Now the Father President came forward and proposed their salvation to them, in the name of “Christ, God and man, who died and was buried for the redemption of mankind.” Would they be saved?
They considered, and presently gave their answer. First, they desired to be instructed in all he had proposed; and second, if they liked what they learned, they would gladly follow his teachings; but third, if they did not like them, it would not do to be forced to accept something they did not understand.
The example of the apostles was before the Franciscans. It was enough. The Father President, Fray Alonso Martinez, rededicated his brother Franciscans in their calling, and assigned to them one by one the parishes over which each would preside. He called them forward in turn:
“Father Fray Francisco de Miguel”—and to him gave the province of Pecos that lay beyond the mountains to the east, and included forty towns, the roving peoples of the cow plains, and the great salines where the Indians went for salt;
“Father Fray Juan Claros”—and to him, all the towns of the Tigua language along the Rio del Norte to the south in number close to sixty;
“Father Juan de Rosas”—the province of the Keres language, on the river and westward, excepting Ácoma, which was assigned to another parish;
“Father Fray Cristóbal de Salazar”—the Tewa towns to the north;
“Father Fray Francisco de Zamora”—the province of the Picuries, and Taos, and the river towns to the north, together with the Apaches north and east of the snowy mountains;
“Father Fray Alonzo de Lugo”—the Jemez province of nine towns and all the Apaches west of the river;
“Father Fray Andres Corchado”—the city of Ácoma on its rock, the Sia province, and the towns of the Zuñis and Hopis far to the west.
Each was to go alone with only Indians to his parish, which was so vast that it could contain mountain, desert and river, all three; and so far from the comfort of familiar life and reassuring knowledge common to all, that a journey of many days by horse or weeks on foot would be needed to bring the priest from his parish to the capital.
They prayed at San Juan, received their commissions and, guided by Indians who had attended the Governor’s convocation, went forth into wilderness through their own human trepidation empowered by that which was greater than both.
Four other men left the colony soon after. They were horse thieves and deserters, unreconciled since the Aguilar mutiny. The Governor could not countenance insurrection and the loss of horses. He sent two captains, Pérez de Villagrá and Márques, to arrest the fugitives and bring them back. Expecting them to return in a day or two, the Governor waited at San Juan. But they did not come. He busied himself with organizing an expedition to go east to the buffalo plains, under the command of Vicente de Zaldívar, with “many droves of mares and other supplies,” which departed on September sixteen, to look for all that nobody before them had ever found. September passed, and the first days of October, and still the fugitives had not been returned in arrest. The Governor could wait no longer. He was ready to go forth himself to visit the salines east of the mountains, and then turn west across the river and explore possible trails to the South Sea where there were certain to be pearls. He left orders. Pérez de Villagrá was to overtake him after arriving at San Juan with the prisoners. Juan de Zaldívar would stay at San Juan in command until his brother Vicente returned, and then turning over the command to him, would set out with a mounted squad and ride to meet the Governor in the west.
The Governor left San Juan de Nuevo Mexico (as he headed his letters) on October sixth.
20.
A Dark Day in Winter
The Zaldívar brothers were reunited on the eighth of November, when Vicente returned to San Juan after fifty-four days of travel to and from the buffalo plains. He had seen nothing that earlier travellers had not seen, but he was the first to try to capture the buffalo herds into cottonwood corrals which he built near a river. He could not take the cows and bulls, but calves were captured. He thought to domesticate and raise them. But they all “died of rage” within an hour. He brought none back.
Juan now set about arranging to leave with thirty soldiers to reinforce the Governor in the west. In a few days Captain Márques returned to the river capital from his long expedition with Pérez de Villagrá to overtake and bring back the four men who had stolen horses and flown in September. He was alone, for down the river at Puaray on the way back, he and Villagrá, coming home together, had met young Francisco de las Nievas, who said that the Governor had been there only the day before on his way west from the saline provinces. Villagrá believed he should join the Governor without delay, and saying good-bye to Márques, had struck westward alone across the river from Puaray to pick up the Governor’s trail, going by way of Ácoma.
And the prisoners? Where were they?
Márques shrugged. Two had escaped. He and Villagrá had trailed the other two almost all the way to Santa Barbara on the Conchos River in Mexico, and on finding them, had taken such action as had seemed in the judgment of Villagrá, who was in authority, to be suitable. They had executed the prisoners, cutting off their heads, and dutifully had made haste to return, themselves, to San Juan. Captain Márques took up new duties under Vicente de Zaldívar at the capital.
In about the third week of November Juan took leave of his younger brother. Both wore beards the color of chestnuts. Juan was twenty-eight, Vicente twenty-five. Juan was the taller of the two, but both had good stature. They were from Zacatecas in Mexico. At the head of his thirty troopers Juan rode out and down the river. They were on their way to find the Governor in the western wilderness.
Cold was coming down the river from the northern mountains. Huge geese went south in great high flocks, making their hornlike calls that came muted to earth. Faster little ducks went plummeting south too, landing at times on the river like bullets, and talking in circles, and rising away again. Soldiers shot them as they could, and feasted the home garrison. On some mornings there was snow on the riverbanks, which made the brown water look darker than usual. Winter wood was being gathered to burn in the pueblo rooms, whose thick walls could hold cold or heat for so long. The river cottonwoods were heavy gold, keeping their leaves, and the bare willow groves looked from a little distance like smoke. Winter was coming and even in so open a valley cutting through such vast plains, there was a sense of days closing in, and vistas, as November passed and early December came crisply along in golden chilly days, so far away from other homes in other winters.
One day—it must have seemed ever afterward a dark day no matter what the weather—there returned to San Juan from a forced march on spent horses three exhausted soldiers who had gone out a few weeks before with Juan de Zaldívar. Vicente received them and stood as they told sorely what they knew. He was dazed. He crossed his arms on his breast and bowed his head; and then he groaned and began to sob.
The soldiers said that on December first they arrived with Juan de Zaldívar at the base of the rocks of Ácoma, under a cold, cloudy sky. The rock mesa was nearly four hundred feet high, from afar it looked like a palace, a fortress, a city, all of it; only on coming near could you see that the city was on the very top, a line of low clay houses against the sky. The walls of the mesa were cliffs, in all places but one, and there a trail led up through slopes of sand and finally it too became a cliff with toeholds cut in the stone. The Indians could swarm up and down the difficult approach like monkeys. They all came below to welcome everyone on that first of December, and when Zaldívar asked for food, they said that if he camped here below that night, he arid everyone could ascend in the morning, and would be given provisions. So the soldiers made their camp and slept in peace.
In the morning they went up. It was awkward. They had to hang their swords behind. Armor was stiff and heavy to climb in. They were laughing and wheezing by the time they got over the edge and walked about on the high island of dusty red stone surrounded by an empty valley. They saw that Ácoma was made not of one rock but two, separated