GLOOM OF BILLIE
The return of Captain Pike on Kit's horse was a matter of considerable
conjecture at Granados, but the old prospector was so fagged that at
first he said little, and after listening to the things Billie had to
tell him--he said less.
"That explains the curious ways of the Mexicans as I reached the
border," he decided. "They'd look first at the horse, then at me, but
asked no questions, and told me nothing. Queer that no word reached us
about Singleton! No, it isn't either. We never crossed trails with any
from up here. There's so much devilment of various sorts going on down
there that a harmless chap like Singleton wouldn't be remembered."
"Conrad's down at Magdalena now, but we seldom know how far he ranges.
Sometimes he stays at the lower ranch a week at a time, and he might
go on to Sinaloa for all we know. He seems always busy and is
extremely polite, but I gave him the adobe house across the arroya
after Papa Phil--went. I know he has the Mexicans thinking Kit Rhodes
came back for that murder; half of them believe it!"
"Well, I reckon I can prove him an alibi if it's needed. I'll go see
the old judge."
"He'll tell you not to travel at night, or alone, if you know
anything," she prophesied. "That's what he tells me. To think of old
Rancho Granados coming to that pass! We never did have trouble here
except a little when Apaches went on the warpath before my time, and
now the whole border is simmering and ready to boil over if anyone
struck a match to it. The judge hints that Conrad is probably only one
cog in the big border wheel, and they are after the engineer who turns
that wheel, and do you know you haven't told me one word of Kit
Rhodes, or whether he's alive or dead!"
"Nothing to tell! We didn't find it, and he took the back trail with
an Indian girl and her daddy, and----"
"An--Indian girl?"
"Yes, a queer little kid who was in a lot of trouble. Her father was
wounded in one of the fracases they have down there every little
while. Nary one of us could give an address when we took different
trails, for we didn't know how far we'd be allowed to travel--the
warring factions are swarming and troublesome over the line."
"Well, if a girl could stand the trail, it doesn't look dangerous."
"Looks are deceptive, child,--and this isn't just any old girl! It's a
rare bird, it's tougher than whalebone and possessed of a wise little
devil. She froze to Kit as a _compadre_ at first chance. He headed
back to Mesa Blanca. I reckon they'd make it,--barring accidents."
"Mesa Blanca? That's the Whitely outfit?"
"Um!" assented Pike, "but I reckon Whitely's hit the trail by now.
There's no real profit in raising stock for the warriors down there;
each band confiscates what he needs, and gives a promissory note on an
empty treasury."
"Well, the attraction must be pretty strong to hold him down there in
spite of conditions," said Billie gloomily.
"Attraction? Sure. Kit's gone loco on that attraction," agreed the old
prospector, and then with a reminiscent light in his tired old eyes he
added, "I reckon there's no other thing so likely to snare a man on a
desert trail. You see, Billie-child, it's just as if the great God had
hid a treasure in the beginning of the world to stay hid till the
right lad ambled along the trail, and lifted the cover, and when a
fellow has youth, and health and not a care in the world, the search
alone is a great game--And when he finds it!--why, Billie, the
dictionary hasn't words enough to tell the story!"
"No--I--I reckon not," said his listener in a small voice, and when he
looked around to speak to her again she had disappeared, and across
the patio Dona Luz was coming towards him in no good humor.
"How is it that poor little one weeps now when you are returned, and
not at other times?" she demanded. "Me, I have my troubles since that
day they find the Don Filipe shot dead,--_Jesusita_ give him rest!
That child is watching the Sonora trail and waiting since that day,
but no tears until you are come. I ask you how is the way of that?"
Captain Pike stared at her reflectively.
"You are a bringer of news, likewise a faithful warden," he observed.
"I'm peaceably disposed, and not wise to your lingo. Billie and me
were talking as man to man, free and confidential, and no argument.
There were no weeps that I noticed. What's the reason why?"
"The saints alone know, and not me!" she returned miserably. "I think
she is scared that it was the Senor Rhodes who shooting Don Filipe,
the vaqueros thinking that! But she tells no one, and she is unhappy.
Also there is reason. That poor little one has the ranchos, but have
you hear how the debts are so high all the herds can never pay? That
is how they are saying now about Granados and La Partida, and at the
last our senorita will have no herds, and no ranchos, and no people
but me. _Madre de Dios!_ I try to think of her in a little adobe by
the river with only _frijoles_ in the dinner pot, and I no see it that
way. And I not seeing it other way. How you think?"
"I don't, it's too new," confessed Pike. "Who says this?"
"The Senor Henderson. I hear him talk with Senor Conrad, who has much
sorrow because the Don Filipe made bad contracts and losing the money
little and little, and then the counting comes, and it is big, very
big!"
"Ah! the Senor Conrad has much sorrow, has he?" queried Pike, "and
Billie is getting her face to the wall and crying? That's queer.
Billie always unloaded her troubles on me, and you say there was none
of this weeping till I came back?"
"That is so, senor."
"Cause why?"
"_Quien sabe?_ She was making a long letter to Senor Rhodes in
Sonora,--that I know. He sends no word, so--I leave it to you, senor,
it takes faith and more faith when a man is silent, and the word of a
killing is against him."
"Great Godfrey, woman! He never got a letter, he knows nothing of a
killing. How in hell--" Then the captain checked himself as he saw the
uselessness of protesting to Dona Luz. "Where's Billie?"
Billie was perched on a window seat in the _sala_, her eyes were more
than a trifle red, and she appeared deeply engrossed in the pages of a
week-old country paper.
"I see here that Don Jose Perez of Hermosillo is to marry Dona Dolores
Terain, the daughter of the general," she observed impersonally. "He
owns Rancho Soledad, and promises the Sonora people he will drive the
rebel Rotil into the sea, and it was but yesterday Tia Luz was telling
me of his beautiful wife, Jocasta, who was only a little mountain girl
when he rode through her village and saw her first. She is still
alive, and it looks to me as if all men are alike!"
"More or less," agreed Pike amicably, "some of us more, some of us
less. Dona Dolores probably spells politics, but Dona Jocasta is a
wildcat of the sierras, and I can't figure out any harmonious days for
a man who picks two like that."
"He doesn't deserve harmony; no man does who isn't true--isn't true,"
finished Billie rather lamely.
"Look here, honey child," observed Pike, "you'll turn man hater if you
keep on working your imagination. Luz tells me you are cranky against
Kit, and that the ranches are tied up in business knots tighter than I
had any notion of, so you had better unload the worst you can think
of on me; that's what I'm here for. What difference do the Perez
favorites make to our young lives? Neither Dolores nor Jocasta will
help play the cards in our fortunes."
Wherein Captain Pike was not of the prophets. The wells of Sonora are
not so many but that he who pitches his tent near one has a view and
greetings of all drifting things of the desert, and the shadowed star
of Dona Jocasta of the south was leading her into the Soledad
wilderness forsaken of all white men but one.