“Perhaps, but I like my bargains with witness, and they must witness the name.”
“Jocasta––” There was a slight hesitation, and Rotil interrupted.
“She has been known as Señora Jocasta Perez, is it not so?”
“Well––yes,” came the slow reply, “but that was foolishness of the peons on my estates. They called her that.”
“Very good! One woman called Jocasta Perez is offered to me in trade with the guns. José Perez, have you not seen that the Doña Jocasta Perez is even now mistress of Soledad, and that my men and I are as her servants?”
Jocasta on the other side of the door strangled a half sob as she heard him, and crept nearer the door.
“Oh, you are a good one at a bargain, Ramon Rotil! You try to pretend the woman cannot count in this trade, but women always count,––women like Jocasta!”
“So? Then we will certainly take count of the woman––one woman! Now to guns and ammunition. How many, and where?”
“At Hermosillo, and it will take a week.”
“I have no week to waste, and I do not mean the guns at Hermosillo. You have five minutes, José Perez. Also those playful boys are building a nice warm fire for the branding irons. And you will both get a smell of your own burning hides if I wait longer for an answer.”
“Holy God!” shouted Conrad. “Why burn me for his work? From me the guns have been hid as well as from you;––all I got was promises! They are my guns,––my money paid, but he is not straight! Here at Soledad he was to show me this time, but I think now it was a trick to murder me as he murdered Juan Gonsalvo, the foreman who stored them away for him.”
“Animal!” growled Perez. “You have lost your head to talk of murders to me! Two murders at Granados are waiting for you, and it is not far to ship you back to the border! Walk with care, señor!”
“You are each wasting time with your truth telling,” stated Rotil. “This is no time to count your dead men. It is the count of the guns I want. And a sight of the ammunition.”
“Give me a guide to Hermosillo, and the price of guns can be got for you.”
“It is not the price of guns I asked you for, it is guns,––the guns Conrad and Herrara got over the border for you. Your time is going fast, José Perez.”
“They are not to be had this side of Hermosillo, send me south if you want them. But it is well to remember that if an accident happens to me you never could get them,––never! I alone know their hiding place.”
“For that reason have I waited for your visit to Soledad,––you and your carts and your pack mules,” stated Rotil. “Do not forget that Marto Cavayso and other men of mine have been for weeks with your ranchmen. Your pack train comes here empty, and means one thing only––they came for the American guns! Your minutes are going, señor, and the branding irons are getting heat from the fire. One more minute!”
“Write the figures of the ransom, and grant me a messenger to Hermosillo. You have the whip hand, you can make your price.”
“But me? What of my ransom?” demanded Conrad. “My money, and my time paid for those guns––I have not seen one of them this side of the border! If no guns are paid for me, money must be paid.”
“No price is asked for you. I told you the women have named no ransom.”
“Women? That is foolishness. It is not women for whom you hold me! He has turned traitor, has Perez! He wants me sent back across the border without that price of the guns for his mushroom government! He has told his own tales of Herrara, and of Singleton, and they are lies––all lies!”
“But what of the tale of Diego, said in the American way?” asked Kit stepping inside the room.
“Diego! Diego!” repeated Conrad and made a leap at Perez. “You have sold me out to the Americans, you scum! James warned me you were scum of the gutters, and now–––”
The guard caught him, and he stood there shaking with fury in the dim light. Perez drew away with a curse.
“To hell with you and James and your crew on the border,” he growled. “I care nothing as to how soon the damned gringos swing you both. When you Germans want to use us we are your ‘dear brothers.’ When we out-trick you, we are only scum, eh? You can tell your commandante James that I won the game from him, and all the guns!”
“My thanks to you, General Rotil, that I have been allowed to hear this,” said Kit, “also that I have witness. I’d do as much for you if the chance comes. Two men were killed on the border by Conrad under order of this James. Herrara was murdered in prison for fear he would turn informer about the guns. Singleton was murdered to prevent him investigating the German poisoning of cavalry horses. The German swine meant to control Granados rancho a few months longer for their own purposes.”
“Meant to?” sneered Conrad. “You raw cub!––you are playing with dynamite and due for a fall. So is your fool country! Though Perez here has lost his nerve and turned traitor to our deal, that is only a little puff of wind against the bulwarks of the Fatherland! We will hold Granados; we will hold the border; and with Mexico (not this crook of the west, but real Mexico) we will win and hold every border state and every Pacific coast state! You,––poor fool!––will never reach Granados alive to tell this. You are but one American in the Indian wilderness, and you are sure to go under, but you go knowing that though James and I die, and though a thousand more of us die, there will be ten thousand secret German workers in America to carry on our plan until all the world will be under the power of the Prussian eagle! You,––who think you know so much, can add that to finish your education in Sonora, and carry it to hell with you!”
His voice, coldly contemptuous at first, had risen to a wrathful shriek as he faced the American and hurled at him the exultance of the Teuton dream.
“I certainly am in great luck to be your one American confessor,” grinned Kit, “but I’ll postpone that trip as long as possible. I reckon General Rotil will let the padre help me make note of this education you are handing out to me. A lot of Americans need it! Have I your permission, General?”
“Go as far as you like,” snapped Rotil. “They have used up their time limit in scolding like old women. Perez, I wait for the guns.”
“Send me to Hermosillo and I will recover enough for a ransom,” said Perez.
Rotil regarded him a moment through half-closed, sinister eyes.
“That was your last chance, and you threw it away. Chappo, strip him; Fidelio, fetch the branding irons.”
Perez shrank back, staring at Rotil as if fascinated. He was striving to measure the lengths to which the “Hawk of the Sierras” would go, and a sudden gleam of hope came into his eyes as Padre Andreas held up a crucifix before Chappo, waving him aside.
“No, Rotil,––torture is a thing for animals, not men! Hell waits for the sinner who–––”
“Hell won’t wait for you one holy minute!” snapped Rotil. “Get back with the women where you belong; there is men’s work to do here.”
He caught the priest by the arm in an iron grip and whirled him towards the sala. The man would have fallen but for Kit who caught him, but could not save the crash of his head against the door. Blood streamed from a cut in his forehead, and thus he staggered into the room where Doña Jocasta stood, horror-stricken and poised for flight.
But the sight of the blood-stained priest, and the sound of a strange, half animal cry from the other room, turned her feet that way.
“No, Ramon! No-no!” she cried and sped through the door to fling herself between him and his victims.
Her arms were stretched wide and she halted, almost touching him, with her back to the chained man towards whom she had not glanced, but she could not help seeing the charcoal brazier with the red-hot branding irons held by Fidelio. The gasping cry had come from Conrad by whom the brazier was set.
Ramon Rotil stared at her, frowning as if he would fling her from his path as he had the priest.
“No, Ramon!” she said again, still with that supplicat
ing look and gesture, “send them out of here,––both these men. I would smother and die in a room with that German beast. You will not be sorry, Ramon Rotil, I promise you that,––I promise you by the God I dare not face!”
“Ho!” snarled Perez. “Is the priest also her lover that she–––”
“Send the German out, and let José Perez stay to see that I keep my promise,” she said letting her arms fall at her side, but facing Rotil with an addition of hauteur in her poise and glance. “The price he will pay for the words he has spoken here will be a heavy price,––one he has risked life to hold! Send that pale snake and your men outside, Ramon.”
Perez was leaning forward, his face strained and white, watching her. He could not see her face, but the glimpse of hope came again into his eyes––a woman might succeed with Rotil where a priest would fail!
Rotil, still frowning at her, waved his hand to Chappo and Fidelio.
“Take him away,” he said, “and wait beyond.”
The shuffling movement and clank of chains was heard, but she did not turn her head. Instead she moved past Rotil, lifted a candle, and went towards the shrine at the end of the room.
A table was there with a scarf across it, and back of the table three steps leading up to a little platform on which were ranged two or three mediocre statues of saints, once brilliant with blue and scarlet and tinsel, but tarnished and dim from the years.
In the center was a painting, also dark and dim in which only a halo was still discernible in the light of the candle, but the features of the saint pictured there were shadowed and elusive.
For a moment she knelt on the lower step and bent her head because of those remnants of a faith which was all she knew of earthly hope,––and then she started to mount the steps.
“The curse of God shrivel you!” muttered Perez in cold fury––“come down from there!”
Without heed to the threat, she moved the little statues to right or left, and then lifted her hand, resting it on the wooden frame of the painting.
“Call the Americano,” she said without turning. “You will need a man, but not a man of Altar. Another day may come when you, Ramon, may have need of this house for hiding!”
Rotil strode to the door and motioned Kit to enter, then he closed both doors and gave no heed to Perez, crouched there like a chained coyote in a trap.
“Come down!” he said again. “You are in league with hell to know of that. I never gave it to you! Come down! I meant to tell after he had finished with Conrad––I mean to tell!”
“He waited too long, and spoke too much,” she said to Rotil. “Keep watch on him, and let the Americano give help here.”
Kit mounted the step beside her, and at her gesture took hold of the frame on one side. She found a wedge of wood at the other side and drew it out. The loosened frame was lifted out by Kit and carried down the three steps; it was a panel a little over two feet in width and four in height.
“Set it aside, and watch José Perez while General Rotil looks within,” she said evenly.
Rotil glanced at Perez scowling black hate at her, and then turned to Jocasta who held out the candle.
“It is for you to see,––you and no other,” she said. “You have saved a woman he would have traded as a slave, and I give you more than a slave’s ransom.”
He took the candle and his eyes suddenly flamed with exultation as her meaning came to him.
“Jocasta!” he muttered as if scarce believing, and then he mounted the step, halted an instant in the panel of shadow, and, holding the candle over his head, he leaned forward and descended on the other side of the wall.
“You damned she-wolf of the hills!” growled Perez with the concentrated hate of utter failure in his voice. “I fed you, and my money covered your nakedness, and now you put a knife in my neck and go back to cattle of the range for a mate! You,––without shame or soul!”
“That is true,” she said coldly. “You killed a soul in the casita of the oleanders, José Perez, and it was a dead woman you and the German chained to be buried in the desert. But even the dead come back to help friends who are faithful, José,––and I am as the dead who walk.”
She did not look at him as she spoke, but sank on her knees before the dark canvas where only the faint golden halo gave evidence of some incarnated holiness portrayed there. Her voice was low and even, and the sadness of it thrilled Kit. He thought of music of sweet chords, and a broken string vibrating, for the hopelessness in her voice held a certain fateful finality, and her delicate dark loveliness–––
Rotil emerged from the doorway of the shrine and stood there, a curious substitute for the holy picture, looking down on her with a wonderful light in his face.
“Your ransom wins for you all you wish of me,––except the life of one man,” he said, and with a gesture indicated that Kit help her to her feet. He did so, and saw that she was very white and trembling.
Rotil looked at Perez over her head, and Perez scowled back, with all the venom of black hate.
“You win!––but a curse walks where she walks. Ask her? Ask Marto of the men she put under witchcraft! Ask Conrad who had good luck till she hated him! If you have a love, or a child, or anything dear, let her not look hate on them, for her knife follows that look! Ask her of the knife she set in the heart of a child for jealousy of Conrad! Ai, general though you are, your whole army is not strong enough to guard you from the ill luck you will take with the gift she gives! She is a woman under a curse. Ha! Look at her as I say it, for you hear the truth. Ask the padre!”
Kit realized that Perez was launching against her the direst weight of evil the Mexican or Indian mind has to face. Though saints and heaven and hell might be denied by certain daring souls, the potency of witchcraft was seldom doubted. Men or women accused of it were shunned as pariahs, and there had been known persons who weakened and dwindled into death after accusation had been put against them.
He thought of it as she cowered under each separate count of the curse launched against her. She bent like a slender reed under the strokes of a flail, lower and lower against his arm, but when the deadly voice flung the final taunt at her, she straightened slowly and looked at Rotil.
“Yes, ask the padre––or ask me!” she said in that velvet soft voice of utter despair. “That I sent an innocent soul to death is too true. To my great sorrow I did it;––I would do it again! For that my life is indeed a curse to me,––but his every other word a lie!”
Then she took a step forward, faltered, and fell back into the outstretched arm of Kit.
“Take Señora Perez to the women, and come back,” said Rotil. Kit noted that even though he moved close, and bent over the white unconscious face, he did not touch her.
“Señora Perez!” repeated Perez contemptuously. “You are generous with other men’s names for your women! Her name is the Indian mother’s name.”
“Half Indian,” corrected Rotil, “and her naming I will decide another time.”
Kit returned, and without words proceeded to help replace the holy picture in its niche. In the struggle with the padre, a chunk of adobe had been knocked from the wall near the door, and he picked it up, crumbling it to a soft powder and sprinkled it lightly over the steps where foot prints were traceable in the dust.
Rotil who had gone to the door to recall the guard, halted and watched him closely.
“Good!” he said. “You also give me a thought concerning this animal; he will bark if he has listeners, and even the German should not hear––one never knows! I need a cage for a few hours. You have been a friend, and know secret things. Will you lock him in your own room and hold the key to yourself?”
“Surest thing you know,” answered Kit though with the uncomfortable certainty that the knowledge of too many secret things in Mexico was not conducive to long life for the knower. “I may also assure you that Marto is keen on giving you honest service that his one fault may be atoned for.”
“He will get
service,” stated Rotil. “You saved me a good man there, amigo.”
He flung open the door of the corridor and whistled for the guard.
“Remove this man and take your orders from Capitan–––” He halted, and his eyes narrowed quizzically.
“It seems we never were introduced, amigo, and we know only your joy name of the singer, but there must be another.”
“Oh, yes, there’s another, all right,” returned Kit, knowing that Conrad would enlighten Rotil if he did not. “I’m the hombre suspected of that Granados murder committed by Conrad,––and the name is Rhodes.”
“So? Then the scolding of these two comrades gives to you your freedom from suspicion, eh? That is good, but––” He looked at Kit, frowning. “See here, I comprehend badly. You told me it was the friend of your compadre who was the suspected one!”
“Sure! I’ve a dandy partner across the border. He’s the old man you saw at Yaqui Spring, and I reckon I’m a fairly good friend of his. He’d say so!”
Rotil’s face relaxed in a grin.
“That is clever, a trick and no harm in it, but––have a care to yourself! It is easy to be too clever, and on a trail of war no one has time to learn if tricks are of harm or not. Take the warning of a friend, Capitan Rhodes!”
“You have the right of it, General. I have much to learn,” agreed Kit. “But no man goes abroad to shout the crimes he is accused of at home,––and the story of this one is very new to me. This morning I learned I was thought guilty, and tonight I learn who is the criminal, and how the job was done. This is quick work, and I owe the luck of it to you.”
“May the good luck hold!” said Rotil. “And see that the men leave you alone as the guard of Perez. I want no listeners there.”
Chapter 17
THE STORY OF DOÑA JOCASTA
Ramon Rotil stood a long minute after the clank of chains ceased along the corridor; then he bolted the outer door of the chapel, and after casting a grim satisfied smile at the screen of the faded canvas, he opened the door of the sala and went in.
The Treasure Trail Page 23