How The Iron Shirts Came Looking For The Seven Cities Of Cibola

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Title:     How The Iron Shirts Came Looking For The Seven Cities Of Cibola
Author: Mary Hunter Austin [More Titles by Austin]

TOLD BY THE ROAD-RUNNER

From Cay Verde in the Bahamas to the desert of New Mexico, by the Museum trail, is around a corner and past two windows that look out upon the west. As the children stood waiting for the Road-Runner to notice them, they found the view not very different from the one they had just left. Unending, level sands ran into waves, and strange shapes of rocks loomed through the desert blueness like steep-shored islands. It was vast and terrifying like the sea, and yet a very pleasant furred and feathered life appeared to be going on there between the round-headed cactus, with its cruel fishhook thorns, and the warning, blood-red blossoms that dripped from the ocatilla. Little frisk-tailed things ran up and down the spiney shrubs, and a woodpecker, who had made his nest in its pithy stalk, peered at them from a tall _sahuaro_.

The Road-Runner tilted his long rudder-like tail, flattened his crested head until it reminded them of a wicked snake, and suddenly made up his mind to be friendly.

"Come inside and get your head in the shade," he invited. "There's no harm in the desert sun so long as you keep something between it and your head. I've known Indians to get along for days with only the shade of their arrows."

The children snuggled under the feathery shadow of the mesquite beside him.

"We're looking for the trail of the Iron Shirts," said Oliver. "Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca," added Dorcas Jane, who always remembered names. The Road-Runner ducked once or twice by way of refreshing his memory.

"There was a black man with him, and they went about as Medicine Men to the Indians who believed in them, and at the same time treated them very badly. But that was nearly four hundred years ago, and they never came into this part of the country, only into Texas. And they hadn't any iron shirts either, scarcely anything to put either on their backs or into their stomachs."

"Nevertheless," quavered a voice almost under Oliver's elbow, "they brought the iron shirts, and the long-tailed elk whose hooves are always stumbling among our burrows."

The children had to look close to make out the speckled fluff of feathers hunched at the door of its _hogan_.

"Meet my friend Thla-po-po-ke-a," said the Road-Runner, who had picked up his manners from miners and cowboys as well as from Spanish explorers.

The Burrowing Owl bobbed in her own hurried fashion. "Often and often," she insisted with a whispering _whoo-oo_ running through all the sentences, "I've heard the soldiers say that it was Cabeza de Vaca put it into the head of the King of Spain to send Francisco Coronado to look for the Seven Cities. In my position one hears the best of everything," went on Po-po-ke-a. "That is because all the important things happen next to the ground. Men are born and die on the ground, they spread their maps, they dream dreams."

The children could see how this would be in a country where there was never a house or a tree and scarcely anything that grew more than knee-high to a man. The long sand-swells, and the shimmer of heat-waves in the air looked even more like the sea now that they were level with it. Off to the right what seemed a vast sheet of water spread out like quicksilver on the plain; it moved with a crawling motion, and a coyote that trotted across their line of vision seemed to swim in it, his head just showing above the slight billows.

"It's only mirage," said the Road-Runner; "even Indians are fooled by it if they are strange to the country. But it is quite true about the ground being the place to hear things. All day the Iron Shirts would ride in a kind of doze of sun and weariness. But when they sat at meals, loosening their armor buckles, then there would be news. We used to run with it from one camp to another--I can run faster than a horse can walk--until the whole mesa would hear of it."

"But the night is the time for true talking," insisted Po-po-ke-a. "It was then we heard that when Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain he made one report of his wanderings to the public, and a secret report to the King. Also that the Captain-General asked to be sent on that expedition because he had married a young wife who needed much gold."

"At that time we had not heard of gold," said the Road-Runner; "the Spaniards talked so much of it we thought it must be something good to eat, but it turned out to be only yellow stones. But it was not all Cabeza de Vaca's doing. There was another story by an Indian, Tejo, who told the Governor of Mexico that he remembered going with his father to trade in the Seven Cities, which were as large as the City of Mexico, with whole streets of silver workers, and blue turquoises over the doors."

"If there is a story about it--" began Oliver, looking from one to the other invitingly, and catching them looking at each other in the same fashion.

"Brother, there is a tail to you," said the Burrowing Owl quickly, which seemed to the children an unnecessary remark, since the Road-Runner's long, trim tail was the most conspicuous thing about him. It tipped and tilted and waggled almost like a dog's, and answered every purpose of conversation.

Now he ducked forward on both legs in an absurd way he had. "To you, my sister--" which is the polite method of story asking in that part of the country.

"My word bag is as empty as my stomach," said Po-po-ke-a, who had eaten nothing since the night before and would not eat until night again. "_Sons eso_--to your story."

"_Sons eso, tse-na_," said the Road-Runner, and began.

"First," he said, "to Hawikuh, a city of the Zunis, came Estevan, the black man who had been with Cabeza de Vaca, with a rattle in his hand and very black behavior. Him the Indians killed, and the priest who was with him they frightened away. Then came Coronado, with an army from Mexico, riding up the west coast and turning east from the River of the Brand, the one that is now called Colorado, which is no name at all, for all the rivers hereabout run red after rain. They were a good company of men and captains, and many of those long-tailed elk,--which are called horses, sister," said the Road-Runner aside to Po-po-ke-a,--"and the Indians were not pleased to see them."

"That was because there had been a long-tailed star seen over To-ya-lanne, the sacred mountain, some years before, one of the kind that is called Trouble-Bringer. They thought of it when they looked at the long tails of the new-fashioned elk," said Po-po-ke-a, who had not liked being set right about the horses.

"In any case," went on the Road-Runner, "there was trouble. Hawikuh was one of these little crowded pueblos, looking as if it had been crumpled together and thrown away, and though there were turquoises over the doors, they were poor ones, and there was no gold. And as Hawikuh, so they found all the cities of Cibola, and the cities of the Queres, east to the River of White Rocks."

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 gods to be worshiped, or a strange people coming to conquer them, who must be fought. They were not sure whether the iron shirts 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 god 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 cocked 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 Shirts. 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 worshiped, 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: gods 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 passed out of sight in trackless, grass-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 grass. 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.

"Even though he had not succeeded in getting rid of the Iron Shirts, the Turk was not so disappointed as he might have been. The Caciques did not know it, but killing the strangers or losing them had been only a part of his plan.

"All that winter at Tiguex the Turk had seen the horses die, or grow sick and well again; some of them had had colts, and he had come to the conclusion that they were simply animals like elk or deer, only more useful.

"The Turk was a Pawnee, one of those roving bands that build grass houses and follow the buffalo for food. They ran the herds into a _piskune_ below a bluff, over which they rushed and were killed. Sometimes the hunters themselves were caught in the rush and trampled. It came into the Turk's mind, as he watched the Spaniards going to hunt on horseback, that the Morning Star, to whom he made sacrifices for his return from captivity, had sent him into Zuni to learn about horses, and take them back to his people. Whatever happened to the Iron Shirts on that journey, he had not meant to lose the horses. Even though suspected and in chains he might still do a great service to his people.

"When the Querechos were driving buffalo, some of the horses were caught up in the 'surround,' carried away with the rush of the stampeding herd, and never recovered. Others that broke away in a terrible hailstorm succeeded in getting out of the ravine where the army had taken shelter, and no one noticed that it was always at the point where the Turk was helping to herd them, that the horses escaped. Even after he was put in chains and kept under the General's eye on the way to Quivira, now and then there would be a horse, usually a mare with a colt, who slipped her stake-rope. Little gray coyotes came in the night and gnawed them. But coyotes will not gnaw a rope unless it has been well rubbed with buffalo fat," said the Road-Runner.

"I should have thought the Spaniards would have caught him at it," said Oliver.

"White men, when they are thinking of gold," said the Road-Runner, "are particularly stupid about other things. There was a man of the Wichitas, a painted Indian called Ysopete, who told them from the beginning that the Turk lied about the gold. But the Spaniards preferred to believe that the Indians were trying to keep the gold for themselves. They did not see that the Turk was losing their horses one by one; no more did they see, as they neared Quivira, that every day he called his people.

"There are many things an Indian can do and a white man not catch him at it. The Turk would sit and feed the fire at evening, now a bundle of dry brush and then a handful of wet grass, smoke and smudge, such as hunters use to signal the movements of the quarry. He would stand listening to the captains scold him, and push small stones together with his foot for a sign. He could slip in the trail and break twigs so that Pawnees could read. When strange Indians were brought into camp, though he could only speak to them in the language of signs, he asked for a Pawnee called Running Elk, who had been his friend before he was carried captive into Zuni Land. They had mingled their blood after the custom of friendship and were more than brothers to one another. And though the Iron Shirts looked at him with more suspicion every day, he was almost happy. He smelled sweet-grass and the dust of his own country, and spoke face to face with the Morning Star.

"I do not understand about stars," said the Road-Runner. "It seems that some of them travel about and do not look the same from different places. In Zuni Land where there are mountains, the Turk was not always sure of his god, but in the Pawnee country it is easily seen that he is the Captain of the Sky. You can lie on the ground there and lose sight of the earth altogether. Mornings the Turk would look up from his chains to see his Star, white against the rosy stain, and was comforted. It was the Star, I suppose, that brought him his friend.

"For four or five days after Running Elk discovered that the Turk was captive to the Iron Shirts, he would lurk in the tall grass and the river growth, making smoke signals. Like a coyote he would call at night, and though the Turk heard him, he dared not answer. Finally he hit upon the idea of making songs. He would sing and nobody could understand him but Running Elk, who lay in the grass, and finally had courage to come into the camp in broad day, selling buffalo meat and wild plums.

"There was a bay mare with twin colts that the Turk wished him to loose from her rope and drive away, but Running Elk was afraid. Cold mornings the Indian could see the smoke of the horses' nostrils and thought that they breathed fire. But the Turk made his friend believe at last that the horse is a great gift to man, by the same means that he had made the Spaniards think him evil, by the In-knowing Thought.

"'It is as true,' said the Turk, 'that the horse is only another sort of elk, as that my wife is married again and my son died fighting the Ho-he.' All of which was exactly as it had happened, for his wife had never expected that he would come back from captivity. 'It is also true,' the Turk told him, 'that very soon I shall join my son.'

"For he was sure by this time that when the Spaniards had to give up the hope of gold, they would kill him. He told Running Elk all the care of horses as he had learned it, and where he thought those that had been lost from Coronado's band might be found. Of the Iron Shirts, he said that they were great Medicine, and the Pawnees were by all means to get one or two of them.

"By this time the Expedition had reached the country of the Wichitas, which is Quivira, and there was no gold, no metal of any sort but a copper gorget around the Chief's neck, and a few armbands. The night that Coronada bought the Chief's gorget to send to his king, as proof that he had found no gold, Running Elk heard the Turk singing. It was no song of secret meaning; it was his own song, such as a man makes to sing when he sees his death facing him.

"All that night the Turk waited in his chains for the rising of his Star. There was something about which he must talk to it. He had made a gift of the horse to his people, but there was no sacrifice to wash away all that was evil in the giving and make it wholly blessed. All night the creatures of the earth heard the Turk whisper at his praying, asking for a sacrifice.

"And when the Star flared white before the morning, a voice was in the air saying that he himself was to be the sacrifice. It was the voice of the Morning Star walking between the hills, and the Turk was happy. The doves by the water-courses heard him with the first flush of the dawn waking the Expedition with his death song. Loudly the Spaniards swore at him, but he sang on steadily till they came to take him before the General, whose custom it was to settle all complaints the first thing in the morning. The soldiers thought that since it was evident the Turk had purposely misled them about the gold and other things, he ought to die for it. The General was in a bad humor. One of his best mares with her colts had frayed her stake-rope on a stone that night and escaped. Nevertheless, being a just man, he asked the Turk if he had anything to say. Upon which the Turk told them all that the Caciques had said, and what he himself had done, all except about the horses, and especially about the bay mare and Running Elk. About that he was silent. He kept his eyes upon the Star, where it burned white on the horizon. It was at its last wink, paling before the sun, when they killed him."

The children drew a long breath that could hardly be distinguished from the soft whispering _whoo-hoo_ of the Burrowing Owl.

"So in spite of his in-knowing he could not save himself," Dorcas Jane insisted, "and his Star could not save him. If he had looked in the earth instead of the heavens he would have found gold and the Spaniards would have given him all the horses he wanted."

"You forget," said the Road-Runner, "that he knew no more than the Iron Shirts did, where the gold was to be found. There were not more than two or three in any one of the Seven Cities that ever knew. Ho-tai of Matsaki was the last of those, and his own wife let him be killed rather than betray the secret of the Holy Places."

"Oh, if you please--" began the children.

"It is a town story," said the Road-Runner, "but the Condor that has his nest on El Morro, he might tell you. He was captive once in a cage at Zuni." The Road-Runner balanced on his slender legs and cocked his head trailwise. Any kind of inactivity bored him dreadfully. The burrowing owls were all out at the doors of their _hogans_, their heads turning with lightning swiftness from side to side; the shadows were long in the low sun. "It is directly in the trail from the Rio Grande to Acoma, the old trail to Zuni," said the Road-Runner, and without waiting to see whether or not the children followed him, he set off.

[THE END]

NOTE:

THE ROAD-RUNNER'S STORY

Cabeza de Vaca was one of Narvaez's men who was cast ashore in one of the two boats ever heard from, on the coast of Texas. He wandered for six years in that country before reaching the Spanish settlements in Old Mexico, and it was his account of what he saw there and in Florida that led to the later expeditions of both Soto and Coronado.

Francisco de Coronado brought his expedition up from Old Mexico in 1540, and reached Wichita in the summer of 1541. His party was the first to see and describe the buffalo. There is an account of the expedition written by Castenada, one of his men, translated by Frederick Webb Hodge, which is easy and interesting reading.

The Seven Cities were the pueblos of Old Zuni, some of which are still inhabited. Ruins of the others may be seen in the Valley of Zuni in New Mexico. The name is a Spanish corruption of _Ashiwi_, their own name for themselves. We do not know why the early explorers called the country "Cibola."

The Colorado River was first called _Rio del Tizon_, "River of the Brand," by the Spaniards, on account of the local custom of carrying fire in rolls of cedar bark. Coronado's men were the first to discover the Grand Canon.

_Pueblo_, the Spanish word for "town," is applied to all Indians living in the terraced houses of the southwest. The Zunis, Hopis, and Queres are the principal pueblo tribes.

You will find _Tiguex_ on the map, somewhere between the Ty-uonyi and the place where the Corn Woman crossed the Rio Grande. _Cicuye_ is on the map as Pecos, in Texas.

The Pawnees at this time occupied the country around the Platte River. Their name is derived from a word meaning "horn," and refers to their method of dressing the scalplock with grease and paint so that it stood up stiffly, ready to the enemy's hand. Their name for themselves is Chahiksichi-hiks, "Men of men."

[The end]
Mary Hunter Austin's short story: How The Iron Shirts Came Looking For The Seven Cities Of Cibola

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