by Zane Grey
They went into the little whitewashed kitchen, where Pan had to stoop to avoid the ceiling, and took seats at the table. Pan feasted his eyes. His mother had not been idle during the hours that he was out in the orchard with Lucy, nor had she forgotten the things that he had always liked. Alice acted as waitress, and Bobby sat in a high chair beaming upon Pan. At that juncture Lucy came in. She had changed her gray blouse to one of white, with wide collar that was cut a little low and showed the golden contour of her superb neck. She had put her hair up. Pan could not take his eyes off her. In hers he saw a dancing subdued light, and a beautiful rose color in her cheeks.
“Well, I’ve got to eat,” said Pan, as if by way of explanation and excuse for removing his gaze from this radiant picture.
Thus his home coming proved to be a happier event than he had ever dared to hope for. Lucy was quiet and ate but little. At times Pan caught her stealing a glimpse at him, and each time she blushed. She could not meet his eyes again. Alice too stole shy glances at him, wondering, loving. Bobby was hungry, but he did not forget that Pan sat across from him. Mrs. Smith watched Pan with an expression that would have pained him had he allowed remorse to come back then. And his father was funny. He tried to be natural, to meet Pan on a plane of the old western insouciance, but it was impossible. No doubt such happiness had not reigned in that household for years.
“Dad, let’s go out and have a talk,” proposed Pan, after dinner.
As they walked down toward the corrals Pan’s father was silent, yet it was clear he labored with suppressed feeling.
“All right, fire away,” he burst out at last, “but first tell me, for Gawd’s sake, how’d you do it?”
“What?” queried Pan, looking round from his survey of the farm land.
“Mother! She’s well. She wasn’t well at all,” exclaimed the older man, breathing hard. “An’ that girl! Did you ever see such eyes?”
“Reckon I never did,” replied Pan, with joyous bluntness.
“This mornin’ I left Lucy crushed. Her eyes were like lead. An’ now!… Pan, I’m thankin’ God for them. But tell me how’d you do it?”
“Dad, I don’t know women very well, but I reckon they live by their hearts. You can bet that happiness for them means a lot to me. I felt pretty low down. That’s gone. I could crow like Bobby…but, Dad, I’ve a big job on my hands, and I think I’m equal to it. Are you going to oppose me?”
“Hell, no!” spat out his father, losing his pipe in his vehemence. “Son, I lost my cattle, my ranch. An’ then my nerve. I’m not makin’ excuses. I just fell down…but I’m not too old to make another start with you to steer me.”
“Good!” replied Pan with strong feeling, and he laid a hand on his father’s shoulder. They halted by the open corral. “Then let’s get right down to straight poker.”
“Play your game, Pan. I’m sure curious.”
“First off then—we don’t want to settle in this country.”
“Pan, you’ve called me right on the first hand,” declared his father, cracking his fist on the corral gate. “I know this’s no country for the Smiths. But I followed Jard Hardman here, I hoped to——”
“Never mind explanations, Dad,” interrupted Pan. “We’re looking to the future. We won’t settle here. We’ll go to Arizona. I had a pard who came from Arizona. All day long and half the night that broncho buster would rave about Arizona. Well, he won me over. Arizona must be wonderful.”
“But Pan, isn’t it desert country?”
“Arizona is every kind of country,” replied Pan earnestly. “It’s a big territory, Dad. Pretty wild yet, too, but not like these mining claim countries, with their Yellow Mines. Arizona is getting settlers in the valleys where there’s water and grass. Lots of fine pine timber that will be valuable some day. I know just where we’ll strike for. But we needn’t waste time talking about that now. If it suits you the thing is settled. We go to Arizona.”
“Fine, Pan,” said his father rubbing his hands. Pan had struck fire from him. “When will we go?”
“That’s to decide,” answered Pan, thoughtfully. “I’ve got some money. Not much. But we could get there and start on it. I believe, though, that we’d do better to stay here—this fall anyway—and round up a bunch of these wild horses. Five hundred horses, a thousand at twelve dollars a head—why, Dad, it would start us in a big way.”
“Son, I should smile it would,” returned Smith, with fiery enthusiasm. “But can you do it?”
“Dad, if these broomies are as thick as I hear they are I sure can make a stake. Last night I fell in with two cowboys—Blinky Moran and Gus Hans. They’re chasing wild horses, and want me to throw in with them. Now with you and maybe a couple of more riders we can make a big drive. You’ve got to know the tricks. I learned a heap from a Mormon wild-horse wrangler. If these broomtails are thick here—well, I don’t want to set your hopes too high. But wait till I show you.”
“Pan, there’s ten thousand wild horses in that one valley across the mountain there. Hot Springs Valley they call it.”
“Then, by George, we’ve got to take the risk,” declared Pan decisively.
“Risk of what?”
“Trouble with that Hardman outfit. It can’t be avoided. I’d have to bluff them out or fight them down, right off. Dick is a yellow skunk. Jard Hardman is a bad man in any pinch. But not on an even break. I don’t mean that. If that were all. But he’s treacherous. And his henchman, this two bit of a sheriff, he’s no man to face you on the square. I’ll swear he can be bluffed. Has he any reputation as a gun thrower?”
“Matthews? I never heard of it, if he had. But he brags a lot. He’s been in several fracases here, with drunken miners an’ Mexicans. He’s killed a couple of men since I’ve been here.”
“Ah-huh, just what I thought,” declared Pan, in cool contempt. “I’ll bet a hundred he elected himself town marshal, as he calls it. I’ll bet he hasn’t any law papers from the territory, or government, either.… Jard Hardman will be the hard nut to crack. Now, Dad, back in Littleton I learned what he did to you. And Lucy’s story gave me another angle on that. It’s pretty hard to overlook. I’m not swearing I can do so. But I’d like to know how you feel about it.”
“Son, I’d be scared to tell you,” replied Smith in husky voice, dropping his head.
“You needn’t, Dad. We’ll stay here till we catch and sell a bunch of horses,” said Pan curtly. “Can you quit your job at the wagon shop?”
“Any time—an’ Lord, won’t I be glad to do it,” returned Smith fervently.
“Well, you quit just then,” remarked Pan dryly. “So much is settled.… Dad, I’ve got to get Jim Blake out of that jail.”
“I reckon so. It might be a job an’ then again it mightn’t. Depends on Jim. An’ between you an’ me, Pan, I’ve no confidence in Jim.”
“That doesn’t make any difference. I’ve got to get him out and send him away. Head him for Arizona where we’re going.… Is it a real jail?”
“Dobe mud an’ stones,” replied his father. “An Indian or a real man could break out of there any night. There are three guards, who change off every eight hours. One of them is a tough customer. Name’s Hill. He used to be an outlaw. The other two are lazy loafers round town.
“Anybody but Jim in just now?”
“I don’t know. Matthews jailed a woman not long ago. He arrests somebody every day or so.”
“Where is this calaboose belonging to Mr. Matthews?”
“You passed it on the way out, Pan. Off the road. Gray flat buildin’. Let’s see. It’s the third place from the wagon shop, same side.”
“All right, Dad,” said Pan with cheerful finality. “Let’s go back to the house and talk Arizona to Lucy and Mother for a little. Then I’ll rustle along toward town. Tomorrow you come over to the boys’ camp. It’s on the other side of town, in a cedar flat, up that slope. We’ve got horses to try out and saddles to buy.”
CHAPTER NINE
As Pa
n strode back along the road toward Marco the whole world seemed to have changed.
For a few moments he indulged his old joy in range and mountain, stretching, rising on his right, away into the purple distance. Something had heightened its beauty. How softly gray the rolling range land—how black the timbered slopes! The town before him sat like a hideous blotch on a fair landscape. It forced his gaze over and beyond toward the west, where the late afternoon sun had begun to mellow and redden, edging the clouds with exquisite light. To the southward lay Arizona, land of painted mesas and storied canyon walls, of thundering streams and wild pine forests, of purple-saged valleys and grassy parks, set like mosaics between the stark desert mountains.
But his mind soon reverted to the business at hand. It was much to his liking. Many a time he had gone to extremes, reckless and fun loving, in the interest of some cowboy who had gotten into durance vile. It was the way of his class. A few were strong and many were weak, but all of them held a constancy of purpose as to their calling. As they hated wire fences so they hated notoriety-seeking sheriffs and unlicensed jails. No doubt Jard Hardman, who backed the Yellow Mine, was also behind the jail. At least Matthews pocketed the ill-gotten gains from offenders of the peace as constituted by himself.
Pan felt that now for the first time in his life he had a mighty incentive, something tremendous and calling, to bring out that spirit of fire common to the daredevils of the range. He had touched only the last fringe of the cowboy regime. Dodge and Abilene, the old Chisholm Trail, the hard-drinking hard-shooting days of an earlier Cimarron had gone. Life then had been but the chance of a card, the wink of an eye, the flip of a quirt. But Pan had ridden and slept with men who had seen those days. He had absorbed from them, and to him had come a later period, not comparable in any sense, yet rough, free, untamed and still bloody. He knew how to play his cards against such men as these. The more boldly he faced them, the more menacingly he went out of his way to meet them, the greater would be his advantage. If Matthews were another Hickok the situation would have been vastly different. If there were any real fighting men on Hardman’s side Pan would recognize them in a single glance. He was an unknown quantity to them, that most irritating of newcomers to a wild place, the man with a name preceding him.
Pan came abreast of the building that he was seeking. It was part stone and part adobe, heavily and crudely built, with no windows on the side facing him. Approaching it, and turning the corner, he saw a wide-arched door leading into a small stone-floored room. He heard voices. In a couple of long strides Pan crossed the flat threshold. Two men were playing cards with a greasy deck, a bottle of liquor and small glasses on the table between them. The one whose back was turned to Pan did not see him, but the other man jerked up from his bench, then sagged back with strangely altering expression. He was young, dark, coarse, and he had a bullet hole in his chin.
Pan’s recognition did not lag behind the other’s. This was Handy Mac New, late of Montana, a cowboy who had drifted beyond the pale. He was one of that innumerable band whom Pan had helped in some way or other. Handy had become a horse thief and a suspected murderer in the year following Pan’s acquaintance with him.
“Howdy, men,” Pan greeted them, giving no sign that he had recognized Mac New. “Which one of you is on guard here?”
“Me,” replied Mac New, choking over the word. Slowly he got to his feet.
“You’ve got a prisoner in there named Blake,” went on Pan. “I once lived near him. He used to play horse with me and ride me on his back. Will you let me talk to him?”
“Why, shore, stranger,” replied Mac New, with nervous haste, and producing a key, he inserted it in the lock of a heavy whitewashed door.
Pan found himself ushered into a large room with small iron-barred windows on the west side. His experience of frontier jails had been limited, but those he had seen had been bare, empty, squalid cells. This, however, was evidently a luxurious kind of a prison house. There were Indian blankets and rugs on the floor, an open fireplace with cheerful blaze, a table littered with books and papers, a washstand, a comfortable bed upon which reclined a man smoking and reading.
“Somebody to see you, Blake,” called the guard, and he went out, shutting the door behind him.
Blake sat up. As he did so, moving his bootless feet, Pan’s keen eye espied a bottle on the floor.
Pan approached leisurely, his swift thoughts revolving around a situation that looked peculiar to him. Blake was very much better cared for there than could have been expected. Why?
“Howdy, Blake. Do you remember me?” asked Pan halting beside the table.
He did not in the least remember Lucy’s father in this heavy blond man, lax of body and sodden of face.
“Somethin’ familiar aboot you,” replied Blake, studying Pan intently. “But I reckon you’ve got the best of me.”
“Pan Smith,” said Pan shortly.
“Wal!” he ejaculated, as if shocked into memory, and slowly he rose to hold out a shaking hand. “Bill’s kid—the little boy who stuck by my wife—when Lucy was born.”
“Same boy, and he’s damn sorry to find you in this fix,” responded Pan, forcefully. “And he’s here to get you out.”
Blake sagged back as slowly as he had arisen. His face changed like that of a man suddenly stabbed. And he dropped his head. In that moment Pan saw enough to make him glad. Manifestly the good in him had not been wholly killed by evil. Jim Blake might yet be reclaimed or at least led away from evil life.
“Mr. Blake, I’ve been to see Lucy,” went on Pan, and swiftly he talked of the girl, her unhappiness, and the faith she still held in her father. “I’ve come to get you out of here, for Lucy’s sake. We’re all going to Arizona. You and Dad can make a new start in life.”
“My God, if I only could,” groaned the man.
Pan reached out with quick hand and shook him. “Listen,” he said, low and eagerly. “How long is this guard Mac New on duty?”
“Mac New? The fellow outside is called Hurd. He’s on till midnight.”
“All right, my mistake,” went on Pan, swiftly. “I’ll be here tonight about eleven. I’ll have a horse for you, blanket, grub, gun, and money. I’ll hold up this guard Hurd—get you out some way or other. You’re to ride away. Take the road south. There are other mining camps. You’ll not be followed. Make for Siccane, Arizona.”
“Siccane, Arizona,” echoed Blake, as a man in a dream of freedom.
“Yes, Siccane. Don’t forget it. Stay there till we all come.”
Pan straightened up, with deep expulsion of breath, and tingling nerves. He had reached Blake. Whatever his doubts of the man, and they had been many, Pan divined that he could stir him, rouse him out of the lethargy of sordid indifference and forgetfulness. He would free him from this jail, and the shackles of Hardman in any case, but to find that it was possible to influence him gladdened Pan’s heart. What would this not mean to Lucy!
The door opened behind Pan.
“Wal, stranger, reckon yore time’s up,” called the jailer.
Pan gave the stunned Blake a meaning look, and then without a word, he left the room. The guard closed and locked the door. Then he looked up, with cunning, yet not wholly without pleasure. His companion at the card game had gone.
“Panhandle Smith!” whispered the guard, half stretching out his hand, then withdrawing it.
“Shake, Mac,” said Pan in a low voice. “It’s a small world.”
“By Gord, it shore is,” replied Mac New, wringing Pan’s hand. “I’m known here as Hurd.”
“Ah-huh.… Well, Hurd, I’m not a talking man. But I want to remind you that you owe me a good turn.”
“You shore don’t have to remind me of thet,” returned the other.
“It pays to do good turns.… I’m lucky, old timer.”
“I savvy, Panhandle Smith,” said Hurd, with gleaming eyes, and he crooked a stubby thumb toward the door of Blake’s jail.
“All right, cowboy,” ret
urned Pan, with a meaning smile. “I’ll drop around tonight about eleven.”
Pan slowed up in his stride when he reached the business section of the town, and strolled along as if he were looking for someone. He was. He meant to have eyes in the back of his head henceforth. But he did not meet anyone he knew or see anyone who glanced twice at him.
He went into Black’s general merchandise store to look at the saddle Moran had recommended. It was a bargain and Pan purchased it on sight. Proof indeed was this that there were not many cowboys in and around Marco. While he was there, Pan bought a Winchester carbine and a saddle sheath for it. Thus burdened he walked out to the camp.
Lying Juan had supper about ready and the boys were noisy up at the corral. Some of their language was indicative of trouble and mean horses. Pan found a seat by the fire very welcome. Emotion had power to exhaust him far beyond physical exertion. Darkness had just about merged from dusk when the boys dragged themselves in, smelling of dust and horses. They went into the water basins like ducks. Pan lighted the lantern and put it on the table. Then the boys came straddling the bench like cowboys mounting horses. Their faces were red and shiny, their wet hair was pasted down.
“Wal, if heah ain’t ole Pan Smith,” announced Blinky, vociferously. “Gus, take a peep at him. I’ll bet he’s got hold of a grand hoss. Nothing else could make him look like thet.”
“No. I just got back my girl,” replied Pan gaily.
“Gurl! Say, cowboy,” began Blinky, in consternation. “You didn’t run foul of thet little Yellow Mine kid?”
“Eat your supper, you hungry-looking galoot,” replied Pan. “And you too, Gus… Because if I begin to shoot off my chin now you’ll forget the grub.”
Thus admonished, and with curious glances at Pan, the cowboys took his advice and attacked the generous meal Juan had set before them. Their appetites further attested to a strenuous day. Pan did not seem to be hungry, which fact caused Juan much concern.
“Ahuh! It’s the way a fellar gets when he’s in love with a gurl,” observed the keen Blinky. “I been there.”