“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 Doña 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 Doña 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.