The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice Burroughs (book club books TXT) đź“•
"Somebody's might foxy," observed the man; "but I don't see what it's all about. The days of cattle runners and bandits are over."
"Just imagine!" exclaimed the girl. "A real mystery in our lazy, old hills!"
The man rode in silence and in thought. A herd of pure-bred Herefords, whose value would have ransomed half the crowned heads remaining in Europe, grazed in the several pastures that ran far back into those hills; and back there somewhere that trail led, but for what purpose? No good purpose, he was sure, or it had not been so cleverly hidden.
As they came to the trail which they called the Camino Corto, where it commenced at the gate leading from the old goat corral, the man jerked his thumb toward the west along it
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“The hell you don’t! You can’t put that over on me! Some other guy is furnishing it. I know you—you can’t get along two hours without it. I’m not going to stand for this. There isn’t any guy going to steal my girl!”
“Hush, Wilson!” she cautioned. “For God’s sake keep still! Some one might hear you.”
“I don’t give a damn who hears me. I’m here to tell the world that no one is going to take my girl away from me. I’ve found you, and you’re going back with me, do you understand?”
She came very close to him, her eyes blazing wrathfully.
“I’m not going back with you, Wilson Crumb,” she said. “If you tell, or if you ever threaten me again in any way, I’ll kill you. I managed to escape you, and I have found happiness at last, and no one shall take it away from me!”
“What about my happiness? You lived with me two years. I love you, and, by God, I’m going to have you, if I have to—” A door slammed behind them and they both turned to see Custer Pennington standing in the arcade outside his door, looking at them. “I beg your pardon,” he said, his voice chilling. “Did I interrupt?”
“This man is looking for some one, Custer,” said Shannon, and turned to re-enter the house.
Confronted by a man, Crumb’s bravado had vanished. Intuitively he guessed that he was looking at the man who had stolen Gaza from him; but he was a very big young man, with broad shoulders and muscles that his flannel shirt and riding breeches did not conceal. Crumb decided that if he was going to have trouble with this man, it would be safer to commence hostilities at a time when the other was not looking.
“Yes,” he said. “I was looking for your father, Mr. Pennington.”
“Father is not here. He has driven over to the village. What do you want?”
“I wanted to see if I could arrange for the use of some of your Herefords tomorrow morning.”
“You can find out about that,” he said, “or anything else that you may wish to know, from the assistant foreman, whom you will usually find up at the other end, around the cabin. If he is in doubt about anything, he will consult with us personally; so that it will not be necessary, Mr. Crumb, for you to go to the trouble of coming to the house again.”
Custer’s voice was level and low. It carried no suggestion of anger, yet there was that about it which convinced Crumb that he was fortunate in not having been kicked off the hill physically rather than verbally—for kicked off he had been, and advised to stay off, into the bargain.
He wondered how much Pennington had overheard of his conversation with Gaza. Shannon Burke, crouching in a big chair in the sitting room, was wondering the same thing.
As a matter of fact, Custer had overheard practically all of the conversation. The noise of Crumb’s car had awakened him, but almost immediately he had fallen into a doze, through which the spoken words impinged upon his consciousness without any actual, immediate realization of their meaning, of the identity of the speakers’. The moment that he became fully awake, and found that he was listening to a conversation not intended for his ears, he had risen and gone into the patio.
When finally he came into the sitting room, where Shannon was, he made no mention of the occurrence, except to say that the visitor had wanted to see his father. It did not seem possible to Shannon that he could have failed to overhear at least a part of their conversation, for they were standing not more than a couple of yards from the open window of his bedroom, and there was no other sound breaking the stillness of the August noon. She was sure that he had heard, and yet his manner indicated that he had not.
She waited a moment to see if he would be the first to broach the subject, but he did not. She determined to tell him then and there all that she had to tell, freeing her soul and her conscience of their burden, whatever the cost might be.
She rose and came to where he was standing, and, placing a hand upon his arm, looked up into his eyes.
“Custer,” she said. “I have something to tell you. I ought to have told you before, but I have been afraid. Since last night there is no alternative but to tell you.”
“You do not have to tell me anything that you do not want to tell me,” he said. “My confidence in you is implicit. I could not both love and distrust at the same time.”
“I must tell you,” she said. “I only hope—”
“Where in the world have you been, Shannon?” cried Eva, breaking suddenly into the sitting room. “I have been away down to your place looking for you. I thought you were going to play golf with me this afternoon.”
“That’s what I came up for,” said Shannon, turning toward her.
“Well, come on, then! We’ll have to hurry, if we’re going to play eighteen holes this afternoon.”
Custer Pennington went back to his room again after the girls had driven off in the direction of the Country Club. He wondered what it had been that Shannon wished to tell him. Round and round in his mind rang the words of Wilson Crumb:
“You lived with me two years—you lived with me two years—you lived with me two years!”
Custer went to his closet and rummaged around for a bottle. It had been more than two weeks since he had taken a drink. The return to his old intimacy with Shannon, and the frequency with which he now saw her had again weaned him from his habit; but today he felt the need of a drink—of a big drink, stiff and neat.
He swallowed the raw liquor as if it had been so much water. He wished now that he had punched Crumb’s head when he had had the chance. The cur! He had spoken to Shannon as if she were a common woman of the streets—Shannon Burke—Custer’s Shannon!
Feeling no reaction to the first drink, he took another.
“I’d like to get my fingers on his throat!” he thought. “Before I choked the life out of him, I’d drag him up here and make him kiss the ground at her feet!”
But no, he could not do that. Others would see it, and there would have to be explanations; and how could he explain it without casting reflections on Shannon?
For hours he sat there in his room, nursing his anger, his jealousy, and his grief; and all the time he drank and drank again. He went to his closet, got his belt and holster, and from his dresser drawer took a big, ugly-looking forty-five—a Colt’s automatic. For a moment he stood holding it in his hand, looking at it. Almost caressingly he handled it, and then he slipped it into the holster at his hip, put on his hat, and started for the door.
CUSTER’S gait showed no indication of the amount that he had drunk. He was a Pennington of Virginia, and he could carry his liquor like a gentleman. Even though he was aflame with the heat of vengeance, his movements were slow and deliberate. At the door he paused, and, turning, retraced his steps to the table where stood the bottle and the glass. The bottle was empty. He went to the closet and got another. Again he drank, and as he stood there by the table he commenced to plan again.
The colonel and Mrs. Pennington were away somewhere down in the valley. Eva and Shannon were the first to return. In passing along the arcade by Custer’s open window, Eva saw him lying on his bed. She called to him, but he did not answer. Shannon was at her side.
“What in the world do you suppose is the matter with Custer?” asked Eva.
They saw that he was fully dressed. His hat had fallen forward over his eyes. The two girls entered the room, when they could not arouse him by calling him from the outside. The two bottles and the glass upon the table told their own story. What they could not tell Shannon guessed—he had overheard the conversation between Wilson Crumb and herself.
Eva removed the bottles and the glass to the closet.
“Poor Cus!” she said. “I never saw him like this before. I wonder what could have happened! What had we better do?”
“Pull down the shades by his bed,” said Shannon, and this she did herself without waiting for Eva. “No one can see him from the patio now. It will be just as well to leave him alone. I think, Eva, He will probably be all right when he wakes up.”
They went out of the room, closing the door after them, and a little later Shannon mounted the Senator and rode away toward home.
When the colonel and Mrs. Pennington arrived at the ranch house, just before dinner, Eva told them that Custer was not to be disturbed. They did not go to his room at all, and at about half past eight they retired for the night.
Eva was very much excited. She had never before experienced the thrill of such an adventure as she was about to embark upon. As the time approached, she became more and more perturbed. The realization grew upon her that what she was doing might seem highly objectionable to her family; but as her innocent heart held no suggestion of evil, she considered that her only wrong was the infraction of those unwritten laws of well regulated homes which forbid their daughters going out alone at night. She would tell about it in the morning, and wheedle her father into forgiveness.
Quickly she changed into riding clothes. Leaving her room, she noiselessly passed through the living room and the east wing to the kitchen, and from there to the basement, from which a tunnel led beneath the driveway and opened on the hillside above the upper pool of the water gardens. To get her horse and saddle him required but a few moments, for the moon was full and the night almost like day.
As she passed the mouth of Jackknife she glanced up the canyon toward the site of K.K.S. camp, but she could not see any lights, as the camp was fairly well hidden from the main canyon by trees. As she approached El Camino Largo, she saw that all was darkness. There was no sign of the artificial lights she imagined they would use for shooting night scenes, nor was there anything to indicate the presence of the actors.
She continued on, however, until presently she saw the outlines of a car beneath the big sycamore. A man stepped out and hailed her. “Is that you, Miss Pennington?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Aren’t you going to take the pictures tonight?” She rode up quite close to him. It was Crumb.
“I am just waiting for the others. Won’t you dismount?”
As she swung from the saddle, he led her horse to his car and tied him to the spare tire in the rear; then he returned to the girl. As they talked, he adroitly turned the subject of their conversation toward the possibilities for fame and fortune which lay in pictures for a beautiful and talented girl.
So unsophisticated was Eva, and so innocent, that she did not realize from his conversation what would have been palpable to one more worldly wise; and because she did not repulse him, Crumb thought that
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