The Rosas Affair. Donald L. Lucero

the wheels of their carts at every turn. Seeking better ground, the caravan left the river and continued northward.

      OJO DEL PERRILLO

      The members of Rosas’s train rode through warm days beneath azure skies along the worn and tattered track of the royal road. Their course after leaving the river at Robledo took them through a seemingly waterless stretch of nearly 90 miles that would save them a day or more of travel. The lack of water and the choking dust brought them all—horse, man, mule, and foodstock—to the utmost limit of their endurance.

      At one of the few springs the travelers found, they met a small group of Indians who, demonstrating their friendly intentions, knelt in the mud surrounding the spring, crossing themselves as a means of mutual recognition. Drawing their right hand from forehead to breast and then from shoulder to shoulder, they returned their hands to their mouths afterward signifying they required food.

      “There are Christianized Indians here?” asked Rosas about the tattooed and painted Indians they found at the spring. “I’ve seen no churches or conventos. Are they members of a hunting party or nomads?”

      “They’re a Plains people, Governor,” Gomez responded, “members of the Jumanos or Rayados whom we refer to as the Apaches del Perrillo. They live in three large pueblos which we’ll find north of here near the pass of Abo, and, if people of the same tribe, in rancherias on the Rio Colorado far to the east. They come to the Rio Grande villages for purposes of trade,” he said as they unloaded food from one of the wagons. “The friars tell of a miracle which occurred among these people,” Gomez added continuing his discussion regarding the Jumanos. “Approximately two decades ago, as the friars tell it, the Jumanos were the subject of a supernatural conversion. The priests tell of visits by at least two nuns who were miraculously transported here from Spain for the purpose of preaching God’s word and who assisted the friars in the Indians’ conversions. One, a sister named Luisa de la Ascencion, an old nun of Carrion, had the power to become young and beautiful and to transport herself in a trance state to any part of the world where there were souls to be saved. The second nun, who was able to do much the same thing, was Maria de Jesus, the abbess at the convent of Agreda, who, the friars say, was carried here by the heavenly hosts. She was able to make several round trips in a single day.”

      “Do you believe any of this?” Rosas asked with a sneer. “That nuns can fly?”

      “I’m not sure what to believe regarding these stories, Governor, so I’ve tried to suspend judgment,” Gomez responded. “When Custos Salas, whom you’ll meet at Santo Domingo, was at the Pueblo of Isleta, where he built the church and convento, he developed a special relationship with the Jumanos who came there to trade. They told him this story and Salas believes it. He went among them with another priest named Diego Lopez, and tells of the miracles of conversion they were able to achieve because of the work of these nuns. The number of conversions was so great that they had to baptize the Indians by swirling a fleece soaked in holy water over their heads. My brother would believe these stories without question,” he said regarding the flying nuns, “but I respond better to fact than fancy.”

      “Then you believe the stories to be a fiction?” Rosas asked.

      “I place the Indians’ visions in the same category as the mirages one might see on the desert or at sea,” Gomez responded, “those on the desert appearing as ripples on a lake ruffled by the wind, or of trees materializing upside down. I think the apparitions are like the so-called, Fata Morgana, the mirage of a city which my brother and I saw on the Strait of Messina. None of these images is real and yet they’re there as plain as the nose on one’s face. I think I’ll suspend judgment until I know more.”

      The governor laughed at Gomez’s statements regarding the Indians’ visions while throwing food at the poor Jumanos who knelt before him attempting to pluck the morsels from the water before they sank into the mud.

      * * *

      Above the Ojo del Perrillo (Little Dog Spring), where the members of the caravan had found the Jumanos, the caravan continued its northward journey across a harsh, partially denuded landscape of awesome silence and immeasurable distances. It stretched before them, a desert plain with thickets of withered cactus and patches of wild pumpkin, the foliage of which consisted of long, sharp, arrow-shaped leaves, matted clumps of scrubby brush frosted over with silver and greasewood.

      * * *

      The distances from one paraje, or official campsite, to another were well known, for at some earlier time a soldier had been assigned the unenviable task of counting the steps or paces in each day’s march. The camping sites offered in weary progression included La Cruz de Aleman, Las Penuelas, La Laguna del Muerto, El Alto del Cerrillo, La Cruz de Anaya, El Alto de Las Tusas, and El Paraje de Fra Cristobal. The last site metioned, located six leagues below the inhabited district, should have offered some promise of relief, but it did not. For above it—above the southern pueblos of Senecu, San Pasqual, Teypana, and Alamillo—the Rosas train still had to negotiate “las vueltas.” These were “the turns” where the river doubled back upon itself, making travel extremely difficult.

      * * *

      Above the turns, the caravan began at last to see daylight. The river, presenting sharply cut embankments, rolling hills, and a widening valley, now offered tiny, greening fields across its flood-plain. And, areas of Spanish habitation were also found. The train stopped briefly at the wine and brandy-producing vineyards of the Gomez estancia at San Nicolas de las Barrancas. Here the governor refilled the leather flask that was always with him. The train stopped for a lengthier period at the Pueblo of Puaray to repair their equipment, badly damaged by the road, and by deterioration resulting from the arduous journey. Then it was on to Sandia, San Felipe, and finally, the Pueblo of Santo Domingo, the ecclesiastical capital of New Mexico.

      5

      Custos Juan de Salas and Santo Domingo

      We’ll go ahead of the train and leave our livestock here,” Gomez said in explanation of his plan to approach the pueblo with only the small contingent of individuals with whom he rode. “We’re forbidden to have our livestock within three leagues of the village.”

      “Forbidden?” the governor asked. “Forbidden by whom, I’d like to know? I’ll run my stock wherever I damn well please!”

      “You could do that, Governor,” Gomez responded as they rode along a ridge in the vicinity of the pueblo, “but it’s one of the few rules we have that actually makes sense. We could take our animals into the village as you’ve stated, but then my men and I would have to spend our time here keeping our stock out of the villagers’ fields. We’ll take the wagons in, the ones carrying supplies for the missions, but it’s best to leave the rest of the train here where the livestock can find other forage,” he concluded as he, the governor, and Fray Manso broke away from the train and headed toward the village.

      As the three rode toward the pueblo, set beyond clean gravel hills, its rich irrigated lands lying below in the valley of the Great River, Francisco Gomez lagged behind with the governor who was surveying the adobe village, viewing its corrals, its extensive orchards, and its produce gardens greening behind adobe walls.

      “The pueblo might look like it’s always been here,” Gomez remarked of the village whose brown hulk loomed on the edge of the river, “but, like many of the pueblos on the river and elsewhere, it’s been moved several times. This, I believe, is at least their third village,” he said. “Previous villages built on the banks of the Galisteo and the Great River were destroyed by flood. And there’s something else here which you may wish to make note of,” Gomez added, pointing to structures which appeared physically and psychologically removed from the life of the village. “Notice the location of the churches,” he said. “They’re at least three hundred varas from the edge of the pueblo. They were placed there for strategic purposes,” Gomez added. “It’s a simple formula which you’ll see repeated again and again at each of the pueblos you’ll visit. The distance of the church from the center of the pueblo is in direct relationship to the resistance by Indians there to Spanish rule. As you can see, the Indians here are very resistant, and