by Zane Grey
“Pan, how is Mrs. Somers?” inquired his mother solicitously.
“Who?” queried Pan, puzzled.
“Why, your partner’s wife.”
“Oh, Blinky!...Gee, I’d clean forgot his right name,” laughed Pan, mentally kicking himself. “She’s still sound asleep. I told Blinky not to wake her. She looked white and worn out.”
“But she’ll starve,” interposed Lucy, with questioning eyes on Pan. Indeed their meaning had no relation to her words. “You men don’t know anything. Won’t you let me wake her?”
“Thanks. Better let her alone till tomorrow,” replied Pan briefly.
Presently there came the call to supper, which had been laid upon a new tarpaulin spread on the ground. The men flopped down, and sat cross-legged, each with silent or vociferous appreciation of that generous repast.
“Shades of the grub line!” ejaculated Blinky. “Am I ridin’ or dreamin’?”
“Mother, this is heaven for a cowboy. And think, we’ll be three weeks on the road,” added Pan.
“But, son, our good things to eat won’t last that long,” she replied, much gratified by his compliment.
“Aw, the good Lord shore remembered me when he throwed me in with this outfit,” declared the usually reticent Gus.
Pan observed that both Alice and his mother strictly avoided serving him with those things that had to be carried hot from the campfire. They let Lucy do it. Pan did not look up at her, and murmured his thanks in monosyllables. Once her hand touched his and the contact was like a galvanizing current. For the moment he could not go on eating.
During the sunset hour Pan helped grease the wagon wheels, something that had been neglected, and had retarded their progress. Other tasks used up the time until dark. Bobby got himself spanked by falling out of the wagon after he had been put to bed.
It was after nightfall when Pan heard Blinky’s call. He hurried over to the wagon, where he found his comrade tremendously excited.
“Pard, she’s waked up,” he whispered.
Pan strode to the wagon. There was enough light for him to see the girl sitting up, with hands pressed to her head.
“Hello, Louie,” he said gently.
“Where the hell am I?” she replied huskily, dropping her hands to stare at him.
“On the way to Arizona.”
“Well, if it isn’t handsome Panhandle...and Blinky!”
“Howdy — Louie,” said Blinky fearfully.
“I’ve been drunk?” she queried.
“Reckon you have — a little,” replied Pan.
“And you boys have kidnapped me?” she went on.
“I’m afraid that’s so, Louie.”
“Get me a drink. Not water! My head’s bursting. And help me out of this haymow.”
She threw aside the blanket that partially covered her and got to her knees. Pan lifted her out of the wagon. Then he ran off toward camp to get a flask. Upon returning he found Blinky trying to put a blanket round Louise’s shoulders. She threw it off.
“Wait till I cool off,” she said. “Panhandle, did you get it? — I’m shaky, all right...Thanks. Some day I’ll take my last drink.”
“Louie, I hope that will be soon,” rejoined Pan.
“You know I hate whisky...Oh, my head! — And my legs are cramped. Let me walk a little.”
Pan drew Blinky aside in the gloom. “She hasn’t begun to think yet. Reckon you’d better stay away from her. Let her come back to the wagon.”
“Pard, shore she took our kidnappin’ her all right,” whispered Blinky, hopefully.
“Blink, I’ll bet a million she’ll be glad — after it all comes out,” responded Pan.
Presently Louise interrupted their whispered colloquy. “Help me up. I’m sick — and weak.”
They lifted her back into the wagon and covered her. In the pale starlight her eyes looked unnaturally big and black.
“No use — to lie,” she said drowsily, her head rolling. “I’m glad to leave — Marco...Take me anywhere.”
Then her eyes closed. Again Pan drew Blinky away into the gloom.
“It’s the way I figured,” whispered Pan swiftly. “She’ll never remember what happened.”
“Thank Gawd fer thet,” breathed Blinky.
They found the campfire deserted except for Gus and Pan’s father. Evidently Pan’s advent interrupted a story that had been most exciting to Gus.
“Son, I — I was just tellin’ Gus all I know about what come off yesterday,” explained Smith, frankly, though with some haste. “But there are some points I’d sure like cleared up for myself.”
Pan had expected this, and had fortified himself against the inevitable.
“Well, get it over then once and for all,” he replied, not too civilly.
“You come damn near buttin’ right into the weddin’!” ejaculated Smith, with a sense of what dramatic possibility had just been missed.
Pan, whose back had been turned to the campfire light, suddenly whirled as if on a pivot.
“What?” he cried. Then there seemed to be a cessation of all his faculties.
“Why, son, you needn’t jump out of your boots,” returned the father, somewhat offended. “Lucy was married to Hardman in the stage office just before you got there. Fact was, she’d just walked out to get in the stage when you came...Now, I was only sayin’ how funny it’d been if you had got there sooner.”
“Who — told — you — that?”
“Lucy told me. An’ she said tonight she didn’t believe you knew,” returned his father.
There was a blank silence. Pan slowly turned away from the light.
“No. I had an idea — she’d been married — days,” replied Pan in queer strangled voice.
“You should have asked some questions,” said Smith bluntly. “It was a damn unfortunate affair, but it mustn’t be made worse for Lucy than it actually was...She was Dick Hardman’s wife for less than five minutes before you arrived.”
Without another word Pan stalked away into the darkness. He heard his father say: “Bet that’s what ailed him — the darned idiot!”
Pan gained the pasture fence under the dark trees, and he grasped it tightly as if his hold on life had been shaken. The shock of incredulous amaze passed away, leaving him in the grip of joy and gratitude and remorse. How vastly different was this vigil under the stars!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IT WAS PAN who routed out the campers next morning when the first rose of dawn flushed the clear-cut horizon line.
He had the firewood collected, and the saddle horses in for their grain before Blinky presented himself. Wild eyed, indeed, was the cowboy.
“Pard,” he whispered, huskily, dragging Pan aside some paces, “the cyclone’s busted.”
“Yes?” queried Pan in both mirth and concern.
“I was pullin’ on my boots when Louise pokes her head above the wagon an’ says: ‘Hey, you bow-legged gurl snatcher, where’s my clothes?’
“‘What clothes?’ I answers. An’ she snaps out, ‘Mine. Didn’t you fetch my clothes?’
“‘Louie,’ I says, ‘we shore forgot them an’ they burned up with all the rest of the Yellow Mine. An’ if you want to know, my dear, I’m darn glad of it.’
“Then, Pan, she began to cuss me, an’ I jumps up mad, but right dignified an’ says, ‘Mrs. Somers, I’ll require you to stop usin’ profanity.’
“‘Mrs. Somers!’ she whispers, her eyes poppin’. ‘Are you crazy?’ An’ I told her I shore wasn’t crazy an’ I shore was sober. An’ thet my name wasn’t Moran, but Somers.
“She gave a gasp an’ fell back in the wagon. An’ you bet I run fer you. Now, pard, for Gawd’s sake, what’ll I do?” finished Blinky with a groan.
“Cowboy, you’ve done noble,” replied Pan in great satisfaction.
“Wha-at! — Say, Pan, you look queer this mawnin’. Sort of shiny eyed an’ light-footed. You don’t look drunk or loco. So what ails you?”
“Blink, I’m as
crazy as you,” responded Pan, almost hugging his friend. “But don’t worry another minute. I swear I can fix it up with Louise. I swear I can fix anything.”
With that, Pan strode across the dew-wet grass to the trees under which stood Blinky’s wagon. There was no sign of the girl. Pan breasted the wagon side to look down. She was there, wide-eyed, with arms under her head, staring at the colored leaves.
“Morning, Louie, how are you?” he began cheerfully, smiling down upon her.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“Well, you look better, that’s sure.”
“Pan, am I that cowboy’s wife?” she queried, gravely.
“Yes,” he replied, just as gravely.
“Did he force me to marry him when I was drunk?”
“No. Blink is innocent of all except loving you, Louie,” answered Pan, deliberately choosing his words. He had planned all he meant to say. Last night under the trees, in the dark, many truths had come to him. “It was I who forced you to marry him.”
She covered her eyes with her hands and pressed hard as if to make clear her bewildering thoughts. “Oh, I — I can’t remember.”
“Louie, don’t distress yourself,” he said, soothingly. “You bet I can remember, and I’ll tell you.”
“Wait. I want to get up. But you forgot my clothes. I can’t go round in a blanket.”
“By golly, I never thought of that. But we didn’t have much time...See here, Louise, I can fix it. You’re about the same height as Lucy. I’ll borrow some of her clothes for you.”
“Lucy?” she echoed, staring at him.
“Yes, Lucy,” he replied, easily. “And while I’m at it, I’ll fetch a basin of hot water — and everything.”
Whereupon he hurried over to the campfire, where he found Mrs. Smith busy and cheerful. “Lucy up yet?” he asked briskly.
“Yes, Pan,” she replied with hurried glad smile. “She’s brushing her hair there, by the wagon.”
Pan strode up to Lucy where she stood before the wagon, a mass of golden hair hanging down her back, to which she was vigorously applying a brush.
“Hello, Lucy,” he said coolly.
“Oh — how you startled — me!” she exclaimed, turning with a blush.
“Say, won’t you help us out?” he went on, not so coolly. “The other night, in the excitement we forgot to fetch Louise’s clothes...Fact is, we grabbed her up out of a sick bed, with only a dressing gown and a blanket. Won’t you lend her some clothes, shoes, stockings — and — everything?”
“Indeed I will,” responded Lucy and with alacrity she climbed into the covered wagon.
Pan waited, and presently began to pace to and fro. He was restless, eager, buoyant. He could not stand still. His thoughts whirled away from the issue at hand, back to Lucy and the glory that had been restored to him.
“Here, Pan,” called Lucy, reappearing with a large bundle. “Here’s all she’ll need, I think. Lucky I bought some new things. Alice and I can get along with one mirror, brush and comb.”
“Thanks,” he said. “It was lucky...Sure our luck has changed.”
“Don’t forget some warm water,” added Lucy practically, calling after him.
Thus burdened, Pan hurried back to Louise’s wagon and deposited the basin on the seat, and the bundle beside her. “There you are, pioneer girl,” he said cheerily, and with swift hands he let down the canvas curtains of the wagon, shutting her in.
“Come on, Blink,” he called to the cowboy watching from behind the trees. “Let’s wrangle the teams.”
“Gus an’ your dad are comin’ in with them now,” replied Blinky joining him and presently, when they got away from the wagon he whispered: “How aboot it?”
“Blink, I swear it’ll go through fine,” declared Pan earnestly. “She knows she’s your wife — that I got her drunk and forced her into it. She doesn’t remember. I’m hoping she’ll not remember anything, but even if she does I’ll fix it.”
“Shore — you’re Panhandle Smith — all right,” returned Blinky unsteadily.
At this juncture they were called to breakfast. Pan needed only one glance at his father, his mother and Lucy to gather that bewilderment and worry had vanished. They knew that he knew. It seemed to Pan that the bursting sun knew the dark world had been transformed to a shining one. Yet he played with his happiness like a cat with a mouse.
“Mrs. Smith,” begged Blinky presently, “please fix me up some breakfast fer Louise. She’s better this mawnin’ an’ I reckon in a day or so will be helpin’ you an’ Lucy.”
Pan set himself some camp tasks for the moment, and annoyed his mother and embarrassed Lucy by plunging into duties they considered theirs.
“Mother, don’t you and Lucy realize we are going to a far country?” he queried. “We must rustle...There’s the open road. Ho for Siccane — for sunny Arizonaland!”
When he presented himself before Louise he scarcely recognized her in the prim, comely change of apparel. The atmosphere of the Yellow Mine had vanished. She had managed to eat some breakfast. Blinky discreetly found a task that took him away.
“We’ve a little time to talk now, Louie,” said Pan. “They’ll be packing the wagons.”
He led her under the cottonwoods to the pasture fence where he found a seat for her.
“Pan, why did you do this thing?” she asked.
That was the very question he had hoped she would put first.
“Because my friend loves you and you told me you tried to keep him away from you — that if you didn’t you would like him too well,” answered Pan. “Blink had never been any good in the past. Just a wild reckless hard-drinking cowpuncher. But his heart was big. Then you were going straight to hell. You’d have been knifed or shot in some brawl, or have killed yourself with drink. A few more months of the Yellow Mine would have been your end...Well, I thought, here’s an opportunity to make a man out of my friend, and save the soul of a girl who hasn’t had a chance. I never hesitated about taking advantage of you. That was only a means to an end. So I planned it and did it.”
“But, Pan — how impossible!” she replied brokenly.
“Why, I’d like to know?”
“I am — degraded.”
“No! I’ve a different notion. You were not when you were sober. But even so, that is past.”
“Blink might have been what you said, but still I — I’m no fit wife for him.”
“You can be,” went on Pan with strong feeling. “Just blot out the past. Begin now. Blink will make a good man, a successful rancher. He has money enough to start with. He’ll never drink again. No matter what you call yourself, you’re the only girl he ever loved. You’re the only one who can make him earnest. Blink saw as well as I the pity of it — your miserable existence there in that gambling hell.”
“Pan, you talk — like — oh, you make me think of what might have been,” she cried. “But I’ll not consent. I’ll not give men the right to point their fingers at Blink...I’ll run away — or — or kill myself.”
“Louie, that is silly talk,” censured Pan sharply. “Don’t make me regret my interest in you — my affection. You are judging this thing with your mind on the past. You’re not considering the rough wild raw life we cowboys have lived. We must make way for the pioneers and become pioneers ourselves. In fifty years, when the West is settled, who will ever recall such as you and Blinky? These are hard days. You can do as much for the future of the West as any woman, Louise Melliss!”
“Pan, I understand — I — I could — I know, if I dared to bury it all. But I want to play square.”
“Could you come to love my friend — in time — I mean? That’s the great thing.”
“I believe I love him now,” she murmured. “That’s why I can’t risk it. — Someone who knew me would turn up. To disgrace my husband — and — and children, if I had any.”
“Not one chance in a million,” flashed Pan, feeling that she could not withstand him. “We’re going far �
�� into another country...Besides, everyone in Marco believes you lost your life in the fire.”
“What — fire?”
“The Yellow Mine burned. It must have caught — when we shot out the lamps...Dick Hardman was burned, and a girl they took for you.”
Suddenly Louise leaped up, ghastly pale.
“I remember now...Blink came to my room,” she said hoarsely. “I wouldn’t let him in. Then you came...oh, I remember now. I let you in when all the time Dick Hardman was hiding in my closet.”
“I knew you had him hidden,” rejoined Pan.
“You meant to kill him! The yellow dog!...He came to me when I was sick in bed. He begged me to hide him. And I did...Then you talked to me, as you’re talking now...Blink came with the whisky. Oh, I see it all now!”
“Sure. And Louie — what did I tell you about Hardman?” returned Pan, sure of his ground now and stern in his forcefulness.
“I don’t remember.”
“You told me Hardman said he’d marry you, and that some day when you were drunk you’d do it.”
“Yes, he said that, and I might have agreed, but I don’t remember telling you.”
“Well, you did. And then I told you Hardman had forced my sweetheart, Lucy, to marry him.”
“What? He did that?”
“Reckon he did. I got there too late. But I drove him off to get a gun. Then he hid there with you.”
“So that was why?” she pondered, as if trying to penetrate the cloudiness of her mind. “Something comes like a horrible dream.”
“Sure,” he hurried on. “Let me get it over...I told you he couldn’t marry you when he already had a wife. You went crazy then. You betrayed Hardman...He came rushing out of the closet. Pretty nasty, he was, Louie...well, I left him lying in the hall! I grabbed you — wrapped you in a blanket — and ran out. Blink was waiting. He shot out the lights in the saloon. We got away. The place burned up, with some girl they took for you — and Hardman—”