Valley of Wild Horses Part 43

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 hoa.r.s.ely: "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. d.i.c.k Hardman! Fas.h.i.+onably 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 pa.s.s 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! d.a.m.n 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 abas.e.m.e.nt. 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 hoa.r.s.er, 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 h.e.l.l.... Get up....

Go get yourself a gun...."

Hardman staggered to his feet, brus.h.i.+ng the dirt from his person while he gazed strickenly at Pan.

"My G.o.d, 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 h.e.l.lhole 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?