CHAPTER VIII
THE TOLTEC IDOL
"I was twenty-five when your mother died," this page began. "I had alittle ranch in the Pecos valley near Twin Pine crossing, and I hadjust begun to taste prosperity. After your mother died things began togo wrong. It didn't take me long to conclude that she had beenresponsible for what success I had had, and that without her I couldn'thope to keep things together. I didn't try very hard; I'll admit that.I just gradually let go all holds and began to slip--began to driftback into the sort of company I'd kept before I met your mother. Theywere not bad fellows, you understand--just the rakehelly, reckless sortthat keep hanging on to the edge of things and making a living by theirwits. I'd come West without any definite idea of what I wanted to do,and I fell in with these men naturally and easily, because they were ofmy type.
"I had three intimates among them--a tall, clean-limbed fellow with thebluest and steadiest eyes I ever saw in a man, who called himself'Nebraska'; a rangy Texan named Quint Taylor, who maintained thatmanual labor was a curse and quoted the Scriptures to prove it; and TomTaggart. Tom and I were thick. I liked him, and he'd done things forme that seemed to prove that he thought a lot of me. He didn't like ita little bit when I married your mother--her name was Mary Lannon, andI'd got acquainted with her while riding for a few months for herfather, who owned a ranch near Eagle Pass, close to the Rio Grande.She was white, boy, and so were her folks, and you can be proud of her.And if she had lived you could be proud of me--she'd have kept onmaking me a man.
"Taggart didn't like the idea of me getting hooked up. He didn't wantto break up the old associations. He and the others hung around for ayear, waiting for something to turn up, and when your mother died itwasn't long before I was back with them. I left you in care of JaneConnor--her husband, Dave, owned the Diamond Dot ranch, which adjoinedmine.
"During the year the boys had been knocking around without me they'dfallen in with an Indian from Yucatan, from the tribe called theToltecs. This Indian called himself Queza--he'd been exiled because hewas too lazy to work. The boys got him drunk one night, and he blabbedeverything he knew about his tribe--how rich it was; how they'ddiscovered a diamond mine, and that gold was so common that they usedit to make household ornaments. His story got the boys excited andthey pumped him dry. They found out where his tribe lived, how to getthere, and all that.
"Queza told them that the diamonds wouldn't be hard to get, that therewere altar idols and ornaments in a big cave which was hollowed out ofthe face of a rock cliff, and that there was a bridge over to it, andthat the cave wasn't guarded because the tribe had a superstitious fearof the priests who had charge of the idols and things, and that thepeople didn't care for gold and diamonds, anyway, because they were socommon.
"The boys had got all this out of Queza about a month before I sold outand joined them, and they'd rustled some money somewhere, and hadeverything fixed up to go to Yucatan to bring home some of that goldand diamonds. They wanted me to go along. I was in that frame of mindin which I didn't care much about what happened to me, and they didn'thave to argue long. We dropped down the Rio Grande to a little placeon the Gulf coast near where Brownsville is now. We bought a littleboat from a fisherman--she wasn't more than thirty feet long and didn'tlook like she could stand much weather; but Nebraska, who'd told usthat he'd done a little sailing on the California coast when he was alot younger than he was then, said she'd stand anything we was likelyto get in the Gulf. So we stocked her with provisions and water tolast a month or so, and Nebraska pointed her nose toward Yucatan.
"I didn't think then what a rank job it was that we were going to do,but it won't do me any harm in your eyes to say that after we'd gotstarted and I began to realize what it all meant, I was ashamed. Ifelt like a sneak and a coward all through the deal, but I couldn'tback out after I'd started, and so I went through with it.
"We run into a spell of bad weather and had to hug the coast mightyclose, and it was two weeks before we pulled into Campeche Bay, on thenorthwest coast of Yucatan. We worked the boat about half a mile up alittle creek four or five miles south of Campeche, and worked half aday hiding her, so that she'd be there when we got back. Then, takingwhat grub was left, we struck out for the interior. It won't be anyuse telling you about that journey--you couldn't imagine, and Icouldn't begin to tell you, what a miserable, slow, tortuous affair itwas. It gets hot in New Mexico, but we got a taste of hell in thatYucatan jungle. That country wasn't built for a white man.
"So I'm not going to try to tell you about the trip. We were tough andeager, and we stuck it out, traveling mostly by night, setting ourcourse by the stars, about which I knew something. But we were a weekgoing a hundred miles, and we were beginning to get into that frame ofmind where we were noticing one another's faults and getting not a bitbackward in talking about them, when one night at dusk we got a glimpseof the place we were looking for.
"Queza had called the place a town, and maybe that name fits it as wellas another. It made me dizzy to look at it. We'd been climbing theslope of a mountain all afternoon--traveling in the daytime now,because we were getting near the end of our journey--Nebraska in thelead, the rest trailing him. We saw Nebraska stop and duck back intosome brush. Then we all sneaked up to him and got our first look atthe town.
"It looked to me as though the place had been made to hide in. Themountain dropped away below us, straight down about a hundred feet, asmooth rock wall. Another wall of rock joined it on the right, makinga big L. There was a level that began at the two walls and extendedboth ways for probably half a mile, until it met the slope of the otherside of the mountain. It was nothing but two shoulders, joined, on thetop of the mountain.
"Just below us there was a break in the level--a wide gash about fiftyfeet across, so deep that we couldn't see the bottom. There was aledge on our side about three or four feet wide, and a bridge stretchedfrom it across the canyon. We decided that the bridge was the oneQueza had told the boys about--it led to the cave where the treasurewas kept. We laid there for an hour, watching. The buildings were allhuddled together--a lot of flat, brown adobe houses. We could see thenatives moving down among them, but none of us noticed anything unusualgoing on until Taggart calls our attention.
"'Did you notice?' he said.
"'Notice what?' we all answered.
"'That they're all women down there--I ain't seen a man!'
"That was a fact. There didn't seem to be a man anywhere about. Wetalked it over and concluded that we'd got there at a most advantageoustime. We decided that the men were away, on a hunt, most probably, andafter we'd watched a while longer we decided that we'd sneak down someway and go after the treasure about midnight. We figured they'd all besleeping about that time. After dark they lit fires and sat aroundthem.
"We watched until about eleven--until we saw that nearly all the fireshad gone out--and then we sneaked down the slope of the mountain. Wedidn't make any noise; we were silent and slippery as ghosts as we madeour way through the timber on the slope. It was slow work, though; thewoods were full of tangled vines and prickly bushes, and we got clawedup considerable and had all we could do to keep from cussing out loudwhen a thorn or something would rip a cheek open. It was blacker thanany night I've ever seen before or since; we couldn't see a foot ahead,and the sounds we heard in the woods didn't make us feel any toocomfortable, for all we'd got used to living in the open. We knew, ofcourse, that the sounds came from birds and bats and moths and such,but when a man is out on a job like that his nerves are not what theyare at other times--every sound seems unusual and magnified. I didn'tlike so much silence from the village down below us--it seemed tooquiet; and it appeared to me that the noises we heard in the woods weremost too continuous to be caused by only us four. We went in singlefile, one man almost touching the other, to be sure we'd all staytogether. I'd hear a bird go whizzing away at a distance, and itappeared to me that there was no call for it to light out with us twoor three hund
red feet away from it; and then there were queer noiseswhich I couldn't just place as coming from birds. I don't know why Inoticed these things, but I did, just the same, though I didn't sayanything to the other boys, because they'd probably thought I waslosing my nerve. And, besides, there wasn't time to talk.
"It took us more than an hour to reach the level where the village was,and it was long after midnight when we, keeping in the shadow of thecliff, started toward the bridge over the canyon, which led to the cavewhere we thought we'd find the treasure.
"We'd got pretty near the bridge, Taggart and me in the lead, Nebraskaand Taylor stringing along behind, when I heard a sudden scuffling andlooked around. It wasn't so dark on the level as it had been in thewoods, and I saw a dozen dark figures grouped around Nebraska andTaylor. The dark figures were all about us, and more were coming fromthe huts, all yelling like devils. And they were men, too; they'd beenhiding in the huts; they'd discovered us the day before and suspectedwhat we came for. I found that out later.
"Well, for a few minutes there was plenty of excitement. Taylor andNebraska had got pretty well behind us, and the Toltecs had cut themoff. Taggart showed yellow. I started back to help Nebraska andTaylor, who had their knives out--I could see them shining--whenTaggart grabbed me.
"'Let's run for the bridge, you fool!' he said. 'It's every man forhimself now!'
"While I was scuffling with Taggart, trying to get away from him andget back to the boys, a figure detached itself from the bunch aroundthem and came flying toward us. It was a woman, I could see that in aninstant. Taggart saw her coming, too; he must have known it was awoman, but he pulled out his knife, and when she came close enough tous he drove at her with it. He missed her because I shoved him away.He fell, and, while he was on the ground, the woman--or girl, becauseshe wasn't more than eighteen or nineteen--grabbed me by the arm andjabbered to me in Spanish, of which I'd learned a little.
"'They're going to kill all of you!' she said. 'They've been watchingyou for two days. They left me to watch you yesterday. I don't wantthem to kill you--I like you! Come!'
"She pulled at me, trying to drag me toward the bridge. I didn't haveany objections to her liking me as much as she pleased, for she was abeauty--I found that out afterward, of course; but though I couldn'tsee her face very well just them, I liked her voice and knew she mustbe good to look at. But I didn't like the idea of leaving the otherboys, and told her so.
"'You'll all be killed, anyway,' she said, all excited. 'They might aswell die now as later. They'll kill you, too, if you go back!'
"That was logic, all right, but I'd have gone back anyway if I hadn'theard Nebraska and Taylor working their guns just then. The Toltecsbroke and scattered--some of them. Three or four of them couldn'tafter the boys began to shoot. Soon as the Toltecs broke away alittle, Nebraska and Taylor made for where we stood. I saw them comingand told the girl to lead us. The three of us--the girl, Taggart, andme--got to the bridge, which was a light, flimsy, narrow affair made oftwo long, straight saplings lashed together with vines, with a coupleof strips of bark for a bottom--and crossed it. Then we stood on theledge in front of the mouth of the cave, watching Nebraska and Taylor.They were coming for all they were worth, shooting as they ran andkeeping the bunch of Toltecs at a respectable distance, though theToltecs were running parallel with them, trying to bring them down witharrows.
"Nebraska and Taylor made the bridge. They had got about half way overwhen a dozen or so of the Toltecs threw themselves at the end of thebridge which rested on the village side of the canyon, grabbed hold ofit, and pulled it off the ledge on our side. I yelled to the boys andjumped for the end of the bridge. But I was too late. The bridgebalanced for an instant, and then the end on which the boys werestanding started to sink. Nebraska saw what was coming, off and jumpedfor the ledge on which we were standing. He missed it by five feet.There wasn't a sound from his lips as he shot down into the awfulblackness of the canyon. I got sick and dizzy, but not so sick that Icouldn't see what was happening to Taylor. Taylor didn't jump for theledge. He turned like a cat and grabbed a rail of the bridge, tryingto climb back to the level. He'd have made it, too, but the Toltecswouldn't let him. They jabbed at him with their spears and arrows andthrew knives at him. One of the knives struck him in the shoulder, andwhen I heard him scream I pulled my guns and began to shoot across thecanyon. I hadn't thought of it before; there are times when a man'sbrain refuses to work like he'd like to have it. But the Toltecsdidn't mind the shooting a little bit.
"Three or four of them got hit and backed away from the edge of thecanyon, but there were enough others to do what they were trying to do,and they did it. I stood there, helpless, and saw them shove Tayloroff the bridge with their spears. When he finally let go and wentturning over and over down into the black hole, my whole insides fannedup into my throat. That sensation has never left me; I wake up nightsseeing Taylor as he let go of the bridge, watching him sink, tumblingover and over into that black gash, and I get sick and dizzy just as Idid that night.
"But just then I didn't have much of a chance to be sick long. While Iwas standing there wondering what to do I saw a Toltec priest come outof the cave. He had a spear in his hand and was sneaking up onTaggart--who stood there almost fainting from fright. There was murderin the priest's eyes; I saw it and bent my gun on him. The triggersnapped on dead cartridges, and I yanked out my knife. I'd have beentoo late, at that. But the girl saw the priest, and she dodged behindhim and gave him a shove. He pitched out and went head first down intothe canyon.
"The Toltecs on the other side were watching, and they saw the priestgo. Until now they hadn't shot at us, probably afraid of hitting thegirl, but when they saw her push the priest over the edge of the canyonthey saw that her sympathies were with us, and they let drive at uswith their arrows. We were all slightly wounded--not enough tomention--and we got back into the cave where their arrows couldn'treach us. Three or four times the Toltecs tried to swing the bridgeback into position, but they couldn't make it because there was no oneon our side to help them, and Taggart and me made things mightyunpleasant for them with our sixes. They finally went away and held acouncil of war, which seemed to leave them undecided. They evidentlyhadn't figured on the girl turning traitor. If she hadn't they'd havegot me and Taggart in short order.
"We'd got where the treasure was, all right, but it was a mighty badoutlook for us. We were kind of anxious about the bridge, being afraidthe Toltecs would get it back into place; but the girl, who calledherself Ezela, showed us that getting the bridge back wasn't possiblewithout help from our side. She said that the priest she'd dumped downinto the canyon was the only one with the tribe at the time; the othershad gone to a distant village. She said, too, that there was a secretpassage from the cave; she'd discovered it, and no one but her and thepriests knew anything about it, but that the Toltecs would send runnersfor the priests and we'd have to get out before they came, or they'dlay for us at the outlet.
"Well, we hustled. We felt bad about Nebraska and Taylor, and weredetermined not to leave without some of the treasure, and after Ezelashowed us where it was I kept her busy talking while Taggart got aboutas much as he could carry. Ezela offered no objections; on the otherhand, when Taggart came back she told me to get some of the treasuretoo. Taggart hadn't taken enough to miss; there were millions ofdollars' worth of gold and diamonds in the room, where they'd raised akind of an altar, and I had my choice.
"I took some of the gold, but what attracted me--not because it waspretty, but because I saw in a minute that it was valuable--was ahideous image about six inches high. I had had an idea all along thatQueza had been lying about the diamonds, but when I saw the image Iknew he'd told the truth. There were about a hundred diamonds on theimage, stuck all around it, the image itself being gold. The diamondsran from a carat to seven or eight carats, and there was no questionabout them being the real thing. I stuck the thing into a hip pocket,figuring that w
ith the few other ornaments I had I would have plenty tocarry. Then I went back to where Ezela and Taggart were waiting for me.
"Ezela led us through a long, narrow passage, down some steps toanother passage, and pretty soon we were sneaking along this and Ibegan to get a whiff of fresh air. In a little while we foundourselves on a narrow ledge in the canyon, about thirty or forty feetbelow the level where the bridge had been, and it was so dark downthere that we couldn't see one another.
"Ezela whispered to us to follow her, and to be careful. We had to becareful, and after what had happened, crawling along that ledge wasn'tthe most cheerful job in the world. It would have been a ticklishthing to do in the daytime, but at night it was a thousand times worse.I kept thinking about poor Taylor and Nebraska, and there were timeswhen I felt that I just had to yell and jump out into the black holearound us. Taggart showed it worse than me. It took us an hour totraverse that ledge. We'd strike a short turn where there wouldn't bemore than six or eight inches of ledge between us and eternity, and wecouldn't see a thing--I've thought since that maybe it was a good thingwe couldn't. But we could feel the width of the ledge with our feet,and there were times when my legs shook under me like I had the ague.Taggart was pretty near collapse all the time. He kept mumbling tohimself, making queer little throaty noises and grabbing at me. Two orthree times I had to turn and talk to him, or he'd have let go allholds and jumped.
"We finally made solid ground, and it was a full hour before me orTaggart could get up after we'd sat down, we were that tuckered out.The girl didn't seem to mind it a bit; she told me she'd discovered thesecret passage that way. She'd been nosing around the mountain one dayand had crept along the edge, finding that it led to the treasure cave.
"There wasn't any time lost by us in getting away from that place.Ezela told us there wasn't any use hoping that Nebraska and Taylor werealive, because the canyon was over a thousand feet deep and there was aroaring river at the bottom. I don't like to think of that fall.
"Taggart objected to Ezela going with us, but I couldn't think ofletting her stay to be punished by her tribe for what she'ddone--they'd have burned her, sure, she said. Besides, I may as welltell the truth, I'd got to liking Ezela a good bit by this time. Shewas good to look at, and she'd been hanging around me, telling me thatshe wanted to go with us, and that she'd done what she had for my sake,because she liked me. All that sort of stuff plays on a man's vanitywhen it comes from a pretty girl, and it didn't take me long to decidethat I was in love with her and that, aside from humane reasons, Iought to take her with me. So I took her.
"We reached the boat after a week of heart-breaking travel, and wehadn't got over two miles out in the bay when we saw that we hadn'tleft any too soon. A hundred or so Toltecs were on the beach, doing awar dance and waving their spears at us. We had a pretty close call ofit for grub, but we made a little town on the gulf and stocked up, andthen we headed for the mouth of the Rio Grande. We camped one night aweek later on United States soil, and that night while I was asleepTaggart tried to knife me. I'd showed Taggart the diamond image oneday while Ezela was asleep in the boat, and he'd got greedy for it.Ezela screamed when she saw him getting close to me with the knife, andI woke in time to grab him before he got a chance to get the knife intome. He finally broke away, leaving all the treasure he'd broughtexcept a little that he had in his pockets--he'd had a bundle of itstrapped to his belt besides that--and I didn't see him again for fouryears.
"I took Ezela up the Pecos to the Connors', where I'd left you, boughta wagon and horses and a few things--bedding and grub and suchstuff--and lit out for New Mexico. I figured that I had enough of thekind of friends I'd been keeping, and I didn't want to be ridiculed fortying up to an Indian girl--white folks don't like to see that. I camehere and took up this land, figuring that I wouldn't be disturbed. I'dbeen here four years when Taggart came. I'd sold some of the treasure,but, for some reason which I've never been able to figure out, I keptthe idol. I think I was afraid to try to sell it on account of the bigdiamonds in it.
"I gave Taggart the treasure he'd left behind the night he tried toknife me, but he wasn't satisfied; he wanted more, wanted me to sellthe Toltec image and split with him. Of course I wouldn't do thatbecause of the way he'd acted, and he swore to get it some day.
"He took up some land about fifteen miles down the river, and he'sstayed there ever since. I've been afraid to go anywhere with the idolfor fear he'd waylay me and get it. One day while I was away somewherehe came here and told Ezela about me having the idol. From that timeon I led a life of hell. Ezela turned on me. She said I'd desecratedthe altars of her tribe, and she kept harping to me about it until Igot so I couldn't bear the sight of her.
"I discovered soon after we came here that I had been mistaken inthinking I had loved her--what I had thought was love was merelygratitude. My gratitude didn't last, of course, with her hounding mecontinually about the idol. Finally I discovered that she and Taggartwere plotting against me. Of course, Taggart was after the imagehimself. He didn't care anything about her religious scruples, but hemade her believe he sympathized with her, and made a fool of her. Itried to kill Taggart the day I found that out, but he got away, andafter that he never traveled alone and I didn't get another chance. Iordered Ezela away, but she said she wouldn't go until she got theimage. Many times I debated the idea of putting her out of the way,but there was always the knowledge in my mind that she had saved mylife, and I hadn't the heart to do it.
"You know how we lived. My life was constantly in danger, and I becamehardened, suspicious, brutal. You got the whole accumulation. Taggartand Ezela bribed my men to watch me. I had to discharge them. AfterEzela died I thought Taggart would leave me alone. But he didn't--hewanted the image. One day he and his boy Neal came over and ambushedme. They shot me in the shoulder. I was in the house, defendingmyself as best I could, when Malcolm Clayton came. By this time Bettyhas told you the rest and you know just what you can expect from theTaggarts.
"That is the whole history of the Toltec idol. I am not proud of mypart in the affair, but Tom Taggart must never have the idol. Rememberthat! I don't want him to have it! Neither do I want you to have it,or the money I leave, unless you can show that you forgive me. As Ihave said, I don't take your word for it--you must prove it.
"I know you are coming home, and I wish I could live to see you. But Iknow I won't. Don't be too hard on me. Your father,
"JAMES MARSTON."