As Shannon Burke alighted from the Southern Pacific
train at Ganado, the following morning, a large,
middle-aged man in riding clothes approached her.
“Is this Miss Burke?” he asked. “I am Colonel
Pennington.”
She noted that his face was grave, and it frightened
her.
“Tell me about my mother,” she said. “How is she?”
He put an arm about the girl’s shoulders.
“Come,” he said. “Mrs. Pennington is waiting over at
the car.”
Her question was answered. Numb with dread and
suffering, she crossed the station platform with him, the
kindly, protecting arm still about her. Beside a closed
car a woman was standing. As they approached, she
came forward, put her arms about the girl, and kissed
her.
Seated in the tonneau between the colonel and Mrs.
Pennington, the girl sought to steady herself. She had
taken no morphine since the night before, for she had
wanted to come to her mother “clean,” as she would
have expressed it. She realized now that it was a mistake,
for she had the sensation of shattered nerves on the
verge of collapse. Mastering all her resources, she fought
for self-control with an effort that was almost physically
noticeable.
“Tell me about it,” she said at length in a low voice.
“It was very sudden,” said the colonel. “It was a
heart attack. Everything that possibly could be done in
so short a time was done. Nothing would have changed
the outcome, however. We had Dr. Jones of Los Angeles
down—he motored down and arrived here about half an
hour before the end. He told us that he could have
done nothing.”
They were silent for a while as the fast car rolled over
the smooth road toward the hills ahead. Presently it
slowed down, turned in between orange trees, and stopped
before a tiny bungalow a hundred yards from the highway.
“We thought you would want to come here first of all,
dear,” said Mrs. Pennington. “Afterward we are going
to take you home with us.”
They accompanied her to the tiny living room, where
they introduced her to the housekeeper, and to the nurse,
who had remained at Colonel Pennington’s request. Then
they opened the door of a sunny bedroom, and, closing
it after her as she entered left her alone with her dead.
Beyond the thin panels they could hear her sobbing;
but when she emerged fifteen minutes later, though her
eyes were red, she was not crying. They thought then
that she had marvelous self-control; but could they have
known the hideous battle that she was fighting against
grief and the insistent craving for morphine, and the
raw, taut nerves that would give her no peace, and the
shattered will that begged only to be allowed to sleep—could
they have known all this, they would have realized
that they were witnessing a miracle.
They led her back to the car, where she sat with wide
eyes staring straight ahead. She wanted to scream, to
tear her clothing, to do anything but sit there quiet and
rigid. The short drive to Ganado seemed to the half
mad girl to occupy hours. She saw nothing, not even
the quiet, restful ranch house as the car swung up the
hill and stopped at the north entrance. In her mind’s
eye was nothing but the face of her dead mother and the
little black case in her traveling bag.
The colonel helped her from the car and a sweet-faced
young girl came and put her arms about her and
kissed her, as Mrs. Pennington had done at the station.
In a dazed sort of way Shannon understood that they
were telling her the girl’s name—that she was a daughter
of the Penningtons. The girl accompanied the visitor to
the rooms she was to occupy.
Shannon wished to be alone—she wanted to get at
the black case in the traveling bag. Why didn’t the girl
go away? She wanted to take her by the shoulders and
throw her out of the room; yet outwardly she was calm
and self-possessed.
Very carefully she turned toward the girl. It required
a supreme effort not to tremble, and to keep her voice
from rising to a scream.
“Please,” she said, “I should like to be alone.”
“I understand,” said the girl, and left the room, closing
the door behind her.
Shannon crept stealthily to the door and turned the
key in the lock. Then she wheeled and almost fell upon
the traveling bag in her eagerness to get the small black
case within it. She was trembling from head to foot,
her eyes were wide and staring, and she mumbled to herself
as she prepared the white powder and drew the liquid
into the syringe.
Momentarily, however, she gathered herself together.
For a few seconds she stood looking at the glass and
metal instrument in her fingers—beyond it she saw her
mother’s face.
“I don’t want to do it,” she sobbed. “I don’t want to
do it, mother!” Her lower lip quivered, and tears came.
“My God, I can’t help it!” Almost viciously she plunged
the needle beneath her skin. “I didn’t want to do it to-day,
of all days, with you lying over there all alone—dead!”
She threw herself across the bed and broke into uncontrolled
sobbing; but her nerves were relaxed, and the
expression of her grief was normal. Finally she sobbed
herself to sleep, for she had not slept at all the night
before.
It was afternoon when she awoke, and again she felt
the craving for a narcotic. This time she did not fight it.
She had lost the battle—why renew it? She bathed and
dressed and took another shot before leaving her rooms—a
guest suite on the second floor. She descended the
stairs, which opened directly into the patio, and almost
ran against a tall, broad-shouldered young man in flannel
shirt and riding breeches, with boots and spurs. He
stepped quickly back.
“Miss Burke, I believe?” he inquired. “I am Custer
Pennington.”
“Oh, it was you who wired me,” she said.
“No—that was my father.”
“I am afraid I did not thank him for all his kindness.
I must have seemed very ungrateful.”
“Oh, no, indeed, Miss Burke,” he said, with a quick
smile of sympathy. “We all understand, perfectly—you
have suffered a severe nervous shock. We just want to
help you all we can, and we are sorry that there is so
little we can do.”
“I think you have done a great deal, already, for a
stranger.”
“Not a stranger exactly,” he hastened to assure her.
“We were all so fond of your mother that we feel that
her daughter can scarcely be considered a stranger. She
was a very lovable woman, Miss Burke—a very fine
woman.”
Shannon felt tears in her eyes, and turned them away
quickly. Very gently he touched her arm.
“Mother heard you moving about in your rooms, and
she has gone over to the kitchen to make some tea for
you. If you will come with me, I’ll show you to the
breakfast room. She’ll have it ready in a jiffy.”
She followed him through the living room and the
library to the dining room, beyond which a small breakfast
room looked out toward the peaceful hills. Young
Pennington opened a door leading from the dining room
to the butler’s pantry, and called to his mother.
“Miss Burke is down,” he said.
The girl turned immediately from the breakfast room
and entered the butler’s pantry.
“Can’t I help, Mrs. Pennington? I don’t want you to
go to any trouble for me. You have all been so good
already!”
Mrs. Pennington laughed.
“Bless your heart, dear, it’s no trouble. The water
is boiling, and Hannah has made some toast. We were
just waiting to ask if you prefer green tea or black.”
“Green, if you please,” said Shannon, coming into the
kitchen.
Custer had followed her, and was leaning against the
door frame.
“This is Hannah, Miss Burke,” said Mrs. Pennington.
“I am so glad to know you, Hannah,” said the girl. “I
hope you won’t think me a terrible nuisance.”
“Hannah’s a brick,” interposed the young man. “You
can muss around her kitchen all you want, and she never
gets mad.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t,” agreed Shannon; “but people
who are late to meals are a nuisance, and I promise that I
shan’t be again. I fell asleep.”
“You may change your mind about being late to meals
when you learn the hour we breakfast,” laughed Custer.
“No—I shall be on time.”
“You shall stay in bed just as late as you please,” said
Mrs. Pennington. “You mustn’t think of getting up
when we do. You need all the rest you can get.”
They seemed to take it for granted that Shannon was
going to stay with them, instead of going to the little
bungalow that had been her mother’s—the truest type of
hospitality, because, requiring no oral acceptance, it suggested
no obligation.
“But I cannot impose on you so much,” she said.
“After dinner I must go down to—to——”
Mrs. Pennington did not permit her to finish.
“No, dear,” she said, quietly but definitely. “You are
to stay here with us until you return to the city. Colonel
Pennington has arranged with the nurse to remain with
your mother’s housekeeper until after the funeral. Please
let us have our way. It will be so much easier for
you, and it will let us feel that we have been able to do
something for you.”
Shannon could not have refused if she had wished to,
but she did not wish to. In the quiet ranch house, surrounded
by these strong, kindly people, she found a restfulness
and a feeling of security that she had not believed
she was ever to experience again. She had these thoughts
when, under the influence of morphine, her nerves were
quieted and her brain clear. After the effects had worn
off, she became restless and irritable. She thought of
Crumb then, and of the bungalow on the Vista del Paso,
with its purple monkeys stenciled over the patio gate.
She wanted to be back where she could be free to do
as she pleased—free to sink again into the most degrading
and abject slavery that human vice has ever
devised.
On the first night, after she had gone to her rooms,
the Penningtons, gathered in the little family living room,
discussed her, as people are wont to discuss a stranger
beneath their roof.
“Isn’t she radiant?” demanded Eva. “She’s the most
beautifulest creature I ever saw!”
“She looks much as her mother must have looked at
the same age,” commented the colonel. “There is a
marked family resemblance.”
“She is beautiful,” agreed Mrs. Pennington; “but I
venture to say that she is looking her worst right now.
She doesn’t appear at all well, to me. Her complexion
is very sallow, and sometimes there is the strangest expression
in her eyes—almost wild. The nervous shock of
her mother’s death must have been very severe; but
she bears up wonderfully, at that, and she is so sweet
and appreciative!”
“I sized her up over there in the kitchen to-day,” said
Custer. “She’s the real article. I can always tell by
the way people treat a servant whether they are real
people or only counterfeit. She was as sweet and natural
to Hannah as she is to mother.”
“I noticed that,” said his mother. “It is one of the
hall marks of good breeding; but we could scarcely expect
anything else of Mrs. Burke’s daughter. I know
she must be a fine character.”
In the room above them Shannon Burke, with trembling
hands and staring eyes, was inserting a slender needle
beneath the skin above her hip. In the movies one
does not disfigure one’s arms or legs.
