Chapter 15. The "Judas" Prayer At Mesa Blanca

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_ CHAPTER XV. THE "JUDAS" PRAYER AT MESA BLANCA

Isidro was right when he said Ramon Rotil slept but little, for the very edge of the dawn was scarce showing in the east when he opened his eyes, moved his wounded leg stiffly, and then lay there peering between half-shut eyelids at the first tint of yellow in the sky.

"Chappo," he said curtly, "look beyond through that window. Is it a band of horses coming down the mesa trail, or is it men?"

"Neither, my General, it is the women who are left of the rancherias of Palomitas. They come to do a prayer service at an old altar here. Once Mesa Blanca was a great hacienda with a chapel for the peons, and they like to come. It is a custom."

"What saint's day is this?"

"I am not wise enough, General, to remember all;--our women tell us."

"Um!--saint's day unknown, and all a pueblo on a trail to honor it! Call Fidelio."

There was a whistle, a quick tread, and one of the men of Palomitas stood in the door.

"Take two men and search every woman coming for prayers--guns have been carried under serapes."

"But, General----"

"Search every woman,--even though your own mother be of them!"

"General, my own mother is already here, and on her knees beyond there in the altar room. They pray for heart to ask of you their rights in Soledad."

"That is some joke, and it is too early in the morning for jokes with me. I'm too empty. What have Palomitas women to do with rights in Soledad?"

"I have not been told," said Fidelio evasively. "It is a woman matter. But as to breakfast, it is making, and the tortillas already baking for you."

"Order all ready, and a long stirrup for that leg," said the general, moving it about experimentally. "It is not so bad, but Marto can ride fasting to Soledad for giving it to me."

"But, my General, he asks----"

"Who is he to ask? After yesterday, silence is best for him. Take him along. I will decide later if he is of further use--I may--need--a--man!"

There was something deliberately threatening in his slow speech, and the guards exchanged glances. Without doubt there would be executions at Soledad!

Rotil got off the cot awkwardly, but disdaining help from the guards hopped to a chair against the wall between the two windows.

Isidro came in with a bowl of water, and a much embroidered towel for the use of the distinguished guest, followed by a vaquero with smoking tortillas, and Tula with coffee.

The general eyed the ornate drawnwork of the linen with its cobweb fingers, and grinned.

"I am not a bridegroom this morning, muchachita, and need no necktie of such fineness for my beauty. Bring a plainer thing, or none."

Tula's eyes lit up with her brief smile of approval.

"I am telling them you are a man and want no child things, my General," she stated firmly, "and now it proves itself! On the instant the right thing comes."

She darted out the door, bumping into Rhodes, and without even the customary "with your permission" ran past him along the corridor, and, suddenly cautious, yet bold, she lifted the latch of the guest room where she had seen what looked to her like wealth of towels,--and felt sure Dona Jocasta would not miss one of the plainest.

Stealthy as a cat she circled the bed, scarce daring to glance at it lest the lady wake and look reproach on her.

But she stepped on some hard substance on the rug by the wooden bench where the towels hung, and stooping, she picked it up, a little wooden crucifix, once broken, and then banded with silver to hold it solid. The silver was beautifully wrought and very delicate, surely the possession of a lady, and not a thing let fall by chance from the pocket of Valencia.

Tula turned to lay it carefully on the pillow beside the senora, and then stared at the vacant bed.

Only an instant she halted and thrust her hand under the cover.

"Cold,--long time cold!" she muttered, and with towel and crucifix she sped back to the sala where Rotil was joking concerning the compliment she paid him.

"Don't make dandies of yourselves if you would make good with a woman," he said. "Even that little crane of a muchacha has brain,--and maybe heart for a man! She has boy sense."

Kit, seeing her dart into the guest room, stood in his tracks watching for her to emerge. She gave him one searching curious look as she sped past, and he realized in a flash that his glance should have been elsewhere, or at least more casual.

She delivered the towel and retired, abashed and silent at the jests of the man she regarded with awe as the god-sent deliverer of her people. Once in the corridor she looked into Valencia's room, then in the kitchen where Valencia and Maria and other women were hastening breakfast, and last she sought Clodomiro at the corral.

"Where did you take her, and how?" she demanded, and the youth, tired with the endless rides and tasks of two days and nights, was surly, and looked his impatience. "She, and she, and she! Always women!" he grumbled. "Have I not herded all of them from over the mesa at your order? Is one making a slow trail, and must I go herding again?"

She did not answer, but looked past him at the horses.

"Which did the senora ride from Soledad?" she inquired, and Clodomiro pointed out a mare of shining black, and also a dark bay ridden by Marto.

"Trust him to take the best of the saddle herd," he remarked. "Why have you come about it? Is the senora wanting that black?"

"Maybe so; I was not told," she answered evasively. "But there is early breakfast, and it is best to get your share before some quick task is set,--and this day there are many tasks."

The women were entering the portal at the rear, because the chapel of the old hacienda was at the corner. There was considerable commotion as Fidelio enforced the order to search for arms;--if the Deliverer suspected treachery, how could they hope for the sympathy they came to beg for?

"Tell him there is nothing hidden under our rags but hearts of sorrow," said the mother of Fidelio. "Ask that he come here where we kneel to give God thanks that El Aleman is now in the power of the Deliverer."

"General Rotil does not walk, and there is no room for a horse in this door. Someone of you must speak for the others, and go where he is."

The kneeling women looked at each other with troubled dark eyes.

"Valencia will be the best one," said an old woman. "She lost no one by the pale beast, but she knows us every one. Marta, who was wife of Miguel, was always mother and spoke for us to the padre, or anyone, but Marta----"

She paused and shook her head; some women wept. All knew Marta was one who cried to them for vengeance.

"That is true," said Valencia. "Marta was the best, but the child of Marta is here, and knows more than we. She has done much,--more than many women. I think the daughter can speak best for the mother, and that the Deliverer will listen."

Tula had knelt like the others, facing a little shelf on the wall where a carven saint was dimly illuminated by the light of a candle. All the room was very dark, for the dawn was yet but as a gray cloak over the world, and no window let in light.

The girl stood up and turned toward Valencia.

"I will go," she said, "because it is my work to go when you speak, but the Deliverer will ask for older tongues and I will come back to tell you that."

Without hesitation she walked out of the door, and the others bent their heads and there was the little click-click of rosary beads, slipping through their fingers in the dusk. Among the many black-shawled huddled figures kneeling on the hard tiles, none noticed the one girl in the corner where shadows were deepest, and whose soft slender hands were muffled in Valencia's fringes.

Kit stood until he noted that the searching for arms did not include her, and then crossed the patio with Fidelio on his way to the corrals. If the black mare of Dona Jocasta could be gotten to the rear portal, together with the few burros of the older women, she might follow after unnoticed. The adobe wall at the back was over ten feet high and would serve as a shield, and the entire cavalcade would be a half mile away ere they came in range from the plaza.

He planned to manage that the mare be there without asking help of any Indian, and he thought he could do it while the guard was having breakfast. It would be easy for them to suppose that the black was his own. Thus scheming for beauty astray in the desert, he chatted with Fidelio concerning the pilgrimage of the Palomitas women, and the possibility of Rotil's patience with them, when Tula crossed the patio hurriedly and entered the door of the sala.

The general was finishing his breakfast, while Isidro was crouched beside him rewinding the bandage after a satisfactory inspection of the wound. The swelling was not great, and Rotil, eating cheerfully, was congratulating himself on having made a straight trail to the physician of Mesa Blanca; it was worth a lost day to have the healing started right.

He was in that complacent mood when Tula sped on silent bare feet through the sala portal, and halted just inside, erect against the wall, gazing at him.

"Hola! Nina who has the measure of a man! The coffee was of the best. What errand is now yours?"

"Excellency, it is the errand too big for me, yet I am the one sent with it. They send me because the mother of me, and Anita, my sister, were in the slave drive south, and the German and the Perez men carried whips and beat the women on that trail."

Her brave young heart seemed to creep up in her throat and choke her at thought of those whips and the women who were driven, for her voice trembled into silence, and she stood there swallowing, her head bent, and her hands crossed over her breast, and clasped firmly there was the crucifix she had found in the guest room. Little pagan that she was, she regarded it entirely as a fetish of much potency with white people, and surely she needed help of all gods when she spoke for the whole pueblo to this man who had power over many lives.

Rotil stared at her, frowning and bewildered.

"What the devil,--" he began, but Isidro looked up at him and nodded assent.

"It is a truth she is telling, Excellency. Her father was Miguel, once major-domo of this rancho. He died from their fight, and his women were taken."

"Oh, yes, that!--it happens in many states. But this German--who says the German and Perez were the men to do it?"

"I, Tula, child of Miguel, say it," stated the girl. "With my eyes I saw him,--with my ears I heard the sister call out his name. The name was Don Adolf. Over his face was tied a long beard, so! But it was the man,--the friend of Don Jose Perez of Soledad; all are knowing that. He is now your man, and the women ask for him."

"What women?"

"All the women of Palomitas. On their knees in the chapel they make prayers. Excellency, it robs you of nothing that you give them a Judas for Holy Week. I am sent to ask that of the Deliverer."

She slid down to her knees on the tiles, and looked up at him.

He stared at her, frowning and eyeing her intently, then chuckled, and grinned at the others.

"Did I not tell you she had the heart of a boy? And now you see it! Get up off your knees, chiquita. Why should you want a Judas? It is a sweetheart I must find for you instead."

"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 pass! 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," asserted 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 god, 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 shivered 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 hell? 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 God!" 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 damned 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?"

He held it out, and Valencia, who was nearest, caught sight of it.

"Ai! Tula!" she said in reproof, "you to take that when the poor----"

Tula flashed one killing look at her, and Valencia stopped dead, and turned an ashen gray, and Rotil watching!

"Ah--ha! I thought it!" he jeered. "Now whose trick is it to make me a fool? Come, sift this thing! You," to Valencia, "have looked on this before. Whose is it?"

"Senor--I----"

"So!" he said with a sort of growl in the voice, "something chokes you? Look at me, not at the others! Also listen:--if a lie is told to me, every liar here will go before a firing squad. Whose is this crucifix?"

Valencia's eyes looked sorrow on Tula, still under his hand, and then on the wood and silver thing held up before her. The sun was just rolling hot and red above the mountains, and Rotil's shaggy head was outlined in a sort of curious radiance as the light struck the white wall across the patio at his back. Even the silver of the crucifix caught a glimmer of it, and to Valencia he looked like the warrior padres of whom her grandmother used to tell, who would thunder hell's terrors on the frightened neophytes until the bravest would grovel in the dust and do penances unbelievable.

That commanding picture came between her and Rotil,--the outlaw and soldier and patriot. She stumbled forward with a pleading gesture towards Tula.

"Excellency, the child does no harm. She is a stranger in the house. She has picked it up perhaps when lost by the senora, and----"

"What senora?"

"She who is most sorrowful guest here, Excellency, and her arms still bruised from the iron chains of El Aleman."

"And her name?"

"Excellency, it is the woman saved from your man by the Americano senor here beside you. And,--she asked to be nameless while sheltered at Mesa Blanca."

"But not to me! So this is a game between you two--" and he looked from Tula to Kit with sinister threat in his eyes, "it is then your woman who----"

"Ramon--no!" said a voice from the far shadows, and the black shawled figure stood erect and cast off the muffling disguise. Her pale face shone like a star above all the kneeling Indians.

"God of heaven!" he muttered, and his hand fell from the shoulder of Tula. "You--you are one of the women who knelt here for vengeance?"

"For justice," she said, "but I was here for a reason different;--it was a place to hide. No one helped me, let the child go! Give these women what they ask or deny them, but send them away. To them I am nameless and unknown. You can see that even my presence is a thing of fear to them,--let them go!"

He stared at her across those frightened dark faces. It was true they drew away from her in terror; her sudden uprising was as if she had materialized from the cold tiles of the chapel floor. Kit noted that their startled eyes were wide with awe, and knew that they also felt they were gazing on a beauty akin to that of the pictured saints. Even the glimmer of the candle touching her perfect cheek and brow added to the unearthly appearance there in the shadows.

But Ramon Rotil gazed at her across a wider space than that marked by the kneeling Indian women! Four years were bridged by that look, and where the others saw a pale Madonna, he saw a barefooted child weaving flowers of the mountain for a shrine where poverty prevented a candle.

He had sold maize to buy candles, and shoes for her feet, and she had given him the little brown wooden crucifix.

Once in the height of her reign of beauty in the hacienda of Perez, a ragged brown boy from the hills had lain in wait for her under the oleanders, and thrust a tightly bound package of corn husks into her hand, and her maid regarded with amazement the broken fragments of a wooden cross so poor and cheap that even the most poverty stricken of the peons could own one, and her wonder was great that her mistress wept over the broken pieces and strove to fit them together again.

And now it lay in his hand, bound and framed in silver wires delicately wrought.

He had traveled farther than she during the years between, and the memento of the past made him know it.

"Ramon, let them go!" she repeated with gentle appeal.

"Yes," he said, taking a deep breath as if rousing from a trance, "that is best. Child--see to it, and have your way. Senor, will you arrange that the senora has what comfort there is here? Our horses wait, and work waits----"

He saw Valencia go with protecting, outstretched hands to Jocasta, and turned away.

Jocasta never moved. To save her friends from his rage she had spoken, and to her the big moment of humiliation dreamed of and feared had come and been lived through. He had seen her on her knees among all that brown herd made up of such women as his mother and her mother had been. From mistress of a palace on an estate large as many European kingdoms she had become an outcast with marks of fetters on her arms, while he was knelt to as a god by the simple people of the ranges, and held power of life and death over a wide land!

Kit could not even guess at all the tempestuous background of the drama enacted there in the chill of the chapel at sunrise, but the clash of those two outlaw souls suddenly on guard before each other, thrilled him by the unexpected. Rotil, profane, ruthless, and jeering, had suddenly grown still before the face of a woman from whom he turned away.

"Late! An hour late!" he grumbled, hobbling back to the plaza. "What did I tell you? Hell of women! Well, your damned little crane got what she started after--huh! Why did she lie?"

"Well, you know, General," said Kit doubtfully, "that the enmity between you and Jose Perez is no secret. Even the children talk of it, and wish success to you--I've heard that one do it! Dona Jocasta is of a Perez household, so it was supposed you would make prisoner anyone of their group. And Tula--well, I reckon Tula listened last night to some rather hard things the senora has lived through at Soledad, and knew she would rather die here than go back there."

Kit realized he was on delicate ground when trying to explain any of the actions of any of the black and tan group to each other, but he sought the safest way out, and drew a breath of relief at his success, for Rotil listened closely, nodding assent, yet frowning in some perplexity.

"Um! what does that mean,--rather die than go back?" he demanded. "No one has told me why the lady has come to Mesa Blanca, or what she is doing here. I don't see--What the devil ails you?"

For Kit stared at him incredulous, and whistled softly.

"Haven't you got it yet?" he asked. "Last night you joked about a girl Marto stole, and we stole from him again. Don't you realize now who that girl is?"

"Jocasta!"

It was the first time he had uttered her name and there was a low terrible note in his voice, half choked by smothered rage.

"But how could Marto,--or why should--" he began and then halted, checked by various conflicting facts, and stared frowningly at Rhodes who again strove to explain that of which he had little knowledge.

"General, I reckon Marto was square to your interests about everything but the woman Perez and Conrad sent north into the desert, and it was Marto's job to see that she never left it alive. Evidently he did not report that extra task to you, for he meant to save the woman for himself. But even at that, General, you've got to give him credit. He says she bewitched him, and he couldn't kill her, and he wouldn't let the others have her. Also he risked a whale of a beating up, and some lead souvenirs, in trying to save her, even if it was for himself. So you see, Marto was only extra human, and is a good man. His heart's about broke to think he failed you, and I'll bet he wouldn't fail you again in a thousand years!"

"Yes, you have the right of that," agreed Rotil. "I did not know; I don't know yet what this means about Perez and--and----"

"None of us do, General," stated Kit. "I heard Valencia say it must be something only a confessor could know,--but it must be rather awful at that! She was started north like an insane criminal, hidden and in chains. She explains nothing, but General, you have now the two men at Soledad who made the plan, and you have here Marto who was their tool--and perhaps--at Soledad--" he paused questioning.

"Sure! that is what will be done," decided Rotil. "See to it, you, after we are gone. Bring Dona Jocasta to Soledad with as much show of respect as can be mustered in a poor land, your girl and Isidro's wife to go along, and any comforts you can find. Yes, that is the best! Some way we will get to the bottom of this well. She must know a lot if they did not dare let her live, and Marto--well, you make a good talk for him, straight too--Marto will go with me. Tell no one anything. Make your own plans. By sunset I will have time for this mystery of the chains of Dona Jocasta. Be there at Soledad by sunset."

"At your command, General."

Then Chappo and Fidelio helped their leader into the saddle. Marto, crestfallen and silently anticipating the worst, was led out next; a reata passed around the saddle horn and circling his waist was fastened back of the saddle. His hands were free to guide his horse, but Chappo, with a wicked looking gun and three full cartridge belts, rode a few paces back of him to see that he made no forbidden use of them.

Kit watched them ride east while the long line of women of Palomitas took up the trail over the mesa to the north. Their high notes of a song came back to him,--one of those wailing chants of a score of verses dear to the Mexican heart. In any other place he would have deemed it a funeral dirge with variations, but with Indian women at sunrise it meant tuneful content.

Kit listened with a shiver. Because of his own vagrant airs they had called him "El Pajarito" when he first drifted south over Mexican trails,--but happy erratic tunefulness was smothered for him temporarily. Over the vast land of riches, smiling in the sun, there brooded the threats of Indian gods chained, inarticulate, reaching out in unexpected ways for expression through the dusky devotees at hidden shrines. The fact that occasionally they found expression through some perverted fragment from an imported cult was a gruesome joke on the importers. But under the eagle of Mexico, whose wide wings were used as shield by the German vultures across seas, jokes were not popular. German educators and foreign priests with Austrian affiliations, saw to that. The spiritual harvest in Mexico was not always what the planters anticipated,--for curious crops sprung up in wild corners of the land, as Indian grains wrapped in a mummy's robe spring to life under methods of alien culturists.

Vague drifting thoughts like this followed Kit's shiver of repulsion at that Indian joy song over the promise of a veritable live Judas. On him they could wreak a personal vengeance, and go honestly to confession in some future day, with the conviction that they had, by the sufferings they could individually and collectively invent for Judas, in some vague but laudable manner mitigated the sufferings of a white god far away whose tribulations were dwelt upon much by the foreign priesthood.

He sensed this without analysis, for his was not the analytical mind. What brain Kit had was fairly well occupied by the fact that his own devoted partner was the moving spirit of that damnable pagan Come, all ye--drifting back to him from the glorified mesa, flushed golden now by the full sun.

Clodomiro came wearily up from the corral. The boy had gone without sleep or rest until his eyes were heavy and his movements listless. Like the women of Palomitas he also had worked overtime at the call of Tula, and Kit wondered at the concerted activity--no one had held back or blundered.

"Clodomiro," he said passing the lad a cigarette and rolling one for himself from good new tobacco secured from Fidelio, "how comes it that even the women of years come in the night for prayers when you ride for them? Do they give heed to any boy who calls?"

Clodomiro gave thanks for the cigarette, but was too well bred to light it in the presence of an elder or a superior. He smelled it with pleasure, thrust it over his ear and regarded Rhodes with perfectly friendly and apparently sleepy black eyes.

"Not always, senor, but when Tula sends the call of Miguel, all are surely coming, and also making the prayer."

"The call of Miguel? Why--Miguel is dead."

"That is true, senor, but he was head man, and he had words of power, also the old Indians listened. Now Tula has the words, and as you see,--the words are still alive! I am not knowing what they mean,--the words,--but when Tula tells me, I take them."

"O Tippecanoe, and Tyler too!" hummed Kit studying the boy. "What's in a word? Do you mean that you take a trail to carry words you don't understand, because a girl younger than you tells you to?"

The boy nodded indifferently.

"Yes, senor, it is my work when it is words of old prayer, and Tula is sending them. It would be bad not to go, a quicksand would surely catch my horse, or I might die from the bite of a sorrilla rabioso, or evil ghosts might lure me into wide medanos where I would seek trails forever, and find only my own! Words can do that on a man! and Tula has the words now."

"Indeed! That's a comfortable chum to have around--not! And have you no fear?"

"Not so much. I am very good," stated Clodomiro virtuously. "Some day maybe I take her for my woman;--her clan talks about it now. She has almost enough age, and--you see!"

He directed the attention of Rhodes to the strips of red and green and pink calico banding his arms, their fluttering ends very decorative when he moved swiftly.

"Oh, yes, I've been admiring them. Very pretty," said Kit amicably, not knowing the significance of it, but conscious of the wide range one might cover in a few minutes of simple Sonora ranch life. From the tragic and weird to the childishly inane was but a step.

Clodomiro passed on to the kitchen, and Kit smoked his cigarette and paced the outer corridor, striving for plans to move forward with his own interests, and employ the same time and the same trail for the task set by Ramon Rotil.

Rotil had stated that the escort of Dona Jocasta must be as complete as could be arranged. This meant a duena and a maid at least, and as he had bidden Tula have her way with her "Judas," it surely meant that Tula must go to Soledad. Very well so far, and as Rotil would certainly not question the extent of the outfit taken along, why not include any trifles Tula and he chanced to care for? He remembered also that there were some scattered belongings of the Whitely's left behind in the haste of departure. Well, a few mule loads would be a neighborly gift to take north when he crossed the border, and Soledad was nearer the border!

It arranged itself very well indeed, and as Tula emerged from the patio smoothing out an old newspaper fragment discarded by Fidelio, and chewing chica given her by Clodomiro, he hailed her with joy.

"Blessed Indian Angel," he remarked appreciatively, "you greased the toboggan for several kinds of hell for us this day of our salvation, but your jinx was on the job, and turned the trick our way! Do you know you are the greatest little mascot ever held in captivity?"

But Tula didn't know what "mascot" meant, and was very much occupied with the advertisement of a suit and cloak house in the old Nogales paper in which some trader at the railroad had wrapped Fidelio's tobacco. It had the picture of an alluring lady in a dress of much material slipping from the shoulders and dragging around the feet. To the aboriginal mind that seemed a very great waste, for woven material was hard to come by in the desert.

She attempted an inquiry concerning that wastefulness of Americanas, but got no satisfactory reply. Kit took the tattered old paper from her hand, and turned it over because of the face of Singleton staring at him from the other side of the page. It was the account of the inquest, and in the endeavor to add interest the local reporters had written up a column concerning Singleton's quarrel with the range boss, Rhodes,--and the mysterious disappearance of the latter across the border!

There was sympathetic mention made of Miss Wilfreda Bernard, heiress of Granados, and appreciative mention of the efficient manager, Conrad, who had offered all possible assistance to the authorities in the sad affair. The general expression of the article was regret that the present situation along the border prevented further investigation concerning Rhodes. The said Rhodes appeared to be a stranger in the locality, and had been engaged by the victim of the crime despite the objections of Manager Conrad.

There followed the usual praise and list of virtues of the dead man, together with reference to the illustrious Spanish pioneer family from whom his wife had been descended. It was the first time Kit had been aware of the importance of Billie's genealogy, and remembering the generally accepted estimates of Spanish pride, he muttered something about a "rose leaf princess, and a Tennessee hill-billy!"

"It's some jolt, two of them!" he conceded.

Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are!

"They say bunches of stars and planets get on a jamboree and cross each other's trail at times, and that our days are rough or smooth according to their tantrums. Wish I knew the name of the luminary raising hell for me this morning! It must be doing a highland fling with a full moon, and I'm being plunked by every scattered spark!" _

Read next: Chapter 16. The Secret Of Soledad Chapel

Read previous: Chapter 14. The Hawk Of The Sierras

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