Coravel Tio sold curios in the old town of Santa Fe. He also sold
antiques, real and fraudulent; he had a wholesale business in Indian
wares that extended over the whole land.
Coravel Tio was one of the few Americans who could trace their ancestry
in an unbroken line for three hundred years. It was almost exactly three
hundred years since the ancestor of Coravel Tio had come to Santa Fe as
a conquistador. Coravel Tio was wont to boast of this, an easily proven
fact; and, boasting, he had sold the conquistador's battered old armour
at least fifty times.
When the boasts of Coravel Tio were questioned, he would admit with a
chuckle that he was a philosopher; and do not all philosophers live by
lying, senor? There was great truth in him when he was not selling his
ancestor's armour to tourists--and even then, if he happened to like the
looks of the tourist, he would gently insinuate that as a business man
he sold fraudulent wares and lied nobly about them, but that in private
he was a philosopher. And the tourists, liking this quaintly naive
speech, bought the more.
It was a big, dark, quiet shop, full of Indian goods and weapons,
antique furniture that would have made Chippendale's eyes water,
ivories, old paintings, manuscripts from ancient missions. A good half
of Coravel Tio's shop was not for sale at any price. Neither, said men,
was Coravel Tio.
He was a soft-spoken little man, quiet, of strange smiles and strange
silences. His was the art of making silence into a reproof, an assent, a
curse. The world of Santa Fe moved about Uncle Coravel and heeded him
not, shouldered him aside; and Coravel Tio, knowing his fathers to have
been conquistadores, smiled gently at the world. His name was usually
dismissed with a shrug--in effect, a huge tribute to him. Talleyrand
would have given his soul to have been accorded such treatment from the
diplomats of Europe; it would have rendered him invincible.
One of those rare men was Coravel Tio whose faculties, masked by
childish gentleness, grow more terribly keen with every passing year.
His brain was like a seething volcano--a volcano which seems to be
extinct and cold and impotent, yet which holds unguessed fires somewhere
deep within itself.
Upon a day, some time following the meeting of Mehitabel Crump with
Thady Shea, this Coravel Tio was standing in talk with one Cota, a
native member of the legislature then in session.
"But, senor!" was volubly protesting the legislator, with excitement.
"They say the majority is assured, that the bill already drawn, that the
capital is to be moved to Albuquerque at this very session!"
"I know," said Coravel, passively, his dark eyes gently mournful.
"You know? But what--what is to be done? Shall those down-state people
take away our capital? We must prevent it! We must do something! It's
this man Mackintavers who is at the bottom of it, I suppose----"
Coravel Tio fingered a blanket which topped a pile beside him--a gaudy
red blanket. He regarded it with curious eyes.
"I fear this is not genuine--it does not have the old Spanish uniform
red," he murmured, as though inwardly he were thinking only of his
wares. Then suddenly his eyes lifted to the other man, and he smiled. In
his smile was a piercing hint of mockery like a half-sheathed sword;
before that smile Cota stammered and fell silent.
"Oh, senor, this matter of the capital!" answered Coravel Tio, softly.
"Why, for many, many years men have said that the capital is to be moved
to Albuquerque; yet it has not been moved! Nor will it be moved. And,
Senor Cota, let me whisper something to you! I hear that you have bought
a new automobile. That is very nice, very nice! But, senor, if by any
chance you are misled into voting for that bill, it would be a very sad
event in your life; a most unhappy event, I assure you! Senor, customers
await me. _Adios._"
As the legislator left the shop, he furtively crossed himself, wonder
and fear struggling in his pallid features.
The merchant now turned to his waiting customers. Of these, one was a
Pueblo, a Cochiti man as the fashion of his high white moccasins and
barbaric apparel testified to a knowing eye. The others were two white
men who together approached the curio dealer. Coravel Tio stepped to a
show case filled with onyx and other old carvings, and across this faced
the two men with an uplift of his brows, a silent questioning.
"You're Mr. Coravel--Coravel Tio?" queried one of the two. The dealer
merely smiled and nodded, in his birdlike fashion. "Can we see you in
private?"
"I have no privacy," said Coravel Tio. "This is my shop. You may speak
freely."
"Huh!" grunted the other, surveying him in obvious hesitation. "Well, I
dunno. Me and my partner here have been workin' down to Magdalena, and
we had a scrap with some fellers and laid 'em out. Right after that, a
native by the name of Baca tipped us off that they was Mackintavers'
men, and we'd better light out in a hurry. He give us a loan and said to
tell you about it, so we lit out here."
Coravel Tio seemed greatly puzzled by this tale.
"My dear sir," he returned, slowly, "I am a curio dealer. I do not know
why you were sent to me. Do you?"
"Hell, no!" The miner stared at him disgustedly. "Must ha' been some
mistake."
"Undoubtedly. I am most sorry. However, if you are looking for work, I
might be able to help you--it seems to me that someone wrote me for a
couple of men. Excuse me one moment while I look up the letter. What are
your names, my friends?"
"Me? I'm Joe Gilbert. My partner here is Alf Lewis."
Coravel Tio left them, and crossed to a glassed-in box of an office. He
opened a locked safe, swiftly inspected a telegraph form, and nodded to
himself in a satisfied manner. He returned to the two men, tapped for a
moment upon the glass counter, meditatively, then addressed them.
"Senors, I regret the mistake exceedingly. Still, if you want work, I
suggest that you drive over to Domingo this afternoon with my cousin,
who lives there. You may stay a day or two with him, then this friend of
mine will pick you up and take you to work."
The second man, Lewis, spoke up hesitantly.
"Minin' is our work, mister. We ain't no ranchers."
"Certainly." Coravel Tio smiled, gazing at him. "You will not work for a
native, my friends. Ah, no! Be here at two this afternoon, please."
The two men left the shop. Outside, in the Street, they paused and
looked at each other. The second man, Lewis, swore under his breath.
"Joe, how in hell did he know we was worried over workin' for a greaser
boss?"
Gilbert merely shrugged his shoulders and strode away.
Within the shop, Coravel Tio turned to the waiting Indian and
spoke--this time neither in Spanish nor English, but in the Indian
tongue itself. As he spoke, however, he saw the stolid redskin make a
slight gesture. Catlike, Coravel Tio turned about and went to meet a man
who had just entered the shop; catlike, too, he purred suave greeting.
A large man, this new arrival--square of head and jaw and shoulder, with
small gray eyes closely set, a moustache bristling over a square mouth,
ruthless hardness stamped in every line of figure, face, and manner. He
was dressed carelessly but well.
"Morning," he said, curtly. His eyes bit sharply about the place, then
rested with intent scrutiny upon the proprietor. "Morning, Coravel Tio.
I been looking for someone who can talk Injun. I've got a proposition
that won't handle well in Spanish; it's got to be put to 'em in their
own tongue. I hear that you can find me someone."
Regretfully, Coravel Tio shook his head.
"No--o," he said, in reflective accents. "I am sorry, Mr. Mackintavers.
My clerk, Juan Estrada, spoke their language, but he joined the army and
is still in service. Myself, I know of it only a word or two. But wait!
Here is a Cochiti man who sells me turquoise; he might serve you as
interpreter, if he is willing."
He called the loitering Indian, and in the bastard Spanish patois of the
country put the query. Mackintavers, who also spoke the tongue well,
intervened and tried to employ the Indian as interpreter. To both
interrogators the Pueblo shook his head in stolid negation. He would not
serve in the desired capacity, and knew of no one else who would.
"It is a great pity he is so stubborn!" Coravel Tio gestured in despair
as he turned to his visitor. "I owe you thanks, Mr. Mackintavers, for
getting my wholesale department that order from the St. Louis dealer. I
am in your debt, and I shall be grateful if I can repay the obligation.
In this case, alas, I am powerless!"
"Well, let it go." Mackintavers waved a large, square hand. He produced
cigars, set one between his square white teeth, and handed the other to
Coravel Tio. "You can repay me here and now. A man at Albuquerque sent a
telegram to that Crump woman in your care. Where is she?"
"What is all this?" Coravel Tio was obviously astonished. "Senor, I am a
curio dealer, no more! You surely do not refer to the kind-hearted Mrs.
Crump?"
Mackintavers eyed him, chewing on his cigar. Then he nodded grimly.
"I do! Is she a particular friend of yours?"
"Certainly! Have I not known her these twenty years? I buy much from
her--bits of turquoise, queer Indian things, odd relics. Her mail often
comes here, remaining until she calls for it. I am a curio dealer,
senor, and in other matters I take no interest."
"Hm!" grunted Mackintavers. "Has she been here lately?"
"No, senor, not for three months--no, more than that! Mail comes, also
telegrams."
"D'you know where she is?" demanded the other, savagely.
Dreamily reflective, Coravel Tio fastened his eyes upon the right ear of
Mackintavers. That ear bore a half-healed scar, like a bullet-nick.
Beneath that silent scrutiny the other man reddened uneasily.
"Let me see! My wife's second cousin, Estevan Baca, wrote me last week
that he had met her in Las Vegas. Everyone knows her, senor. If I can
send any message for you----"
"No. Much obliged, all the same," grunted the other. "I'll probably be
at the Aztec House for a few days. Let me know in case she comes to
town, will you? I want to see her."
With exactly the proper degree of bland eagerness, Coravel Tio assented
to this, and Mackintavers departed heavily. The merchant accompanied him
to the door and watched him stride up the narrow street, cursing the
burros laden with mountain wood that blocked his way. Then, smiling a
trifle oddly, the descendant of conquistadores returned to the waiting
man from Cochiti pueblo.
"Do you know why that man wanted an interpreter?" he asked the Indian,
in the latter's native tongue. The redskin grinned wisely and shook the
black hair from his eyes.
"Yes. But it is not a matter to discuss with Christians, my father."
Coravel Tio nodded carelessly. The question was closed. The Pueblo folk
are, of course, very devoted converts to the Christian faith; yet those
who know them intimately can testify that they sometimes have affairs,
perhaps touching upon the queer stone idols of their fathers, which do
not bear discussion with other Christians. They do not pray to the old
gods--perhaps--but they hold them in tremendous respect.
"You came to tell me something," prompted the curio dealer, gently.
The Indian assented with a nod. He leaned against one of the wooden
pillars that supported the roof, and began to roll a cigarette while he
talked.
"Yesterday, my father, I was near the painted caves of the Colorado, and
I stood above White Rock Canon looking down at the river. There on the
other side of the water I saw the strangest thing in the world. I went
home and told the governor of the pueblo what I had seen, and it was his
command that I come here and tell you also, for this is some queer
affair of the white people."
Coravel Tio said nothing at all. The Pueblo lighted his cigarette and
continued:
"Upon the east side of the river and canon, not so well hidden that I
could not see it, was a camp, and in that camp were a white man and a
white woman. I have never before seen white folk able to reach that
place, unless it were the Trail Runner who takes pictures of us and
sells them to tourists. These were strangers to me. One was a very large
woman. The man was tall, but he acted very strangely. He acted as though
God had touched his brain. So did they both."
"In what way?" asked Coravel Tio, sharply.
"In every way, my father. The man wore no shoes, and the hot rocks hurt
his feet so that he limped. I saw him spring on the woman, and they
fought. She beat him off and pointed a gun at him. Then he seemed to be
weeping like a woman, and he grovelled before her. She threw something
far off on the stones, and I think it was glass that broke--a bottle,
perhaps."
"Oh!" said Coravel Tio. "Oh! Perhaps it was."
"There were other strange actions," pursued the stolid red man. "I could
not understand them----"
"No matter." Coravel Tio made a gesture as though dismissing the
subject. "Could you get to that camp from your pueblo?"
"Of course, by crossing the river, by swimming the water there. But that
may be a hard thing to do, my father."
"Undoubtedly, but you will do it, and I will pay you well. There is a
package to give that woman. Wait."
Coravel Tio went to his little box of an office, seated himself at the
desk, and began to write in a fair, round hand. The epistle required
neither superscription nor signature:
The burlap sack proved to contain some interesting contents. The
two small sacks in the centre were even more interesting. The
samples have been assayed with the following results:
Numbers one to five, quartzitic with bare traces of brittle
silver ore; no good. Numbers six to fifteen, barytes, perhaps
five dollars a ton; no good. Number sixteen is strontianite.
This is converted into certain nitrates used in manufacture of
fireworks and in beet sugar refining. Tremendously valuable and
rare. This, senora, is enough.
I think that M. has scented those assays. He is asking for you,
but I have made him look toward Las Vegas. To-morrow you will
find two men at Domingo who wish work--they will be there until
you arrive: Joe Gilbert and Alf Lewis. Meet me there also,
please. I will take one-third interest in Number Sixteen as you
suggest, and will furnish whatever money you desire on account.
I enclose an advance sum.
I shall have articles of partnership ready. Suppose you meet me
day after to-morrow, at Domingo. You must give me location,
etc., in order to arrange details of filing, land and mineral
right lease, etc. Be careful about the new explosives law,
unless you already have a permit.
"Being a woman," reflected Coravel Tio, "she should know that the most
important thing in this letter is the very end of it."
He sealed the letter, placed it upon a thick sheaf of bank notes,
wrapped the parcel in oiled silk and again in a small waterproof Navaho
saddle blanket. This package he gave to the waiting redskin.
"It must go into the hands of that large woman, and no other," he said,
gravely. "If you fail, there is trouble for all of us--and perhaps for
the gods of the San Marcos also!"
At these last words a flash of keen surprise sprang athwart the Indian's
face; then he took the package and turned to the doorway without
response. Coravel Tio looked after him, and smiled gently.