Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West (91 page)

Chapter 28
El Crepusculo

Nearly every day Santa Fe held another juvenile funeral…
For vivid descriptions of these doleful processionals, see Gibson,
Journal of a Soldier,
p. 242; and Edwards,
Campaign in New Mexico,
p. 48.

an erudite and somewhat Machiavellian man…
For further reading on the intriguing and influential Padre Martinez, see David J. Weber,
On the Edge of Empire: The Taos Hacienda of Los Martinez
; and also Fray Angelico Chavez,
But Time and Change: The Story of Padre Martinez of Taos, 1793–1867
.

These were the “crypto-Jews.”
For a thorough, scholarly look at this fascinating phenomenon, see Stanley Hordes,
To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico
.

penitentes—
pious men who went out into the countryside…”
There are several excellent works on the New Mexico
penitentes
. See Marta Weigle,
The Penitentes of the Southwest
; Alice Henderson,
Brothers of Light: The Penitentes of the Southwest
; and Thomas Steele and Rowena Rivera,
Penitente Self-Government: Brotherhoods and Councils, 1797–1947
.

el gallo,
an old blood sport…
See Lavender,
Bent’s Fort,
p. 107.

“for having blown an evil breath on their children,…”
Lavender,
Bent’s Fort,
p. 298.

My account of the Taos Massacre is drawn from multiple sources, but among the best are James Crutchfield,
Tragedy at Taos: The Revolt of 1847
; John Durand,
The Taos Massacres
; Michael McNierney,
Taos 1847: The Revolt in Contemporary Accounts
.

“cut as cleanly with the tight cord…”
Unpublished reminiscences of Teresina Bent, a copy of which I obtained at the Bent home bookstore in Taos.

“They ordered that no one should feed us,…”
Ibid.

“convivial figure with a glossy black beard…”
Lavender,
Bent’s Fort,
p. 64.

“We were tiger-like in our craving for revenge.”
McNierney,
Taos 1847,
p. 58.

Taos Pueblo…one of the oldest continually inhabited…
For a good general source on the background and culture of the extraordinary Taos Pueblo, see John Bodine,
Taos Pueblo: A Walk through Time
.

“a place of great strength,…”
Colonel Price, quoted in McNierney,
Taos 1847,
p. 50.

“like creatures in burrows listening…”
Paul Horgan,
Great River,
p. 767.

“The mingled noise of bursting shells…”
McNierney,
Taos 1847,
p. 67.

“A few half scared Pueblos walked listlessly…”
Lewis Garrard,
Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail,
p. 187.

“trembling wretches…miserable in dress…”
Ibid., p. 194.

“Mi madre, mi padre…”
Ibid., p. 197.

“The muscles would relax and again contract…”
Ibid., p. 198.

Chapter 29 American Mercury

“poured upon my fevered lips”…“I’ll blow your heart out.”
Sabin,
Kit Carson Days,
p. 557.

“I always see folks out in the road.”
Ibid., p. 567.

In the years leading up to her stroke…
Chaffin,
Pathfinder,
p. 139.

“Although he did not enter the army through…military academy…”
Thomas Hart Benton,
Thirty Years View: A History of the Working of the American Government, 1820 to 1850,
p. 718.

“He is a man…whose word will stand wherever he is known.”
Ibid.

a private errand…to pay a visit to his daughter.
See Dunlay,
Kit Carson and the Indians,
pp. 60–61; and Marc Simmons,
Kit Carson and His Three Wives,
p. 77.

Chapter 30 Time at Last Sets All Things Even

“so much fresh breeze, and so much sunlight.”
Pamela Herr and Mary Lee Spence,
The Letters of Jessie Benton Fremont,
p. xviii.

his “most confirmed worshiper…”
Ibid., p. 25.

“She belongs to him body & soul…”
Ibid., p. xxiii.

“the better man of the two.”
Ibid., p. xviii.

“picked at his fish and fowl…”
Noel Gerson,
Kit Carson: Folk Hero and Man,
p. 143.

“A bon vivant who jerked with odd…”
My descriptions of Beale are primarily drawn from Gerald Thompson,
Edward F. Beale and the American West
.

“one of those noble characters that have…sprung up on our frontier.”
From the
Washington Union
, June 15, 1847, a copy of which I viewed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

“but out on the Plains,
we’re
the princes.”
My descriptions of Carson’s visit with Jessie Fremont are primarily drawn from Pamela Herr,
Jessie Benton Frémont,
pp. 152–53, 156; and Jessie Fremont,
Will and the Way Stories,
pp. 39–42.

the “hardest working man in America.”
John Seigenthaler,
James K. Polk,
p. 121.

“virtually incarcerated himself in the White House.”
Ibid., p. 103.

“His manners at table I found to be faultless…”
Gerson,
Kit Carson: Folk Hero and Man,
pp. 144–45.

“He remained the soul of diffidence…”
Ibid.

Chapter 31 A Broken Country

“The Navajos commit their wrongs from a pure love of rapine…”
Keleher,
Turmoil in New Mexico,
p. 52.

“wild Indians of this country have been so much more successful…”
Ibid., p. 53.

“The Indians…until they are properly chastised.”
Keleher,
Turmoil in New Mexico,
p. 45.

most of whom carried Model 1841 muzzle-loading…
My description of the Washington Expedition’s equipment and weaponry is drawn primarily from Frank McNitt’s introduction to
Navaho Expedition
, by Lt. James Simpson, pp. lxvi–lxix.

“dismayingly mousy-looking”
McNitt, introduction to
Navaho Expedition,
p. lx.

“frankly makes dull reading.”
Ibid.

“antipathy to its use”…“favor in the eyes of the senoritas.”
David Weber,
Richard Kern: Expeditionary Artist in the Far Southwest,
p. 122.

Dr. Samuel George Morton, an anatomy professor…
See Dunlay,
Kit Carson and the Indians,
p. 54, and Weber,
Richard Kern,
p. 24.

“mountains high and bold”…“swallows all the dirt and misery.”
Weber,
Richard Kern,
p. 116.

“one of the most harebrained exploring expeditions ever undertaken…”
McNitt, introduction to Simpson’s
Navaho Expedition,
p. xxxii.

Kearny suffered an excruciating death.
For further details on the advanced stages of yellow fever, see
American Plague
, by Molly Crosby.

His rifle…“cracked away merrily, and never spoke in vain.”
Vestal,
Kit Carson: The Happy Warrior,
p. 150.

“We all looked like Old Winter…”
Weber,
Richard Kern,
p. 39.

“I told Dick the expedition was destroyed…”
Roberts,
A Newer World,
p. 213.

“gradually sinking into a sleep…”
Weber,
Richard Kern,
p. 45.

“In starving times…no man ever walked…”
DeVoto,
The Year of Decision,
p. 341.

“But…’tis among the best in town…”
Weber,
Richard Kern,
p. 67.

“Although I was exceedingly hungry…”
McNitt,
Navaho Expedition,
p. 10.

“At present it is considerably defaced…”
Ibid., p. 18.

Other Jemez Indians joined forces…
Ibid., p. 15 fn.

“Hosta…is one of the finest-looking…”
Ibid., p. 24.

Much of this land…was “a barren waste.”
Ibid., p. 70.

“where it lit for a moment within a foot or two of my person…”
Ibid., p. 25.

“a scene…that partook both of the painful and ludicrous.”
Ibid., p. 29.

The largest of all the structures, Pueblo Bonito…
See Preston,
Talking to the Ground,
p. 56.

“and the bright wild flowers fill the open court…”
Weber,
Richard Kern,
p. 88.

“Had time permitted,…we would gladly have remained…”
McNitt,
Navaho Expedition,
pp. 39, 47.

Archaeologists have come to call it the Chaco Phenomenon.
For a concise description of the Chaco Phenomenon, see Preston,
Talking to the Ground,
pp. 56–58, 268–78.

North America had never seen such a florescence…
My description of the Anasazi rise and fall is primarily adapted from James Judge,
New Light on Chaco Canyon;
David Roberts,
In Search of the Old Ones;
and Preston,
Talking to the Ground
.

wondering whether this bewhiskered little man was a witch.
See Preston,
Talking to the Ground,
p. 269.

Chapter 32 The Finest Head I Ever Saw

“bestrode their horses
a la mode des hommes
.”
McNitt,
Navaho Expedition,
p. 62.

a “dark, portentous cloud” was hovering…
Ibid., p. 63.

“If we are friends…”
McNitt,
Navajo Wars,
p. 143.

“gorgeously decked in red, blue, and white…”
McNitt,
Navaho Expedition,
p. 67.

“quite old and of a very large frame…”
Ibid., p. 63.

“C
ALHOUN
:
Tell them they are lawfully…”
Ibid., p. 66.

negotiations had finally reached a concrete topic…
See Underhill,
The Navajos,
p. 99.

A New Mexican souvenir hunter…
McNitt,
Navajo Wars,
p. 145.

“He was the chief of the Nation…”
Weber,
Richard Kern,
p. 96.

Chapter 33 The Death Knot

The hogan would then have had to be destroyed…
Sapir,
Navajo Texts,
p. 431, and Locke,
The Book of the Navajo,
p. 15.

some Navajos had wondered whether he might be a witch…
Ibid., pp. 118, 247.

feasts and healing gatherings…worked as an economic leveler…
Kluckhohn and Leighton,
The Navajo,
p. 227.

“You can’t grow wealthy if you treat your relatives right.”
Locke,
The Book of the Navajo,
p. 32, and Kluckhohn and Leighton,
The Navajo,
p. 100.

Narbona’s slaves probably performed…the abhorrent parts…
Locke,
The Book of the Navajo,
p. 30, and Hoffman,
Navajo Biographies,
p. 34.

Those tasked with the burial were supposed to destroy several prized horses…
Sapir,
Navajo Texts,
p. 431, and Hoffman,
Navajo Biographies,
p. 34.

There was nothing radiant about the afterlife…
Locke,
The Book of the Navajo,
p. 29.

Navajos…invited to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.
Ibid., p. 10.

the two men then ripped the saddles and bridles into shreds…
After they were destroyed, these objects became known as “ghost’s belongings.” See Sapir,
Navajo Texts,
p. 431.

There they stayed for four nights…
Ibid.

Chapter 34 Men Without Eyes

It was derived from the Navajo word
tsegi
…
Grant,
Canyon de Chelly: Its People and Rock Art,
p. 3.

“It is regrettable…that so much damage…”
McNitt,
Navaho Expedition,
p. 73.

“The country is one extended naked, barren waste…”
Ibid., p. 70.

“pure, wholesome water”…“the towering pines…”
Ibid., p. 78.

“a fight was expected…At nearly every point…”
Weber,
Richard Kern,
p. 96.

Simpson decided to pay his commander an eternal compliment…
McNitt,
Navaho Expedition,
p. 75.

“The road we have been traveling looks as if…”
Ibid., p. 86

It was “exciting…to observe the huts of the enemy…”
Ibid., pp. 86–87.

W
ASHINGTON
: Are he and his people desirous of peace?
Ibid., pp. 88–89.

“Almost perfectly vertical…the custom-house of the city of New York.”
Ibid., p. 93.

The “fabulous rocks…became wilder at every turn.”
Weber,
Richard Kern,
p. 102.

“The mystery of the Canon of Chelly is now…solved.”
McNitt,
Navaho Expedition,
p. 95.

“It seems anomalous to me that a nation…”
Ibid., p. 96.

“tripping down the almost vertical wall as nimbly…”
Ibid., p. 92.

The designs came in a dazzling confusion.
Grant,
Canyon de Chelly,
pp. 153–268.

a curious tableau scrawled across the walls.
My account of the 1805 massacre is drawn from McNitt,
Navajo Wars
; Grant,
Canyon de Chelly,
pp. 84–89; and Underhill,
The Navajos,
pp. 72–73.

“Hostilities between the contracting parties…”
McNitt,
Navajo Wars,
pp. 150–51.

their unwillingness to pronounce anyone’s name out loud…
See Locke,
The Book of the Navajo,
p. 25.

Navajo is an extremely precise language…
See Kluckhohn and Leighton,
The Navajo,
pp. 253–93.

“satisfy the public mind and testify to the whole world…”
McNitt,
Navaho Expedition,
p. 100.