Part 21 (1/2)

Then they stared in each others eyes as men who look on death unexpected, or witchcraft--or some of the experiences of this life for which there are no words, and Don Ruy laid his hand on the shoulder of the lad, and drew him in silence out of the shadow of the roofed entrance.

”It is good to be where the bright sun shows things as they are,” he decided. ”The shadows and silence of that place tied the tongue. How feel you now, Lad, as to the story of Don Teo the Greek and the seeds that were given to the maid as sacred medicine?”

”But--the man died--so says the padre--and the woman--”

Then they fell silent and each was thinking back over the trails of the desert, and their company of thirty men--and the care needed to find the way alive with all the help of provisions and of beasts.

”The woman had a greater journey and a more troublous one,”--said Don Ruy. ”These are clearly the fruits of Spanish gardens, but in some other way have they reached this land. It was made plain that the place of the palms where he left her was unknown leagues towards the western sea, and that the maid could only die in the desert.”

”He crossed this river in his travels before he saw the Indian maid of medicine charms,” reminded the secretary. ”Do you not recall the journeys with the war people? He may have bestowed upon others the seeds of other lands.”

Don Ruy drew a long breath, and then laughed.

”By our Lady!--You bring joy with that thought!” he said heartily.--”I made sure the Devil was alive and was working ahead on our trail when my eyes were startled by the offering of fruit and grain! You looked as if it might be your own hair was rising to stand alone! We are but children in the dark, Chico, and there come times when we have fear.

But your thought is the right thought, lad. Of a certainty he crossed this country; that there is no record is not so strange a thing--he was only another brown savage among many!”

They spoke together of the strangeness of their findings in the village--and its exceeding good arrangement with ladders to draw above in case of attack, and only one house--that of the doves and the fruit--into which one could walk from the court. All the others were as in the other villages--terraces, and the first terrace had doors only in the roof so that a blank adobe wall faced the court and the curious. Each great house with rooms by the score, and its height from two to five stories, was the home of many, and a fort in case of need.

While they commented on these things, two men came running swiftly through the gate from the Castilian camp. One was Jose, and it was Po-tzah who ran beside him. They went straight to the house of the dove cote, and Jose waited without while, after a few eager hurried words, the other slipped behind the twinkling arras of river reeds and sh.e.l.ls.

”What now?” asked Don Ruy coming up, and Jose showed fear at first and then spoke.

”It is your own horse to which it has happened, Excellency,” he said.

”The padre say it is not the fault of any one, for the bush is high there, and who could see through them? But it is the snake--the one you say has the castanets in the tail, and it has put the poison in the foot of your horse!”

Don Ruy swore an oath that was half a prayer, and the pert secretary did the first thing that was familiar since he was seen with the company--he laid his hand on Don Ruy's shoulder and felt that the horse lost was as a brother lost, and Chico had a fancy of his own to caress it, and even burnish the silver of his bridle.

”And--why come you here to this house?”

”Here is the one man who knows the ways of the snake--if he is not in prayer they think he may come--but not any man can know what the Po-Ahtun-ho may do--and the horse beautiful may die on our first day in Povi-whah!”

But the reeds with their copper and sh.e.l.l ta.s.sels tinkled, and Don Ruy looked to see the old medicine man of spells and charms come forth.

He saw a man young as himself and more tall. Almost naked he was, with only the white banda in which was a blue bird's feather--the girdle and moccasins. One glance he gave Don Ruy and his companion, bent his head ever so little in acknowledgement of their presence, and then ran beside his friend Po-tzah with the easy stride of the trained runner.

Whatever his knowledge of the snake might be, he waited for no words, but moved quickly.

Many men were about the animal and Don Diego had bound tightly a cord of rawhide about the knee, and water was being poured on the foot. But Te-hua and Castilian alike stood aside as the swift nude figure came among them--and without word or question went straight to the hurt animal.

The other natives had approached the four-footed creatures with a certain curiosity--if not awe, and there had been more than a little scattering of prayer meal when the mules were hobbled. The braying of one of them had caused terror in the hearts of the older men.

But this man took no heed of the groups of men or of animals. He led the injured steed out of the pool of water, and with a knife of the black flint cut the bandage--to the extreme distaste of Don Diego, who had been chief surgeon.

Then, still without words to the people, he did a strange thing, for he knelt there on the ground and leaned his shoulder against the leg of the horse, and slipped slowly, slowly down until his cheek touched the pastern, and his strong slender hands slid downward again and again over the leg of the animal while his lips moved as though in whispered speech to the ground itself.

No man spoke for a long time, but some of the elder men cast prayer meal that it fell on the kneeling savage and on the horse, and the animal reached down and rubbed its nose on his shoulder as if he had been its well known and long beloved master.

Curious were all the Castilians, but Juan Gonzalvo, who had spent time in speech with Yahn Tsyn-deh, was more than curious. Like a tiger cat above its prey he stood frowning at the silent ”medicine” of the naked worker in devilish arts.