The situation in itself was one of rare beauty;––those old padres knew!
It was set on a high plain or mesa, facing a wide valley spreading miles away to the south where mother-of-pearl mountains were ranged like strung jewels far against the Mexican sky. At the north, slate-blue foothills lifted their sharp-edged shoulders three miles away, but only blank walls of Soledad faced the hills, all portals of the old mission appeared to have faced south, as did Soledad. The door facing the hills was a myth. And as Rhodes stood north of the old wall, and searched its thirty-mile circle, he could understand how four generations of gold seekers had failed to find even a clue to the wealth those unknown padres had looked on, and sent joyous evidence of to the viceroy of the south. It would take years of systematic search to cover even half the visible range. A man could devote a long lifetime to a fruitless search there, and then some straying burro might uncover it for an Indian herder who would fill his poncho, and make a sensation for a week or two, and never find the trail again!
“It’s just luck!” said Kit thinking it all over as he tramped along the arroya bed, “it either belongs to you, or it doesn’t. No man on earth can buy it and make it stay, but if it is yours, no man can keep you from it entirely.”
“What the devil are you yammering about?” asked Pike grumpily.
“Oh, I was just thinking of how Whitely exploded our little balloon of hopes when he took us over to size up the prospects at Soledad. I wonder if Perez has no white help at all around that place. We did not even see the foreman.”
“He’s a half-breed, that Juan Gonsalvo. The Indians don’t like him. He’s from down Hermosillo way, and not like these Piman children of nature. He and Conrad are up to some devilment, but Whitely thinks Juan took the job, deluded as we are, with the notion that a gold mine was sticking up out of the ground at the Soledad corrals, and it was to be his find. You see, Bub, that story has gone the length of Mexico, and even over to Spain. Oh, we are not the only trailers of ghost gold; there are others!”
The slanting sun was sending shadows long on the levels, and the hills were looming to the east in softest tones of gray and amethyst; the whitish green of desert growths lay between, and much of brown desert yet to cross.
“We can’t make the foothills tonight even though there is an early moon,” decided Kit. “But we can break camp at dawn and make it before the sun is high, and the water will hold out that long.”
“It will hold for Buntin’ and the mules, but what of Pardner?” asked the older man. “He’s not used to this hard pan gravel scratching.”
“But he’s thoroughbred, and he can stand it twelve hours more if I can, can’t you, old pal?” The tall roan with the dot of black between the eyes returned his owner’s caress by nosing his bare neck, and the hand held up to smooth the black mane.
“I’ll be glad enough to see him safe across the border in old Arizona,” observed Pike. “I can’t see how the herders saved him for you at Mesa Blanca when their own stock was picked of its best for the various patriots charging through the settlements.”
“Some way, Miguel, the Indian vaquero, managed it, or got his girl to hide it out. Whitely confessed that his Indian cattlemen are the most loyal he can find down here.”
“But it’s not a white man’s land––yet, and I’m downright glad he’s shipped his family north. There’s always hell enough in Sonora, but it’s a dovecote to what it’s bound to be before the end comes, and so, it’s no place for white men’s wives.”
“Right you are! Say, what was it Whitely heard down in Sinaloa concerning the Enchanted Cañon mine?”
“Oh, some old priest’s tale––the same dope we got with a different slant to it. The gold nuggets from some shrine place where the water gushed muy fuerte, by a sycamore tree. Same old nuggets sent out with the message, and after that the insurrection of the Indians, and the priests who found it never lived to get out. Why, Bub, that is nearly two hundred years ago! Stop and think of the noble Castilians going over Sonora with a fine tooth comb for that trail ever since and then think of the nerve of us!”
“Well, I’m nearer to it anyway than the Dutchman who trekked in from the south last year with copies of the old mission reports as guide, for the Yaquis killed him, and took his records, while they hide my horse for me.”
“Huh! yes, and warn you to ride him north!”
“Correct;––but Pike, it was a warning, not a threat! Oh, I’m coming back all right, all right! That gold by the hidden stream sure has got me roped and hog tied for keeps.”
Pike growled good-natured disdain of his confidence, and suggested that the stream, which was probably only a measly mud hole, could have dropped to purgatory in an earthquake tremor since those first old mission days, or filled up with quicksand.
“Right you are, Cap. That’s a first-rate idea,” agreed Kit the irrepressible. “Next trip we’ll start looking for streams that were and are not; we’re in the bed of one now for that matter!”
“Somewhere ahead we should come into the trail south from Carracita,” observed Pike, “but I reckon you’d just as soon camp with Pard out of sight of the trail.”
There was silence for a bit as they plodded on up the wide dry bed of the river, and then Kit turned, glancing at the old man keenly.
“I didn’t fool you much when I called that gang ‘vaqueros,’ did I?” he observed. “Well, they didn’t look good to me, and I decided I’d have to fight for my horse if we crossed trails, and––it wastes a lot of time, fighting does.”
“No, you didn’t fool me. You’d be seven kinds of an idiot to walk in this gully of purgatory when you could ride safely on the mesa above, so I guessed you had a hunch it was the friendly and acquisitive patriots.”
“Pike, they were between us and the Palomitas rancherias of Mesa Blanca or I’d have made a try to get through and warn the Indians there. Those men had no camp women with them, so they were not a detachment of the irregular cavalry,––that’s what puzzles me. And their horses were fresh. It’s some new devilment.”
“There’s nothing new in Sonora, son. Things happen over and over the same.”
The shadows lengthened, and the blue range to the east had sharp, black edges against the saffron sky, and the men plodding along over sand and between boulders, fell silent after the little exchange of confidence as to choice of trail. Once Kit left the gully and climbed the steep grade to the mesa alone to view the landscape over, but slid and scrambled down,––hot, dusty, and vituperative.
“Not a sign of life but some carrion crows moving around in the blue without flop of a wing,” he grumbled. “Who started the dope that mankind is the chosen of the Lord? Huh! we have to scratch gravel for all we rake in but the birds of the air have us beat for desert travel all right, all right!”
“Well, Bub, if you saw no one’s dust it must be that gang were not headed for Palomitas or Whitely’s.”
“They could strike Palomitas, and circle over to the east road without striking Whitely’s home corrals,” said Kit thoughtfully.
“Sure they could, but what’s the object? If it’s cattle or horses they’re after the bigger ranch is the bigger haul?”
“Yes,––if it’s stock they’re after,” agreed Kit somberly.
“Why, lad, what––what’s got you now?”
“I reckon it’s the damned buzzards,” acknowledged the younger man. “I don’t know what struck me as I sat up there watching them. Maybe it’s their blackness, maybe it’s their provender, maybe it was just the loco of their endless drifting shadows, but for a minute up there I had an infernal sick feeling. It’s a new one on me, and there was nothing I could blame it on but disgust of the buzzards.”
“You’re goin’ too shy on the water, and never knew before that you had nerves,” stated Pike sagely. “I’ve been there; fought with a pardner once,––Jimmy Dean, till he had to rope me. You take a pull at the water bottle, and take it now.”
Kit did so, but shook his
head.
“It touches the right spot, but it was not a thirst fancy. It was another thought and––O Bells of Pluto! Pike, let’s talk of something else! What was that you said about the Sinaloa priest story of the red gold? You said something about a new slant on the old dope.”
“Uh-huh!” grunted Pike. “At least it was a new slant to me. I’ve heard over and over about uprising of Indians, and death of the two priests who found their mine, but this Sinaloa legend has it that the Indians did not kill the priests, but that their gods did!”
“Their gods?”
“Yeh, the special gods of that region rose up and smote them. That’s why the Indians barred out other mission priests for so long a spell that no white man remembered just where the lost shrine of the red gold was. Of course it’s all punk, Bub, just some story of the heathen sheep to hide the barbecuing of their shepherds.”
“Maybe so, but I’ve as much curiosity as a pet coon. What special process did their gods use to put the friars out of commission?”
“Oh, lightning. The original priests’ report had it that the red gold was at some holy place of the tribes, a shrine of some sort. Well, you know the usual mission rule––if they can’t wean the Indian from his shrine, they promptly dig foundations and build a church there under heavenly instructions. That’s the story of this shrine of El Alisal where the priests started to build a little branch chapel or visita, for pious political reasons––and built it at the gold shrine. It went down in the priests’ letter or record as gold of rose, a deep red gold. Well, under protest, the Indians helped build a shack for a church altar under a great aliso tree there, but when lightning struck the priests, killed both and burned the shack, you can see what that manifestation would do to the Indian mind.”
Kit halted, panting from the heart-wearying trail, and looked Pike over disgustedly.
“Holy mackerel! Pike, haven’t you any imagination? You’ve had this new side to the story for over a month and never even cheeped about it! I heard you and Whitely talking out on the porch, but I didn’t hear this!”
“Why, Bub, it’s just the same old story, everyone of them have half a dozen different sides to it.”
“But this one explains things, this one has logic, this one blazes a trail!” declared the enthusiast. “This one explains good and plenty why no Indian has ever cheeped about it, no money could bribe him to it. Can’t you see? Of course that lightning was sent by their wrathy gods, of course it was! But do you note that place of the gold, and place of the shrine where the water rises, is also some point where there is a dyke of iron ore near, a magnet for the lightning? And that is not here in those sandy mesas and rocky barrancas––it’s to the west in the hills, Pike. Can’t you see that?”
“Too far from the old north and south trail, Bub. There was nothing to take padres so far west to the hills. The Indians didn’t even live there; only strayed up for nuts and hunting in the season.”
“Save your breath!” jeered Kit. “It’s me to hike back to Mesa Blanca and offer service at fifty dollars per, and live like a miser until we can hit the trail again. I may find a tenderfoot to buy that valley tract of mine up in Yuma, and get cash out of that. Oh, we will get the finances somehow! I’ll write a lawyer soon as we get back to Whitely’s––God! what’s that?”
They halted, holding breath to listen.
“A coyote,” said Pike.
“No, only one animal screams like that––a wildcat in the timber. But it’s no wildcat.”
Again the sound came. It was either from a distance or else muffled by the barrier of the hill, a blood-curdling scream of sickening terror.
A cold chill struck the men as they looked at each other.
“The carrion crows knew!” said Kit. “You hold the stock, Pike.”
He quickly slipped his rifle from its case, and started up the knoll.
“The stock will stand,” said Pike. “I’m with you.”
As the two men ran upward to the summit and away from the crunching of their own little outfit in the bed of the dry river, they were struck by the sound of clatter of hoofs and voices.
“Bub, do you know where we are?” asked Pike––“this draw slants south and has brought us fair into the Palomitas trail where it comes into the old Yaqui trail, and on south to hell.”
“To hell it is, if it’s the slavers again after women,” said Kit. “Come quiet.”
They reached the summit where cacti and greasewood served as shield, and slightly below them they saw, against the low purple hills, clouds of dust making the picture like a vision and not a real thing, a line of armed horsemen as outpost guards, and men with roped arms stumbling along on foot slashed at occasionally with a reata to hasten their pace. Women and girls were there, cowed and drooping, with torn garments and bare feet. Forty prisoners in all Kit counted of those within range, ere the trail curved around the bend of a hill.
“But that scream?” muttered Kit. “All those women are silent as death, but that scream?” Then he saw.
One girl was in the rear, apart from the rest of the group. A blond-bearded man spurred his horse against her, and a guard lashed at her to keep her behind. Her scream of terror was lest she be separated from that most woeful group of miserables. The horse was across the road, blocking it, as the man with the light beard slid from the saddle and caught her.
Kit’s gun was thrown into position as Pike caught his hand.
“No!” he said. “Look at her!”
For the Indian girl was quicker far. From the belt of her assailant she grasped a knife and lunged at his face as he held her. His one hand went to his cheek where the blood streamed, and his other to his revolver.
But even there she was before him, for she held the knife in both hands against her breast, and threw herself forward in the haze of dust.
The other guard dismounted and stared at the still figure on the trail, then kicked her over until he could see her face. One look was enough. He jerked the knife from the dead body, wiped it on her manta, and turned to tie a handkerchief over the cheek of the wounded horseman.
Kit muttered an oath of horror, and hastily drew the field glass from its case to stare at the man whose beard, a false one, had been torn off in the struggle. It was not easy to re-adjust it so that it would not interfere with the bandage, and thus he had a very fair view of the man’s features, and his thoughts were of Billie’s words to Conrad concerning slave raids in Sonora. Had Billie really suspected, or had she merely connected his Mexican friends with reports of raids for girls in the little Indian pueblos?
Pike reached for the glass, but by the time he could focus it to fit his eyes, the man had re-mounted, riding south, and there was only the dead girl left there where she fell, an Indian girl they both knew, Anita, daughter of Miguel, the major-domo of Mesa Blanca, whose own little rancheria was with the Pimans at Palomitas.
“Look above, Cap,” said Kit.
Above two pair of black wings swept in graceful curves against the saffron sky––waiting!
Rhodes went back to the outfit for pick and shovel, and when twilight fell they made a grave there in the dusky cañon of the desert.
Chapter 8
THE SLAVE TRAIL
They camped that night in the barranca, and next morning a thin blue smoke a mile away drew Kit out on the roan even in the face of the heat to be, and the water yet to find. He hoped to discover someone who had been more fortunate in escape.
He found instead an Indian he knew, one whose gray hair was matted with blood and who stood as if dazed by terror at sound of hoofs. It was Miguel, the Pima head man of Mesa Blanca.
“Why, Miguel, don’t you know me?” asked Kit.
The eyes of the man had a strange look, and he did not answer. But he did move hesitatingly to the horse and stroked it.
“Caballo,” he said. “Muy bueno, caballo.”
“Yes,” agreed Pardner’s rider, “very good always.”
“Si señor, always.”
“Come, you ride, and we’ll go to camp, then find water,” suggested Kit. “Camp here no good. Come help me find water.”
That appeal penetrated the man’s mind more clearly. Miguel had been the well-trusted one of the Indian vaqueros, used to a certain dependence put upon him, and he straightened his shoulders for a task.
“Si señor, a good padrone are you, and water it will be found for you.” He was about to mount when he halted, bewildered, and looked about him as if in search.
“All––my people––” he said brokenly. “My children of me––my child!”
Kit knew that his most winning child lay newly covered under the sand and stones he had gathered by moonlight to protect the grave from coyotes.
But there was a rustle back of him and a black-eyed elf, little more than a child, was standing close, shaking the sand from her hair.
“I am hearing you speak. I know it is you, and I come,” she said.
It was Tula, the younger daughter of Miguel,––one who had carried them water from the well on her steady head, and played with the babies on the earthen floors at the pueblo of Palomitas.
But the childish humors were gone, and her face wore the Indian mask of any age.
“Tell me,” said Kit.
“It is at Palomitas. I was in the willows by the well when they came, Juan Gonsalvo and El Aleman, and strange soldiers. All the women scream and make battle, also the men, and that is when my father is hurt in the head, that is when they are taking my mother, and Anita, my sister. Some are hiding. And El Aleman and Juan Gonsalvo make the count, and sent the men for search. That is how it was.”
“Why do you say El Aleman?” asked Rhodes.
“I seeing him other time with Don José, and hearing how he talk. Also Anita knowing him, and scream his name––‘Don Adolf!’––when he catch her. Juan Gonsalvo has a scarf tied over the face––all but the eyes, but the Don Adolf has the face now covered with hairs and I seeing him. They take all the people. My father is hurt, but lives. He tries to follow and is much sick. My mother is there, and Anita, my sister, is there. He thinks it better to find them––it is his head is sick. He walks far beside me, and does not know me.”
The Treasure Trail Page 10