The Treasure Trail

by Marah Ellis Ryan

  “As you say,” he agreed. “Come along, padre, you are to get the privilege you’ve been begging for, and I don’t envy you the task.”

  Padre Andreas made no reply. In his heart he blamed Rhodes that the prisoner had not been let escape during the absence of the girl, and also resented the offhand manner of the young American concerning the duty of a priest.

  The sun was at the very edge of the world, and all shadows spreading for the night when they went to the door of Conrad’s quarters. Kit unlocked the door and looked in before opening wide. The one window faced the corral, and Conrad turned from it in shaking horror.

  “What is it they say out there?” he shouted in fury. “They call words of blasphemy, that the bull is Germany, and ‘Judas’ will ride it to the death! They are wild barbarians, they are–––”

  “Never mind what they are,” suggested Kit, “here is a priest who thinks you may have a soul worth praying for, and the Indians have let him come––once!”

  Then he let the priest in and locked the door, going back to Tula with the key. She sat where he had left her, and was crooning again the weird tuneless dirge at which Marto had been appalled.

  But she handed him a letter.

  “Marto forgot. It was with the Chinaman trader at the railroad,” she said and went placidly on fondling the key as she had fondled the knife, and pitching her voice in that curious falsetto dear to Indian ceremonial.

  He could scarce credit the letter as intended for himself, as it was addressed in a straggling hand filling all the envelope, to Capitan Christofero Rhodes, Manager of Rancho Soledad, District of Altar, Sonora, Mexico, and in one corner was written, “By courtesy of Señor Fidelio Lopez,” and the date within a week. He opened it, and walked out to the western end of the corridor where the light was yet good, though through the barred windows he could see candles already lit in the shadowy sala.

  The letter was from Cap Pike, and in the midst of all the accumulated horror about him, Kit was conscious of a great homesick leap of the heart as he skimmed the page and found her name––“Billie is all right!”

  How are you, Capitan? (began the letter). That fellow Fidelio rode into the cantina here at La Partida today. He asked a hell’s slew of questions about you, and Billie and me nearly had fits, for we thought you were sure dead or held for ransom, and I give it to you straight, Kit, there isn’t a peso left on the two ranches to ransom even Baby Buntin’ if the little rat is still alive, and that ain’t all Kit: it don’t seem possible that Conrad and Singleton mortgaged both ranches clear up to the hilt, but it sure has happened, every acre is plastered with ten per cent paper and the compound interest strips it from Billie just as sure as if it was droppin’ through to China. When Conrad was on the job he had it all blanketed, but now saltpeter can’t save it without cash. Billie is all right, but some peaked with worry. So am I. But you cheer up, for I got plans for a hike up into Pinal County for us three on a search for the Lost Dutchman Mine, lost fifty years and I have a hunch we can find it, got the dope from an old half breed who knew the Dutchman. So don’t you worry about trailing home broke. The Fidelio hombre said to look for you in six days after Easter, and meet you with water at the Rio Seco, so we’ll do that. He called you capitan and said the Deliverer had made you an officer; how about it? He let loose a line of talk about your two women in the outfit, but I sort of stalled him on that, so Billie wouldn’t get it, for I reckon that’s a greaser lie, Kit, and you ain’t hitched up to no gay Juanita down there. I had a monkey and parrot time to explain even that Tula squaw to Billie, for she didn’t savvy––not a copper cent’s worth! She is right here now instructin’ me, but I won’t let her read this, so don’t you worry. She says to tell you it looks at last like our old eagle bird will have a chance to flop its wings in France. The pair of us is near about cross-eyed from watchin’ the south trail into Altar, and the east trail where the troops will go! She says even if we are broke there is an adobe for you at Vijil’s, and a range for Buntin’ and Pardner. Billie rides Pardner now instead of Pat.

  I reckon that’s all Kit, and I’ve worked up a cramp on this anyway. I figured that maybe you laid low down there till the Singleton murder was cleared up, but I can alibi you on that O. K., when Johnny comes marchin’ home! So don’t you worry.

  Yours truly,

  Pike.

  He read it over twice, seeking out the lines with her name and dwelling on them. So Billie was riding Pardner,––and Billie had a camp ready for him,––and Billie couldn’t savvy even a little Indian girl in his outfit––say!

  He was smiling at that with a very warm glow in his heart for the resentment of Billie. He could just imagine Pike’s monkey and parrot time trying to make Billie understand accidents of the trail in Sonora. He would make that all clear when he got back to God’s country! And the little heiress of Granados ranches was only an owner of debt-laden acres,––couldn’t raise a peso to ransom even the little burro! Well, he was glad she rode Pardner instead of another horse; that showed–––

  Then he smiled again, and drifted into dreams. He would let Bunting travel light to the Rio Seco, and then load him for her as no burro ever was loaded to cross the border! He wondered if she’d tell him again he couldn’t hold a foreman’s job? He wondered–––

  And then he felt a light touch on his arm, and turned to see the starlike beauty of Doña Jocasta beside him. Truly the companionship of Doña Jocasta might be a more difficult thing to explain than that of the Indian girl of a slave raid!

  Her face was blanched with fear, and her touch brought him back from his vision of God’s country to the tom-tom, and the weird chant, and the thunder of storm coming nearer and nearer in the twilight.

  “Señor!” she breathed in terror, “even on my knees in prayer it is not for anyone to shut out this music of demons. Look! Yesterday she was a child of courage and right, but what is she today?”

  She pointed to Tula and clung to him, for in all the wild chorus Tula was the leader,––she who had the words of ancient days from the dead Miguel. She sat there as one enthroned draped in that gorgeous thing, fit, as Marto said, for a king’s daughter, while the others sat in the plaza or rested on straw and blankets in the corridor looking up at her and shrilling savage echoes to the words she chanted.

  “And that animal,––I saw it!” moaned Doña Jocasta. “Mother of God! that I should deny a priest who would only offer prayers for that wicked one who is to be tortured on it! Señor, for the love of God give me a horse and let me go into the desert to that storm, any place,––any place out of sight and sound of this most desolate house! The merciful God himself has forsaken Soledad!”

  As she spoke he realized that time had passed while he read and re-read and dreamed a dream because of the letter. The sun was far out of sight, only low hues of yellow and blue melting into green to show the illumined path it had taken. By refraction rays of copper light reached the zenith and gave momentarily an unearthly glow to the mesa and far desert, but it was only as a belated flash, for the dusk of night touched the edge of it.

  And the priest locked in with Conrad had been forgotten by him! At any moment that girl with the key might give some signal for the ceremony, whatever it was, of the death of the German beast!

  “Sure, señora, I promise you,” he said soothingly, patting her hand clinging to him. “There is my horse in the plaza, and there is Marto’s. We will get the padre, and both of you can ride to the little adobe down the valley where Elena’s old father lives. He is Mexican, not Indian. It is better even to kneel in prayer there all the night than to try to rest in Soledad while this lasts. At the dawn I will surely go for you. Come,––we will ask for the key.”

  Together they approached Tula, whose eyes stared straight out seeing none of the dark faces lifted to hers, she seemed not to see Kit who stopped beside her.

  “Little sister,” he said, touching her shoulder, “the padre waits to be let out of the room of El Aleman, and the key is n
eeded.”

  She nodded her head, and held up the key.

  “Let me be the one,” begged Doña Jocasta,––“I should do penance! I was not gentle in my words to the padre, yet he is a man of God, and devoted. Let me be the one!”

  The Indian girl looked up at that, and drew back the key. Then some memory, perhaps that kneeling of Doña Jocasta with the women of Palomitas, influenced her to trust, and after a glance at Kit she nodded her head and put the key in her hand.

  “You, señor, have the horses,” implored Doña Jocasta, “and I will at once come with Padre Andreas.”

  “Pronto!” agreed Kit, “but I must get you a serape. Rain may fall from that cloud.”

  She seemed scarcely to hear him as she sped along the patio towards the locked door. Kit entered his own room for a blanket just as she fitted the key in the lock, and spoke the padre’s name.

  The next instant he heard her screams, and a door slam shut, and as he came out with the blanket, he saw the priest dash toward the portal leading from the patio to the plaza.

  He ran to her, lifting her from the tiles where she had been thrown.

  “Conrad!” she cried pointing after the flying figure. “There! Quickly, señor, quickly!”

  He jerked open the door and looked within, a still figure with the face hidden, crouched by a bench against the wall. In two strides Kit crossed from the door and grasped the shoulder, and the figure propped there fell back on the tiles. It was the dead priest dressed in the clothes of Conrad, and the horror of that which had been a face showed he had died by strangulation under the hands of the man for whom he had gone to pray.

  Doña Jocasta ran wildly screaming through the patio, but the Indian voices and the drum prevented her from being heard until she burst among them just as Conrad leaped to the back of the nearest horse.

  “El Aleman! El Aleman!” she screamed pointing to him in horror. “He has murdered the padre and taken his robe. It is El Aleman! Your Judas has killed your priest!”

  Kit ran for his own horse, but with the quickness of a cat Tula was before him in the saddle, and whirling the animal, leaning low, and her gorgeous manta streaming behind like a banner she sped after the German screaming, “Judas! Judas! Judas of Palomitas!”

  And, as in the other chants led by her, the Indian women took up this one in frenzied yells of rage.

  The men of the corral heard and leaped to saddles to follow the flying figures, but Kit was ahead,––not much, but enough to be nearest the girl.

  Straight as an arrow the fugitive headed for Mesa Blanca, the nearest ranch where a fresh horse could be found, and Doña Jocasta and some of the women without horses stood in the plaza peering after that wild race in the gray of the coming night.

  A flash of lightning outlined the three ahead, and a wail of utter terror went up from them all.

  “Mother of God, the cañon of the quicksand!” cried Doña Jocasta.

  “Tula! Tula! Tula!” shrilled the Indian women.

  Tula was steadily gaining on the German, and Kit was only a few rods behind as they dashed down the slight incline to that too green belt in the floor of the brown desert.

  He heard someone, Marto he thought, shouting his name and calling “Sumidero! Sumidero!” He did not understand, and kept right on. Others were shouting at Tula with as little result, the clatter of the horses and the rumble of the breaking storm made all a formless chaos of sound.

  The frenzied scream of a horse came to him, and another lightning flash showed Conrad, ghastly and staring, leap from the saddle––in the middle of the little valley––and Tula ride down on top of him!

  Then a rope fell around Kit’s shoulders, pinioning his arms and he was jerked from the horse with a thud that for a space stunned him into semi-unconsciousness, but through it he heard again the pitiful scream of a dumb animal, and shouts of Marto to the frenzied Indians.

  “Ha! Clodomiro, the reata! Wait for the lightning, then over her shoulders! Only the horse is caught;––steady and a true hand, boy! Ai-yi! You are master, and the Mother of God is your help! Run your horse back,––run, curse you! or she will sink as he sinks! Sangre de Christo! she cuts the reata!”

  Kit struggled out of the rope, and got to his feet in time to see the flash of her knife as she whirled to her victim. Again and again it descended as the man, now submerged to the waist, caught her. His screams of fear were curdling to the blood, but high above the German voice of fear sounded the Indian voice of triumph, and from the vengeful cry of “Judas! Judas! Judas of the world!” her voice turned sharply to the high clear chant Kit had heard in the hidden cañon of the red gold. It was as she said––there would be none of her caste and clan to sing her death song to the waiting ghosts, and she was singing it.

  As those weird triumphant calls went out from the place of death every Indian answered them with shouts as of fealty, and in the darkness Kit felt as if among a circle of wolves giving tongue in some signal not to be understood by men.

  He could hear the sobs of men and boys about him, but not a measure of that wild wail failed to bring the ever recurring response from the brown throats.

  Marto, wet and trembling, cursed and prayed at the horror of it, and moved close to Kit in the darkness.

  “Jesus, Maria, and José!” he muttered in a choked whisper, “one would think the fathers of these devils had never been christened! Sangre de Christo! look at that!”

  For in a vivid sheet of lightning they saw a terrible thing.

  Tula, on the shoulders of the man, stood up for one wavering instant and with both hands raised high, she flung something far out from her where the sands were firm for all but things of weight. Then her high triumphant call ended sharply in the darkness as she cast herself forward. She died as her sister had died, and on the same knife.

  Doña Jocasta stumbled from a horse, and clung to Kit in terror. “Mother of God!” she sobbed. “It is as I said! She is the Eagle of Mexico, and she died clean––with the Serpent under her feet!”

  In a dawn all silver and gold and rose after the storm, there was only a trace at the edge of the sand where two horses had carried riders to the treacherous smiling arroya over which a coyote would not cross.

  And one of the Indian women of Palomitas tied a reata around the body of her baby son, and sent him to creep out as a turtle creeps to that thing cast by Tula to the women cheated of their Judas.

  The slender naked boy went gleefully to the task as to a new game, and spit in the dead face as he dragged it with him to his mother who had pride in him.

  It was kicked before the women back over the desert to Soledad, and the boys used it for football that day, and tied what was left of it between the horns of the roped wild bull at the corral. The bellowing of the bull when cut loose came as music to the again placid Indian women of Palomitas. They were ready for the home trail with their exiles. It had been a good ending, and their great holiday at Soledad was over.

  Chapter 21

  EACH TO HIS OWN

  A straggling train of pack mules followed by a six-mule wagon, trailed past Yaqui Springs ten days later, and was met there by the faithful Chappo and two villainous looking comrades, who had cleaned out the water holes and stood guard over them until arrival of the ammunition train.

  “For beyond is a dry hell for us, and on the other side the Deliverer is circled by enemy fighters who would trap him in his own land. He lies hid like a fox in the hills waiting for this you bring. Water must not fail, and mules must not fail; for that am I here to give the word for haste.”

  “But even forty mule loads will not serve him long,” said Kit doubtfully.

  “Like a fox in the hills I tell you, Señor Capitan,––and only one way into the den! Beyond the enemy he has other supplies safe––this is to fight his way to it. After that he will go like a blaze through dry meadows of zacatan.”

  Kit would have made camp there for the night, but Chappo protested.

  “No, señor! Every drop i
n the sand here is for the mules of the army. It is not my word, it is the word of my general. Four hours north you will find Little Coyote well. One day more and at the crossing of Rio Seco, water will be waiting from the cold wells of La Partida. It is so arrange, señor, and the safe trail is made for you and for excellencia, the señora. In God’s name, take all your own, and go in peace!”

  “But the señora is weary to death, and–––”

  “That is true, Capitan,” spoke Doña Jocasta, who drooped in the saddle like a wilted flower. “But the señora will not die, and if she does it is not so much loss as the smallest of the soldiers of El Gavilan. We will go on, and go quickly, see!––there is yet water in the cantin, and four hours of trail is soon over.”

  Ugly Chappo came shyly forward and, uncovered, touched the hem of her skirt to his lips.

  “The high heart of the excellencia gives life to the men who fight,” he said and thrust his hand in a pocket fastened to his belt. “This is to you from the Deliverer, señora. His message is that it brought to him the lucky trail, and he would wish the same to the Doña Jocasta Perez.”

  It was the little cross, once sent back to her by a peon in bitterness of soul, and now sent by a general of Mexico with the blessing of a soldier.

  “Tell him Jocasta takes it as a gift of God, and his name is in her prayers,” she said and turned away.

  Clodomiro pushed forward,––a very different Clodomiro, for the fluttering bands of color were gone from his arms and his hair––the heart of the would-be bridegroom was no longer his. He was stripped as for the trail or for war, and fastened to his saddle was the gun and ammunition he had won from Cavayso who had gone quickly onward with his detachment of the pack.

  But Clodomiro halted beside Chappo, regardless of need for haste on the trail, and asked him things in that subdued Indian tone without light, shade, or accent, in which the brown brothers of the desert veil their intimate discourse.