by Grey, Zane
"Sounds pretty. But I begin to feel hunchy myself. Let's have a drink, Pan."
"We're not drinking, cowboy," retorted Pan.
"Ain't we? Excuse me. Shore I figgered a good stiff drink would help some. I tell you I've begun to get hunches."
"What kind?"
"No kind at all. Just feel that all's not goin' the way we hope. But it's your fault. It's the look you got. I'd hate to see you hurt deep, pard."
They passed the wagon shop where Pan's father had been employed, then a vacant lot on one side of the street and framed tents on the other. Presently they could see down the whole of Main Street. It presented the usual morning atmosphere and color, though Pan fancied there was more activity than usual. That might have been owing to the fact that both the incoming and outgoing stages were visible far up at the end of the street.
Pan strained his eyes at people near and far, seeking first some sign of Lucy, and secondly someone he could interrogate. Soon he would reach the first store. But before he got there he saw his mother emerge, drag Bobby, who evidently wanted to stay. Then Alice followed. Both she and her mother were carrying bundles. Pan's heart made ready for a second and greater leap—in anticipation of Lucy's appearance. But she did not come.
"Hello, heah's your folks, pard, figgerin' from looks," said Blinky. "What a cute kid! ... Look there!"
Pan, striding ahead of Blinky saw his mother turn white and reel as if about to faint. Pan got to her in time.
"Mother! Why, Mother," he cried, in mingled gladness and distress. "It's me. I'm all right. What'd you think? ... Hello, Bobby, old dirty face... Alice, don't stare at me. I'm here in the flesh."
His mother clung to him with hands like steel. Her face and eyes were both terrible and wonderful to see. "Pan! Pan! You're alive? Oh, thank God! They told us you'd been shot."
"Me? Well, I guess not. I'm better than ever, and full of good news," went on Pan hurriedly. "Brace up, Mother. People are looking. There... Dad is out home. We've got a lot to do. Where's Lucy?"
"Oh, God—my son, my son!" cried Mrs. Smith, her eyes rolling.
"Hush!" burst out Pan, with a shock as if a blade had pierced his heart. He shook her not gently. "Where is Lucy?"
His mother seemed impelled by his spirit, and she wheeled to point up the street.
"Lucy! There—in that stage—leaving Marco!"
"For God's—sake!" gasped Pan. "What's this? Lucy! Where's she going?"
"Ask her yourself," she cried passionately.
Something terrible seemed to crash inside Pan. Catastrophe! It was here. His mother's dark eyes held love, pity, and passion, which last was not for him.
"Mother, go home at once," he said swiftly. "Tell Dad to rush buying those wagons. You and Alice pack. We shake the dust of this damned town. Don't worry. Lucy will leave with us!"
Then Pan broke into long springy strides, almost a run. Indeed Blinky had to run to keep up with him. "I told you, pard," said his comrade. huskily. "Hell to pay! —— —— the luck!"
Pan had only one conscious thought—to see Lucy. All else seemed damming behind flood gates.
People rushed into the street to get out of the way of the cowboys. Others stared and made gestures. Booted men on the porch of the Yellow Mine stamped noisily as they trooped to get inside. Voices of alarm and mirth rang out. Pan took only a fleeting glance into the wide doorway. He saw nothing, thought nothing. His stride quickened as he passed Black's store, where more men crowded to get inside.
"Save your—wind, pard," warned Blinky. "You might—need it."
They reached the end of the street and across the wide square stood the outgoing stage, before the express office. There was no driver on the front seat. Smith, the agent, was emerging from the office with mailbags.
"Slow up, pard," whispered Blinky, at Pan's elbow.
Pan did as he was advised, though his stride still retained speed. Impossible to go slowly! There were passengers in the stagecoach. When Pan reached the middle of the street he saw the gleam of golden hair that he knew. Lucy! Her back was turned to him. And as he recognized her, realized he had found her, there burst forth in his mind a thundering clamor of questioning voices.
A few more strides took him round the stage. Men backed away from him. The door was open.
"Lucy!" he called, and his voice seemed to come piercingly from a far-off place.
She turned a strange face, but he knew her eyes, saw the swift transition, the darkening, widening. How white she turned! What was this! Agony in recognition! A swift unuttered blaze of joy that changed terror. He saw her lips frame his name, but no sound came.
"Lucy!" he cried. "What does this mean? Where are you going?"
She could not speak. But under her pallor the red of shame began to burn. Pan saw it, and he recognized it. Mutely he gazed at the girl as her head slowly sank. Then he asked hoarsely: "What's it mean?"
"Pard, take a peep round heah," drawled Blinky in slow cool speech that seemed somehow to carry menace.
Pan wheeled. He had the shock of his life. He received it before his whirling thoughts recorded the reason. It was as if he had to look twice. Dick Hardman! Fashionably and wonderfully attired! Pan got no farther than sight of the frock coat, elaborate vest, flowing tie, and high hat. Then for a second he went blind.
When the red film cleared he saw Hardman pass him, saw the pallor of his cheek, the quivering of muscle, the strained protruding of his eye.
He got one foot on the stage step when Pan found release for his voice.
"Hardman!"
That halted the youth, as if it had been a rope, but he never turned his head. The shuffling of feet inside the coach hinted of more than restlessness. There was a scattering of men from behind Pan.
He leaped at Hardman and spun him round.
"Where are you going?"
"Frisco, if it's—any of your business," replied Hardman incoherently.
"Looks like I'll make it my business," returned Pan menacingly. He could not be himself here. The shock had been too great. His mind seemed stultified.
"Hardman—do you mean—do you think—you're taking her—away?" queried Pan, as if strangling.
"Ha!" returned Hardman with an upfling of head, arrogant, vain for all his fear. "I know it.... She's my wife!"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Destruction, death itself seemed to overthrow Panhandle Smith's intensity of life. He reeled on his feet. For a moment all seemed opaque, with blurred images. There was a crash, crash, crash of something beating at his ears.
How long this terrible oblivion possessed Pan he did not know. But at Hardman's move to enter the stage, he came back a million times more alive than ever he had been—possessed of devils.
With one powerful lunge he jerked Hardman back and flung him sprawling into the dust.
"There! Once more!..." cried Pan, panting. "Remember—the schoolhouse? That fight over Lucy Blake! Damn your skunk soul!... Get up, if you've got a gun!"
Hardman leaned on his hand. His high hat had rolled away. His broadcloth suit was covered with dust. But he did not note these details of his abasement. Like a craven thing fascinated by a snake he had his starting eyes fixed upon Pan, and his face was something no man could bear to see.
"Get up—if you've got a gun!" ordered Pan.
"I've no—gun—" he replied, in husky accents.
"Talk, then. Maybe I can keep from killing you."
"For God's sake—don't shoot me. I'll tell you anything."
"Hardman, you say you—you married my—this girl?" rasped out Pan, choking over his words as if they were poison, unable to speak of Lucy as he had thought of her all his life.
"Yes—I married her."
"Who married you?"
"A parson from Salt Lake. Matthews got him here."
"Ah-uh!—Matthews. How did you force her?"
"I swear to God she was willing," went on Hardman. "Her father wanted her to."
"What? Jim Blake left here for Arizona. I
sent him away."
"But he never went—I—I mean he got caught—put in jail again. Matthews sent for the officers. They came. And they said they'd put Blake away for ten years. But I got him off... Then Lucy was willing to marry me—and she did. There's no help for it now... too late."
"Liar!" hissed Pan. "You frightened her—tortured her."
"No, I—I didn't do anything. It was her father. He persuaded her."
"Drove her, you mean. And you paid him. Admit it or I'll—" Pan's move was threatening.
"Yes—yes, I did," jerked out Hardman in a hoarser, lower voice. Something about his lifelong foe appalled him. He was abject. No confession of his guilt was needed.
"Go get yourself a gun. You'll have to kill me before you start out on your honeymoon. Reckon I think you're going to hell.... Get up.... Go get yourself a gun...."
Hardman staggered to his feet, brushing the dirt from his person while he gazed strickenly at Pan.
"My God, I can't fight you," he said. "You won't murder me in cold blood... Smith, I'm Lucy's husband... She's my wife."
"And what is Louise Melliss?" whipped out Pan. "What does she say about your marriage? You ruined her. You brought her here to Marco. You tired of her. You abandoned her to that hellhole owned by your father. He got his just deserts and you'll get yours."
Hardman had no answer. Like a dog under the lash he cringed at Pan's words.
"Get out of my sight," cried Pan, at the end of his endurance. "And remember the next time I see you, I'll begin to shoot."
Pan struck him, shoved him out into the street. Hardman staggered on, forgetting his high hat that lay in the dust. He got to going faster until he broke into an uneven half-run. He kept to the middle of the street until he reached the Yellow Mine, where he ran up the steps and disappeared.
Pan backed slowly, step by step. He was coming out of his clamped obsession. His movement was now that of a man gripped by terror. In reality Pan could have faced any peril, any horror, any physical rending of flesh far more easily than this girl who had ruined him.
She had left the stage and she stood alone. She spoke his name. In the single low word he divined fear. How long had she been that dog's wife? When had she married him? Yesterday, or the day before—a week, what did it matter?
"You—you!" he burst out helplessly in the grip of deadly hate and agony. He hated her then—hated her beauty—and the betrayal of her fear for him. What was life to him now? Oh, the insupportable bitterness!
"Go back to my mother," he ordered harshly, and averted his face.
Then he seemed to forget her. He saw Blinky close to him, deeply shaken, yet composed and grim. He heard the movement of many feet, the stamping of hoofs.
"All aboard for Salt Lake," called the stage driver. Smith the agent passed Pan with more mailbags. The strain all about him had broken.
"Pard," Pan said, laying a hand on Blinky. "Go with her—take her to my mother.... And leave me alone."
"No, by Gawd!" replied Blinky sullenly. "You forget this heah is my deal too. There's Louise.... An' Lucy took her bag an' hurried away. There, she's runnin' past the Yellow Mine."
"Blink, did she hear what I said to Hardman about Louise?" asked Pan bitterly.
"Reckon not. She'd keeled over aboot then. I shore kept my eye on her. An' I tell you, pard—"
"Never mind," interrupted Pan. "What's the difference? Hellsfire! Whisky! Let's get a drink. It's whisky I want."
"Shore. I told you thet a while back. Come on, pard. It's red-eye fer us!"
They crossed to the corner saloon, a low dive kept by a Chinaman and frequented by Mexicans and Indians. These poured out pellmell as the cowboys jangled up to the bar. Jard Hardman's outfit coming to town had prepared the way for this.
"Howdy," was Blinky's greeting to the black bottle that was thumped upon the counter. "You look mighty natural ... heah's to Panhandle Smith!"
Pan drank. The fiery liquor burned down to meet and coalesce round that gnawing knot in his internals. It augmented while it soothed. It burned as it cooled. It inflamed, but did not intoxicate.
"Pard, heah's to the old Cimarron," said Blinky, as they drank again.
Pan had no response. Memory of the Cimarron only guided his flying mind over the ranges to Las Animas. They drank and drank. Blinky's tongue grew looser.
"Hold your tongue, damn you," said Pan.
"Imposshiblity. Lesh have another."
"One more then. You're drunk, cowboy."
"Me drunk? No shir, pard. I'm just tongue-tied.... Now, by Gawd, heah's to Louise Melliss!"
"I drink to that," flashed Pan, as he drained his glass.
The afternoon had waned. Matthews lay dead in the street. He lay in front of the Yellow Mine, from which he had been driven by men who would no longer stand the strain.
The street was deserted except for that black figure, lying face down with a gun in his right hand. His black sombrero lay flat. The wind had blown a high hat down the street until it had stopped near the sombrero. Those who peeped out from behind doors or from windows espied these sinister objects.
Pan had patrolled the street. He had made a house-to-house canvass, searching for Jim Blake. He had entered every place except the Yellow Mine. That he reserved for the last. But he did not find Blake. He encountered, however, a slight pale man in clerical garb.
"Are you the parson Matthews brought to Marco?" demanded Pan harshly.
"Yes, Sir," came the reply.
"Did you marry young Hardman to—to—" Pan could not end the query.
The minister likewise found speech difficult, but his affirmative was not necessary.
"Man, you may be innocent of evil intent. But you've ruined my—girl ... and me! You've sent me to hell. I ought to kill you."
"Pard, shore we mushn't kill thish heah parson just yet," drawled Blinky, thickly. "He'll come in handy."
"Ahuh! Right you are, Blinky," returned Pan, with a ghastly pretense of gaiety. "Parson, stay right here till we come for you.—Maybe you make up a little for the wrong you did one girl."
The Yellow Mine stood with glass uplifted and card unplayed.
Pan had entered from the dance hall entrance. Blinky, unsteady on his feet, came in from the street. After a tense moment the poker players went on with their game, and the drinkers emptied their glasses. But voices were low, glances were furtive.
Pan had seen every man there before he had been seen himself. Only one interested him—that was Jim Blake. What to do to this man or with him Pan found it hard to decide. Blake had indeed fallen low. But Pan gave him the benefit of one doubt—that he had been wholly dominated by Hardman. Yet there was the matter of accepting money for his part in forcing Lucy to marry Dick.
The nearer end of the bar had almost imperceptibly been vacated by drinkers sliding down toward the other rear end. Pan took the foremost end of the vacated position. He called for drink. As fast as he had drunk, the fiery effects had as swiftly passed away. Yet each drink for the moment kept up that unnatural stimulus.
Pan beckoned for Blinky. That worthy caused a stir, then a silence, by going round about the tables, so as not to come between Pan and any men there.
"Blink, do you know where Louise's room is?" queried Pan.
"Shore. Down thish hall—third door on left," replied Blinky.
"Well, you go over there to Blake and tell him I want to talk to him. Then you go to Louise's room. I'll follow directly."
Blake received the message, but he did not act promptly. Pan caught his suspicious eye, baleful, gleaming. Possibly the man was worse than weak. Presently he left the poker game which he had been watching and shuffled up to Pan. He appeared to be enough under the influence of liquor to be leeringly bold.
"Howdy," he said.
"Blake, today I got from Hardman the truth about the deal you gave me and Lucy," returned Pan, and then in cold deliberate tones he called the man every infamous name known to the ranges. Under this onslaught, Blake sank into something
akin to abasement.
"Reckon you think," concluded Pan, "that because you're Lucy's father I can't take a shot at you. Don't fool yourself. You've killed her soul—and mine. So why shouldn't I kill you? ... Well, there isn't any reason except that away from Hardman's influence you might brace up. I'll take the chance. You're done in Marco. Jard Hardman is dead and Dick's chances of seeing the sun rise are damn thin.... Now you rustle out that door and out of Marco. When you make a man of yourself come to Siccane, Arizona."
Blake lurched himself erect, and met Pan's glance with astonished bewildered eyes; then he wheeled to march out of the saloon.
Pan turned into the hallway leading into the hotel part of the building, and soon encountered Blinky leaning against the wall.
"Blink, isn't she in?" asked Pan, low voiced and eager.
"Shore, but she won't open the door," replied Blinky dejectedly.
Pan knocked and called low: "Louise, let us in."
There was a long wait, then came a low voice: "No."
"Please, it's very important."
"Who are you?"
"It's Panhandle Smith," replied Pan.
"That cowboy's drunk and I—no—I'm sorry."
"Louise I'm not drunk, but I am in bad temper. I ask as a friend. Don't cross me here. I can easy shove in this door."
He heard soft steps, a breathless exclamation, then a key turned in the lock, and the door opened. The lamplight was not bright, Louise stood there half dressed, her bare arms and bosom gleaming. Pan entered, dragging Blinky with him, and closed the door all but tight.
"Louise, it wasn't kind of you to do that," said Pan reproachfully. "Have you any better friends than Blinky or me?"
"God knows—I haven't," faltered the girl. "But I've been ill—in bed—and am just getting out. I—I—heard about you—today—and Blink being with you—drunk."
Pan stepped to the red-shaded lamp on a small table beside the bed, and turned up the light. The room had more comfort and color than any Pan had seen for many a day.
He bent searching eyes upon Louise. She did look ill—white, with great dark shadows under her eyes, but she seemed really beautiful. What a tragic face it was, betrayed now by lack of paint! Pan had never seen her like this. If he had needed it, this would have warmed his heart to her.