The Trail Book by Mary Austin et al

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"The Adelantado asked for obedience to his King, which Tuscaloosa said
he was more used to getting than giving. When Soto wished for food and
carriers, Tuscaloosa gave him part, and, dissembling, said the rest were
at his capital of Mobila. Against the advice of his men Soto consented
to go there with him.

"It was a strong city set with a stockade of tree-trunks driven into the
ground, where they rooted and sent up great trees in which wild pigeons
roosted. It was they that had seen the runners of Cofachique come in
with the message from Far-Looking. All the wood knew, and the Indians
knew, but not the Spaniards. Some of them suspected. They saw that the
brush had been cut from the ground outside the stockade, as if
for battle.

"One of them took a turn through the town and met not an old man nor any
children. There were dancing women, but no others. This is the custom of
the Indians when they are about to fight,--they hide their families.

"Soto was weary of the ground," said the Princess. "This we were told by
the carriers who escaped and came back to Cofachique. He wished to sit
on a cushion and sleep in a bed again. He came riding into the town with
the Cacique on a horse as a token of honor, though Tuscaloosa was so
tall that they had trouble finding a horse that could keep his feet from
the ground, and it must have been as pleasant for him as riding a lion
or a tiger. But he was a great chief, and if the Spaniards were not
afraid to ride neither would he seem to be. So they came to the
principal house, which was on a mound. All the houses were of two
stories, of which the upper was open on the sides, and used for
sleeping. Soto sat with Tuscaloosa in the piazza and feasted; dancing
girls came out in the town square with flute-players, and danced for
the guard.

"But one of Soto's men, more wary than the rest, walked about, and saw
that the towers of the wall were full of fighting men. He saw Indians
hiding arrows behind palm branches.

"Back he went to the house where Soto was, to warn him, but already the
trouble had begun. Tuscaloosa, making an excuse, had withdrawn into the
house, and when Soto wished to speak to him sent back a haughty answer.
Soto would have soothed him, but one of Soto's men, made angry with the
insolence of the Indian who had brought the Cacique's answer, seized the
man by his cloak, and when the Indian stepped quickly out of it,
answered as quickly with his sword. Suddenly, out of the dark houses,
came a shower of arrows."

"It was the plan of the Cacica of Cofachique," explained the Egret. "The
men of Mobila had meant to fall on the Spaniards while they were eating,
but because of the Spanish gentleman's bad temper, the battle began
too soon."

"It was the only plan of hers that did not utterly fail," said the
Princess, "for with all her far-looking she could not see into the
Adelantado's heart. Soto and his guard ran out of the town, every one
with, an arrow sticking in him, to join themselves to the rest of the
expedition which had just come up. Like wasps out of a nest the Indians
poured after them. They caught the Indian carriers, who were just easing
their loads under the walls. With every pack and basket that the
Spaniards had, they carried them back into the town, and the gates of
the stockade were swung to after them."

"All night," said the Egret, "the birds were scared from their roost by
the noise of the battle. Several of the horses were caught inside the
stockade; these the Indians killed quickly. The sound of their dying
neighs was heard at all the rookeries along the river."

"The wild tribes heard of it, and brought us word," said the Princess.
"Soto attacked and pretended to withdraw. Out came the Indians after
him. The Spaniards wheeled again and did terrible slaughter. They came
at the stockade with axes; they fired the towers. The houses were all of
dry cane and fine mats of cane for walls; they flashed up in smoke and
flame. Many of the Indians threw themselves into the flames rather than
be taken. At the last there were left three men and the dancing women.
The women came into the open by the light of the burning town, with
their hands crossed before them. They stood close and hid the men with
their skirts, until the Spaniards came up, and then parted. So the last
men of Mobila took their last shots and died fighting."

"Is that the end?" said Oliver, seeing the Princess gather up her pearls
and the Egret preparing to tuck her bill under her wing. He did not feel
very cheerful over it.

"It was the end of Mobila and the true end of the expedition," said the
Princess. Rising she beckoned to her women. She had lost all interest in
a story which had no more to do with Cofachique.

"Both sides lost," said the Egret, "and that was the sad part of it. All
the Indians were killed; even the young son of Tuscaloosa was found with
a spear sticking in him. Of the Spaniards but eighteen died, though few
escaped unwounded. But they lost everything they had, food, medicines,
tools, everything but the sword in hand and the clothes they stood in.
And while they lay on the bare ground recovering from their wounds came
Juan Ortiz, who had been sent seaward for that purpose, with word that
Maldonado lay with the ships off the bay of Mobila,--that's Mobile, you
know,--not six days distant, to carry them back to Havana.

"And how could Soto go back defeated? No gold, no pearls, no conquests,
not so much as a map, even,--only rags and wounds and a sore heart. In
spite of everything he was both brave and gallant, and he knew his duty
to the King of Spain. He could not go back with so poor a report of the
country to which he had been sent to establish the fame and might of His
Majesty. Forbidding Juan Ortiz to tell the men about the ships, with
only two days' food and no baggage, he turned away from the coast, from
his home and his wife and safe living, toward the Mississippi. He had no
hope in his heart, I think, but plenty of courage. And if you like,"
said the Egret, "another day we will tell you how he died there."

"Oh, no, please," said Dorcas, "it is so very sad; and, besides," she
added, remembering the picture of Soto's body being lowered at night
into the dark water, "it is in the School History."

"In any case," said the Egret, "he was a brave and gallant gentleman,
kind to his men and no more cruel to the Indians than they were to one
another. There was only one of the gentlemen of Spain who never had
_any_ unkindness to his discredit. That was Cabeza de Vaca; he was one
of Narvaez's men, and the one from whom Soto first heard of
Florida,--but that is also a sad story."

Neither of the children said anything. The Princess and her women lost
themselves in the shadowy wood. The gleam here and there of their white
dresses was like the wing of tall white birds. The sun sailing toward
noon had burnt the color out of the sky into the deep water which could
be seen cradling fresh and blue beyond the islets. One by one the
pelicans swung seaward, beating their broad wings all in time like the
stroke of rowers, going to fish in the clean tides outside of
the lagoons.

The nests of the flamingoes lay open to the sun except where here and
there dozed a brooding mother.

"Don't you know any not-sad stories?" asked Dorcas, as the Egret showed
signs again of tucking her head under her wing.

"Not about the Iron Shirts," said the Egret. "Spanish or Portuguese or
English; it was always an unhappy ending for the Indians."

"Oh," said Dorcas, disappointed; and then she reflected, "If they hadn't
come, though, I don't suppose we would be here either."

"I'll tell you," said the Man-of-War Bird, who was a great traveler,
"they didn't all land on this coast. Some of them landed in Mexico and
marched north into your country. I've heard things from gulls at Panuco.
You don't know what the land birds might be able to tell you."

[Illustration]

XIII

HOW THE IRON SHIRTS CAME LOOKING FOR THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA; 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.

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