The Treasure Trail Part 38

"The partner of a chum of mine," stated Kit lightly, as he did some quick thinking concerning the complications likely to arise if he was regarded as a possible murderer hiding from the law. "My own hunch is that Conrad himself did it."

"Have you any idea of a trap for him?"

"N-no, General, unless he was led to believe that I was under guard here. He might express his sentiments more freely if he thought I would never get back across the border alive."

"Good enough! This offer from Perez is to go into the keeping of Dona Jocasta. You've the duty of taking it to her. We have not yet found that ammunition."

"Well, it did cross the border, and somebody got it."

"He says it was moved to Hermosillo before Juan Gonsalvo, the overseer, died."

"Was shot, you mean, after it was cached."

"Maybe so, but he offers to trade part of it for his liberty, and deliver the goods north of Querobabi."

"Yes, General,--into the bodies of your men if you trust him."

Rotil chuckled. "You are not so young as you look, Don Pajarito, and need no warning. It is the room next the _sala_ where I will have Perez and Conrad brought. The senora can easily overhear what is said.

It may be she will have the mind to help when she sees that offer he made."

"It would seem so, yet--women are strange! They go like the padre, to prayers when a life is at stake."

"Some women, and some priests, boy," said the dark priest. "It may be that you do not know Dona Jocasta well."

This remark appeared to amuse Rotil, for he smiled grimly and with a gesture indicated that they were to join Dona Jocasta.

She was rested and refreshed by a good supper. Valencia and Elena, the cook, had waited upon her and the latter waxed eloquent over the stupendous changes at Soledad from the time of Dona Jocasta's supper the previous day. Many of the angry men had been ready to start after Marto who had cheated them, when a courier rode in with the word that Don Jose and Senor Conrad were close behind. Then the surprise of all when Don Jose was captured, and it was seen that Elena had been cooking these many days, not for simple vaqueros, but for some soldiers of the revolution by which peace and plenty was to come to all the land! It was a beautiful dream, and the Deliverer was to make it come true!

Tula sat in the shadow against the wall, like some slender Indian carving, mute and expressionless while the eyes of the woman rolled as the two old friends exchanged their wonder tales of the night and day!

Elena made definite engagement to be with the "Judas" trailers on the dark Friday, and both breathed blessings on Rotil who had promised them the right man for the hanging.

It was this cheerful topic Kit entered upon with the written note from Perez to the general. He had no liking for his task, as his eyes rested on Dona Jocasta, beautiful, resigned and detached from the scene about her. He remembered what Rotil had said scoffingly of saints lifted from shrines--a man never forgot that shrine was empty!

"Mine is a thankless task, senora, but the general decided you are the best keeper of this," and he gave to her the scribbled page torn from a note book.

She took it and held it unread, looking at him with dark tragic eyes.

"I have fear of written words, senor, and would rather hear them spoken. So many changes have come that I dread new changes. No matter where my cage is moved, it is still a cage to me," she said wistfully.

"I've a hunch, Dona Jocasta, that the bars of that cage are going to be broken for you," ventured Kit, taking the seat she indicated, "and this note may be one of the weapons to do it. Evidently Senor Perez has had some mistaken information concerning the stealing of you from here;--he thought it was by the general's order. So mistaken was he that he thought you were the object of Rotil's raid on Soledad, and for his own freedom he has offered to give you, and half his stock of ammunition, to General Ramon Rotil, and agree to a truce between their factions."

"Ah! he offers to make gift of me to the man he hates," she said after a long silence. "And the guns and ammunition,--he also surrenders them?"

"He offers--but it is written here! Since the guns, however, have been taken south, he cannot give them; he can only promise them, until such time----"

"Ho!" she said scornfully. "Is that the tale he tells? It is true there are guns in the south, but guns are also elsewhere! He forgets, does Jose Perez,--or else he plays for time. This offer," and she referred to the note, "it is not written since we arrived--no. It was written earlier, when he thought I was held by that renegade far in the desert."

"I reckon that is true, senora, for after receiving it, Rotil had him chained in a room fronting the plaza that he might see you enter Soledad with honors."

"Ramon Rotil did that?" she mused, looking at the note thoughtfully, "and he gives to me the evidence against Jose? Senor, in the Perez lands we hear only evil things and very different things about Rotil.

They would say this paper was for sale, but not for a gift. And--he gives it to me!"

Kit also remembered different things and evil things told of Rotil, but they were not for discussion with a lady. He had wondered a bit that it was not the padre who was given the message to transmit, yet suddenly he realized that even the padre might have tried to make it a question of barter, for the padre wanted help for his priestly office in the saving of Perez' soul, and incidentally of his life.

"Yes, senora, it seems a free-will offering, and he said to tell you it would be in the room adjoining this that Perez would be questioned as to the war material. Rotil's men have searched, and his officers have questioned, but Perez evidently thinks Rotil will not execute him, as a ransom will pay much better."

"That is true, death pays no one--no one!"

Her voice was weighted with sadness, and Kit wondered what the cloud was under which she lived. The padre evidently knew, but none of Rotil's men. It could not be the mere irregularity of her life with Perez, for to the peon mind she was the great lady of a great hacienda, and wife of the padrone. No,--he realized that the sin of Dona Jocasta had been a different thing, and that the shadow of it enveloped her as a dark cloak of silence.

"It is true, senora, that death pays no one, except that the death of one man may save other lives more valuable. That often happens,"

remarked Kit, with the idea of distracting her from her own woe, whatever it was. "It might have seemed a crime if one of his nurses had chucked a double dose of laudanum into Bill Hohenzollern's baby feed, but that nurse would have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocents, so you never can tell whether a murderer is a devil, or a man doing work of the angels."

"Bill?" Evidently the name was a new one to Dona Jocasta.

"That's the name of the Prussian pirate of the Huns across the water.

Your friend Conrad belongs to them."

"My friend! My _friend_, senor!" and Dona Jocasta was on her feet, white and furious, her eyes flaming hatred. Kit Rhodes was appalled at the spirit he had carelessly wakened. He remembered the statement of the priest that he evidently did not know the lady well, and realized in a flash that he certainly did not, also that he would feel more comfortable elsewhere.

"Senora, I beg a thousand pardons for my foolishness," he implored.

"My--my faulty Spanish caused me to speak the wrong word. Will you not forgive me such a stupid blunder? Everyone knows the German brute could not be a friend of yours, and that you could have only hatred of his kind."

She regarded him steadily with the ever ready suspicion against an Americano showing in her eyes, but his regret was so evident, and his devotion to her interests so sincere, that the tension relaxed, and she sank back in her chair, her hand trembling as she covered her eyes for a moment.

"It is I who am wrong, senor. You cannot know how the name of that man is a poison, and why absolution is refused me because I will not forgive,--and will not say I forgive! I will not lie, and because of the hate of him my feet will tread the fires of h.e.l.l. The padre is telling me that, so what use to pray? Of what use, I ask you?"

Kit could see no special use if she had accepted the threat of the priest that h.e.l.l was her portion anyway.

"Oh, I would not take that gabble of a priest seriously if I were you," he suggested. "No one can beat me in detesting the German and what he stands for, but I have no plans of going to h.e.l.l for it--not on your life! To hate Conrad, or to kill him would be like killing a rattlesnake, or stamping a tarantula into the sand. He has been let live to sting too many, and Padre Andreas tells me you heard him boast of an American killing at Granados!"

"That is true, senor, and it was so clever too! It was pleasure for him to tell of that because of clever tricks in it. They climbed poles to the wires and called the man to a town, then they waited on that road and shot him before he reached the town. The alcalde of that place decided the man had killed himself, and Conrad laughed with Jose Perez on account of that, because they were so clever!"

"They?" queried Kit trying to prevent his eagerness from showing in his voice. "Who helped him? Not Perez?"

"No, senor, in that sin Jose had no part. It was a very important man who did not appear important;--quite the other way, and like a man of piety. His name, I am remembering it well, for it is Diego,--but said in the American way, which is James."

"Diego, said in the American way?" repeated Kit thoughtfully. "Is he then an American?"

"Not at all, senor! He is Aleman _commandante_ for the border. His word is an order for life or death, and Jose Perez is of his circle.

The guns buried by Perez are bought with the German money; it is for war of Sonora against Arizona when that day comes."

"Shucks! that day isn't coming unless the Huns put more of a force down here than is yet in sight," declared Kit, "but that 'Diego'

bothers me. I know many James',--several at Granados, but not the sort you tell of, senora. Will you speak of that murder again, and let it be put on paper for me? I have friends at Granados who may be troubled about it, and your help would be as--as the word of an angel at the right hour."

"A sad angel, senor," she said with a sigh, "but why should I not help you to your wish since you have guarded me well? It is a little thing you ask."

The Indian women at the far end of the _sala_ had lowered their voices, but their gossip in murmurs and expressive gestures flowed on, and only Tula gave heed to the talk at the table of wars and guns, and secrets of murder, and that was no new thing in Sonora.