“I have no week to waste, and I do not mean the guns at Hermosillo. You have five minutes, José Perez. Also those playful boys are building a nice warm fire for the branding irons. And you will both get a smell of your own burning hides if I wait longer for an answer.”

“Holy God!” shouted Conrad. “Why burn me for his work? From me the guns have been hid as well as from you;–all I got was promises! They are my guns,–my money paid, but he is not straight! Here at Soledad he was to show me this time, but I think now it was a trick to murder me as he murdered Juan Gonsalvo, the foreman who stored them away for him.”

“Animal!” growled Perez. “You have lost your head to talk of murders to me! Two murders at Granados are waiting for you, and it is not far to ship you back to the border! Walk with care, señor!”

“You are each wasting time with your truth telling,” stated Rotil. “This is no time to count your dead men. It is the count of the guns I want. And a sight of the ammunition.”

“Give me a guide to Hermosillo, and the price of guns can be got for you.”

“It is not the price of guns I asked you for, it is guns,–the guns Conrad and Herrara got over the border for you. Your time is going fast, José Perez.”

“They are not to be had this side of Hermosillo, send me south if you want them. But it is well to remember that if an accident happens to me you never could get them,–never! I alone know their hiding place.”

“For that reason have I waited for your visit to Soledad,–you and your carts and your pack mules,” stated Rotil. “Do not forget that Marto Cavayso and other men of mine have been for weeks with your ranchmen. Your pack train comes here empty, and means one thing only–they came for the American guns! Your minutes are going, señor, and the branding irons are getting heat from the fire. One more minute!”

“Write the figures of the ransom, and grant me a messenger to Hermosillo. You have the whip hand, you can make your price.”

“But me? What of my ransom?” demanded Conrad. “My money, and my time paid for those guns–I have not seen one of them this side of the border! If no guns are paid for me, money must be paid.”

“No price is asked for you. I told you the women have named no ransom.”

“Women? That is foolishness. It is not women for whom you hold me! He has turned traitor, has Perez! He wants me sent back across the border without that price of the guns for his mushroom government! He has told his own tales of Herrara, and of Singleton, and they are lies–all lies!”

“But what of the tale of Diego, said in the American way?” asked Kit stepping inside the room.

“Diego! Diego!” repeated Conrad and made a leap at Perez. “You have sold me out to the Americans, you scum! James warned me you were scum of the gutters, and now–”

The guard caught him, and he stood there shaking with fury in the dim light. Perez drew away with a curse.

“To hell with you and James and your crew on the border,” he growled. “I care nothing as to how soon the damned gringos swing you both. When you Germans want to use us we are your ‘dear brothers.’ When we out-trick you, we are only scum, eh? You can tell your commandante James that I won the game from him, and all the guns!”

“My thanks to you, General Rotil, that I have been allowed to hear this,” said Kit, “also that I have witness. I’d do as much for you if the chance comes. Two men were killed on the border by Conrad under order of this James. Herrara was murdered in prison for fear he would turn informer about the guns. Singleton was murdered to prevent him investigating the German poisoning of cavalry horses. The German swine meant to control Granados rancho a few months longer for their own purposes.”

“Meant to?” sneered Conrad. “You raw cub!–you are playing with dynamite and due for a fall. So is your fool country! Though Perez here has lost his nerve and turned traitor to our deal, that is only a little puff of wind against the bulwarks of the Fatherland! We will hold Granados; we will hold the border; and with Mexico (not this crook of the west, but real Mexico) we will win and hold every border state and every Pacific coast state! You,–poor fool!–will never reach Granados alive to tell this. You are but one American in the Indian wilderness, and you are sure to go under, but you go knowing that though James and I die, and though a thousand more of us die, there will be ten thousand secret German workers in America to carry on our plan until all the world will be under the power of the Prussian eagle! You,–who think you know so much, can add that to finish your education in Sonora, and carry it to hell with you!”

His voice, coldly contemptuous at first, had risen to a wrathful shriek as he faced the American and hurled at him the exultance of the Teuton dream.

“I certainly am in great luck to be your one American confessor,” grinned Kit, “but I’ll postpone that trip as long as possible. I reckon General Rotil will let the padre help me make note of this education you are handing out to me. A lot of Americans need it! Have I your permission, General?”

“Go as far as you like,” snapped Rotil. “They have used up their time limit in scolding like old women. Perez, I wait for the guns.”

“Send me to Hermosillo and I will recover enough for a ransom,” said Perez.

Rotil regarded him a moment through half-closed, sinister eyes.

“That was your last chance, and you threw it away. Chappo, strip him; Fidelio, fetch the branding irons.”

Perez shrank back, staring at Rotil as if fascinated. He was striving to measure the lengths to which the “Hawk of the Sierras” would go, and a sudden gleam of hope came into his eyes as Padre Andreas held up a crucifix before Chappo, waving him aside.

“No, Rotil,–torture is a thing for animals, not men! Hell waits for the sinner who–”

“Hell won’t wait for you one holy minute!” snapped Rotil. “Get back with the women where you belong; there is men’s work to do here.”

He caught the priest by the arm in an iron grip and whirled him towards the sala. The man would have fallen but for Kit who caught him, but could not save the crash of his head against the door. Blood streamed from a cut in his forehead, and thus he staggered into the room where Doña Jocasta stood, horror-stricken and poised for flight.

But the sight of the blood-stained priest, and the sound of a strange, half animal cry from the other room, turned her feet that way.

“No, Ramon! No-no!” she cried and sped through the door to fling herself between him and his victims.

Her arms were stretched wide and she halted, almost touching him, with her back to the chained man towards whom she had not glanced, but she could not help seeing the charcoal brazier with the red-hot branding irons held by Fidelio. The gasping cry had come from Conrad by whom the brazier was set.

Ramon Rotil stared at her, frowning as if he would fling her from his path as he had the priest.

“No, Ramon!” she said again, still with that supplicating look and gesture, “send them out of here,–both these men. I would smother and die in a room with that German beast. You will not be sorry, Ramon Rotil, I promise you that,–I promise you by the God I dare not face!”

“Ho!” snarled Perez. “Is the priest also her lover that she–”

“Send the German out, and let José Perez stay to see that I keep my promise,” she said letting her arms fall at her side, but facing Rotil with an addition of hauteur in her poise and glance. “The price he will pay for the words he has spoken here will be a heavy price,–one he has risked life to hold! Send that pale snake and your men outside, Ramon.”

Perez was leaning forward, his face strained and white, watching her. He could not see her face, but the glimpse of hope came again into his eyes–a woman might succeed with Rotil where a priest would fail!

Rotil, still frowning at her, waved his hand to Chappo and Fidelio.

“Take him away,” he said, “and wait beyond.”

The shuffling movement and clank of chains was heard, but she did not turn her head. Instead she moved past Rotil, lifted a candle, and went towards the shrine at the end of the room.

A table was there with a scarf across it, and back of the table three steps leading up to a little platform on which were ranged two or three mediocre statues of saints, once brilliant with blue and scarlet and tinsel, but tarnished and dim from the years.

In the center was a painting, also dark and dim in which only a halo was still discernible in the light of the candle, but the features of the saint pictured there were shadowed and elusive.

For a moment she knelt on the lower step and bent her head because of those remnants of a faith which was all she knew of earthly hope,–and then she started to mount the steps.

“The curse of God shrivel you!” muttered Perez in cold fury–“come down from there!”

Without heed to the threat, she moved the little statues to right or left, and then lifted her hand, resting it on the wooden frame of the painting.

“Call the Americano,” she said without turning. “You will need a man, but not a man of Altar. Another day may come when you, Ramon, may have need of this house for hiding!”

Rotil strode to the door and motioned Kit to enter, then he closed both doors and gave no heed to Perez, crouched there like a chained coyote in a trap.

“Come down!” he said again. “You are in league with hell to know of that. I never gave it to you! Come down! I meant to tell after he had finished with Conrad–I mean to tell!”

“He waited too long, and spoke too much,” she said to Rotil. “Keep watch on him, and let the Americano give help here.”

Kit mounted the step beside her, and at her gesture took hold of the frame on one side. She found a wedge of wood at the other side and drew it out. The loosened frame was lifted out by Kit and carried down the three steps; it was a panel a little over two feet in width and four in height.

“Set it aside, and watch José Perez while General Rotil looks within,” she said evenly.

Rotil glanced at Perez scowling black hate at her, and then turned to Jocasta who held out the candle.

“It is for you to see,–you and no other,” she said. “You have saved a woman he would have traded as a slave, and I give you more than a slave’s ransom.”

He took the candle and his eyes suddenly flamed with exultation as her meaning came to him.

“Jocasta!” he muttered as if scarce believing, and then he mounted the step, halted an instant in the panel of shadow, and, holding the candle over his head, he leaned forward and descended on the other side of the wall.

“You damned she-wolf of the hills!” growled Perez with the concentrated hate of utter failure in his voice. “I fed you, and my money covered your nakedness, and now you put a knife in my neck and go back to cattle of the range for a mate! You,–without shame or soul!”

“That is true,” she said coldly. “You killed a soul in the casita of the oleanders, José Perez, and it was a dead woman you and the German chained to be buried in the desert. But even the dead come back to help friends who are faithful, José,–and I am as the dead who walk.”

She did not look at him as she spoke, but sank on her knees before the dark canvas where only the faint golden halo gave evidence of some incarnated holiness portrayed there. Her voice was low and even, and the sadness of it thrilled Kit. He thought of music of sweet chords, and a broken string vibrating, for the hopelessness in her voice held a certain fateful finality, and her delicate dark loveliness–

Rotil emerged from the doorway of the shrine and stood there, a curious substitute for the holy picture, looking down on her with a wonderful light in his face.

“Your ransom wins for you all you wish of me,–except the life of one man,” he said, and with a gesture indicated that Kit help her to her feet. He did so, and saw that she was very white and trembling.

Rotil looked at Perez over her head, and Perez scowled back, with all the venom of black hate.

“You win!–but a curse walks where she walks. Ask her? Ask Marto of the men she put under witchcraft! Ask Conrad who had good luck till she hated him! If you have a love, or a child, or anything dear, let her not look hate on them, for her knife follows that look! Ask her of the knife she set in the heart of a child for jealousy of Conrad! Ai, general though you are, your whole army is not strong enough to guard you from the ill luck you will take with the gift she gives! She is a woman under a curse. Ha! Look at her as I say it, for you hear the truth. Ask the padre!”

Kit realized that Perez was launching against her the direst weight of evil the Mexican or Indian mind has to face. Though saints and heaven and hell might be denied by certain daring souls, the potency of witchcraft was seldom doubted. Men or women accused of it were shunned as pariahs, and there had been known persons who weakened and dwindled into death after accusation had been put against them.

He thought of it as she cowered under each separate count of the curse launched against her. She bent like a slender reed under the strokes of a flail, lower and lower against his arm, but when the deadly voice flung the final taunt at her, she straightened slowly and looked at Rotil.

“Yes, ask the padre–or ask me!” she said in that velvet soft voice of utter despair. “That I sent an innocent soul to death is too true. To my great sorrow I did it;–I would do it again! For that my life is indeed a curse to me,–but his every other word a lie!”

Then she took a step forward, faltered, and fell back into the outstretched arm of Kit.

“Take Señora Perez to the women, and come back,” said Rotil. Kit noted that even though he moved close, and bent over the white unconscious face, he did not touch her.

“Señora Perez!” repeated Perez contemptuously. “You are generous with other men’s names for your women! Her name is the Indian mother’s name.”

“Half Indian,” corrected Rotil, “and her naming I will decide another time.”

Kit returned, and without words proceeded to help replace the holy picture in its niche. In the struggle with the padre, a chunk of adobe had been knocked from the wall near the door, and he picked it up, crumbling it to a soft powder and sprinkled it lightly over the steps where foot prints were traceable in the dust.

Rotil who had gone to the door to recall the guard, halted and watched him closely.

“Good!” he said. “You also give me a thought concerning this animal; he will bark if he has listeners, and even the German should not hear–one never knows! I need a cage for a few hours. You have been a friend, and know secret things. Will you lock him in your own room and hold the key to yourself?”

“Surest thing you know,” answered Kit though with the uncomfortable certainty that the knowledge of too many secret things in Mexico was not conducive to long life for the knower. “I may also assure you that Marto is keen on giving you honest service that his one fault may be atoned for.”

“He will get service,” stated Rotil. “You saved me a good man there, amigo.”

He flung open the door of the corridor and whistled for the guard.

“Remove this man and take your orders from Capitan–” He halted, and his eyes narrowed quizzically.

“It seems we never were introduced, amigo, and we know only your joy name of the singer, but there must be another.”

“Oh, yes, there’s another, all right,” returned Kit, knowing that Conrad would enlighten Rotil if he did not. “I’m the hombre suspected of that Granados murder committed by Conrad,–and the name is Rhodes.”

“So? Then the scolding of these two comrades gives to you your freedom from suspicion, eh? That is good, but–” He looked at Kit, frowning. “See here, I comprehend badly. You told me it was the friend of your compadre who was the suspected one!”

“Sure! I’ve a dandy partner across the border. He’s the old man you saw at Yaqui Spring, and I reckon I’m a fairly good friend of his. He’d say so!”

Rotil’s face relaxed in a grin.

“That is clever, a trick and no harm in it, but–have a care to yourself! It is easy to be too clever, and on a trail of war no one has time to learn if tricks are of harm or not. Take the warning of a friend, Capitan Rhodes!”

“You have the right of it, General. I have much to learn,” agreed Kit. “But no man goes abroad to shout the crimes he is accused of at home,–and the story of this one is very new to me. This morning I learned I was thought guilty, and tonight I learn who is the criminal, and how the job was done. This is quick work, and I owe the luck of it to you.”

“May the good luck hold!” said Rotil. “And see that the men leave you alone as the guard of Perez. I want no listeners there.”

CHAPTER XVII
THE STORY OF DOÑA JOCASTA

Ramon Rotil stood a long minute after the clank of chains ceased along the corridor; then he bolted the outer door of the chapel, and after casting a grim satisfied smile at the screen of the faded canvas, he opened the door of the sala and went in.

Valencia was kneeling beside Doña Jocasta and forcing brandy between the white lips, while Elena bustled around the padre whose head she had been bathing. A basin of water, ruby red, was evidence of the fact that Padre Andreas was not in immediate need of the services of a leech. He sat with his bandaged head held in his hands, and shrank perceptibly when the general entered the room.

Doña Jocasta swallowed some of the brandy, half strangled over it, and sat up, gasping and white. It was Tula who offered her a cup of water, while Valencia, with fervent expressions of gratitude to the saints, got to her feet, eyeing Rotil with a look of fear. After the wounded priest and the fainting Jocasta emerged from the chapel door, the two women were filled with terror of the controlling spirit there.

He halted on the threshold, his eyes roving from face to face, including Tula, who stood, back against the wall, regarding him as usual with much admiration. One thing more he must know.

“Go you without,” he said with a gesture towards the two women and the priest. “I will speak with this lady alone.”

They all moved to the door, and after a moment of hesitation Tula was about to follow when he stopped her.

“You stay, girl. The Doña Jocasta may want a maid, but take yourself over there.”

So Tula slipped silently back into the niche of the window seat where the shadows were deepest, and Rotil moved towards the center table dragging a chair. On the other side of the table was the couch on which Jocasta sat, white and startled at the dismissal of the woman and priest.

“Be composed,” he said gentling his tone as one would to soothe a child. “There are some things to be said between us here, and too many ears are of no advantage.”

She did not reply; only inclined her head slightly and drew herself upright against the wall, gathering the lace rebosa across her bosom where Valencia had unfastened her garments and forgotten them in her fear.

“First is the matter of my debt to you. Do you know in your own mind how great that is?”

“I–count it as nothing, señor,” she murmured.

“That is because you do not know the great need, and have not made count of the cases of rifles and ammunition.”

“It is true, I never looked at them. Juan Gonsalvo in dying blamed José Perez for the shot. It was fired by another hand,–but God alone knows! So Juan sent for me, and José never knew. The secret of Soledad was given to me then, but I never thought to use it, until–”

She ceased, shuddering, and he knew she was thinking of the blood-stained priest whirled into her presence. Fallen though the state of the priesthood might be in Mexico, there were yet women of Jocasta’s training to whom an assault on the clergy was little less than a mortal sin. He knew that, and smiled grimly at the remembrance of her own priestly father who had refused her in honest marriage to a man of her mother’s class, and was busily engaged haggling over the gift price of her with José Perez when death caught him. The bewildered girl was swept to the estate of Perez without either marriage or gift, unless one choose to consider as gift the shelter and food given to a younger sister and brother.

All this went through his mind as she shrank and sighed because he had tossed a priest from his way with as slight regard as he would the poorest peon. She did not even know how surely the destiny of her mother and her own destiny had been formed by a priest’s craft. She would never know, because her mind would refuse to accept it. There were thousands like her because of their shadowed inheritance. Revolution for the men grew out of that bondage of women, and Rotil had isolated moments when he dreamed of a vast and blessed freedom of the land–schools, and schools, and more schools until knowledge would belong to the people instead of to the priests!

But he knew it was no use to tell thoughts like that to women; they were afraid to let go their little wooden saints and the jargon of prayers they did not understand. The mystery of it held them!

Thus brooded Rotil, unlearned driver of burros and general of an army of the people!

“We will forget all but the ammunition,” he said. “It is as food to my men, and some of them are starving there to the east; with ammunition food can be commandeered. I knew the guns were on Soledad land, but even a golden dream of angels would not have let me hope for as much as you have given me. It is packed,–that room, from floor to roof tiles. In the morning I take the trail, and there is much to be done before I go. You;–I must think of first. Will you let me be your confessor, and tell me any wish of your heart I may help you to?”

“My heart has no wish left alive in it,” she said. “There have been days when I had wish for the hut under the palms where my mother lived. A childish wish,–but other wishes are dead!”

“There is no going back,” he said, staring at the tiles, and not looking at her. “It is of future things we must think. He said things–Perez did, and you–”

“Yes!” she half whispered. “There is no way but to tell of it, but–I would ask that the child wait outside. The story is not a story for a girl child, Ramon.”

He motioned to Tula.

“Outside the door, but in call,” he said, and without a word or look Tula went softly out.

There was silence for a bit between them, her hands were clasped at full length, and she leaned forward painfully tense, looking not at him, but past him.

“It is not easy, but you will comprehend better than many,” she said at last. “There were three of us. There was my little brother Palemon, who ran away last year to be a soldier–he was only fourteen. José would not let me send searchers for him, and he may be dead. Then there was only–only Lucita and me. You maybe remember Lucita?”

Her question was wistful as if it would help her to even know he remembered. He nodded his head in affirmation.

“A golden child,” he said. “I have seen pictured saints and angels in great churches since the days in the hills, but never once so fair a child as little Lucita.”

“Yes, white and gold, and an angel of innocence,” she said musingly. “Always she was that, always! And there was a sweetheart, Mariano Avila, a good lad, and the wedding was to be. She was embroidering the wedding shirt for Mariano when–God! God!”

She got up suddenly and paced the floor, her arms hugging her shoulders tight as if to keep from sobbing. He rose and stood watching, but uttered no word.

After a little she returned to the couch, and began to speak in a more even tone.

“There is so much to tell. Much happened. Conrad was driving José to do many things not at first in their plans. Also there was more drinking,–much more! It was Conrad made plans for the slave raids. He no longer asked José’s permission for anything; he gave command to the men and José had to listen. Only one secret thing was yet hidden from him, the hiding place of the guns from the north. José said if that was uncovered he might as well give up his ranchos. In his heart he could not trust Conrad. Each had a watch set on the other! Juan got his death because he made rendezvous with the German.

“That is how it was when the slave raid was made north of here, and the most beautiful Indian girl killed herself somewhere in this desert when there was no other way to escape the man;–the scar on the face of Conrad was from her knife. It was a bad cut, and after that there was trouble, and much drink and mad quarrels. Also it was that time Juan Gonsalvo was shot and died from it. Juana, his sister, came in secret for me while he could yet speak, and that was when–”

She halted, closing her eyes as if to shut out some horror. He thought she shrank from remembrance of how the secret of Soledad was given to her, for Juan must have been practically a dead man when he gave it up. After a moment she went on in the sad tone of the utterly hopeless.

“I speak of the mad quarrels of those two men, Ramon, but it was never of that I had fear. The fear came each time the quarrel was done, and they again swore to be friends, for in the new ‘friend hours’ of drinking, strange things happened, strange wagers and strange gifts.”

Again she paused, and this time she lifted her eyes to Rotil.

“Always I hated the German. I never carried a blade until after his eyes followed me! He tried to play the prince, the great gentleman, with me–a girl of the hills! Only once he touched my hand, and I scoured it with sand afterwards while José laughed. But the German did not laugh,–he only watched me! Once when José was in a rage with me Conrad said he could make of me a great lady in his own land if I would listen. Instead of listening I showed him my knife. After that God only knows what he told against me, but José became bitter–bitter, and jealous, and spies always at my back!

“So Lucita and Mariano and I made plans. They were to marry, and we three would steal away in secret and cross the border. That was happiness to plan, for my life–my life was hell, so I thought! But I had not yet learned what hell could be,” she confessed drearily.

“Tell me,” he said very gently. Those who thought they knew “El Gavilan,” the merciless, would not have recognized his voice at that moment.

“No, I had not learned,” she went on drearily. “I thought that to carry a knife for myself made all safe–I did not know! I told you Juana Gonsalvo came for me very secretly to hear the last words of Juan. But I did not tell you we lived in the casita, little Lucita and I. It is across a garden from the hacienda, and was once a priest’s house; that was in the days of the mother of José. It is very sweet there under the rose vines, and it was sanctuary for us. When José and the German had their nights of carouse we went there and locked ourselves in. There were iron bars on the high windows, and shutters of wood inside, so we were never afraid. I heard Conrad tell José he was a fool not to blow it up with dynamite some day of fiesta. It was the night after their great quarrel, and it was a terrible time. They were pledging friendship once more in much wine. Officers from the town were at the hacienda with women who were–well, I would not go in, and José was wild. He came to the casita and called threats at me. I thought the German was with him, for he said Conrad was right, and the house would be blown up with the first dynamite he could spare,–but threats were no new thing to us! I tried to soothe little Lucita by talk of the wedding, and all the pretty bride things were taken out of the chest and spread on the bed; one rebosa of white I put over her shoulders, and the child was dancing to show me she was no longer afraid–!

“That was when Juana came to the window. I knew her voice and opened the door. I did not want Lucita frightened again, so I did not let her know a man was dying–only that a sick person wanted me for a little–little minute, and I would be back.

“I knew Juan Gonsalvo had been killed because he had been trusted far enough,–I knew it! That thought struck me very hard, for I–I might be the next, and I wanted first to send those two children happily out of reach of sorrow. Strange it is that because she was first, the very first in my heart, I went out that door in the night and for the first time left her alone! But that is how it was; we had to be so quick–and so silent–and it was her hand closed the door after us, her hand on the bolt!

“Juan Gonsalvo had only fought for life until he could see me, and then the breath went. No one but I heard his whispers of the door of the picture here in Soledad. He told me his death was murder, and his last word was against Perez. It was only minutes, little minutes I was there, and the way was not far, but when I went back through the garden the door of the casita stood wide and light streamed out! I do not know how I was sure it was empty, but I was, and I seemed to go dead inside, though I started to run.

“To cross that garden was like struggling in a dream with bands about my feet. I wake with that dream many nights–many!–I heard her before I could reach the path. Her screams were not in the casita, but in the hacienda. They were–they were–terrible! I tried to go–and then I knew she had broken away–I could see her like a white spirit fly back towards the light in the open door. The man following her tripped in some way and fell, and I leaped over him to follow her. We got inside and drew the bolt.

“Then–But there are things not to be told–they belong to the dead!

“Perez came there to the door and made demands for Conrad’s woman,–that is how he said it! He said she had gone to Conrad’s apartment of her own will and must go back. Lucita knelt at my feet in her torn bridal garment and told how a woman had come as Juana had come, and said that I wanted her. The child had no doubt, she followed, and–and it was indeed to that drunken beast they took her!

“José was also drunk, crazy drunk. He told me to stand away from that door for they were coming in, also that he had made gift of Lucita to his friend, and she must be given up. Then they began to fire guns in the lock! It seemed a long, long time she held to me there and begged me to save her, but it could not have been… The lock gave way, and only the bolt held. I clasped her close to me and whispered telling her to pray, but I never took my eyes off the door. When I saw it shaking, I made the sign of the cross over her, and the knife I had carried for myself found her heart quickly! That is how I took on me the shadow of murder, and that is why the priest threatens me with the fires of hell if I do not repent–and I am not repenting, Ramon.”