The End
I suppose it takes more than a minute for one’s wits, particularly if
they happen to be thick wits, to drain entirely away.
Before mine had completely left me, I had attempted to telephone to
Sam, down in the outfit’s quarters, and had failed to get a reply to
my call. I had told Mrs. Ricker and Zinnia, trying with all my might
to hide my fear, to run out and find Sam, or Miss MacDonald, or Hubert
Hand, or John—I had forgotten that John was upstairs in his room—and
to bring one or all of them to the house as quickly as possible. To
this day I don’t know why they went, without a question; but they
went, running. It was the slam of the screen door behind them, I
think, bringing with it as it did the realization of my aloneness and
the memory of Miss MacDonald’s warning, that turned me clear over to
terror.
I shall not describe what I did, nor what I thought, during the time
that I was alone there, downstairs, before help arrived. The
humorously inclined might think such a description amusing. To me
there is nothing amusing in the spectacle of an old woman being
gripped and wrung by fright. I longed to run from the house; but I
felt that I must stay there to explain the situation to the others
when they came, if they ever did come, and to do my poor best, since I
had made the fatal mistake, to prevent catastrophe. By clock time, it
was only thirty-six silent minutes that I had to wait before Miss
MacDonald came, alone and unhurried, up the front steps and into the
living-room.
Still holding Sam’s thirty-thirty rifle in my hands—I had known that I
could never use it to shoot at any living thing, but I had hoped that
it might make me look dangerous—I turned to meet her.
“Don’t point that thing at me,” she commanded. “Put it down. What are
you doing with it? What is the trouble here?”
Before I could answer her, Sam, Mrs. Ricker and Zinnia came clattering
through the kitchen.
Mrs. Ricker was wringing her hands and saying over and over, in a
voice all broken and mutilated with horror, “I have gone insane, I
have gone insane. I have gone insane.”
Sam said, “Gabrielle Canneziano just now waved at us from her window.”
Miss MacDonald turned and ran like a wild thing up the stairs. Just as
she disappeared from our sight the sound of a pistol’s shot cracked
through the place.
I followed the others. I ran up the steps. I stumbled down the hall,
behind them, and into Gabrielle Canneziano’s room.
I saw Gabrielle Canneziano, her cheeks painted, her lips reddened,
long earrings dangling from her ears, lying on the couch. Over her
breast was a widening spot of color, staining the fringes of the soft
white silk dressing-gown that she was wearing. On the floor was a
smoking revolver.
John came. He said, “She told me what she was going to do. I allowed
her to do it. I did not want Nevada to have to execute a woman.”