COVERING THE TRAIL
Each minute of the long days, Rhodes worked steadily and gaily,
picking out the high grade ore from the old Indian mine, and every
possible night he and the burro and Tula made a trip out to the foot
of the range, where they buried their treasure against the happy day
when they could go out of the silent desert content for the time with
what gold they could carry in secret to the border.
For two days he had watched the Soledad ranch house rather closely
through the field glass, for there was more activity there than
before; men in groups rode in who were not herding. He wondered if it
meant a military occupation, in which case he would need to be doubly
cautious when emerging from the hidden trail.
The girl worked as he worked. Twice he had made new sandals for her,
and also for himself in order to save his boots so that they might at
least be wearable when he got among people. All plans had been thought
out and discussed until no words would be needed between them when
they separated. She was to appear alone at Palomitas with a tale of
escape from the slavers, and he was carefully crushing and mashing
enough color to partly fill a buckskin bag to show as the usual fruits
of a prospect trip from which he was returning to Mesa Blanca after
exhausting grub stake and shoe leather.
The things of the world had stood still for him during that hidden
time of feverish work. He scarcely dared try to estimate the value of
the ore he had dug as honey from a hollow tree, but it was rich--rich!
There were nuggets of pure gold, assorted as to their various sizes,
while he milled and ground the quartz roughly, and cradled it in the
water of the brook.
By the innocent aid of Baby Bunting, two wild burros of the sierra had
been enticed within reach for slaughter, and, aside from the food
values, they furnished green hide which under Kit's direction, Tula
deftly made into bags for carrying the gold.
All activities during the day were carefully confined within a certain
radius, low enough in the little canon to run no risk in case any
inquisitive resident of Soledad should study the ranges with a field
glass, though Kit had not seen one aside from his own since he entered
Sonora. And he used his own very carefully every morning and evening
on the wide valley of Soledad.
"Something doing down there, sister," he decided, as they were
preparing for the last trail out. "Riders who look like cavalry,
mules, and some wagons--mighty queer!"
Tula came over and stood beside him expectantly. He had learned that a
look through the magic glasses was the most coveted gift the camp
could grant to her, and it had become part of the regular routine that
she stood waiting her turn for the wide look, the "enchant look," as
she had called it that first morning. It had become a game to try to
see more than he, and this time she mentioned as he had, the wagons,
and mules, and riders. And then she looked long and uttered a brief
Indian word of surprise.
"Beat me again, have you?" queried Kit good humoredly. "What do you
find?"
"A woman is there, in that wagon,--sick maybe. Also one man is a
padre; see you!"
Kit took the glasses and saw she was right. A man who looked like a
priest was helping a woman from a wagon, she stumbled forward and then
was half carried by two men towards the house.
"Not an Indian woman?" asked Kit, and again her unchildlike mind
worked quickly.
"A padre does not bow his head to help Indian woman. Caballeros do not
lift them up."
"Well I reckon Don Jose Perez is home on a visit, and brought his
family. A queer time! Other ranch folks are getting their women north
over the border for safety."
"Don Jose not bring woman to Soledad--ever. He take them away. His men
take them away."
It was the first reference she had made to the slavers since they had
entered the canon, though she knew that each pile of nuggets was part
of the redemption money for those exiles of whom she did not speak.
But she worked tirelessly until Kit would stop her, or suggest some
restful task to vary the steady grind of carrying, pounding, or
washing the quartz. He had ordered her to make two belts, that each of
them might carry some of the gold hidden under their garments. She had
a nugget tied in a corner of her _manta_, and other small ones
fastened in her girdle, while in the belt next her body she carried
all he deemed safe to weight her with, probably five pounds. At any
hint of danger she would hide the belt and walk free.
His own belt would carry ten pounds without undue bulkiness. And over
three hundred pounds of high grade gold was already safely hidden near
the great rock with the symbols of sun and rain marking its weathered
surface.
"A fair hundred thousand, and the vein only scratched!" he exulted. "I
was sore over losing the job on Billie's ranch,--but gee! this looks
as if I was knocked out in the cold world to reach my good luck!"
In a blue dusk of evening they left the camp behind and started over
the trail, after Tula had carefully left fragments of food on the tomb
of Miguel, placed there for the ghosts who are drawn to a comrade.
Kit asked no questions concerning any of her tribal customs, since to
do so would emphasize the fact that they were peculiar and strange to
him, and the Indian mind, wistfully alert, would sense that
strangeness and lose its unconsciousness in the presence of an alien.
So, when she went, after meals, to offer dregs of the soup kettle or
bones of the burro, she often found a bunch of desert blossoms wilting
there in the heat, and these tributes left by Kit went far to
strengthen her confidence. It was as if Miguel was a live partner in
their activities, never forgotten by either. So they left him on
guard, and turned their faces toward the outer world of people.
Knowing more than he dare tell the girl his mind was considerably
occupied with that woman at Soledad, for military control changed over
night in many a province of Mexico in revolutionary days, and the time
at the hidden mine might have served for many changes.
Starlight and good luck was on the trail for them, and at earliest
streak of dawn they buried their treasure, divided their dried burro
meat, and with every precaution to hide the trail where they emerged
from the gray sierra, they struck the road to Mesa Blanca.
Until full day came Tula rode the burro, and slipped off at a ravine
where she could walk hidden, on the way to Palomitas.
"Buntin'," said Kit, watching her go, "we'll have pardners and
pardners in our time, but we'll never find one more of a thoroughbred
than that raggedy Indian witch-child of ours."
He took the slanting cattle trail up over the mesa, avoiding the wagon
road below, and at the far edge of it halted to look down over the
wide spreading leagues of the Mesa Blanca ranch.
It looked very sleepy, drowsing in the silence of the noon sun. An old
Indian limped slowly from the corral over to the ranch house, and a
child tumbled in the dust with a puppy, but there was no other sign of
ranch activity. As he descended the mesa and drew nearer the corrals
they had a deserted look, not merely empty but deserted.
The puppy barked him a welcome, but the child gave one frightened look
at Kit, and with a howl of fear, raced to the shelter of the portal
where he disappeared in the shadows.
"I had a hunch, Babe, that we needed smoothing down with a currycomb
before we made social calls," confessed Kit to the burro, "but I
didn't reckon on scaring the natives in any such fashion as this."
He was conscious of peering eyes at a barred window, and then the old
Indian appeared.
"Hello, Isidro!"
"At your service, senor," mumbled the old man, and then he stared at
the burro, and at the bearded and rather desert-worn stranger, and
uttered a cry of glad recognition.
"Ai-ji! It is El Pajarito coming again to Mesa Blanca, but coming with
dust in your mouth and no song! Enter, senor, and take your rest in
your own house. None are left to do you honor but me,--all gone like
that!" and his skinny black hands made a gesture as if wafting the
personnel of Mesa Blanca on its way. "The General Rotil has need the
cattle, and makes a divide with Senor Whitely and all go,--all the
herds," and he pointed east.
Kit bathed his face in the cool water brought out by Valencia,
Isidro's wife, then unloaded the burro of the outfit, and stretched
himself in the shade while the women busied themselves preparing
food.
"So General Rotil makes a divide of the cattle,--of Whitely's cattle?
How is that?" he asked.
And the old Indian proceeded to tell him that it was true. The
Deliverer must feed his army. He needed half, and promised Whitely to
furnish a guard for the rest of the herd and help Whitely save them by
driving them to Imuris, where the railroad is.
"He said enemy troops would come from the south and take them all in
one week or one month. He, Rotil, would pay a price. Thus it was, and
Senor Whitely, and enough vaqueros, rode with the herds, and General
Rotil took the rest of the ranchmen to be his soldiers. Of course it
might be Senor Whitely would some day return, who knows? And he left a
letter for the senor of the songs."
The letter corroborated Isidro's statements--it was the only way to
save any of the stock. Whitely thought there was a hundred or two
still ranging in the far corners, but time was short, and he was
saving what he could. The men were joining the revolutionists and he
would be left without help anyway. If Rhodes came back he was to use
the place as his own. If he could round up any more horses or cattle
on the range and get them to safety Isidro would find some Indians to
help him, and Whitely would divide the profits with him.
"Fine!--divides first with the Deliverer, and next with me! Can't see
where that hombre gets off when it comes to staking his own family to
a living. But it's a bargain, and this is my headquarters until I can
get out. How long has Whitely and his new friends been gone?"
"Four days, senor."
"Seen any stragglers of cattle left behind?"
Isidro's grandson, Clodomiro, had found both horses and cattle and
herded them into far canons; a man might ride in a circle for five
miles around the ranch house and see never a fresh track. Clodomiro
was a good boy, and of much craft.
Dinner was announced for the senor, and the women showed him welcome
by placing before him the most beautiful repast they could arrange
quickly, _chile con carne_, _frijoles_, _tortillas_, and a decanter of
Sonora wine--a feast for a king!
After he had eaten, tobacco was brought him from some little hidden
store, and Isidro gave him the details of the slave raid of Palomitas,
and Sonora affairs in general. Kit was careful to state that he has
been prospecting in the mountains and out of touch with ranch people,
and it must be understood that all Isidro could tell would be news to
a miner from the desert mountains. And he asked if General Rotil also
collected stock from the ranch of Soledad.
Whereupon Isidro told him many things, and among them the wonder that
Soledad had been left alone--the saints only knew why! And Juan
Gonsalvo, the foreman at Soledad, had helped with the slave raid, and
was known in Palomitas where they took girls and women and men as
well, even men not young! Miguel, the major-domo, was taken with his
wife and two daughters, the other men were young. The curse of God
seemed striking Sonora. A new foreman was now at Soledad, Marto
Cavayso, a hard man and,--it was said, a soldier, but he evidently got
tired of fighting and was taking his rest by managing the horse herds
of Soledad.
"Doesn't look like rest to me," observed Kit. "The Soledad trail looks
pretty well kicked into holes, with wagons, mules, and horsemen."
Isidro volunteered his opinion that work of the devil was going
forward over there.
"Juan Gonsalvo and El Aleman were stealing women in Sonora, and
driving them the south trail for a price," he stated. "But what think
you would be the price for a woman of emerald eyes and white skin
carried up from the south under chains, and a lock to the chain?"
"I reckon you are dreaming the lock and chain part of it, Isidro,"
returned Kit. "Only murderers travel like that."
"_Si_, it is so. There at Soledad it is heard. A killing was done in
the south and Soledad is her prison. But she is beautiful, and the men
are casting lots as to whose she shall be when the guard is gone south
again to Don Jose Perez."
"Ah! they are Don Jose's men, are they? Then the prisoner is guarded
by his orders?"
"Who knows? They tell that she is a lost soul, and fought for a knife
to kill herself, and the padre makes prayers and says hell will be
hers if she does. Elena, who is cook, heard him say that word, and
Elena was once wife to my brother, and she is telling that to
Clodomiro who makes an errand to take her deer meat, and hear of the
strangers. He saw the woman, her bracelets are gold, and her eyes are
green. The padre calls her Dona Jocasta. I go now and give drink to
that burro and make him happy."
"Jocasta, eh? Dona Jocasta!" repeated Kit in wondering meditation.
"Doesn't seem possible--but reckon it is, and there are no real
surprises in Sonora. Anything could, and does happen here."
He remembered Pike telling the story of Jocasta one morning by their
camp fire in the desert. She was called by courtesy Senora Perez. He
had not heard her father's name, but he was a Spanish priest and her
mother an Indian half-breed girl--some little village in the sierras.
There were two daughters, and the younger was blond as a child of Old
Spain, Jocasta was the elder and raven dark of hair, a skin of deep
cream, and jewel-green eyes. Kit had heard three men, including
Isidro, speak of Dona Jocasta, and each had mentioned the wonderful
green eyes--no one ever seemed to forget them!
Their magnetism had caught the attention of Don Jose,--a distinguished
and illustrious person in the eyes of the barefoot mountaineers. No
one knew what Jocasta thought of the exalted padrone of the wide
lands, whose very spurs were of gold, but she knew there was scarce
wealth enough in all the village to keep a candle burning on the
Virgin's shrine, and her feet had never known a shoe. The padre died
suddenly just as Don Jose was making a bargain with him for the girl,
so he swept Jocasta to his saddle with no bargain whatever except that
she might send back for Lucita, her little sister, and other men
envied Perez his good luck when they looked at Jocasta. For three
years she had been mistress of his house in Hermosillo, but never had
he taken her into the wilderness of Soledad,--it was a crude casket
for so rich a treasure.
Kit steeped in the luxury of a square meal, fell asleep, thinking of
the green-eyed Dona Jocasta whom no man forgot. He would not connect a
brilliant bird of the mountain with that drooping figure he and Tula
had seen stumbling towards the portal of Soledad. And the statement of
Isidro that there had been a killing, and Dona Jocasta was a lost
soul, was most puzzling of all. In a queer confused dream the killing
was done by Tula, and Billie wore the belt of gold, and had green
eyes. And he wakened himself with the apparently hopeless effort of
convincing Billie he had never forgotten her despite the feminine
witcheries of Sonora.
The shadows were growing long, and some Indian boys were jogging
across the far flats. He reached for his field glass and saw that one
of them had a deer across his saddle. Isidro explained that the boys
were planting corn in a far field, and often brought a deer when they
came in for more seed or provisions. They had a hut and _ramada_ at
the edge of the planted land six miles away. They were good boys,
Benito and Mariano Bravo, and seldom both left the fields at the same
time. He called to Valencia that there would be deer for supper, then
watched the two riders as they approached, and smiled as they
perceptibly slowed up their broncos at sight of the bearded stranger
on the rawhide cot against the wall.
"See you!" he pointed out to Kit. "These are the days of changes. Each
day we looking for another enemy, maybe that army of the south, and
the boys they think that way too."
The boys, on being hailed, came to the house with their offering, and
bunkered down in the shadow with a certain shy stolidity, until Kit
spoke, when they at once beamed recognition, and made jokes of his
beard as a blanket.
But they had news to tell, great news, for a child of Miguel had
broken away from the slavers and had hidden in the mountains, and at
last had found her way back to Palomitas. She was very tired and very
poor in raiment, and the people were weeping over her. Miguel, her
father, was dead from a wound, and was under the ground, and of the
others who went on she could tell nothing, only that Conrad, the
German friend of Don Jose, was the man who covered his face and helped
take the women. Her sister Anita had recognized him, calling out his
name, and he had struck her with a quirt.
The women left their work to listen to this, and to add the memories
of some of their friends who had hidden and luckily escaped.
"That white man should be crucified and left for the vultures," said
the boy Benito.
"No," said the soft voice of Valencia, "God was sacrificed, but this
man is a white Judas; the death of God is too good for that man. It
has been talked about. He will be found some place,--and the Judas
death will be his. The women are making prayers."
"It will soon be Easter," said Isidro.
Kit did not know what was meant by a "Judas" death, though he did know
many of the church legends had been turned by the Indians into strange
and lurid caricatures. He thought it would be interesting to see how
they could enlarge on the drama of Judas, but he made no comment, as a
direct question would turn the Indians thoughtful, and silence them.
They all appeared alert for the return of Rotil. No one believed he
had retired utterly from the region without demanding tribute from
Soledad. It was generally suspected that Perez received and held
munitions for use against the revolutionists though no one knew where
they were hidden. There were Indian tales of underground tunnels of
Soledad Mission for retreat in the old days in case of hostile
attacks, and the Soledad ranch house was built over part of that
foundation. No one at Soledad knew the entrance except Perez himself,
though it was surmised that Juan Gonsalvo had known, and had been the
one to store the mule loads and wagon loads of freight shipped over
the border before Miguel Herrara was caught at the work from the
American side. Perez was a careful man, and not more than one man was
trusted at one time. That man seemed marked by the angels for
accident, for something had always ended him, and it was no good
fortune to be a favorite of Don Jose--Dona Jocasta was learning that!
Thus the gossip and surmise went on around Rhodes for his brief hour
of rest and readjustment. He encouraged the expression of opinion from
every source, for he had the job ahead of him to get three hundred
pounds of gold across the border and through a region where every
burro was liable to examination by some of the warring factions. It
behooved him to consider every tendency of the genus homo with which
he came in contact. Also the bonds between them,--especially the
bonds, since the various groups were much of a sameness, and only
"good" or "bad" according to their affiliations. Simple Benito and his
brother, and soft-voiced motherly Valencia who could conceive a worse
death for the German Judas than crucifixion, were typical of the
primitive people of desert and sierra.
"How many head of stock think you still ranges Mesa Blanca?" he asked
Isidro, who confessed that he no longer rode abroad or kept tally,
but Clodomiro would know, and would be in to supper. Benito and
Mariano told of one stallion and a dozen mares beyond the hills, and a
spring near their fields had been muddied the day before by a bunch of
cows and calves, they thought perhaps twenty, and they had seen three
mules with the Mesa Blanca brand when they were getting wood.
"Three mules, eh? Well, I may need those mules and the favor will be
to me if you keep them in sight," he said addressing the boys. "I am
to round up what I can and remove them after Senor Whitely, together
with other belongings."
"Others, senor?" asked Isidro.
Rhodes took the letter from his pocket, and perused it as if to
refresh his memory.
"The old Spanish chest is to go if possible, and other things of Mrs.
Whitely's," he said. "I will speak of these to your wife if the plan
can carry, but there is chance of troops from the south and--who
knows?--we may be caught between the two armies and ground as meal on
a _metate_."
He thus avoided all detail as to the loads the pack animals were to
carry, and the written word was a safe mystery to the Indian. He was
making no definite plans, but was learning all possibilities with a
mind prepared to take advantage of the most promising.
Thus the late afternoon wore on in apparent restful idleness after the
hard trail. The boys secured their little allowance of beans and salt,
and corn for planting, but lingered after the good supper of Valencia,
a holiday feast compared with their own sketchy culinary performance
in the _jacal_ of the far fields. They scanned the trail towards
Palomitas, and then the way down the far western valley, evidently
loath to leave until their friend Clodomiro should arrive, and Isidro
expected him before sunset.
But he came later from towards Soledad, a tall lad with fluttering
ribbands of pink and green from his banda and his elbows, and a girdle
of yellow fluttering fringed ends to the breeze,--all the frank
insignia of a youth in the market for marriage. He suggested a gay
graceful bird as he rode rapidly in the long lope of the range. His
boy friends of the planted fields went out to meet him at the corral,
and look after his horse while he went in to supper. He halted to
greet them, and then walked soberly across the plaza where pepper
trees and great white alisos trailed dusk shadows in the early
starlight.
"What _reata_ held you?" asked Isidro. "Has Soledad grown a place for
comradeship?"
"No, senor," said the lad passing into the dining room where two
candles gave him light in the old adobe room, "it is comradeship we do
not need, but it is coming to us."
He seated himself on the wooden bench and his grandmother helped him
from a smoking plate of venison. He looked tired and troubled, and he
had not even taken note that a stranger was beside Isidro in the
shadows.
"What nettle stings you, boy?" asked his grandfather sarcastically,
and at that he looked up and rose to his feet at sight of Rhodes.
"Your pardon, senor, I stumbled past like a bat blind in the light,"
he muttered, and as he met Kit's eyes and recognized him his face lit
up and his white teeth gleamed in a smile.
"The saints are in it that you are here again, senor!" he exclaimed,
"and you came on this day when most needed."
"Eat and then tell your meaning," said Isidro, but Clodomiro glanced
toward the kitchen, and then listened for the other boys. They were
laughing down at the corral. Clodomiro's horse had thrown one of
them.
"With your permission, grandfather, talk first," he said and the two
men moved to the bench opposite, leaning over towards him as his voice
was lowered.
"Today Marto Cavayso sent for me, he is foreman over there, and
strange things are going forward. He has heard that General Rotil
stripped Mesa Blanca and that all white people are gone from it. He
wants this house and will pay us well to open the door. It is for the
woman. They have played a game for her, and he has won, but she is a
wild woman when he goes near her, and his plan is to steal her out at
night and hide her from the others. So he wants this house. He offered
me a good gun. He offers us the protection of Don Jose Perez."
"But--why--that is not credible," protested Kit. "He could not count
on protection from Perez if he stole the woman whom many call Senora
Perez, for that is what they did call Dona Jocasta in Hermosillo."
"Maybe so," assented Clodomiro stolidly, "but now he is to be the
_esposo_ of a Dona Dolores who is the child of General Terain, so
Marto says. Well, this Dona Jocasta has done some killing, and Don
Jose does not give her to prison. He sends her to the desert that she
brings him no disgrace; and if another man takes her or sinks her in
the quicksands then that man will be helping Don Jose. That is how it
is. Marto says the woman has bewitched him, and he is crazy about her.
Some of the other men, will take her, if not him."
Kit exchanged a long look with the old Indian.
"The house is yours, senor," said Isidro. "By the word of Senor
Whitely, you are manager of Mesa Blanca."
"Many thanks," replied Kit, and sat with his elbows on the table and
his hands over his eyes, thinking--thinking of the task he had set
himself in Sonora, and the new turn of the wheel of fortune.
"You say the lady is a prisoner?" he asked.
"Sure," returned Clodomiro promptly. "She broke loose coming through a
little pueblo and ran to the church. She found the priest and told him
things, so they also take that priest! If they let him go he will
talk, and Don Jose wanting no talk now of this woman. That priest is
well cared for, but not let go away. After awhile, maybe so."
"She is bright, and her father was a priest," mused Kit. "So there is
three chances out of four that she can read and write,--a little
anyway. Could you get a letter to her?"
"Elena could."
Kit got up, took one of the candles from the table and walked through
the rooms surrounding the patio. Some of them had wooden bars in the
windows, but others had iron grating, and he examined these
carefully.
"There are two rooms fit for perfectly good jails," he decided, "so I
vote we give this bewitched Don Marto the open door. How many guns can
we muster?"
"He promised to give me one, and ammunition."
"Well, you get it! Get two if you can, but at least get plenty of
ammunition. Isidro, will your wife be brave and willing to help?"
The old Indian nodded his head vigorously and smiled. Evidently only a
stranger would ask if his Valencia could be brave!
The two brothers came in, and conversation was more guarded until
Clodomiro had finished his supper, and gone a little ways home with
them to repay them the long wait for comradeship.
When he came back Kit had his plans fairly settled, and had a brief
note written to Senora Jocasta Perez, as follows:
HONORED SENORA:
One chance of safety is yours. Let yourself be persuaded to leave
Soledad with Marto. You will be rescued from him by
AN AMERICAN.
"I reckon that will do the trick," decided Kit. "I feel like a
blooming Robin Hood without the merry men,--but the Indians will play
safe, even if they are not merry. When can you get this to Elena?"
"In time of breakfast," said Clodomiro promptly. "I go tonight, and
tomorrow night he steals that woman. Maybe Elena helps."
"You take Elena a present from me to encourage that help," suggested
Kit, and he poured a little of the gold from his belt on the paper.
"Also there is the same for you when the lady comes safe. It is best
that you make willing offer of your service in all ways so that he
calls on none of his own men for help."
"As you say, senor," assented Clodomiro, "and that will march well
with his desires, for to keep the others from knowing is the principal
thing. She has beauty like a lily in the shade."
"He tells you that?" asked Kit quizzically, but the boy shook his
head.
"My own eyes looked on her. She is truly of the beauty of the holy
pictures of the saints in the chapel, but Marto says she is a witch,
and has him enchanted;--also that evil is very strong in her. I do not
know."
"Well, cross your fingers and tackle the job," suggested Kit. "Get
what sleep you can, for you may not get much tomorrow night. It is the
work of a brave man you are going to do, and your pay will be a man's
pay."
The eyes of the Indian boy glowed with pleasure.
"At your service, senor. I will do this thing or I will not see Mesa
Blanca again."
Kit looked after Clodomiro and rolled another cigarette before turning
in to sleep.
"When all's said and done, I may be the chief goat of this dame
adventure," he told himself in derision. "Maybe my own fingers need
crossing."