erect in one of the uncomfortable parlor chairs, as though someone were holding him there at the point of a gun. He blinked when Jeff came into the room and tried hard to relax.
“Jeff,” he said, clearing his throat, “come on in. Here's somebody wants to see you.”
To Jeff's way of thinking, Uncle Wirt seemed every bit as upset as Aunt Beulah. But he didn't give it a second thought when he saw the man sitting across the room from his uncle—a tall, dark-complexioned man with eyes as dark as an owl's, with shaggy black brows, and a mouth so full and wide that Jeff was briefly reminded of the catfish he sometimes caught in Garter's pond.
When the man stood up, the entire room seemed to grow in size. He said softly, “So you're Jeff!”
That was all he said, and he stood there with his arms hanging relaxed. Jeff didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.
Jeff could hear the old pendulum clock on the mantle ticking away the seconds, and still no one said a thing.
The instant the stranger stood up from his chair, Jeff vaguely realized that something was wrong. The picture was not quite complete. It was just a feeling he had that something was missing, but he couldn't put his finger on it until he saw the cartridge belt hanging on the hat tree in the hall. Then he knew what it was.
This man wore a gun.
Not in Aunt Beulah's house, he wouldn't, but you could see that he didn't feel quite right about the absence of that Colt's heavy weight on his hip. It was as obvious as a man going to church without his shirt.
There were men like that. Jeff could remember seeing two or three of them before, during the squatter trouble, when the big outfits were putting Territory guns on their payrolls. Not that this dark stranger was a Territory man, or an outlaw, or anything like that. He didn't have that mean, hunted look that men get when they've run too far and too long. Still, Jeff couldn't imagine what this man was doing in his Aunt Beulah's and Uncle Wirt's house.
At last the stranger said, “Miss Beulah, ain't you going to tell the boy who I am?”
Aunt Beulah's face was grayer than Jeff had ever seen it, and her grim mouth was clamped tight. Finally Uncle Wirt stirred uneasily.
“Jeff,” he said, “this here's your pa.”
It made so little sense that Jeff would have thought that his uncle was joking, except that Uncle Wirt never joked about anything. This black-eyed stranger was his pa?
The man said in that same quiet voice, “Don't you have anything to say, Jeff?”
Jeff cleared his throat. He had never been in a situation like this before—he was afraid the stranger was funning him. At last he spoke up, his voice amazingly loud.
“I guess you got the wrong boy, mister. My pa's dead.”
A cloud crossed the man's eyes as he looked at Aunt Beulah. “Did you tell him I was dead, Miss Beulah?”
Jeff's aunt glanced at her husband. “No, I didn't!” she snapped.
“That's funny, ain't it? I wonder where he got the idea?”
“I told Jefferson you was likely dead,” Aunt Beulah replied sternly. “What did you expect us to think, after twelve years?”
The stranger stood for a moment, very still. Then in four giant strides he crossed the room and stood in front of Jeff. “My name,” he said, “is Nathan Blaine. Some call me Nate. A little more than twelve years ago I married the prettiest girl in southwest Texas. She was your Aunt Beulah's baby sister—Lilie Burton her name was before we were married. Lilie was your mother, Jeff. And I'm your pa. Do you want to shake hands?”
Jeff couldn't take his gaze from the stranger's face. He said, “You ain't funnin' me, are you, mister?”
“Ask your uncle, Jeff. Ask your aunt.”
“I never saw you before! How could you be my pa?”
Jeff turned his gaze to his aunt and saw that it was true. He felt strange and kind of choked, and he didn't know exactly what to do. The stranger was holding out his big, lean hand, and Jeff stared at it for maybe two or three long ticks of the mantle clock.
Then they shook hands.
SUPPER WAS AN UNEASY affair. For the first time since Jeff could remember, Uncle Wirt didn't talk about the tin shop, and Aunt Beulah didn't mention once that she was afraid the skunks were going to get at her chickens. They pitched into the chicken and gravy as if it were a matter of life and death. Nathan Blaine asked Jeff about his studies at the academy, but pretty soon the talk died away, strangled in the tense atmosphere.
Afterward, Nathan prowled the tiny parlor, and finally he said, “Think I'll go over to town for a while, and see how the old place has changed.” He looked at Jeff. “How'd you like to come along, Jeff?”
“Too late for a boy to be traipsing about,” Aunt Beulah put in firmly.
“Oh,” Nathan said quickly, drawing himself a little taller. “Yes, I guess it is. Well, maybe tomorrow, boy.”
Then he bolted, as though the house were choking him. He grabbed his revolver from the rack and buckled it as another man would put on a hat. “Don't wait up for me,” he said. “I'll spread my roll in the kitchen.”
After he had left, Jeff said, “Aunt Beulah, why didn't you tell me about—”
“He's your pa,” his aunt snapped. “You might as well call him that. I didn't tell you about him because I didn't know anything to tell. He ran off from you when you were just a baby. It's the Lord's working that you didn't dry up and die, like your mother, and I guess you would have if it hadn't been for me and your Uncle Wirt.”
