The day of the funeral had come and gone. It had
been a very hard one for Shannon. She had determined
that on this day, at least, she would not touch the little
hypodermic syringe. She owed that much respect to the
memory of her mother. And she had fought—God, how
she had fought!—with screaming nerves that would not
be quiet, with trembling muscles, and with a brain that
held but a single thought—morphine, morphine,
morphine!
She tried to shut the idea from her mind. She tried
to concentrate her thoughts upon the real anguish of her
heart. She tried to keep before her a vision of her
mother; but her hideous, resistless vice crowded all else
from her brain, and the result was that on the way back
from the cemetery she collapsed into screaming, incoherent
hysteria.
They carried her to her room—Custer Pennington
carried her, his father and mother following. When the
men had left, Mrs. Pennington and Eva undressed her
and comforted her and put her to bed; but she still
screamed and sobbed—frightful, racking sobs, without
tears. She was trying to tell them to go away. How
she hated them! If they would only go away and leave
her! But she could not voice the words she sought to
scream at them, and so they stayed and ministered to her
as best they could. After a while she lost consciousness,
and they thought that she was asleep and left her.
Perhaps she did sleep, for later, when she opened her
eyes, she lay very quiet, and felt rested and almost normal.
She knew, though, that she was not entirely awake—that
when full wakefulness came the terror would return
unless she quickly had recourse to the little needle.
In that brief moment of restfulness she thought quickly
and clearly and very fully of what had just happened.
She had never had such an experience before. Perhaps
she had never fully realized the frightful hold the drug
had upon her. She had known that she could not stop—or,
at least, she had said that she knew; but whether she
had any conception of the pitiful state to which enforced
abstinence would reduce her is to be doubted. Now she
knew, and she was terribly frightened.
“I must cut it down,” she said to herself. “I must
have been hitting it up a little too strong. When I get
home, I’ll let up gradually until I can manage with three
or four shots a day.”
When she came down to dinner that night, they were
all surprised to see her, for they had thought her still
asleep. Particularly were they surprised to see no indications
of her recent breakdown. How could they know
that she had just taken enough morphine to have killed
any one of them? She seemed normal and composed,
and she tried to infuse a little gayety into her conversation,
for she realized that her grief was not theirs. She
knew that their kind hearts shared something of her sorrow,
but it was selfish to impose her own sadness upon
them.
She had been thinking very seriously, had Shannon
Burke. The attack of hysteria had jarred her loose,
temporarily at least, from the selfish rut that her habit
and her hateful life with Crumb had worn for her.
She recalled every emotion of the ordeal through which
she had passed, even to the thoughts of hate that she had
held for those two sweet women at the table with her.
How could she have hated them? She hated herself
for the thought.
She compared herself with them, and a dull flush
mounted to her cheek. She was not fit to remain under
the same roof with them, and here she was sitting at their
table, a respected guest! What if they should learn of
the thing she was? The thought terrified her; and yet
she talked on, oftentimes gayly, joining with them in the
laughter that was a part of every meal.
She really saw them, that night, as they were. It was
the first time that her grief and her selfish vice had permitted
her to study them. It was her first understanding
glimpse of a family life that was as beautiful as her own
life was ugly.
As she compared herself with the women, she compared
Crumb with these two men. They might have vices—they
were strong men, and few strong men are without
vices, she knew—but she was sure they were the vices of
strong men, which, by comparison with those of Wilson
Crumb, would become virtues. What a pitiful creature
Crumb seemed beside these two, with his insignificant
mentality and his petty egotism!
Suddenly it came to her, almost as a shock, that she
had to leave this beautiful place and go back to the sordid
life that she shared with Crumb. Her spirit revolted,
but she knew that it must be. She did not belong here—her
vice must ever bar her from such men and women
as these. The memory of them would haunt her always,
making her punishment the more poignant to the day of
her death.
That evening she and Colonel Pennington discussed
her plans for the future. She had asked him about disposing
of the orchard—how she should proceed, and
what she might ask for it.
“I should advise you to hold it,” he said. “It is going
to increase in value tremendously in the next few years.
You can easily get some one to work it for you on shares.
If you don’t want to live on it, Custer and I will be glad
to keep an eye on it and see that it is properly cared for;
but why don’t you stay here? You could really make
a very excellent living from it. Besides, Miss Burke,
here in the country you can really live. You city people
don’t know what life is.”
“There!” said Eva. “Popsy has started. If he had
his way, we’d all have to move to the city to escape the
maddening crowd. He’d move the maddening crowd
into the country!”
“It may be that Shannon doesn’t care for the country,”
suggested Mrs. Pennington. “There are such foolish
people,” she added, laughing.
“Oh, I would love the country!” exclaimed Shannon.
“Then why don’t you stay?” urged the colonel.
“I had never thought of it,” she said hesitatingly.
It was indeed a new idea. Of course it was an absolute
impossibility, but it was a very pleasant thing to
contemplate.
“Possibly Miss Burke has ties in the city that she
would not care to break,” suggested Custer, noting her
hesitation.
Ties in the city! Shackles of iron, rather, she thought
bitterly; but, oh, it was such a nice thought! To live
here, to see these people daily, perhaps be one of them,
to be like them—ah, that would be heaven!
“Yes,” she said, “I have ties in the city. I could not
remain here, I am afraid, much as I should like to. I—I
think I had better sell.”
“Rubbish!” exclaimed the colonel. “You’ll not sell.
You are going to stay here with us until you are thoroughly
rested, and then you won’t want to sell.”
“I wish that I might,” she said; “but——”
“But nothing!” interrupted the colonel. “You are not
well, and I shan’t permit you to leave until those cheeks
are the color of Eva’s.”
He spoke to her as he might have spoken to one of his
children. She had never known a father, and it was the
first time that any man had talked to her in just that
way. It brought the tears to her eyes—tears of happiness,
for every woman wants to feel that she belongs to
some man—a father, a brother, or a husband—who loves
her well enough to order her about for her own good.
“I shall have to think it over,” she said. “It means
so much to me to have you all want me to stay! Please
don’t think that I don’t want to; but—but—there are
so many things to consider, and I want to stay so very,
very much!”
“All right,” said the colonel. “It’s decided—you stay.
Now run off to bed, for you’re going to ride with us
in the morning, and that means that you’ll have to be
up at half past five.”
“But I can’t ride,” she said. “I don’t know how, and
I have nothing to wear.”
“Eva’ll fit you out, and as for not knowing how to
ride, you can’t learn any younger. Why, I’ve taught half
the children in the foothills to ride a horse, and a lot of
the grown-ups. What I can’t teach you Cus and Eva
can. You’re going to start in to-morrow, my little girl,
and learn how to live. Nobody who has simply survived
the counterfeit life of the city knows anything about living.
You wait—we’ll show you!”
She smiled up into his face.
“I suppose I shall have to mind you,” she said. “I
imagine every one does.”
Seated in an easy chair in her bedroom, she stared
at the opposite wall. The craving that she was seldom
without was growing in intensity, for she had been without
morphine since before dinner. She got up, unlocked
her bag, and took out the little black case. She opened it,
and counted the powders remaining. She had used half
her supply—she could stay but three or four days longer
at the outside; and the colonel wanted her to stay until
her cheeks were like Eva’s!
She rose and looked in the mirror. How sallow she
was! Something—she did not know what—had kept
her from using rouge here. During the first days of
her grief she had not even thought of it, and then, after
that evening at dinner, she knew that she could not use
it here. It was a make-believe, a sham, which didn’t
harmonize with these people or the life they led—a
clean, real life, in which any form of insincerity had
no place. She knew that they were broad people, both
cultured and traveled, and so she could not understand
why it was that she felt that the harmless vanity of rouge
might be distasteful to them. Indeed, she guessed that it
would not. It was something fine in herself, long suppressed,
seeking expression.
It was this same thing, perhaps, that had caused her
to refuse a cigarette that Custer had offered her after
dinner. The act indicated that they were accustomed
to having women smoke there, as women nearly everywhere
smoke to-day; but she had refused, and she was
glad she had, for she noticed that neither Mrs. Pennington
nor Eva smoked. Such women didn’t have to smoke
to be attractive to men. She had smoked in her room
several times, for that habit, too, had a strong hold on
her; but she had worked assiduously to remove the telltale
stains from her fingers.
“I wonder,” she mused, looking at the black case, “if
I could get through the night without you! It would
give me a few more hours here if I could—a few more
hours of life before I go back to that!”
Until midnight she fought her battle—a losing battle—tossing
and turning in her bed; but she did her best
before she gave up in defeat—no, not quite defeat; let
us call it compromise, for the dose she took was only half
as much as she ordinarily allowed herself. The three-hour
fight and the half dose meant a partial victory, for
it gained for her, she estimated, an additional six hours.
At a quarter before six she was awakened by a knock
on her door. It was already light, and she awoke with
mingled surprise that she had slept so well and vague
forebodings of the next hour or two, for she was unaccustomed
to horses and a little afraid of them.
“Who is it?” she asked, as the knock was repeated.
“Eva. I’ve brought your riding things.”
Shannon rose and opened the door. She was going
to take the things from the girl, but the latter bounced
into the room, fresh and laughing.
“Come on!” she cried. “I’ll help you. Just pile your
hair up anyhow—it doesn’t matter—this hat’ll cover it.
I think these breeches will fit you—we are just about
the same size; but I don’t know about the boots—they
may be a little large. I didn’t bring any spurs—papa
won’t let any one wear spurs until they ride fairly well.
You’ll have to win your spurs, you see! It’s a beautiful
morning—just spiffy! Run in and wash up a bit. I’ll
arrange everything, and you’ll be in ’em in a jiffy.”
She seized Shannon around the waist and danced off
toward the bathroom.
“Don’t be long,” she admonished, as she returned to
the dressing room, from where she laid down a barrage
of conversation before the bathroom.
Shannon washed quickly. She was excited at the
prospect of the ride. That and the laughing, talking girl
in the adjoining room gave her no time to think. Her
mind was fully occupied and her nerves were stimulated.
For the moment she forgot about morphine, and
then it was too late, for Eva had her by the hand and she
was being led, almost at a run, down the stairs, through
the patio, and out over the edge of the hill down toward
the stable.
At first the full-foliaged umbrella trees through which
the walk wound concealed the stable and corrals at the
foot of the hill, but presently they broke upon her view,
and she saw the horses saddled and waiting, and the
other members of the family. The colonel and Mrs.
Pennington were already mounted. Custer and a stableman
held two horses, while the fifth was tied to a ring
in the stable wall. It was a pretty picture—the pawing
horses, with arched necks, eager to be away; the happy,
laughing people in their picturesque and unconventional
riding clothes; the new day upon the nearer hills; the
haze upon the farther mountains.
“Fine!” cried the colonel, as he saw her coming.
“Really never thought you’d do it! I’ll wager this is
the earliest you have been up in many a day. ‘Barbarous
hour’—that’s what you’re saying. Why, when my cousin
was on here from New York, he was really shocked—said
it wasn’t decent. Come along—we’re late this morning.
You’ll ride Baldy—Custer’ll help you up.”
She stepped to the mounting block as the young man
led the dancing Baldy close beside it.
“Ever ridden much?” he asked.
“Never in my life.”
“Take the reins in your left hand—so. Like this—left-hand
rein coming in under your little finger, the other
between your first and second fingers, and the bight out
between your first finger and thumb— there, that’s it.
Face your horse, put your left hand on the horn, and
your right hand on the cantle—this is the cantle back
here. That’s the ticket. Now put your left foot in the
stirrup and stand erect—no, don’t lean forward over
the saddle—good! swing your right leg, knee bent, over
the cantle, at the same time lifting your right hand. When
you come down, ease yourself into the saddle by closing
on the horse with your knees—that takes the jar off
both of you. Ride with a light rein. If you want him
to slow down or stop, pull him in—don’t jerk.”
He was holding Baldy close to the bit as he helped her
and explained. He saw that her right foot found the
stirrup, and that she had the reins properly gathered, and
then he released the animal. Immediately Baldy began
to curvet, raising both fore feet simultaneously, and, as
they were coming down, raising his hind feet together, so
that all four were off the ground at once.
Shannon was terrified. Why had they put her on
a bucking horse? They knew she couldn’t ride. It was
cruel!
But she sat there with tight-pressed lips and uttered
no sound. She recalled every word that Custer had said
to her, and she did not jerk, though some almost irresistible
power urged her to. She just pulled, and as
she pulled she glanced about to see if they were rushing
to her rescue. Great was her surprise when she discovered
that no one was paying much attention to her or
to the mad actions of her terrifying mount.
Suddenly it dawned upon her that she had neither
fallen off nor come near falling off. She had not even
lost a stirrup. As a matter of fact, the motion was not
even uncomfortable. It was enjoyable, and she was in
about as much danger of being thrown as she would have
been from a rocking chair as violently self-agitated. She
laughed then, and in the instant all fear left her.
She saw Eva mount from the ground, and noted that
the stableman was not even permitted to hold her restive
horse, much less to assist her in any other way. Custer
swung to the saddle with the ease of long habitude. The
colonel reined to her side.
“We’ll let them go ahead,” he said, “and I’ll give you
your first lesson. Then I’ll turn you over to Custer—he
and Eva can put on the finishing touches.”
“He wants to see that you’re started right,” called
the younger man, laughing.
“Popsy just wants to add another feather to his cap,”
said Eva. “Some day he’ll ‘point with pride’ and say,
‘Look at her ride! I gave her her first lesson.’”
“Here come Mrs. Evans and Guy!”
As Mrs. Pennington spoke, they saw two horses rounding
the foot of the hill at a brisk canter, their riders
waving a cheery long-distance greeting.
That first morning ride with the Penningtons and
their friends was an event in the life of Shannon Burke
that assumed the proportions of adventure. The novelty,
the thrill, the excitement, filled her every moment. The
dancing horse beneath her seemed to impart to her a full
measure of its buoyant life. The gay laughter of her companions,
the easy fellowship of young and old, the generous
sympathy that made her one of them, gave her but
another glimpse of the possibilities for happiness that
requires no artificial stimulus.
She loved the hills. She loved the little trail winding
through the leafy tunnel of a cool barranco. She
loved the thrill of the shelving hillside where the trail
clung precariously in its ascent toward some low summit.
She tingled with the new life and a new joy as they
broke into a gallop along a grassy ridge.
Custer, in the lead, reined in, raising his hand in
signal for them all to stop.
“Look, Miss Burke,” he said, pointing toward a near
hillside. “There’s a coyote. Thought maybe you’d never
seen one on his native heath.”
“Shoot it! Shoot it!” cried Eva. “You poor boob,
why don’t you shoot it?”
“Baldy’s gun shy,” he explained.
“Oh!” said Eva. “Yes, of course—I forgot.”
“One of the things you do best,” returned Custer
loftily.
“I was just going to say that you were not a boob at
all, but now I won’t!”
Shannon watched the gray, wolfish animal turn and
trot off dejectedly until it disappeared among the brush;
but she was not thinking of the coyote. She was considering
the thoughtfulness of a man who could remember
to forego a fair shot at a wild animal because one of the
horses in his party was gun shy, and was ridden by a
woman unaccustomed to riding. She wondered if this
was an index to young Pennington’s character—so different
from the men she had known. It bespoke a general
attitude toward women with which she was unfamiliar—a
protective instinct that was chiefly noticeable in the
average city man by its absence.
Interspersed with snatches of conversation and intervening
silences were occasional admonitions directed at
her by the colonel, instructing her to keep her feet parallel
to the horse’s sides, not to lean forward, to keep her
elbows down and her left forearm horizontal.
“I never knew there was so much to riding!” she exclaimed,
laughingly. “I thought you just got on a horse
and rode, and that was all there was to it.”
“That is all there is to it to most of the people you
see riding rented horses around Los Angeles,” Colonel
Pennington told her. “It is all there can ever be to the
great majority of people anywhere. Horsemanship is
inherent in some; by others it can never be acquired. It
is an art.”
“Like dancing,” suggested Eva.
“And thinking,” said Custer. “Lots of people can
go through the motions of riding, or dancing, or thinking,
without ever achieving any one of them.”
“I can’t even go through the motions of riding,” said
Shannon ruefully.
“All you need is practice,” said the colonel. “I can
tell a born rider in half an hour, even if he’s never been
on a horse before in his life. You’re one.”
“I’m afraid you’re making fun of me. The saddle
keeps coming up and hitting me, and I never see any of
you move from yours.”
Guy Evans was riding close to her.
“No, he’s not making fun of you,” he whispered, leaning
closer to Shannon. “The colonel has paid you one
of the greatest compliments in his power to bestow. He
always judges people first by their morals and then by
their horsemanship; but if they are good horsemen, he
can make generous allowance for minor lapses in their
morals.”
They both laughed.
“He’s a dear, isn’t he?” said the girl.
“He and Custer are the finest men I ever knew,” replied
the boy eagerly.
That ride ended in a rushing gallop along a quarter
mile of straight road leading to the stables, where they
dismounted, flushed, breathless, and laughing. As they
walked up the winding concrete walk toward the house,
Shannon Burke was tired, lame, and happy. She had
adventured into a new world and found it good.
“Come into my room and wash,” said Eva, as they
entered the patio. “We’re late for breakfast now, and
we all like to sit down together.”
For just an instant, and for the first time that morning,
Shannon thought of the hypodermic needle in its black
case upstairs. She hesitated, and then resolutely turned
into Eva’s room.
