“I saw her,” he said, “and she is not all well. I think Guy should go up there immediately and try to bring her back. I meant to speak to him about it this evening.
CHAPTER 29
The six months that had just passed had been months of indecision and sadness for Shannon Burke. Constantly moved by the conviction that she should leave the vicinity of Ganado and the Penningtons, she was held there by a force that she had not the power to overcome.
Never before since she had left her mother’s home in the Middle West had she experienced the peace and content and happiness that her little orchard on the highway imparted to her life. The friendship of the Penningtons had meant more to her than anything that had hitherto entered her life; and to be near them, even if she saw them but seldom, constituted a constant bulwark against the assaults of her old enemy, which still occasionally assailed the ramparts of her will.
Never, in the hills, could her mind dwell upon depressing thoughts. Only cheerful reflections were her companions of those hours of solitude. She thought of the love that had come into her life, of the beauty of it, and of all that it had done to make life more worth the living; of the Penningtons and the example of red-blooded cleanliness that they set — decency without prudery; of her little orchard and the saving problems it had brought to occupy her mind and hands; of her horse and her horsemanship, two never-failing sources of of companionship and pleasure which the Penningtons had taught her to love and enjoy.
On the morning after Custer’s return, Guy started early for Los Angeles, while Custer — Shannon not having joined them on their morning ride - re- saddled the Apache after breakfast and rode down to her bungalow. He both longed to see her and dreaded the meeting; for, regardless of Grace’s attitude and of the repulse she had given him, his honor bound him to her.
Custer had realized, in that brief interview of the day before, that Grace was not herself. What was the cause of her change he could not guess, since he was entirely unacquainted with the symptoms of narcotics. Even had a suspicion of the truth entered his mind, he would have discarded it as a vile slander upon the girl, as he had rejected the involuntary suggestion that she might have been drinking. His position was distressing for a man to whom honor was a fetish, since he knew that he still loved Grace, while at the same time realizing a still greater love for Shannon.
She saw him coming and came down the driveway to meet him, her face radiant with the joy of his return, and with that expression of love that is always patent to all but the object of its concern.
“Oh, Custer!” she cried. “I am so glad that you are home again! It has seemed years and years, rather than months, to all of us.”
“I am glad to be home, Shannon. I have missed you, too. I have missed you all — everything — the hills, the valley, every horse and cow and little pig, the clean air, the smell of flowers and sage — all that is Ganado.”
“You like it better than the city?”
“I shall never long for the city again,” he said. “Cities are wonderful, of course, with their great buildings, their parks and boulevards, their fine residences, their lawns and gardens. The things that men have accomplished there fill a fellow with admiration; but how pitiful they really are compared with the magnificence that is ours!” He turned and pointed toward the mountains. “Just think of those hills, Shannon, and the infinite, unthinkable power that uplifted such mighty monuments. Think of the countless ages that they have endured, and .then compare with them the puny efforts of man. Compare the range of vision of the city dweller with ours. He can see across the street, and to the top of some tall buildings, which may look imposing; but place it beside one of our hills, and see what becomes of it. Place it in a ravine in the high Sierras, and you would have difficulty in finding it; and you cannot even think of it in connection with a mountain fifteen or twenty thousand feet in height. Any yet the city man patronizes us country people, deploring the necessity that compels us to pursue our circumscribed existence.”
“Pity him,” laughed Shannon. “He is as narrow as his streets. His ideals can reach no higher than the pall of smoke that hangs over the roofs of his buildings. I am so glad, Custer, that you have given up the idea of leaving the country for the city!”
“I never really intended to,” he replied. “I couldn’t have left on father’s account; but now I can remain on my own as well as his, and with a greater degree of contentment. You see that my recent experience was a blessing in disguise.”
“I am glad if some good came out of it; but it was a wicked injustice, and there were others as innocent as you who suffered fully as much — Eva especially.”
“I know,” he said. “She has been very lonely since I left, with Grace away, too; and they tell me that you have constantly avoided them. Why? I cannot understand it.”
He had dismounted and tied the Apache, and they were walking toward the porch. She stopped, and turned to look at Custer squarely in the eyes.
“How could I have done otherwise?” she asked.
“I do not understand,” he replied.
She could not hold her eyes to his as she explained, but looked down, her expression changing from happiness to one of shame and sadness.
“I am sorry, Custer. I would not hurt them. I love them all; but I thought I was doing the thing that you wished. There was so much that you did not understand — that you can never understand — and you were away where you couldn’t know what was going on; so it seemed disloyal to do the thing I thought you would rather I didn’t do.”
“It’s all over now,” he said. “Let’s start over again, forgetting all that has happened in the last six months and a half.”
Again, as his hand lay upon her arm, he was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to crush her to him. Two things deterred him — his loyalty to Grace, and the belief that his love would be unwelcome to Shannon.
CHAPTER 30
Guy Evans swept over the broad smooth highway at a rate that would have won him ten days in the jail at Santa Ana had his course led him through that village. The impression that Custer’s words had implanted in his mind was that Grace was ill, for Pennington had not gone into the details of his unhappy interview with the girl, choosing to leave to her brother a realization of her changed condition, which would have been incredible to him even from the lips of so trusted a friend as Custer.
And so it was that when he approached the bungalow on Circle Terrace, and saw a coupe standing at the curb, he guessed what it portended; for though there were doubtless hundreds of similar cars in the city, there was that about this one which suggested the profession of its owner.
There was no response to his ring, and as the inner door was open he entered. A door on the opposite side of the living room was ajar. As Guy approached it, a man appeared in the doorway, and beyond him the visitor could see Grace lying, very white and still, upon a bed.
“Who are you — this woman’s husband?” demanded the man in curt tones. “I am her brother. What is the matter? Is she very ill?”
“Did you know of her condition?”
“I heard last night that she was not well, and I hurried up here. I live in the country. Who are you? What has happened? She is not — my God, she is not—”
“Not yet. Perhaps we can save her. I am a doctor. I was called by a Japanese, who said that he was a servant here. He must have left after he called me, for I have not seen him. Her condition is serious, and requires an immediate operation — an operation of such a nature that I must learn the name of her own physician and have him present. Where is her husband?”
“Husband! My sister is not—” Guy ceased speaking, and went suddenly white. “My God, doctor, you don’t mean that she — that my sister — Oh no, not that!”
“She had a fall night before last, and an immediate operation is imperative. Her condition is such that we cannot even take the risk of removing her to a hospital. I have my instruments in my car, but I should have help. Who is her doctor?”
“I do not know.”
“I’ll get some one. I have given her something to quiet her.”
The doctor stepped to the telephone and gave a number. Evans entered the room where his sister lay. She was moving about restlessly and moaning, though it was evident that she was still unconscious.
Changed! Guy wondered that he had known her at all, now that he was closer to her. Her face was pinched and drawn. Her beauty was gone — every vestige of it. She looked old and tired and haggard, and there were terrible lines upon her face that stilled her brother’s heart and brought the tears to his eyes.
He heard the doctor summoning an assistant and directing him to bring ether. Then he heard him go out of the house by the front door — to get his instruments, doubtless. The brother knelt by the girl’s bed.
“Grace!” he whispered, and threw an arm about her.
Her lids fluttered, and she opened her eyes.
“Guy!”
She recognized him — she was conscious.
“Who did this?” he demanded. “What is his name?”
She shook her head.
“What is the use?” she asked. “It is done.”
“Tell me!”
“You would kill him — and be punished. It would only make it worse — for you and mother. Let it die with me!”
“You are not going to die. Tell me, who is he? Do you love him?”
“I hate him!”
“How were you injured?”
“He threw me — against a table.”
Her voice was growing weaker. Choking back tears of grief and anger, the young man rose and stood beside her.
“Grace, I command you to tell me!”
Her eyes moved to something beyond the foot of the bed, back to his, and back again to whatever she had been looking at, as if she sought to direct his attention to something in that part of the room. He followed the direction of her gaze. There was a dressing table there, and on it a photograph of a man in a silver frame. Guy stepped to the table and picked up the picture.
“This is he?” His eyes demanded an answer. Her lips moved soundlessly, and weakly she nodded an affirmative. “What is his name?”
She was too weak to answer him. She gasped, and her breath came flutteringly. The brother threw himself upon his knees beside the bed, and took her in his arms. His tears mingled with his kisses on her cheek. The doctor came then and drew him away.
“She is dead!” said the boy, turning away and covering his face with his hands.
“No,” said the doctor, after a brief examination. “She is not dead. Get into the kitchen, and get some water to boiling. I’ll be getting things ready in here. Another doctor will be here in a few minutes.”
A moment later the doctor came in. He had removed his coat and vest and rolled up his sleeves. He placed his instruments in the pan of water on the stove, and then he went to the sink and washed his hands. While he scrubbed, he talked. He was an efficient-looking, businesslike person, and he inspired Guy with confidence and hope.
“She has a fighting chance,” he said. “I’ve seen worse cases pull through. She’s had a bad time, though. She must have been lying here for pretty close to twenty-four hours without any attention. I found her fully dressed on her bed — fully dressed except for what clothes she’s torn off in pain. If some one had called a doctor yesterday at this time, it might have been all right. It may be all right even now. We’ll do the best we can.”
The bell rang.
“That’s the doctor. Let him in, please.”
Guy went to the door and admitted the second physician, who removed his coat and vest and went directly to the kitchen. The first doctor was entering the room where Grace lay. He turned and spoke to his colleague, greeting him; then he disappeared within the adjoining room. The second doctor busied himself about the sink sterilizing his hands. Guy lighted another burner and put on another vessel with water in it.
A moment later the first doctor returned to the kitchen.
“It will not be necessary to operate, doctor,” he said. “We were too late!”
His tone and manner were still very businesslike and efficient, but there was an expression of compassion in his eyes as he crossed the room and put his arm about Guy’s shoulders.
“Come into the other room, my boy. I want to talk to you,” he said.
Guy, dry-eyed, and walking as one in a trance, accompanied him to the little living room.
“You have had a hard blow,” said the doctor. “What I am going to tell you may make it harder; but if she had been my sister I should have wanted to know about it. She is better off. The chances are that she didn’t want to live. She certainly made no fight for life — not since I was called.”
“Why should she want to die?” Guy asked dully. “We would have forgiven her. No one would have ever known about it but me.”
“There was something else — she was a drug addict. That was probably the reason why she didn’t want to live. The morphine I had to give her to quiet her would have killed three ordinary men.”
And so Guy Evans came to know the terrible fate that had robbed his sister of her dreams, of her ambition, and finally of her life. He placed the full responsibility upon the man whose picture had stood in its silver frame upon the girl’s dressing table. As he knelt beside the dead girl, he swore to search until he had learned the identity of that man, and found him, and forced from him the only expiation that could satisfy the honor of a brother.
CHAPTER 31
The death of Grace had, of course, its naturally depressing effect upon the circle of relatives and friends at Ganado; but her absence of more than a year, the infrequency of her letters, and the fact that they had already come to feel that she was lost to them, mitigated to some degree the keenness of their grief and lessened its outward manifestations. It was Guy who suffered most, for hugged to his breast was the gnawing secret of the truth of his sister’s life and death. He had told them that Grace had died of pneumonia, and they had not gone behind his assertion to search the records for the truth.
He did not, however, give up his search. He went often to Hollywood, where he haunted public places and the entrance to studios, in the hope that some day he would find the man he sought; but as the passing months brought no success, and the duties of his ranch and his literary work demanded more and more of his time, he was gradually compelled to push the furtherance of his vengeance into the background, though without any lessening of his determination to compass it eventually.
To Custer, the direct effect of Grace’s death was to revive the habit of drinking more than was good for him — a habit from which he had drifted away during the past year. That it had ever been a habit he would, of course, have been the last to admit. He was one of those men who could drink, or leave it alone. The world is full of them, and so are the cemeteries.
Shannon recognized the change in Custer. She attributed it to his grief, and to his increased drinking, which she had sensed almost immediately, as love does sense the slightest change in its object, however little apparent to another. She did not realize that he was purposely avoiding her. She was more than ever with Eva now, for Guy, having settled down to the serious occupations of man’s estate, no longer had so much leisure to devote to play.
She still occasionally rode at night, for the daytime rides with Custer were less frequent now. Much of his time was occupied closer in around the ranch, with the conditioning of the show herds for the coming autumn — an activity which gave him a plausible excuse for foregoing his rides with Shannon.
May, June, and July had come and gone — it was August again. Guy’s futile visits to Los Angeles were now infrequent. The life of Ganado had again assumed the cheerfulness of the past. The youth of the foothills and valley, reinforced by week-end visitors from the city, filled the old house with laughter and happiness. Shannon was always of these parties, for they would not let her remain away.
It was upon the occasion of one of t
hem, early in August, that Eva announced the date of her wedding to Guy.
“The 2nd of September,” she told them. “It comes on a Saturday. We’re going to motor to — .”
“Hold on!” cautioned Guy. “That’s a secret!”
“And when we come back we’re going to start building on Hill Thirteen.”
“That’s a cow pasture,”’ said Custer.
“Well, it won’t be one any more. You must find another cow pasture.”
“Certainly, little one,” replied her brother. “We’ll bring the cows up here in the ballroom. With five thousand acres to pick from, you can’t find a bungalow site anywhere except in the best dairy cow pasture on Ganado!”
“Put on a fox trot, some one,” cried Guy. “Dance with your sister, Cus, and you’ll let her build bungalows all over Ganado. No one can refuse her anything when they dance with her.”
It was later in the evening, after a dance, that Shannon and Custer walked out on the driveway along the north side of the ballroom, and stood looking out over the moon-enchanted valley — a vista of loveliness glimpsed between masses of feathery foliage in an opening through the trees on the hillside just below them. They looked out across the acacias and cedars of lower hill toward the lights of a little village twinkling between two dome- like hills at the upper end of the valley. It was an unusually warm evening, almost too warm to dance.
“I think we’d get a little of the ocean breeze,” said Custer, “if we were on the other side of the hill. Let’s walk over to the water gardens. There is usually a breeze there, but the building cuts us off from it here.”
Side by side, in silence, they walked around the front of the building and along the south drive to the steps leading down through the water gardens to the stables. The steps were narrow and Custer went ahead — which is always the custom of men in countries where there are rattlesnakes.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 761
