The Treasure Trail Part 33

Rotil got off the cot awkwardly, but disdaining help from the guards hopped to a chair against the wall between the two windows.

Isidro came in with a bowl of water, and a much embroidered towel for the use of the distinguished guest, followed by a vaquero with smoking _tortillas_, and Tula with coffee.

The general eyed the ornate drawnwork of the linen with its cobweb fingers, and grinned.

"I am not a bridegroom this morning, _muchachita_, and need no necktie of such fineness for my beauty. Bring a plainer thing, or none."

Tula's eyes lit up with her brief smile of approval.

"I am telling them you are a man and want no child things, my General," she stated firmly, "and now it proves itself! On the instant the right thing comes."

She darted out the door, b.u.mping into Rhodes, and without even the customary "with your permission" ran past him along the corridor, and, suddenly cautious, yet bold, she lifted the latch of the guest room where she had seen what looked to her like wealth of towels,--and felt sure Dona Jocasta would not miss one of the plainest.

Stealthy as a cat she circled the bed, scarce daring to glance at it lest the lady wake and look reproach on her.

But she stepped on some hard substance on the rug by the wooden bench where the towels hung, and stooping, she picked it up, a little wooden crucifix, once broken, and then banded with silver to hold it solid.

The silver was beautifully wrought and very delicate, surely the possession of a lady, and not a thing let fall by chance from the pocket of Valencia.

Tula turned to lay it carefully on the pillow beside the senora, and then stared at the vacant bed.

Only an instant she halted and thrust her hand under the cover.

"Cold,--long time cold!" she muttered, and with towel and crucifix she sped back to the _sala_ where Rotil was joking concerning the compliment she paid him.

"Don't make dandies of yourselves if you would make good with a woman," he said. "Even that little crane of a _muchacha_ has brain,--and maybe heart for a man! She has boy sense."

Kit, seeing her dart into the guest room, stood in his tracks watching for her to emerge. She gave him one searching curious look as she sped past, and he realized in a flash that his glance should have been elsewhere, or at least more casual.

She delivered the towel and retired, abashed and silent at the jests of the man she regarded with awe as the G.o.d-sent deliverer of her people. Once in the corridor she looked into Valencia's room, then in the kitchen where Valencia and Maria and other women were hastening breakfast, and last she sought Clodomiro at the corral.

"Where did you take her, and how?" she demanded, and the youth, tired with the endless rides and tasks of two days and nights, was surly, and looked his impatience. "She, and she, and she! Always women!" he grumbled. "Have I not herded all of them from over the mesa at your order? Is one making a slow trail, and must I go herding again?"

She did not answer, but looked past him at the horses.

"Which did the senora ride from Soledad?" she inquired, and Clodomiro pointed out a mare of shining black, and also a dark bay ridden by Marto.

"Trust him to take the best of the saddle herd," he remarked. "Why have you come about it? Is the senora wanting that black?"

"Maybe so; I was not told," she answered evasively. "But there is early breakfast, and it is best to get your share before some quick task is set,--and this day there are many tasks."

The women were entering the portal at the rear, because the chapel of the old hacienda was at the corner. There was considerable commotion as Fidelio enforced the order to search for arms;--if the Deliverer suspected treachery, how could they hope for the sympathy they came to beg for?

"Tell him there is nothing hidden under our rags but hearts of sorrow," said the mother of Fidelio. "Ask that he come here where we kneel to give G.o.d thanks that El Aleman is now in the power of the Deliverer."

"General Rotil does not walk, and there is no room for a horse in this door. Someone of you must speak for the others, and go where he is."

The kneeling women looked at each other with troubled dark eyes.

"Valencia will be the best one," said an old woman. "She lost no one by the pale beast, but she knows us every one. Marta, who was wife of Miguel, was always mother and spoke for us to the padre, or anyone, but Marta----"

She paused and shook her head; some women wept. All knew Marta was one who cried to them for vengeance.

"That is true," said Valencia. "Marta was the best, but the child of Marta is here, and knows more than we. She has done much,--more than many women. I think the daughter can speak best for the mother, and that the Deliverer will listen."

Tula had knelt like the others, facing a little shelf on the wall where a carven saint was dimly illuminated by the light of a candle.

All the room was very dark, for the dawn was yet but as a gray cloak over the world, and no window let in light.

The girl stood up and turned toward Valencia.

"I will go," she said, "because it is my work to go when you speak, but the Deliverer will ask for older tongues and I will come back to tell you that."

Without hesitation she walked out of the door, and the others bent their heads and there was the little click-click of rosary beads, slipping through their fingers in the dusk. Among the many black-shawled huddled figures kneeling on the hard tiles, none noticed the one girl in the corner where shadows were deepest, and whose soft slender hands were m.u.f.fled in Valencia's fringes.

Kit stood until he noted that the searching for arms did not include her, and then crossed the patio with Fidelio on his way to the corrals. If the black mare of Dona Jocasta could be gotten to the rear portal, together with the few burros of the older women, she might follow after unnoticed. The adobe wall at the back was over ten feet high and would serve as a shield, and the entire cavalcade would be a half mile away ere they came in range from the plaza.

He planned to manage that the mare be there without asking help of any Indian, and he thought he could do it while the guard was having breakfast. It would be easy for them to suppose that the black was his own. Thus scheming for beauty astray in the desert, he chatted with Fidelio concerning the pilgrimage of the Palomitas women, and the possibility of Rotil's patience with them, when Tula crossed the patio hurriedly and entered the door of the _sala_.

The general was finishing his breakfast, while Isidro was crouched beside him rewinding the bandage after a satisfactory inspection of the wound. The swelling was not great, and Rotil, eating cheerfully, was congratulating himself on having made a straight trail to the physician of Mesa Blanca; it was worth a lost day to have the healing started right.

He was in that complacent mood when Tula sped on silent bare feet through the _sala_ portal, and halted just inside, erect against the wall, gazing at him.

"Hola! _Nina_ who has the measure of a man! The coffee was of the best. What errand is now yours?"

"Excellency, it is the errand too big for me, yet I am the one sent with it. They send me because the mother of me, and Anita, my sister, were in the slave drive south, and the German and the Perez men carried whips and beat the women on that trail."

Her brave young heart seemed to creep up in her throat and choke her at thought of those whips and the women who were driven, for her voice trembled into silence, and she stood there swallowing, her head bent, and her hands crossed over her breast, and clasped firmly there was the crucifix she had found in the guest room. Little pagan that she was, she regarded it entirely as a fetish of much potency with white people, and surely she needed help of all G.o.ds when she spoke for the whole pueblo to this man who had power over many lives.

Rotil stared at her, frowning and bewildered.

"What the devil,--" he began, but Isidro looked up at him and nodded a.s.sent.

"It is a truth she is telling, Excellency. Her father was Miguel, once major-domo of this rancho. He died from their fight, and his women were taken."

"Oh, yes, that!--it happens in many states. But this German--who says the German and Perez were the men to do it?"

"I, Tula, child of Miguel, say it," stated the girl. "With my eyes I saw him,--with my ears I heard the sister call out his name. The name was Don Adolf. Over his face was tied a long beard, so! But it was the man,--the friend of Don Jose Perez of Soledad; all are knowing that.

He is now your man, and the women ask for him."

"What women?"

"All the women of Palomitas. On their knees in the chapel they make prayers. Excellency, it robs you of nothing that you give them a Judas for Holy Week. I am sent to ask that of the Deliverer."

She slid down to her knees on the tiles, and looked up at him.

He stared at her, frowning and eyeing her intently, then chuckled, and grinned at the others.

"Did I not tell you she had the heart of a boy? And now you see it!

Get up off your knees, _chiquita_. Why should you want a Judas? It is a sweetheart I must find for you instead."