by Grey, Zane
"What do you want of me?" she asked, with a nervous twisting of hands she tried to hide.
Pan took her hands and pulled her a little toward him.
"Louise, you like me, don't you, as a friend or brother?" he asked gently.
"Yes, when I'm sober," she replied wanly.
"And you like Blinky, here, don't you—like him a lot?"
"I did. I couldn't help it, the damn faithful little cowboy," she returned. "But I hate him when he's drunk, and he hates me when I'm drunk."
"Blink, go out and fetch back a bottle—presently. We'll all get drunk."
The cowboy stared like a solemn owl, then very quietly went out.
"Louise, put something over your shoulders. You'll catch cold. Here," said Pan and he picked a robe off the bed and wrapped it round her. "I didn't know you were so pretty. No wonder poor Blink worships you."
She drew away from him and sat upon the bed, dark eyes questioning, suspicious. Yet she seemed fascinated. Pan caught a slight quivering of her frame. Where was the audacity, the boldness of this girl? But he did not know her, and he had her word that drink alone enabled her to carry on. He had surprised her. Yet could that account for something different, something quite beyond his power to grasp? Surely this girl could not fear him. Suddenly he remembered that Hardman had fled to this house—was hidden there now. Pan's nerves tautened.
"Louise," he began, taking her hand again, and launching directly into the reason for this interview he had sought, "we've had a great drive. Blink and I have had luck. Oh, such luck! We sold over fifteen hundred horses.... Well, we're going to Arizona, to a sunny open country, not like this.... Now Blink and I want you to go with us."
"What! Go away with you? How, in God's name?" she gasped in utter amaze.
"Why, as Blink's wife, of course. And I'll be your big brother," replied Pan, not without agitation. It was a pregnant moment. She stared a second, white and still, with great solemn searching eyes on his. Pan felt strangely embarrassed, yet somehow happy that he had dared to approach her with such a proposition.
Suddenly she kissed him, she clung to him, she buried her face on his shoulder and he heard her murmur incoherently something about "honest-to-God men."
"What do you say, little girl?" he went on. "It's a chance for you to be good again. It'll save that wild cowboy, who never had a decent ambition till he met you. He loves you. He worships you. He hates what you have to suffer here. He—"
"So this is Panhandle Smith?" she interrupted, looking up at him with eyes like dark stars. "No! No! No! I wouldn't degrade even a worthless cowboy."
"You're wrong. He'll not be worthless, if you repay his faith. Louise, don't turn your back on hope, on love, on a home."
"No!" she flashed, passionately.
"Why?" he returned, in sharp appeal.
"Because he's too good for me. Because I don't deserve your friendship. But so help me God I'll love you both all the rest of my miserable life—which won't be long."
He took her in his arms, as if to add force to argument. "But, you poor child, this is no place for you. You'll only go to hell—commit suicide or be killed in a drunken brawl."
"Panhandle, I may end even worse," she replied, in bitter mockery. "I might marry Dick Hardman. He talks of it—when he's drunk."
Pan released her, and leaned back to see her face. "Marry you! Dick Hardman talks of that?" he burst out incredulously.
"Yes, he does. And I might let him when I'm drunk. I'd do anything then."
At that moment the door opened noiselessly and Blinky entered carrying a bottle and glasses.
"Good, Blink, old pard," said Pan, breathing heavily. "Louise and I have just made up our minds to get drunk together. Blink, you stay sober."
"I cain't stay what I ain't," retorted Blinky. "An' I won't stay heah, either, to see her drink. I hate her then."
She poured the dark red liquor out into the glasses. "Boy, I want you to hate me. I'll make you hate me... Here's to Panhandle Smith!"
While she drank Blinky moved backwards to the door, eyes glinting brightly into Pan's and then he was gone.
In the mood under which Pan labored, liquor had no effect upon him but to act as fire to body and mind. The girl, however, was transformed into another creature. Bright red spots glowed in her cheeks, her eyes danced and dilated, her whole body answered to the stimulus. One drink led to another. She could not resist the insidious appetite thus created. She did not see whether Pan drank or not. She grew funny, then sentimental, and finally lost herself in that stage of unnatural abandon for which, when sober, she frankly confessed she drank.
Pan decided that presently he would wrap a blanket around her, pick her up and pack her out. Blinky would shoot out the lights in the saloon, and the rest would be easy. If she knew that Hardman was in the house, as Pan had suspected, she had now no memory of it.
"You big handsome devil," she called Pan. "I told you—to keep away from me."
"Louise, don't make love to me," replied Pan.
"Why not? Men are all alike."
"No, you're wrong. You forget what you said a little while ago. I've lost my sweetheart, and my heart is broken."
She leered at him, and offered him another drink. Pan took the glass away from her. It was possible he might overdo his part.
"So you're liable to marry young Hardman?" he asked deliberately.
The question, the name, gave her pause, as if they had startled her memory.
"Sure I am."
"But, Louise, how can you marry Hardman when he already has a wife?" asked Pan.
She grasped that import only slowly, by degrees.
"You lie, you gun-slinging cowboy!" she cried.
"No, Louise. He told me so himself."
"He did! ... When?" she whispered, very low.
"Today. He was at the stage office. He meant to leave today. He was all togged up, frock coat, high hat.... Oh, God—Louise, I know, I know, because it—was—my—sweetheart—he married."
Pan ended gaspingly. What agony to speak that aloud—to make his own soul hear that aloud!
"Your sweetheart? ... Little Lucy—of your boyhood—you told me about?"
Pan was confronted now by something terrible. He had sought to make this girl betray herself, if she had anything to betray. But this Medusa face! Those awful eyes!
"Yes, Lucy, I told you," he said, reaching for her. "He forced her to marry him. They had Lucy's father in jail. Dick got him out. Oh, it was all a scheme to work on the poor girl. She thought it was to save her father.... Why, Dick paid her father. I made him tell me... yes, Dick Hardman in his frock coat and high hat! But when I drove him out to get his gun, he forgot that high hat."
"Ah! His high hat!"
"Yes, it's out in the street now. The wind blew it over where I killed Matthews. Funny! ... And Louise, I'm going to kill Dick Hardman, too."
"Like hell you are!" she hissed, and leaped swiftly to snatch something from under the pillow.
Pan started back, thinking that she meant to attack him. How tigerishly she bounded! Her white arm swept aside red curtains. They hid a shallow closet. It seemed her white shape flashed in and out. A hard choking gasp! Could that have come from her? Pan did not see her drawn lips move. Something hard dropped to the floor with metallic sound.
The hall door opened with a single sweep. Blinky stood framed there, wild eyed. And the next instant Dick Hardman staggered from that closet. He had both hands pressed to his abdomen. Blood poured out in a stream. Pan heard strange watery sounds. Hardman reeled out into the hall, groaning. He slipped along the wall. Pan leaped, to see him slide down into a widening pool of blood.
It was a paralyzing moment. But Pan recovered first. The girl swayed with naked arms outstretched against the wall. On her white wrist showed a crimson blot. Pan looked no more. Snatching a blanket off the bed he threw it round her, wrapped it tight, and lifted her in his arms.
"Blink, go ahead," he whispered, as he went into the hall. "H
urry! Shoot out the lights! Go through the dance hall!"
The cowboy seemed galvanized into action. He leaped over Hardman's body, huddled and lax, and down the hall, pulling his guns.
Pan edged round the body on the floor. He saw a ghastly face—protruding eyes. And on the instant, like lightning, came the thought that Lucy was free. Almost immediately thundering shots filled the saloon. Crash! Crash! Crash! The lights faded, darkened, went out. Yells and scraping chairs and overturned tables, breaking glass, pounding boots merged in a pandemonium of sound.
Pan hurried through the dance hall, where the windows gave dim light, found the doorway, gained the side entrance to the street. Blinky waited there, smoking guns in his hands.
"Heah—this—way," he directed in a panting whisper, as he sheathed the guns, and took the lead. Pan followed in the shadow of the houses.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The street down that way was dark, with but few lights showing. Blinky kept looking back in the direction of the slowly subsiding tumult. Pan carried Louise at rapid pace, as if she made no burden at all. In the middle of the next block Blinky slowed up, carefully scrutinizing the entrances to the buildings. They came to an open hallway, dimly lighted. Pan read a sign he remembered. This was the lodging house.
"Go in, Blink," directed Pan quickly. "If you find our parson chase everybody but him and call me pronto."
Blinky ran into the place. Pan let Louise down on her feet. She could not stand alone.
"Cowboy—smozzer me," she giggled, pulling at the fold of blanket round her face.
Pan rearranged the blanket over her bare shoulders, and folded it round more like a coat. He feared she might collapse before they could accomplish their design. The plight of this girl struck deeply into his heart.
"Whaz—mazzer, cowboy?" she asked. "Somebody's raid us?"
"Hush, Louie," whispered Pan shaking her. "There'll be a gang after us."
"Hell with gang.... Shay, Pan, whaz become of Dick?"
She was so drunk she did not remember. Pan thanked God for that! How white the tragic face! Her big eyes resembled bottomless gulfs. Her hair hung disheveled round her.
A low whistle made Pan jump. Blinky stood inside in a flare of light from an open door. He beckoned. Pan lifted the girl and carried her in.
Five minutes later they came out, one on each side of Louise, trying to keep her quiet. She was gay, maudlin. But once outside again, the rush of cold mountain air aided them. They hurried down the dark street, almost carrying the girl between them. A few people passed, fortunately on the other side. These pedestrians were hurrying in the other direction. Some excitement uptown, Pan thought grimly! Soon they passed the outskirts of Marco and gained the open country. Pan cast off what seemed a weight of responsibility for Blinky and Louise. Once he got them out of town they were safe.
Suddenly Blinky reached behind the girl and gave Pan a punch. Turning, Pan saw his comrade point back. A dull red flare lighted up the sky. Fire! Pan's heart gave a leap. The Yellow Mine was burning. The crowd of drinkers and gamblers had fled before Blinky's guns. Pan was hoping that only he and Blinky would ever know who had killed Dick Hardman.
From time to time Pan glanced back over his shoulder. The flare of red light grew brighter and higher. One corner of Marco would surely be wiped out.
The road curved. Soon a dark patch of trees, and a flickering light, told Pan they had reached his father's place. It gave him a shock. He had forgotten his parents. They entered the lane and cut off through the dew-wet grass of the orchard to the barn. Pan caught the round pale gleam of canvas-covered wagons.
"Good! Dad sure rustled," said Pan with satisfaction. "If he got the horses, too, we can leave tomorrow."
"Shore, we will anyhow," replied Blinky, who was now sober and serious.
They found three large wagons and one smaller, with a square canvas top.
"Blink, hold her, till I get some hay," said Pan.
He hurried into the open side of the barn. It was fairly dark but he knew where to go. He heard horses munching grain. That meant his father had bought the teams. Pan got an armful of hay, and carrying it out to the wagon, he threw it in, and spread it out for a bed.
"Reckon we'd better put Louise here," said Pan, stepping down off the wheel. "I'll get some blankets from Dad."
Blinky was standing there in the starlight holding the girl in his arms. His head was bowed over her wan face.
They lifted Louise into the wagon and laid her down upon the hay.
"Whish you—gennelmanz my hushband?" she asked thickly.
Pan had to laugh at that, but Blinky stood gazing intently down upon the pale gleam of face. Pan left him there and strode toward the house. Though the distance was short, he ran the whole gamut of emotions before he stopped at a lighted window. He heard his father's voice.
"Dad," he called, tapping on the window. Then he saw his mother and Alice. They had started up from packing. One glance at the suffering expressed in his mother's face was enough to steady Pan. The door opened with a jerk.
"That you—Pan?" called his father, with agitation.
"Nobody else, Dad," replied Pan, trying to calm his voice. "Tell Mother I'm here safe and sound."
His mother heard and answered with a low cry of relief.
"Dad, come out.... Shut the door," returned Pan sharply.
Once outside his father saw the great flare of light above the town.
"Look! What's that? Must be fire!" he burst out.
"Reckon it is fire," returned Pan shortly. "Blinky shot out the lamps in the Yellow Mine. Fire must have caught from that."
"Yellow Mine!" echoed Smith, staring in momentary stupefaction.
Pan laid a heavy hand on him. It was involuntary, an expression of a sudden passion rising in Pan. He had a question to put that almost stifled him.
"Lucy! ... Did she—come home?" he forced out.
"Sure. Didn't you know? She was home when I got here at noon. Son, I bought all our outfit in no time."
"What did Lucy tell you?"
"Nothin' much," replied his father, in earnest wonder. "She was in an awful state. Said she couldn't go because you were not dead ... poor girl! She had hysterics. But mother got her quieted down by suppertime."
"Where is she now?"
"In bed, I reckon. Leastways she's in her room."
"Dad, does she know? But of course she couldn't ... nor could you!"
"Son, I know aplenty," replied his father, solemnly. "Lucy told mother when she saw you come to the stagecoach that it nearly killed her. They believed you dead—mother an' Lucy.... She told how you threw Hardman out of the stage on to the street. Said she almost fainted then. But she came to in time to see you kick him—drive him off."
"Is that all she knows?" queried Pan.
"Reckon it is. I know more, but I didn't tell her," replied Smith, lowering his voice to a whisper. "I heard about them drivin' Matthews out to meet you.... McCormick told me you hadn't lost any friends."
"Ah-huh!" ejaculated Pan somberly. "Well, better tell Lucy at once.... Reckon that's best—the sooner the better."
"Tell Lucy what?" asked Smith anxiously.
"That she's a widow."
"It—is Dick Hardman dead—too?" gasped out Smith.
"Yes."
"My God! Son—did—did you—"
"Dad, I didn't kill him," interrupted Pan. "Dick Hardman was—was knocked out—just before Blinky shot out the lights. Reckon it's a good bet no one will ever know. He sure was burned up in that fire."
"Alive?" whispered Smith.
"He might still have been alive, but he was far gone—unconscious when I passed him in the hall. You needn't tell Lucy that. Just tell her Hardman is dead and that I didn't kill him."
"All right, I'll go right an' do it," replied his father huskily.
"Before you do it fetch me a roll of blankets. We haven't any beds. And Blinky's wife is with us."
"Wife? I didn't know Blinky had one. Fetch
her in. We'll make room somewhere."
"No, we've already fixed a place for her in that wagon with the square top," went on Pan. "She's been sick. Rustle, Dad. Fetch me the blankets."
"Got them right inside. We bought new ones," said Smith, opening the door to hurry in.
"Mother," called Pan, "everything's all right. We'll be leaving early tomorrow."
Then his father reappeared with a roll of blankets. Pan found Blinky exactly as he had left him, leaning over the wagon.
"Blink, put a couple of these blankets over her," directed Pan.
"She went right off, asleep, like she was daid," whispered the cowboy, and he took the blankets and stepped up on the wheel hub to lay the blankets softly over the quiet form Pan saw dimly in the starlight.
"Come here, cowboy," called Pan.
And when Blinky got down and approached, Pan laid hold of him with powerful hand.
"Listen, pard," he began, in low voice. "We're playing a deep game, and by God, it's an honest game, even though we have to lie.... Louise will never remember she cut that traitor's heart out. She was too crazy. If it half returns to her we'll lie—you understand—lie.... Nobody will ever know who did kill Hardman, I'll gamble. I intended to, and all Marco must have known that. If he burned up they can't ever be sure. Anyway, that doesn't matter. It's our women folks we've got to think of. I told Dad you'd brought your wife—that she'd been sick. He'll tell Mother and Lucy. They don't know, and they never will know what kind of a girl Louise has been.... Savvy, pard?"
"Reckon I do," replied Blinky, in hoarse trembling accents. "But won't we have hell with Louise—when she wakes up sober?"
"Cowboy, you bet we will," returned Pan grimly. "But we'll be far on our way when she wakes up. You can drive this wagon. We'll keep watch on her. And, well—leave it to me, Blink."
"Pan, we feel the same aboot Louie? Shore I don't mean thet you love her. Reckon it's hard fer me to find words."
"I understand, Blink," replied Pan, earnestly, hoping to dispel the groping and doubt of his comrade's soul. "For you and me Louie's past is dead. We're gambling on life. And whatever way you put it, whatever the future brings, we're better for what happened tonight."