Many of them were nobles and gentlemen, come to seek their fortunes in the New World. Their blood pounded with longing and promise. By their young beards they looked older than they were, and by their cap-cropped hair younger. In their great appetite for the unknown they went to take more than to give; and like all youth what they desired most if they did not say it was experience, without which there was shame before other men, and inequality of opinion. Many of them were fellows of high spirits and wild behavior, and there was talk in Mexico that as they were unmarried and dissolute, without work or property, and with nothing to do but eat and loaf, and make trouble for more settled people, it was a good thing that they went with the army and left the city in peace. It was legally noted that they left of their own will and happily.
They were armed variously with double-edged swords, crossbows, daggers, lances, harquebuses and maces; and protected, some with pieces of plate armor, gorget, cuirass, corselet; others with coats of mail, breeches of mail, one with only sleeves of mail; and helmets of casque, morion and sallet design, the last with beaver to protect the jaw and chin; and steel gauntlets and shields. Such equipment ranged in value from the splendor of the General’s gilt armor with its plumed sallet to the buckskin coat worn by most. They brought with them a few bronze mortars that discharged stones.
Three of the private soldiers brought their wives. One of these men was a tailor. His wife served as nurse and seamstress, and rode seven thousand miles with the expedition on a horse. The military company were served by close to a thousand Mexican Indians, many of whom were accompanied by their wives and children. With the main body of the army came the flocks of sheep—over five thousand rams, ewes and lambs. The pace and distance of the daily marches of the army were determined by how steadily and at what speed those grazing little animals could move. The army brought five hundred head of cattle. Six hundred pack mules carried supplies and equipment. Five hundred and fifty-two horses belonged to the soldiers.
Alcanfor received the army shortly before the new year of 1541. The pueblo was crowded but as a fortress it was also safe. The herds and the flocks were guarded in corrals and pastures outside the walls. The snow continued to fall. Spanish soldiers whiled away their off-duty time. They would talk with the chaplains—Fray Juan de Padilla and Fray Luis de Escalona. Fray Juan had been a soldier himself in his youth. He knew how to talk with them. There were two Indian lay assistants with him, the oblates Sebastián and Luis. The soldiers went to confession, heard Mass, attended vespers, and cooked, and some wrote letters that two years later would be received in Spain, if ever. Playing cards could be made out of the heads of drums. They gambled at cards, playing “first” and “triumph,” which were not prohibited by the command, and “doubles” and “lamb-skin-it,” which were. Throwing dice was also forbidden and popular.
Captain de Ovando was back from the explorations downstream, to report that he had found four towns, built like the ones at Tiguex, occupied by friendly Indians. He saw no wild people, but as he had stayed with the river, this was not surprising, for the wandering Indians seemed to keep to the plains.
Heavy snowfall kept the garrison confined at Alcanfor, though the General had determined to demand the submission of the rest of the Tiguex nation and to obtain it if necessary with further battle. About a week after the arrival of the army it was possible to send Captain de Cárdenas and a party of forty horsemen and some infantry up the river with the ultimatum. They crossed to the eastern bank and presently came among the upriver towns which they found abandoned. At one of these they discovered a number of dead horses. In retaliation, Cárdenas burned the town and returned to headquarters. Word presently came that the Indians driven from their refuge in the bare and frigid hills were collecting at the pueblo of Moho, on the west bank about ten miles north of Alcanfor. In common defense, the river people, though accustomed to live under local rule in each town, now gathered under the general rule of Juan Alemán. Again and again the General sent his message of clemency and power, calling for all to submit to His Holy Catholic Caesarian Majesty. Captain de Maldonado took it to Moho first, only to return with reports of treachery and defiance. Cárdenas went forth once more with his cavalry and infantry, and found the Indians clustered on their roof edges at Moho waiting for him with Juan Alemán to speak for them.
Arriving within earshot, Cárdenas made his proclamation with large gestures.
Alemán responded. It was good to have the Captain there. Much could be settled without war. Let the Captain dismount and come forward alone, and he would meet him likewise on the ground before the pueblo.
Cárdenas gave his sword, lance and horse to an orderly to hold for him and went forward, but not without a few guardsmen following him. Alemán advanced from the pueblo unarmed, but also followed by his bodyguard. As the two leaders met, Alemán held out his arms with a smile and embraced Cárdenas about the body—and tightly held him immovable. The Indian bodyguard sprang forward and rang blows with wooden maces on the Captain’s helmet. They took him away from their chief and carried him rapidly toward a narrow opening in the palisade. People on the roof crying execrations sent arrows and stones down on the visitors. At the entrance, Cárdenas freed himself enough to brace against its sides as the Indians worked to drag him through into captivity and death. Three of his horsemen rallied and charged to the palisade to rescue him. They brought him free of danger. He was wounded in the leg by an arrow.
But in spite of his wound and the weather he went upstream to the next pueblo, after leaving a detachment on guard at Moho. Once again he met abuse, arrows and defiance. He returned to Moho, gathered up his rear guard, and followed the trail in the snow back to Alcanfor. The General then determined to give battle with his whole army.
10.
Siege
They came in full array a few days later to Moho, and made camp about the spring outside the pueblo. The German bugler from Worms sounded his trumpet. The call to surrender and the offer of amnesty were given in the proper form, with the notary officiating. The frieze of defenders on the terraces became animated with obscene mockery. The General gave an order. The troops moved out to surround the town which stood on a level plain of barren gravel from which the wide slow curves of the river could be seen to the north and south. Stout tree trunks were planted deep in the earth to form a palisade before the walls. The defenses were better than at Arenal, for the walls themselves were built of upright timbers solidly side by side and woven with willow branches from the riverbanks, and thickly plastered over with river silt. Here the town had not one continuous terrace of roof at each level, but several platforms separated by wide gaps. There were towers with portholes near their tops. It was a large town with deep granaries well-filled.
On the second morning, and on almost every day thereafter until the issue was decided, the General repeated the overtures for peace, but without submission by the Indians. With the battle cry invoking Saint James of Compostela, the patron of Spain, the army attacked from all sides.
Recalling the stratagem of Arenal that brought victory, they breached the palisade and brought battering rams to the walls. But the stout construction of the first storey defeated the attempt to open a hole and set fires. The Indian force was larger than at Arenal, with people from many towns gathered within. Moho was more than a single hive, it was several, as the plan of the clustered rooms with spaces between clusters revealed. Small battles took place in separate places at the same time against the fortress.
Stones flew down on the attackers who tried to climb the walls. Many soldiers fell, hurt and stunned. On one wall, soldiers raised ladders and fifty reached a roof terrace. They fought across gaps firing at Indians on the same level. From higher terraces stones fell and arrows whistled. To help them in their preparations for war the Indians called upon deathly nature. They shut rattlesnakes into willow cages and thrust arrows among the snakes who striking at the arrowheads flooded their venom on the flint or obsidian points, where it dried in tiny crystals but did not lose its power. Now from the portholes in the towers they sent the poisoned arrows and where these
