“You came just in time,” she said. “He was going to kill me.”
“I am glad I came,” was all that he said.
She noticed how tired and pinched Custer’s face looked, as if he had risen from a sick bed after a long period of suffering. He looked older — very much older — and oh, so sad! It wrung her heart; but she did not question him. She was waiting for him to question her, for she knew that he must wonder why she had come here, and what the meaning of the encounter he had witnessed; but he did not ask her anything, beyond inquiring whether she thought she was strong enough to sit her saddle if he helped her mount.
“I shall be all right now,” she assured him.
He caught Baldy and assisted her into the saddle. Then he mounted the Apache and led the way along the trail toward home. They were halfway across the basin meadow before either spoke. It was Shannon who broke the silence.
“You must have wondered what I was doing up there,” she said, with a backward nod of her head.
“That would not be strange, would it?”
“I will tell you.”
“No,” he said, “it is bad enough that you went there today and the Saturday before I was arrested. Anything more that you could tell me would only make it worse.”
“But I must tell you, Custer.” she insisted. “Now that you have learned this much, I can see that your suspicions wrong me more than I deserve. I came here the Saturday before you were arrested to warn them that you were going to watch for them on the following Friday. Though I did not know the men, I knew what sort they were, and that they would kill you the moment they found they that were discovered. It was only to save your life that I came that other time, and this time I came to try to force them to go before the grand jury and clear you of the charge against you; but when I threatened the man, and he found what I knew about him, he said that he would kill me.”
“You did not know that I was going to be arrested that night?”
“Oh, Custer, how could you believe that of me?” exclaimed Shannon.
“I came into all this information — about the work of this gang — by accidentally overhearing a conversation in Hollywood, months ago. I know the names of the principals, I know Guy’s connection with them. To-day I was trying to keep Guy’s name out, too, if that were possible; but he is guilty and you are not. I cannot understand how he could come back from Los Angeles without telling them the truth and removing the suspicion from you.”
“I would not let him,” said Pennington.
“You would not let him? You would go to the penitentiary for the crime of another?”
“Not for him, but for Eva. Guy and I thrashed it all out. He wanted to give himself up — he almost demanded that I should let him; but it can’t be done. Eva must never know.”
“But, Custer, you can’t go! It wouldn’t be fair — it wouldn’t be right. I won’t let you go! I know enough to clear you, and I shall go before the grand jury on Wednesday and tell all I know.”
“No,” he said. “You must not. It would involve Guy.”
“I won’t mention Guy.”
“But you will mention others, and they will mention Guy — don’t doubt that for a minute.” He turned suddenly toward her. “Promise me, Shannon, that you will not go — that you will not mention what you know to a living soul. I would rather go to the pen for twenty years than see Eva’s life ruined.”
“Perhaps you are right, but it seems to me she would not suffer any more if Guy went than if her brother went. She loves you very much.”
“But she will know that I am innocent. If Guy went, she would know that he was guilty.” Shannon had no answer to this, and they were silent for a while. “You will help me to keep this from Eva?” he asked. “Yes.”
Shannon felt his eyes upon her, and looked up.
“You have been so good to me, Custer, all of you — you can never know how I have valued the friendship of the Penningtons, or what it has meant to me, or how I have striven to deserve it. I would have done anything to repay a part, at least, of what it has done for me. That was what I was trying to do — that is why I wanted to go before the grand jury, no matter what the cost to me; but I failed, and perhaps I have only made it worse. I do not even know that you believe me.”
“I believe you, Shannon,” he said. “There is much that I do not understand; but I believe that what you did was done in our interests. There is nothing more that any of us can do now but keep still about what we know, for the moment one of those actually responsible is threatened with exposure Guy’s name will be divulged — you may rest assured of that. They would be only too glad to shift the responsibility to his shoulders.”
“But you will make some effort to defend yourself?”
“I shall simply plead not guilty, and tell the truth about why I was up there when the officers arrested me.”
“You will make no other defense?”
“What other defense can I make that would not risk incriminating Guy?” Custer asked her.
She shook her head. It seemed quite hopeless.
CHAPTER 27
Federal officers, searching the hills found the camp above Jackknife Canyon. They collected a number of empty bottles bearing labels identical with those found in Custer Pennington’s room. That was all they discovered, except that the camp was located on the Pennington property.
On the 12th of October Custer Pennington was found guilty and sentenced to six months in the county jail for having had several hundred dollars’ worth of stolen whiskey in his possession. He was neither surprised nor disheartened. His only concern was for the surprised sensibilities of his family, and these — represented at the trial in the person of his father - seemed far from overwhelmed for the colonel was unalterably convinced of his son’s innocence.
Eva, who had remained at home with her mother, was more deeply affected than the others, though through a sense of injustice rather than of shame.
“You are taking it much too hard, dear,” said her mother. “One would think that our boy was really guilty.”
“Oh, if he really were, I should kill myself!”
The only person, other than the officious reformers, to derive any happiness from young Pennington’s fate was Slick Allen. He occupied a cell not far from Custer’s, and there were occasions when they were thrown together. Several times Allen saw fit to fling gibes at his former employer, much to the amusement of his fellows. They were usually indirect.
One day, as Custer was passing, Allen remarked in a loud tone:
“There’s a lot more of these damn fox-trottin’ dudes that put on airs, but ain’t nothin’ but common thieves!”
Pennington turned and faced him.
“You remember what you got the last time you tried calling me names, Allen? Well, don’t think for a minute that just because we’re in jail I won’t hand you the same thing again some day, if you get too funny. The trouble with you, Allen, is that you are laboring under the misapprehension that you are a humorist. You’re not, and if I were you I wouldn’t make faces at the only man in this jail who knows about you, and Bartolo, and — Gracial. Don’t forget Gracial!”
Allen paled, and his eyes closed to two very narrow slits. He made no more observations concerning Pennington; but he devoted much thought to him, trying to arrive at some reasonable explanation of the man’s silence, when it was evident that he must have sufficient knowledge of the guilt of others to clear himself of the charge upon which he had been convicted.
One of the first things to do, when he was released from jail, would be to do away with Bartolo. Bartolo disposed of, the other witnesses would join with Allen to lay the guilt upon the departed. Such pleasant thoughts occupied the time and mind of Slick Allen, as did also his plans for paying one Wilson Crumb a little debt he felt due this one-time friend.
Nor was Crumb free from apprehension for the time that would see Allen’s jail sentence fulfilled.
He knew enough of Allen’s activities to send th
e man to a Federal prison for a long term, but these matters he could not divulge without equally incriminating himself. There was, however, one little item of Allen’s past which might be used against him without signal danger to Crumb, and that was murder of Gracial. It would not be necessary for Crumb to appear in the matter at all. An anonymous letter to the police would suffice.
With natural predilection of the weak for avoiding or delaying the consummation of their intentions, Crumb postponed the writing of this letter of accusation. There was no cause for hurry, he argued, since Allen’s time would not expire until the 6th of the following August. Crumb led a lonely life after the departure of Gaza.
That Gaza de Lure had successfully thrown off the fetters into which he had tricked her never for a moment entered his calculations. Finally, however, it was borne in upon him that there was little likelihood of her returning; and so depressing had become the familiar and suggestive furnishings of the Vista del Paso bungalow that he at last gave it up. He took with him, carefully concealed in a trunk, his supply of narcotics - which he did not find so easy to dispose of since the departure of his accomplice.
During the first picture in which Grace Evans had worked with him, Crumb had become more and more impressed with her beauty and the subtle charm of her refinement, which appealed to him by contrast with the ordinary surroundings and personalities of the K. K. S. studio. There was a quiet restfulness about her which soothed his diseased nerves, and after Gaza’s desertion he found himself more and more seeking her society. As was his accustomed policy, his attentions were at first so slight, and increased by such barely perceptible degrees, that, taken in connection with his uniform courtesy, they gave the girl no warning of his ultimate purposes.
In much the same manner that he had tricked Gaza de Lure, he tricked Grace Evans into the use of cocaine; and after that the rest was easy. Renting another and less pretentious bungalow on Circle Terrace, he installed the girl there, and transferred the trunk of narcotics to her care, retaining his room at the hotel for himself.
One evening, toward the middle of October, they were dining together at the Winter Garden. Crumb had brought an evening paper on the street, and was glancing through it as they sat waiting for their dinner to be served. Presently he looked up at the girl seated opposite him.
“Didn’t you come from Ganado?” he asked.
She nodded affirmatively.
“Why?”
“Here’s a guy from there been sent up for bootlegging — fellow by the name of Pennington.”
She half closed her eyes, as if in pain.
“I know,” she said. “It has been in the newspapers for the last couple of weeks.”
“It isn’t Pennington who ought to be in jail,” he said. “It’s your brother.”
She looked at him in surprise, and then she laughed.
“You must have been hitting it up strong to-day, Wilson,” she said.
“Oh, no, I haven’t; but it’s funny I never thought of it before. Allen told me a long while ago that a fellow by the name of Evans was handling the hooch for him. He said he got a job from the Penningtons as stable man in order to be near the camp where they had the stuff cached in the hills. He described Evans as a young blood, so I guess there isn’t any doubt about it. You have a brother — I’ve heard you speak of him.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“It don’t make any difference whether you believe me or not. I could put your brother in the pen, and they’ve only got Pennington in the county jail. All they could get on him, according to this article, was having stolen goods in his possession; but your brother was in on the whole proposition. It was hidden in his hay barn. He delivered it to a fellow who came up there every week, ostensibly to get hay, and your brother collected the money. Gosh, they’d send him up for sure if I ever tipped them off to what I know!”
And thus was fashioned the power he used to force her to his will.
CHAPTER 28
Custer’s long hours of loneliness had often been occupied with plans against the day of his liberation. That Grace had not seen him or communicated with him since his arrest and conviction had been a source of wonder and hurt to him. He recalled many times the circumstances of the telephone call, with a growing belief that Grace had been there, but had refused to talk with him. Nevertheless, he was determined to see her before he returned to Ganado.
The woman who answered his ring told him that Grace no longer lived there. At first she was loath to give him any information as to the girl’s whereabouts; but after some persuasion she gave him a number on Circle Terrace, and in that direction Pennington turned his car.
As he left his car before the bungalow, and approached the building, he could see into the interior through the screen door, for it was a warm day in April, and the inner door was open. As he mounted the few steps leading to the porch, he saw a woman cross the living room, into which the door opened. She moved hurriedly, disappearing through a doorway opposite and closing the door after her. Though he had but a brief glimpse of her in the darkened interior, he knew that it was Grace, so familiar were every line of her figure and every movement of her carriage.
Crossing the living room, Custer rapped on the door through which he had seen Grace go, calling her by name. Receiving no reply, he flung open the door. Facing him was the girl he was engaged to marry.
With her back against the dresser, Grace stood at the opposite end of the room. Her disheveled hair fell about her face, which was overspread with a sickly pallor. Her wild, staring eyes were fixed upon him. Her mouth, drooping at the corners, tremulously depicted a combination of terror and anger. “Grace!” he exclaimed.
She still stood staring at him for a moment before she spoke.
“What do you mean,” she demanded at last, “by breaking into my bedroom? Get out! I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you here!”
He crossed the room and put a hand upon her shoulder.
“You mean that you don’t want me here, Grace? That you don’t love me?” he asked.
“Love you?” She broke into a disagreeable laugh. “Why you poor rube, I never want to see you again!”
He stood looking at her for a moment longer, and then he turned slowly and walked out of the bungalow and down to his car. When he had gone, the girl threw herself face down upon the bed and burst into uncontrollable sobs. For the moment she had risen triumphant above the clutches of her sordid vice. For that brief moment she had played her part to save the man she loved from greater torture and humiliation in the future — at what a price only she could ever know.
Custer found them waiting for him on the east porch as he drove up to the ranch house.
Eva was the first to reach him. She fairly threw herself upon her brother, laughing and crying in a hysteria of happiness. His mother was smiling through her tears, while the colonel blew his nose violently, remarking that it was “a hell of a time of year to have a damned cold!”
Custer was surprised that Guy and Mrs. Evans had not been of the party that welcomed his return. When he mentioned this, Eva told him that Mrs. Evans thought the Penningtons would want to have him all to themselves for a while, and that their neighbors were coming up after dinner. And it was not until after dinner that he asked after Shannon.
“We have seen very little of her since you left,” explained his mother. “She returned Baldy soon after that, and bought the Senator from Mrs. Evans.”
“Eva has missed her company very much,” said Mrs. Pennington “I was afraid that we might have done something to offend her, but none of us could think what it could have been.”
“I thought she was ashamed of us,” said Eva.
“Nonsense!” exclaimed the colonel.
“Of course that’s nonsense,” said Custer. “She knows as well as the rest of you that I was innocent.”
He was thinking how much more surely Shannon knew his innocence than any of them.
During dinner Eva regained her ol
d-time spirit. More than once the tears came to Mrs. Pennington’s eyes as she realized that once more their little family was united, and that the pall of sorrow that had outweighed so heavily upon them for the past six months had at last lifted, revealing again the sunshine of the daughter’s heart, which had never been the same since their boy had gone away.
“Oh, Cus!” exclaimed Eva. “The most scrumptious thing is going to happen, and I’m so glad that you are going to be here too. They’re going to take a picture on Ganado.”
Custer turned toward his father with a look of surprise.
“You needn’t blame papa,” said Eva. “It was all my fault — or, rather, I should say our good fortune is all due to me. You see, papa wasn’t going to let them come at first, but the cutest man came up to see him — a nice, snort, fat little man, and he rubbed his hands together and said ‘Vell, colonel?’ Papa told him that he had never allowed any picture companies on the place; but I happened to be there, and that was all that saved us, for I teased and teased until finally papa said that they could come, provided they didn’t take any pictures up around the house. They didn’t want to do that, for they’re making a Western picture, and they said the scenery at the back of the ranch is just what they want. They’re coming up in a few days, and it’s going to be perfectly radiant, and maybe I’ll get in the pictures!”
“What outfit is it?” asked the son.
“It’s a company from the K. K. S., directed by a man by the name of Crumb.”
It was after eight o’clock when the Evanses arrived. Mrs. Evans was genuinely affected at seeing Custer again, for she was as fond of him as if he had been her own son. In Guy, Custer discovered a great change. The boy that he had left had become suddenly a man, quiet and reserved, with a shadow of sadness in his expression. His lesson had been a hard one, Custer knew, and the price that he had had to pay for it had left its indelible mark upon his sensitive character.
The first greetings over; Mrs. Evans asked Custer if he had seen Grace before he left Los Angeles.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 760