by Zane Grey
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.
“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.