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 by a chasm of varying width. Down below they could see the horses and the squad of soldiers left to guard them. They looked like toys. The men on the rock turned and went into the town, guided by a chief, Zutucapan, who was all courtesy. Food, their needs, he indicated, would be taken care of at various houses, there, there, and there—and Zaldívar sent soldiers separately to the places indicated.
And as soon as they were separated, the soldiers were lost. A fearsome cry sounded over the stone plateau. It came from Zutucapan crying for battle. The Indians began to gather in menace. Zaldívar yelled with warning and encouragement to those few men remaining by him. They sprang their swords (“… the tempering will be good…”) and Zaldívar called out asking if they should retire to the plain below and later inflict punishment for treachery. One soldier objected. He said he would be glad to take on the Indian mob alone, and after he had disposed of it, see that the soldiers could then in their own good time leave the rock. There was a dead moment of wonder and indecision. It was a fateful pause. The Indians poured out of their housetops and streets and closed in. Zaldívar keeping the peace cried to his men to take aim but hold fire. But the Indians flew arrows, lances and even their wooden clubs at Zaldívar’s small band, and the soldiers at his order fired. In another moment the fight was joined. Over a thousand Indians broke upon the soldiers in wild combat.
It lasted three hours.
Zaldívar was prodigious. His men fell wounded and dead and three jumped from the cliff and were killed and all fought who could in hand-to-hand combat, and one soldier with his belly ripped open as he died cut his enemy’s body awide with his dagger so that the two men fell with their entrails mingling. Zaldívar fell three times only to rise and fight, until he fell forever, when the Indians stormed upon him and destroyed him obscenely. There were five soldiers left on top then, and seeing that Zaldívar was dead and mutilated they battled their way to the edge of the island and jumped out into the air, whether to live or die they didn’t know.
One died striking rocks as he fell. The other four landed hundreds of feet below in long sand drifts against the base of the island. From the camp came the guard who had remained with the horses, and three soldiers who had already escaped from the rock. They revived the four who had jumped and all hurried to the camp. They made quick decisions. The survivors were divided into three parties, one to hurry westward to inform the Governor; one to take advice to the isolated fathers in their lonely missions to return with speed to the capital; and one to ride hard to San Juan de Nuevo Mexico to tell the colony.
Vicente de Zaldívar was in command at San Juan. He received the names of those killed at Ácoma. He went to the families and told them and comforted them. He ordered Requiem Masses for the faithful departed. The colony on the river was in mortal danger, and all knew it.
Presently came home the soldiers who had left Ácoma to overtake the Governor. They had not been able to find his trail. It was of the first importance that he hear immediately what had happened. Vicente de Zaldívar sent a new detachment to find him at all costs. They rode out immediately heavily armed. Nobody knew if the revolt would spread. The garrison at San Juan lived at the alert waiting for the Governor.
He
