Valley of Wild Horses

by Grey, Zane

  "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 Pan 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 do
or. 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," returned 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."

  After supper they got together before the stove and rolled their cigarettes. The cold night wind, with its tang of mountain heights, made the fire most agreeable. Pan spread his palms to the heat.

  "Wal, pard, throw it off your chest before you bust," advised Blinky shrewdly.

  "What kind of a day did you boys have?" countered Pan with a laugh.

  "Good an' bad," replied Gus, while Blinky shook his head. "Some hoss thieves have been runnin' off our stock. We had some fine hosses, not broke yet. Some we wanted to keep."

  "What's the good news?" queried Pan, as Hans hesitated.

  "Pan, I'll be doggoned if we didn't see a million broomies today," burst out Blinky.

  "No. Now, Blink, talk sense," remonstrated Pan. "You mean you saw a thousand?"

  "Wal, shore a million is stretchin' it some," acknowledged the cowboy. "But ten thousand wouldn't be nothin'. We tracked some of our hosses twenty miles an' more over heah, farther'n we'd been yet. An' climbed a high ridge we looked down into the purtiest valley I ever seen. Twice as big as Hot Springs Valley. Gee, it lay there gray an' green with hosses as thick as greasewood bushes on the desert. Thet valley hasn't been drove yet. It's purty rough gettin' up to where you can see. An' there's lots of hosses closer to town. Thet accounts."

  "Blinky, is this talk of yours a leaf out of Lying Juan's book?" asked Pan incredulously. "It's too good to be true."

  "Pan, I'll swear it on a stack of Bibles," protested Blinky. "Ask Gus. He seen them."

  "For onct Blinky ain't out of his haid," corroborated Hans. "Never saw so many wild hosses. An' if we can find a way to ketch some of them we'll be rich."

  "Boys, you told me you'd been trapping horses at the water holes," said Pan.

  "Shore, we've been moonshinin' them," replied Blinky. "We build a corral round a water hole. Make a wide gate we can shut quick. Then we lay out on moonlight nights waitin' for 'em to come in to drink. We've done purty darn good at it, too."

  "That's fun, but it's a two-bit way to catch wild horses," rejoined Pan.

  "Wal, they're all doin' it thet way. Hardman's outfit, an' a couple more besides us. I figgered myself it was purty slow, but no better way come to me. Do you know one?"

  "Do I? Well, I should smile. I know more than one that'll beat your moonshining. Back on the prairie where it's all wide and bare there's no chance for a small outfit. But this is high country, valleys, canyons, cedars. Boys, we can make one big stake before the other outfits get on to us."

  "By gosh, one's enough for us," declared Blinky. "Then we can shake this gold-claim country where they steal your empty tin cans an' broken shovels."

  "One haul will do me, too," agreed Pan. "Then Arizona for me."

  "Ah-uh!... Pan, how aboot this gurl?"

  Briefly then Pan told his story, and the situation as it looked to him at the moment. The response of these cowboys was what he had expected. He knew them. Warmhearted, simple, elemental, they responded in different ways, but with the same fire. Gus Hans looked his championship while Blinky raved and swore.

  "Then you're both with me?" asked Pan, tersely. "Mind, it's no fair deal, my getting your support here for helping you with a wild horse drive."

  "Fair, hell!" returned Blinky, forcibly. "It ain't like you to insult cowboys."

  "I'm begging your pardon," replied Pan, hastily. "But we'd never been pardners and I hesitated to draw you into a scrap that'll almost sure go to gun throwing."

  "Wal, we're your pardners now, an' damn proud of it, Panhandle Smith."

  Silently and grimly they all shook hands on it. Not half a dozen times in his range life had Pan been party to a compact like that.

  "This Blake fellar, now," began Blinky, as he lighted another cigarette. "What's your idea of gettin' him out?"

  "I want a horse, a blanket, some grub and a gun. I'm to take them down to the jail at eleven o'clock."

  "Huh! Goin' to hold up the guard?" queried Blinky.

  "That was my intention," replied Pan, "but I know that fellow Hurd, who'll be on guard then. I'll not have to hold him up."

  "Hurd? I know him. Hard nut, but I think he's square."

  "Reckon Hurd will lose his job," said Pan reflectively. "If he does, let's take him with us on the wild horse deal."

  "Suits me. An' he'll shore love thet job. Hurd hasn't any use for Matthews."

  "Blinky, do you know another man we can hire or get to throw in with us? We've got five now counting my dad, and we'll need at least six."

  "Why so many? It'll cut out profits."

  "No, it'll increase them. One good rider means a great deal to us."

  "Then let's get thet miner, Charley Brown."

  "But he's working a gold claim."

  "Wal, if I know anythin' he'll not be workin' it any longer than findin' blue dirt. Gus an' me seen Jard Hardman with two men ridin' out thet way this mawnin'."

  "Ah!... So Hardman is here now.—We'll hunt up Brown and see what he says. Suppose we walk downtown now."

  "All right, but let me get a hoss up for Blake," replied Blinky. "Gus, you find thet old saddle of mine, an' a blanket. There's an old canvas saddlebag an' water bottle heah somewheres. Ask Juan. An' get him t
o pack the grub."

  The night of the sabbath was no barrier to the habitués of the Yellow Mine. But early in the evening it was not yet in full swing. The dance was on with a few heavy-footed miners and their gaudy partners, and several of the gambling tables were surrounded.

  Pan stalked about alone. His new-found cowboy friends had been instructed to follow him unobtrusively. Pan did not wish to give an impression that he had taken up with allies. He was looking for Charley Brown, but he had a keen roving eye for every man in sight. It was doubtful if Hardman or Matthews could have espied Pan first, unless they were hidden somewhere. He took up a position, presently, behind one of the poker games, with his back to the wall, so that he had command of the room. A stiff game was in progress, which Pan watched casually. Blinky and Gus lounged around, with apparently no more aim than other idle drinking visitors of the place.

  Gradually more men came in, the gaming tables filled up, and the white-armed girls appeared to mingle with the guests.

  Pan espied the girl Louise before she had become aware of his presence. She appeared to be more decently clad, a circumstance that greatly added to her charm, in his opinion. Curiously he studied her. Women represented more to Pan than to most men he had had opportunity to meet or observe. He never forgot that they belonged to the same sex as his mother. So it was natural he had compassion for this unsexed dance-hall, gambling-lure girl. She was pretty in a wild sort of way, dissolute, abandoned, yet not in any sense weak. A terrible havoc showed in her face for anyone with eyes to see beneath the surface. Pan noted a strange restlessness in her that at first he imagined was the seeking instinct of women of her class. But it was only that she could not sit or stand still. Her hawklike eyes did not miss anyone there, and finally they located him. She came around the tables up to Pan, and took hold of his arm.

  "Howdy, Handsome," she said, smiling up at him.

  Pan doffed his sombrero and bade her good evening.