Dinner was announced for the señor, and the women showed him welcome by placing before him the most beautiful repast they could arrange quickly, chile con carne, frijoles, tortillas, and a decanter of Sonora wine––a feast for a king!
After he had eaten, tobacco was brought him from some little hidden store, and Isidro gave him the details of the slave raid of Palomitas, and Sonora affairs in general. Kit was careful to state that he has been prospecting in the mountains and out of touch with ranch people, and it must be understood that all Isidro could tell would be news to a miner from the desert mountains. And he asked if General Rotil also collected stock from the ranch of Soledad.
Whereupon Isidro told him many things, and among them the wonder that Soledad had been left alone––the saints only knew why! And Juan Gonsalvo, the foreman at Soledad, had helped with the slave raid, and was known in Palomitas where they took girls and women and men as well, even men not young! Miguel, the major-domo, was taken with his wife and two daughters, the other men were young. The curse of God seemed striking Sonora. A new foreman was now at Soledad, Marto Cavayso, a hard man and,––it was said, a soldier, but he evidently got tired of fighting and was taking his rest by managing the horse herds of Soledad.
“Doesn’t look like rest to me,” observed Kit. “The Soledad trail looks pretty well kicked into holes, with wagons, mules, and horsemen.”
Isidro volunteered his opinion that work of the devil was going forward over there.
“Juan Gonsalvo and El Aleman were stealing women in Sonora, and driving them the south trail for a price,” he stated. “But what think you would be the price for a woman of emerald eyes and white skin carried up from the south under chains, and a lock to the chain?”
“I reckon you are dreaming the lock and chain part of it, Isidro,” returned Kit. “Only murderers travel like that.”
“Si, it is so. There at Soledad it is heard. A killing was done in the south and Soledad is her prison. But she is beautiful, and the men are casting lots as to whose she shall be when the guard is gone south again to Don José Perez.”
“Ah! they are Don José’s men, are they? Then the prisoner is guarded by his orders?”
“Who knows? They tell that she is a lost soul, and fought for a knife to kill herself, and the padre makes prayers and says hell will be hers if she does. Elena, who is cook, heard him say that word, and Elena was once wife to my brother, and she is telling that to Clodomiro who makes an errand to take her deer meat, and hear of the strangers. He saw the woman, her bracelets are gold, and her eyes are green. The padre calls her Doña Jocasta. I go now and give drink to that burro and make him happy.”