The Mesa Trail Part 4

"Undoubtedly. I am most sorry. However, if you are looking for work, I might be able to help you-it seems to me that someone wrote me for a couple of men. Excuse me one moment while I look up the letter. What are your names, my friends?"

"Me? I'm Joe Gilbert. My partner here is Alf Lewis."

Coravel Tio left them, and crossed to a gla.s.sed-in box of an office. He opened a locked safe, swiftly inspected a telegraph form, and nodded to himself in a satisfied manner. He returned to the two men, tapped for a moment upon the gla.s.s counter, meditatively, then addressed them.

"Senors, I regret the mistake exceedingly. Still, if you want work, I suggest that you drive over to Domingo this afternoon with my cousin, who lives there. You may stay a day or two with him, then this friend of mine will pick you up and take you to work."

The second man, Lewis, spoke up hesitantly.

"Minin' is our work, mister. We ain't no ranchers."

"Certainly." Coravel Tio smiled, gazing at him. "You will not work for a native, my friends. Ah, no! Be here at two this afternoon, please."

The two men left the shop. Outside, in the Street, they paused and looked at each other. The second man, Lewis, swore under his breath.

"Joe, how in h.e.l.l did he know we was worried over workin' for a greaser boss?"

Gilbert merely shrugged his shoulders and strode away.

Within the shop, Coravel Tio turned to the waiting Indian and spoke-this time neither in Spanish nor English, but in the Indian tongue itself. As he spoke, however, he saw the stolid redskin make a slight gesture.

Catlike, Coravel Tio turned about and went to meet a man who had just entered the shop; catlike, too, he purred suave greeting.

A large man, this new arrival-square of head and jaw and shoulder, with small gray eyes closely set, a moustache bristling over a square mouth, ruthless hardness stamped in every line of figure, face, and manner. He was dressed carelessly but well.

"Morning," he said, curtly. His eyes bit sharply about the place, then rested with intent scrutiny upon the proprietor. "Morning, Coravel Tio.

I been looking for someone who can talk Injun. I've got a proposition that won't handle well in Spanish; it's got to be put to 'em in their own tongue. I hear that you can find me someone."

Regretfully, Coravel Tio shook his head.

"No-o," he said, in reflective accents. "I am sorry, Mr. Mackintavers.

My clerk, Juan Estrada, spoke their language, but he joined the army and is still in service. Myself, I know of it only a word or two. But wait!

Here is a Cochiti man who sells me turquoise; he might serve you as interpreter, if he is willing."

He called the loitering Indian, and in the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Spanish patois of the country put the query. Mackintavers, who also spoke the tongue well, intervened and tried to employ the Indian as interpreter. To both interrogators the Pueblo shook his head in stolid negation. He would not serve in the desired capacity, and knew of no one else who would.

"It is a great pity he is so stubborn!" Coravel Tio gestured in despair as he turned to his visitor. "I owe you thanks, Mr. Mackintavers, for getting my wholesale department that order from the St. Louis dealer. I am in your debt, and I shall be grateful if I can repay the obligation.

In this case, alas, I am powerless!"

"Well, let it go." Mackintavers waved a large, square hand. He produced cigars, set one between his square white teeth, and handed the other to Coravel Tio. "You can repay me here and now. A man at Albuquerque sent a telegram to that Crump woman in your care. Where is she?"

"What is all this?" Coravel Tio was obviously astonished. "Senor, I am a curio dealer, no more! You surely do not refer to the kind-hearted Mrs.

Crump?"

Mackintavers eyed him, chewing on his cigar. Then he nodded grimly.

"I do! Is she a particular friend of yours?"

"Certainly! Have I not known her these twenty years? I buy much from her-bits of turquoise, queer Indian things, odd relics. Her mail often comes here, remaining until she calls for it. I am a curio dealer, senor, and in other matters I take no interest."

"Hm!" grunted Mackintavers. "Has she been here lately?"

"No, senor, not for three months-no, more than that! Mail comes, also telegrams."

"D'you know where she is?" demanded the other, savagely.

Dreamily reflective, Coravel Tio fastened his eyes upon the right ear of Mackintavers. That ear bore a half-healed scar, like a bullet-nick.

Beneath that silent scrutiny the other man reddened uneasily.

"Let me see! My wife's second cousin, Estevan Baca, wrote me last week that he had met her in Las Vegas. Everyone knows her, senor. If I can send any message for you--"

"No. Much obliged, all the same," grunted the other. "I'll probably be at the Aztec House for a few days. Let me know in case she comes to town, will you? I want to see her."

With exactly the proper degree of bland eagerness, Coravel Tio a.s.sented to this, and Mackintavers departed heavily. The merchant accompanied him to the door and watched him stride up the narrow street, cursing the burros laden with mountain wood that blocked his way. Then, smiling a trifle oddly, the descendant of conquistadores returned to the waiting man from Cochiti pueblo.

"Do you know why that man wanted an interpreter?" he asked the Indian, in the latter's native tongue. The redskin grinned wisely and shook the black hair from his eyes.

"Yes. But it is not a matter to discuss with Christians, my father."

Coravel Tio nodded carelessly. The question was closed. The Pueblo folk are, of course, very devoted converts to the Christian faith; yet those who know them intimately can testify that they sometimes have affairs, perhaps touching upon the queer stone idols of their fathers, which do not bear discussion with other Christians. They do not pray to the old G.o.ds-perhaps-but they hold them in tremendous respect.

"You came to tell me something," prompted the curio dealer, gently.

The Indian a.s.sented with a nod. He leaned against one of the wooden pillars that supported the roof, and began to roll a cigarette while he talked.

"Yesterday, my father, I was near the painted caves of the Colorado, and I stood above White Rock Canon looking down at the river. There on the other side of the water I saw the strangest thing in the world. I went home and told the governor of the pueblo what I had seen, and it was his command that I come here and tell you also, for this is some queer affair of the white people."

Coravel Tio said nothing at all. The Pueblo lighted his cigarette and continued:

"Upon the east side of the river and canon, not so well hidden that I could not see it, was a camp, and in that camp were a white man and a white woman. I have never before seen white folk able to reach that place, unless it were the Trail Runner who takes pictures of us and sells them to tourists. These were strangers to me. One was a very large woman. The man was tall, but he acted very strangely. He acted as though G.o.d had touched his brain. So did they both."

"In what way?" asked Coravel Tio, sharply.

"In every way, my father. The man wore no shoes, and the hot rocks hurt his feet so that he limped. I saw him spring on the woman, and they fought. She beat him off and pointed a gun at him. Then he seemed to be weeping like a woman, and he grovelled before her. She threw something far off on the stones, and I think it was gla.s.s that broke-a bottle, perhaps."

"Oh!" said Coravel Tio. "Oh! Perhaps it was."

"There were other strange actions," pursued the stolid red man. "I could not understand them--"

"No matter." Coravel Tio made a gesture as though dismissing the subject. "Could you get to that camp from your pueblo?"

"Of course, by crossing the river, by swimming the water there. But that may be a hard thing to do, my father."

"Undoubtedly, but you will do it, and I will pay you well. There is a package to give that woman. Wait."

Coravel Tio went to his little box of an office, seated himself at the desk, and began to write in a fair, round hand. The epistle required neither superscription nor signature:

The burlap sack proved to contain some interesting contents. The two small sacks in the centre were even more interesting. The samples have been a.s.sayed with the following results:

Numbers one to five, quartzitic with bare traces of brittle silver ore; no good. Numbers six to fifteen, barytes, perhaps five dollars a ton; no good. Number sixteen is strontianite.