Tales from the Journey of the Dead: Ten Thousand Years on an American Desert

8. The Coming of the Ingles

80 8. The Coming of the Ingles Lieutenant Facundo Malgares sat on his fine horse on the high butte at the northern edge of the Jornada del Muerto. The medicine he had ingested last night at camp eased his fever, yet it did nothing to calm his concern for what lay ahead. For six days he had escorted the captive Ingles, the English-speaking people, down the easiest stretch of the river from Santa Fe. From here to Chihuahua, he knew, would be the most di≈cult part of the journey . The open, immense Jornada stood now before them. Malgares was an intelligent, wealthy, well-educated, and well-trusted soldier under the command of a nervous Spanish government in Santa Fe. Fearful of the Mexican people’s growing sentiment for rebellion, Spain now also had to contend with both French and American incursions into their immense territory. At Malgares’s side rode the leader of the Ingles captives, the dauntless explorer Zebulon Montgomery Pike. It was midday, March 11, 1807. Several dozen Spanish dragoons under Malgares’s command were taking Pike and fifteen or sixteen other men from the United States to Chihuahua City. Malgares was given the delicate task of enforcing a kind of polite house arrest, while allowing Pike and his men to have at least the illusion of free will. Pike had recently gained fame when he led an expedition north from St. Louis in an attempt to discover the source of the Mississippi River and to try to establish control of the area’s Native populations for the United States government. After his return and a two-month rest period in St. Louis, soon-tobe -Captain Pike was ordered to command another expedition for the United States, this time to explore the source of the Red and Arkansas The Coming of the Ingles 81 rivers. He had orders to make contact with the Indians and to ‘‘approximate ’’ the Spanish territory. The exact intent of Pike’s expedition has forever been clouded in mystery and speculation, but some historians suspect he was allied with the conspirator Aaron Burr, who had plans to create a new country from large tracts of Louisiana and Mexico. When the Spanish government in Santa Fe learned of Pike’s movements , and probably as a counter to it, they organized their own expedition east into Louisiana Territory. By one of the odd coincidences that seem to litter the Jornada like bones, as Pike and his men were moving west toward the Rockies the previous fall, it was Malgares and his men who moved east out of New Mexico and onto the plains into what is now Kansas. Each came upon the other’s tracks at least once. The late-season start to the uncharted Rockies caused Pike’s expedition to reach the eastern foothills just as winter was coming on. Although snow had already fallen in the mountains, the expedition entered the Rockies climbing over the shoulder of a tall, triangular mountain we still call Pike’s Peak. After barely surviving three harrowing months in the mountains west of Pike’s Peak, Pike led his men south. In February they entered Spanish territory on the upper Rio Grande and were soon met by Spanish soldiers. Pike would later claim he was lost and had thought he was still in Louisiana Territory. The ragged captives straggled into Santa Fe. ‘‘When we presented ourselves in Santa Fe,’’ Pike recorded, ‘‘I was dressed in a pair of blue trousers, moccasins, blanket, coats and there was not a hat in the whole party.’’ In Santa Fe, Pike was taken to meet the Spanish governor. World politics then, as now, teetered constantly between the desire for possession and the blackness of war; then as now, men of power stood on slippery foundations of mistrust and suspicion and faced a world full of aggression. The governor bowed slightly and, speaking in French, asked Pike if he too spoke French. ‘‘Yes sir,’’ Pike said. ‘‘You come to reconnoiter our country, do you?’’ 82 The Coming of the Ingles Pike shook his head. ‘‘I marched to reconnoiter our own,’’ he shot back. The governor pressed on. ‘‘In what character are you?’’ ‘‘In my proper character,’’ Pike snu√ed, ‘‘an o≈cer of the United States army.’’ The conversation shifted to something resembling a formal inquisition . ‘‘When did you leave St. Louis?’’ the governor asked. ‘‘July 15th.’’ ‘‘I think you...