The Treasure Trail Part 16

"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 d.a.m.ned 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 G.o.ds did!"

"Their G.o.ds?"

"Yeh, the special G.o.ds 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 c.o.o.n. What special process did their G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds, 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 d.y.k.e 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--G.o.d! 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 m.u.f.fled 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 h.e.l.l."

"To h.e.l.l it is, if it's the slavers again after women," said Kit.

"Come quiet."

They reached the summit where cacti and greasewood served as s.h.i.+eld, 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 a.s.sailant 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s, 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 canon of the desert.

CHAPTER VIII

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.