Part 20 (1/2)
Dorcas Jane nudged Oliver to remind him of the Corn Woman and Tse-tse-yote. All the stories of that country, like the trails, seemed to run into one another.
”Terrible things happened around Tiguex and at Cicuye, which is now Pecos,” said the Road-Runner, ”for the Spaniards were furious at finding no gold, and the poor Indians could never make up their minds whether these were G.o.ds to be wors.h.i.+ped, or a strange people coming to conquer them, who must be fought. They were not sure whether the iron s.h.i.+rts were to be dreaded as magic, or coveted as something they could use themselves. As for the horses, they both feared and hated them. But there was one man who made up his mind very quickly.
”He was neither Queres nor Zuni, but a plainsman, a captive of their wars. He was taller than our men, leaner and sharp-looking. His G.o.d was the Morning Star. He made sacrifices to it. The Spaniards called him the Turk, saying he looked like one. We did not know what that meant, for we had only heard of turkeys which the Queres raised for their feathers, and he was not in the least like one of these. But he knew that the Spaniards were men, and was almost a match for them. He had the Inknowing Thought.”
The Road-Runner c.o.c.ked his head on one side and observed the children, to see if they knew what this meant.
”Is it anything like far-looking?” asked Dorcas.
”It is something none of my people ever had,” said the Road-Runner. ”The Indian who was called the Turk could look in a bowl of water in the sun, or in the water of the Stone Pond, and he could see things that happened at a distance, or in times past. He proved to the Spaniards that he could do this, but their priests said it was the Devil and would have nothing to do with it, which was a great pity. He could have saved them a great deal.”
”_Hoo, hoo_!” said the Burrowing Owl; ”he could not even save himself; and none of the things he told to the Spaniards were true.”
”He was not thinking for himself,” said the Road-Runner, ”but for his people. The longer he was away from them the more he thought, and his thoughts were good, even though he did not tell the truth to the Iron s.h.i.+rts. They, at least, did not deserve it. For when the people of Zuni and Cicuye and Tiguex would not tell them where the sacred gold was hid, there were terrible things done. That winter when the days were cold, the food was low and the soldiers fretful. Many an Indian kept the secret with his life.”
”Did the Indians really know where the gold was?” The children knew that, according to the geographies, there are both gold and silver in New Mexico.
”Some of them did, but gold was sacred to them. They called it the stone of the Sun, which they wors.h.i.+ped, and the places where it was found were holy and secret. They let themselves be burned rather than tell.
Besides, they thought that if the Spaniards were convinced there was no gold, they would go away the sooner. One thing they were sure of: G.o.ds or men, it would be better for the people of the pueblos if they went away. Day and night the _tombes_ would be sounding in the kivas, and prayer plumes planted in all the sacred places. Then it was that the Turk went to the Caciques sitting in council.
”'If the strangers should hear that there is gold in my country, there is nothing would keep them from going there.'
”'That is so,' said the Caciques.
”'And if they went to my country,' said the Turk, 'who but I could guide them?'
”'And how long,' said the Caciques, 'do you think a guide would live after they discovered that he had lied?' For they knew very well there was no gold in the Turk's country.
”'I should at least have seen my own land,' said the Turk, 'and here I am a slave to you.'
”The Caciques considered. Said they, 'It is nothing to us where and how you die.'
”So the Turk caused himself to be taken prisoner by the Spaniards, and talked among them, until it was finally brought to the Captain-General's ears that in the Turk's country of Quivira, the people ate off plates of gold, and the Chief of that country took his afternoon nap under a tree hung with golden bells that rung him to sleep. Also that there was a river there, two leagues wide, and that the boats carried twenty rowers to a side with the Chief under the awning.” ”That at least was true,”
said the Burrowing Owl; ”there were towns on the Missi-sippu where the Chiefs sat in balconies on high mounds and the women fanned them with great fans.”
”Not in Quivira, which the Turk claimed for his own country. But it all worked together, for when the Spaniards learned that the one thing was true, they were the more ready to believe the other. It was always easy to get them to believe any tale which had gold in it. They were so eager to set out for Quivira that they could scarcely be persuaded to take food enough, saying they would have all the more room on their horses for the gold.
”They forded the Rio Grande near Tiguex, traveled east to Cicuye on the Pecos River, and turned south looking for the Turk's country, which is not in that direction.”
”But why--” began Oliver.
”Look!” said the Road-Runner.
The children saw the plains of Texas stretching under the heat haze, stark sand in wind-blown dunes, tall stakes of _sahuaro_ marching wide apart, hot, trackless sand in which a horse's foot sinks to the fetlock, and here and there raw gashes in the earth for rivers that did not run, except now and then in fierce and ungovernable floods. Northward the plains pa.s.sed out of sight in trackless, gra.s.s-covered prairies, day's journey upon day's journey.
”It was the Caciques' idea that the Turk was to lose the strangers there, or to weaken them beyond resistance by thirst and hunger and hostile tribes. But the buffalo had come south that winter for the early gra.s.s. They were so thick they looked like trees walking, to the Spaniards as they lay on the ground and saw the sky between their huge bodies and the flat plain. And the wandering bands of Querechos that the Expedition met proved friendly. They were the same who had known Cabeza de Vaca, and they had a high opinion of white men. They gave the Spaniards food and proved to them that it was much farther to the cities of the Missisippu than the Turk had said.
”By that time Coronado had himself begun to suspect that he should never find the golden bells of Quivira, but with the King and Dona Beatris behind him, there was nothing for him to do but go forward. He sent the army back to Tiguex, and, with thirty men and all the best horses, turned north in as straight a track as the land permitted, to the Turk's country. And all that journey he kept the Turk in chains.