The Treasure Trail Part 34

"I am not getting up," said Tula stolidly. "I am kneeling before you, my General. See! I pray to you on the tiles for that Judas. All the women are praying. Also the old women have made medicine to send El Aleman once more on this trail, and see you,--it has come to pa.s.s! You have him in your trap, but he is ours. Excellency, come once and see all the women on their knees before the saint as I am here by you. We make prayers for one thing:--the Judas for our holy day!"

"You young devil!" he grinned. "I wish you were a boy. Here, you men help me, or get me a crutch. I will see these women on their knees, and if you don't lie----"

With the help of Fidelio and a cane, he started very well, and nodded to Kit.

"You pick well, amigo," he observed. "She is a wildcat, and of interest. Come you and see. _Por Dios!_ I've seen a crucifixion of the Penitentes and helped dig the hidden grave. Also I have heard of the 'Judas' death on Holy Friday, but never before this has so young a woman creature picked a man for it,--a man alive! Courage of the devil!"

Tula arose, and went before them across the plaza to the door of the chapel. Kit knew this was the right moment for him to disappear and get the black mare back of the wall, but Rotil kept chuckling to him over the ungirlish request, and so pointedly included him in the party that there seemed no excuse available for absenting himself.

A flush of rose swept upward to the zenith heralding the sun, but in the adobe room, with its door to the west, no light came, except by dim reflection, and as Tula entered and the men stood at the threshold, they blocked the doorway of even that reflection, and the candle at the saint's shrine shone dimly over the bent heads of the kneeling women.

Rotil stood looking about questioningly; he had not expected to see so many. Then at the sound of the click of the prayer beads, some recollection of some past caused him to automatically remove his wide-brimmed hat.

"Mothers," said Tula quietly, "the Deliverer has come."

There was a half-frightened gasp, and dark faces turned toward the door.

"He comes as I told you, because I am no one by myself, and he could not know I was sent by you. I am not anyone among people, and he does not believe. Only people of importance should speak with a soldier who is a general."

"No, _por Dios_, my boy, you speak well!" said Rotil, clapping his hand on her shoulder, "but your years are not many and it cannot be you know the thing you ask for."

"I know it," a.s.serted Tula with finality.

An old woman got up stiffly, and came towards him. "We are very poor, yet even our children are robbed from us--that is why we pray. Don Ramon, your mother was simple as we, and had heart for the poor. Our lives are wasted for the masters, and our women children are stolen for the sons of masters. That is done, and we wish they may find ways to kill themselves on the trail. But the man who drove them with whips is now your man--and we mothers ask him of you."

The wizened old creature trembled as she spoke, and scarce lifted her eyes. She made effort to speak further, but words failed, and she slipped to her knees and the beads slid from her nervous fingers to the tiles. She was very old, and she had come fasting across the mesa in the chill before the dawn; her two grandchildren had been driven south with the slaves--one had been a bride but a month--and they killed her man as they took her.

Valencia came to her and wiped the tears from her cheeks, patting her on the back as one would soothe a child, and then she looked at Rotil, nodding her head meaningly, and spoke.

"It is all true as Tia Tomasa is saying, senor. Her children are gone, and this child of Capitan Miguel knows well what she asks for. The days of the sorrows of Jesus are coming soon, and the Judas we want for that day of the days will not be made of straw to be bound on the wild bull's back, and hung when the ride is over. No, senor, we know the Judas asked of you by this daughter of Miguel;--it is the pale beast called El Aleman. For many, many days have we made prayers like this, before every shrine, that the saints would send him again to our valley. You, senor, have brought answer to that prayer. You have him trapped, but he belongs only to us women. The saints listened to us, and you are in it. Men often are in prayers like that, and have no knowing of it, senor."

Kit listened in amazement to this account of prayers to Mexican saints for a Judas to hang on Good Friday! After four centuries of foreign priesthood, and foreign saints on the shrines, the mental effect on the aborigines had not risen above crucifixion occasionally on some proxy for their supreme earthly G.o.d, or mad orgies of vengeance on a proxy for Judas. The great drama of Calvary had taught them only new forms of torture and the certainty that vengeance was a debt to be paid. Conrad was to them the pale beast whipping women into slavery,--and as supreme traitor to human things must be given a Judas death!

He s.h.i.+vered as he listened, and looked at the eyes of women staring out of the dusk for the answer to their prayers.

"_Por Dios!_" muttered Rotil, half turning to Kit, yet losing nothing of the pleading strained faces. "Does your head catch all of that, senor? Can't women beat h.e.l.l? And women breed us all! What's the answer?"

"In this case it's up to you, General," replied Kit. "I'm glad the responsibility is not mine. Even as it is, women who look like these are likely to walk through my dreams for many a night!"

Rotil gloomed at them, puzzled, frowning, and at times the flicker of a doubtful smile would change his face without lighting it. No one moved or spoke.

"Here!" he said at last, "this child and two women have spoken, but there are over twenty of you here. Three out of twenty is no vote--hold up your hands. Come, don't hang back, or you won't get Judas! There are no priests here, and no spies for priests, and there have been words enough. Show your hands!"

Kit looked back into the darkest corner, wondering what the vote of Jocasta would be; her mother was said to be Indian, or half Indian, and her hatred of the German would help her understand these darker tribal sisters.

But in the many lifted hands her own could not be seen and he felt curiously relieved, though it was no affair of his, and one vote either way would weigh nothing.

Rotil looked at the lifted hands, and grunted.

"You win, _muchacha_," he said to Tula. "I think you're the devil, and it's you made the women talk. You can come along to Soledad and fetch their Judas back to them."

"My thanks to you, and my service, Excellency," said Tula. "I will go and be glad that I go for that. But I swear by the Body and Blood, and I swear on this, that I only pay the debt of my people to El Aleman."

She was helping old Tia Tomasa to her feet with one hand, and held up the little crucifix to him with the other. She had noted that white people make oath on a cross when they want to be believed, and she wished with all her pagan heart to be believed by this man who had been a sort of legendary hero to her many months before she had seen his face, or dared hope he would ever grant favor to her--Tula!

But whatever effect she hoped to secure by emphasizing her oath on the Christian symbol, she was not prepared for the rough grasp on her arm, or the harsh command of his voice.

"Holy G.o.d!" he growled, "why do you thrust that in my face,--you?"

"Excellency--I--" began Tula, but he shook her as a cat would shake a mouse.

"Answer me! How comes it in your hands?"

"I found it, senor--and did no harm."

"When? Where?"

"Why--I--I----"

A note of warning flashed from some wireless across the girl's mind, for it was no little thing by which Ramon Rotil had suddenly become a growling tiger with his hand near her throat.

"Where?" he repeated.

"On a trail, senor."

"When?"

"Three days ago."

"Where?"

"At the place where the Soledad trail leaves that of Mesa Blanca."

Rotil stared at her, and then turned to Kit.

"Do you know of this thing?"

"No, General, I don't," he said honestly enough, "but these women have many such----"

"No," contradicted Rotil, "they haven't,--there's a difference."

He had seized the crucifix and held it, while he scanned the faces, and then brought his gaze back to Tula.

"You will show me that place, and prove yourself, _muchacha_," he said grimly. "There's something--something--Do you know, you d.a.m.ned young crane, that I can have my men shoot you against the wall out there if you lie to me?"

"Yes, my General, but it is better to give lead to enemies--and not friends. Also a knife is cheaper."

"Silence! or you may get both!" he growled. "Here, look well--you--all of you! Have any of you but this creature seen it?"