“Come in,” he took her roughly by the arm. She would wake up the camp with her crying. He put her in a chair. “Now tell your story.” The woman had got to be a nuisance. He couldn’t have her coming around like this. He had seen that look in the girl’s eyes—the Mexican’s rocking grief was theatric. He wouldn’t have her coming around. It didn’t look right—“Murdered? Who did you say was murdered?”
She lifted a face, frightened into haggardness. “Maldonado and the girl.”
The night was stripped to the tragedy. “You found them?”
Her face was lifted imploringly to his. “The señor knew best. I should never have gone. Will they come after me? Will they come and take me?” Her terror was physical. Her teeth were chattering. She was exhausted from running. She had stumbled, blindly, the distance between the camp and her home. “Oh, señor, it was not I. By the Mother of Christ, it was not I.”
Rickard was not sure. Her fear made him suspect her. “Who was it, you think?”
“Felipe,” she gasped.
“But they took him to Ensenada, you said;” Rickard was inclined to think the murderer was before him.
“No, señor. He got away from the rurales—he came back. He went home—there was no one there. Some one told him where she had gone. He came to Maldonado’s. Lucrezia, the eldest, opened the gate. He was terrible, she said. He rushed past her. And when he came out, his hands were red. The children heard cries. They were afraid to go in. I got there last night. I went in. They were not quite cold—I was afraid to stay. It would look like me, señor. I made the children stay behind. They could not run so fast.”
“How do you know it was Felipe?” sternly asked Rickard.
“A long scar, señor, from here to here,” she motioned from lip to ear. “Lucrezia had seen him. Will they take me, señor?” She was a wreck of terror.