“One man likes the smell of gold as well as another, and where there is honey, the bees gather.
At headquarters they had inquiries about a certain renegade knight of Malta, so the captain was called in for questioning on both counts.
Unhappily for them, and for himself, he wasn’t as tough a man as he imagined, and he didn’t survive the questioning.
“All they succeeded in getting from him was that he knew nothing, had hidden nothing, and was being persecuted by the knights of Malta because he knew their secrets.
“The renegade died, but appended to the report on the case was information to the effect that he was believed to have hidden the gold in a church or mission chapel.” “I knew none of this!” “It all happened long ago. I learned of it when I heard talk of it one night in France.
Several of us were discussing lost treasures and vanished cities, the way people will.
“One of the young men was from Madrid, and he knew the whole story. Later, from curiosity, we investigated a little.” “But it was gone! My father learned somehow, or figured out, where the deserted church was, but the treasure was gone and even the few things he found were well hidden. Father believed the treasure had been taken out by night and the men taking it hadn’t known they’d left anything.” “Probably. But the story doesn’t end there.
The two men who got it recruited a bunch of Indians and struck off to the north. That was very early… before Anza went to colonize New Mexico. The two men fled, and there far to the north one killed the other. Later he and several of his party were themselves killed by Indians.” “And then?” “That’s where you come in, if you know where the treasure is, and if it’s still there.” The wind stirred the flames, and they whipped angrily. I added a few sticks, listening for the others. Out in the night a wolf howled… a wild, lonely sound in the darkness.
“It’s been two hundred years!” she whispered.
“A long time. But out here, time has little meaning.
Of course, it depends on where it’s hidden. A riverbank now… that would be bad. Rivers change course, wash away their banks. Most other places it would be hard to find.” I glanced at her. “He wasn’t killed near here, you know.
It was away over east of here, near a great settlement of Indians.” “I know. That’s what they said.” “It wasn’t true?” “No. The story is that the two officers, Francisco de Leyva Bonilla and Antonio Gutierrez de Humana, started from Nuevo Vizcaya and went to a pueblo near San Ildefonso, or perhaps actually where that town now stands. Then they started east for the buffalo plains, intending to go north to the French settlements in Quebec. They had a fight and Humana stabbed Leyva to death. Humana was eventually killed at or near the Great Settlement, which was far out on the plains to the east, but he’d buried the treasure before the Indians took him east.
“They’d surrounded him, moved in on him, and although he wasn’t actually a prisoner, he knew it amounted to that, so he buried what he had, intending to return for it. Of course, they killed him and he never returned.” “Do you know where the treasure is? We have a map, but it’s not complete. Purposely so, I believe.” “We should reach the place any day now,” she said evasively. But I thought she had answered my question… she knew!
We had talked long, and the others had been of no mind to disturb us. One of the men gathered leaves for a bed for Lucinda and she spread her blankets over them. I listened to the night, and I was not at ease. I remembered the face of the man I had seen… and it was not a good face.
CHAPTER 12
Dawn broke slowly under a lowering sky, heavy with clouds. Huddled over our fire, we cooked our food, left it to pack our horses and saddle up, all of us sour-faced and wary.
Trouble was upon us and our every instinct spoke of it.
The coffee tasted good, and under the warmth of it and the comfort of the blaze, our spirits rose. Solomon Talley suddenly got up. “Do you stay quiet,” he said. “I want to look about.” Shanagan threw his dregs on the ground.
“I’ll ride along,” he said.
I had told them we were getting close, and they were ready for it. Cusbe Ebitt, a silent man most of the time, stopped beside Lucinda. “Do you not worry, miss. We’ll see you safely to the States or wherever you wish, and with whatever is yours.” He glanced around. “I speak for all here.” “You do, indeed,” Degory Kemble said.
“We ride into Indian country,” Isaac Heath said, “and they’ll be many, we’ll be few.
Bob, I’ll hope you rest easy on the trigger and invite no trouble. I know how you feel about Indians.” “I’m no fool, Isaac. I’ll invite nothing, but if some Indian should cross my path on the way to the Happy Hunting Ground, I might give him an assist.” “We are all on the way,” I commented gently. “A man is born beside the road to death.
To die is not so much, it is inevitable. The journey is what matters, and what one does along the way. And it’s not that he succeeds or fails, only that he has lived proudly, with honor and respect, then he can die proudly.” “It’s no wonder we call him Scholar,” Kemble said dryly.
Jorge Ulibarri had been standing beyond the fire, and now he spoke. “I think they wait for us.” Kemble looked around at him. “Ambush?” “No. Not yet. I think they know a little where the gold is, but not enough. I think they hang back, waiting for us to find it, and when we do, they’ll come to take it from us.” “He makes a lot of sense,” Bob Sandy said. “Boy, when this is all over if you want to ride with me, you can.” “Thank you. I must see the se@norita to safety. It is a trust.” He glanced at the ground. “Not many men have trusted me. Se@nor Falvey did.” He looked around at us, puzzled. “I do not know if I am a man of honor, but he considered me so, and in this case at least, I must be.” “Like I said,” Bob Sandy said, “anytime you want to ride with me. The offer stands.” A brief spatter of rain fell. Wind whipped the leaves and the grass. “We’re going to get wet. We might as well get wet movin’ as settin’.” Ebitt got to his feet, tearing at the last bit of buffalo meat on his stick.
We put out our fire, and left the last of the coals to the rain. I went to my horse and swept the saddle free of water with my palm. Then I put a foot in the stirrup and swung to the saddle.
The others mounted, but we lingered briefly, wanting Talley and Shanagan to be with us.
“They’ll foller,” Sandy said. “We’d best move.” The way led up a draw between low, grassy hills. Before us the land grew rough, off to our right lay a vast sweep of plains, rolling gently away to an horizon lost in cloud. Huge thunderheads bulked high, a tortured dark blue mass that seemed to stir and move, but flat beneath where lightning leaped earthward.
More spattering drops fell, but we rode along, feeling the hard smack of the big drops on our slickers, keeping our guns under cover, fearful of dampened powder. As we moved, all were aware of those who followed, and each in his own mind was assessing the risk to himself and the party.
The draw narrowed, the walls were now steep, tufted with brush and occasional cedars, but craggy with outcroppings of rock. A trickle of water ran down the draw past us, a widening trickle that increased. Heavy rain was falling somewhere ahead of us and the draw became a canyon that narrowed considerably.
Degory Kemble drew rein. “We’d best hunt ourselves a way out of this. If we get caught in a rush of water, we’d be swept away, drowned without a chance.” My horse walked forward. “I think I see something ahead,” I suggested. “There… back of that boulder.” It appeared to be a trail of sorts, mounting the bank, then angling on toward the lip of the canyon.
“We’ll be out in the open,” Kemble said dubiously.
“Better in the open than drowned,” Ebitt said grimly. “Let’s try it.” The horse I had from Walks-By-night was a good one, so I turned him at once to the bank. He started up, scrambled on the shelving surface, then dug in and got to a place where he could walk. Soon the footing was better, and in a few minutes I had topped out on the lip of the canyon.