Valley of Wild Horses

by Grey, Zane

  "'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—"

  "My God! Burned alive?"

  "No," replied Pan hoarsely.

  "Pan—you—you avenged me—and your Lucy—you?—" she whispered, clinging to him.

  "Hush! Don't speak it! Don't ever think it again," he said sternly. "That's our secret. Rumor has it he fled from me to hide with you, and you were both burned up."

  "But Lucy—your mother!" she cried.

  "They know nothing except that you're my friend's wife—that you've been ill," he replied. "They're all kindness and sympathy. Dad never saw you, and Gus will keep his mouth shut. Play your part now, Louise. You and Blink make up your past. Just a few simple statements.... Then bury the past forever."

  "Oh—I'm slipping—slipping—" she whispered, bursting into tears. "Help me—back to the wagon."

  She walked a few rods with Pan's arm supporting her. Then she collapsed. He had to carry her to the wagon, where he deposited her, sobbing and limp behind the canvas curtains. Pan pitied her with all his heart, yet he was glad indeed she had broken down. It had been easier than he had anticipated.

  Then he espied Blinky coming in manifest concern.

  "Pard," said Pan in his ear, "you've a pat hand. Play it for all you're worth."

  The wagons rolled down the long winding open road.

  For the shortest, fullest eight hours Pan had ever experienced he matched his wits against the wild horses that he and Gus had to drive. It was a down grade and the wagons rolled thirty miles before Pan picked a camp site in the mouth of a little grassy canyon where the wild horses could be corralled. Jack rabbits, deer, coyotes ranged away from the noisy invasion of their solitude. It was wild country. Marco was distant forty miles up the sweeping ridges—far behind—gone into the past.

  As the wagons rolled one by one up to the camping place. Pan observed that Blinky, the last to arrive, had a companion on the driver's seat beside him. Pan waved a glad hand. It was Louise who waved in return. Wind and sun had warmed the pallor out of her face.

  Four days on the way to Siccane! The wild horses were no longer wild. The travelers to the far country had become like one big family. They all had their tasks. Even Bobby sat on his father's knee and drove the team down the open road toward the homestead where he was to grow into a pioneer lad.

  So far Pan had carried on his pretense of aloofness from Lucy, apparently blind to the wondering appeal in her eyes. Long ago he had forgiven her. Yet he waited, divining surely that some day or night when an opportune moment came, she would voice the question in her eyes. He thought he could hold out longer than she could.

  That very evening when he went to fetch water she waylaid him, surprised him.

  "Panhandle Smith, you are killing me!" she said, with great eyes of accusation.

  "How so?" he asked weakly.

  "You know," she retorted. "And I won't stand it longer."

  "What is it you won't stand?" teased Pan.

  But suddenly Lucy broke down. "Don't. Don't keep it up," she cried desperately. "I know it was a terrible thing to do. But I told you why.... I couldn't have gone away with him—after I'd seen you."

  "Well, I'm glad to hear that. I was mad enough to think you might—even care for him."

  "Pan, I love only you. All my life it's been only you."

  "Lucy!... Tomorrow we ride into Green River. Will you marry me there?"

  "Yes—if you—love me," she whispered, going close to him.

  Pan dropped both of the buckets, splashing water everywhere.

  Arizonaland!

  It was not only a far country attained, but another, strange and beautiful. Siccane lay a white and green dot far over the purple sage. The golden-walled mesas stood up, black fringed against the blue. In the bold notches burned the red of autumn foliage. Valleys spread between the tablelands. There was room for a hundred homesteads. Pan's keen eye sighted only a few and they were farther on, green squares in the gray. Down toward Siccane cattle made tiny specks on the vast expanse. Square miles of bleached grass contended with the surrounding slopes of sage, sweeping with slow graceful rise up to the bases of the walls and mesas.

  "Water! Grass! No fences!" exclaimed Pan's father, with a glad note of renewed youth.

  "Dad. Lucy. Look," replied Pan, pointing across the valley. "See that first big notch in the wall? Thick with bright green? There's water. And see the open canyon with the cedars scattered? What a place for a ranch! It has been waiting for us all these years ... That's where we'll homestead."

  "Wal, pard, an' you, Louie—look over heah aways," drawled Blinky, with long arm outstretched. "See the red circle wall, with the brook shinin' down like a ribbon. Lookin' to the south! Warm in winter—cool in summer. Shore's I was born in the West thet's the homestead fer me."

  The wagons rolled on behind wild horses that needed little driving. Down the long winding open road across the valley! And so on into the rich grass where no wheel track showed—on into the sage toward the lonely beckoning walls.

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