” she said tightly, “you don't understand. Nathan Blaine isn't hiding. He asked me to come here and tell you he wants to see you.”
Elec didn't believe it. “Nate Blaine wants to see me?”
“Please believe me!” she said anxiously. “He wants to talk to you about Jeff.”
Then a frowning Kirk Logan came back in the office. “What's the trouble, Marshal?” For a moment Elec was undecided. It didn't make sense that Nate Blaine would walk into a sure arrest—an arrest that could possibly end with a hangman's noose around his neck. Still, there was something about the urgency in Amy's face that made him pause. At last, against his better judgment, he waved the puzzled deputy away again.
“If Nate's here in Plainsville,” he said, “I guess a few minutes one way or the other won't make too much difference. Now, Amy, start at the beginning and tell me all you know.”
Amy looked nervously at her hands, wondering how she could explain it to the marshal when she was unable to explain it to herself. “I was shopping this morning,” she began slowly. “I was in Baxter's when Mr. Sewell found me and said Jeff's father was at their house and wanted to see me.”
