I Fought a Good Fight: A History of the Lipan Apaches

5. Carlana

41 Chief Carlana heard from other Apaches that the Spanish governor was in their land, but he didn’t believe it. No governor had ever come to their country. He rode to the top of a tall hill and looked out. In the distance he made out a halo of dust. Carlana hurried to find the Spaniards so he might ride with them against the invaders. Already the Comanches had displaced Carlana’s people and attacked the Jicarillas so many times they feared for their survival. The small, isolated camps were easy pickings for the Comanches, who had many warriors. In late September 1719, Carlana found Governor Antonio de Valverde on a river the Apaches called La Flecha (the Cimarron, just north of the confluence with Ponil Creek). Apaches, probably Flechas de Palo, lived there in nine houses; one adobe house was topped by a cross.2 Valverde was eating as Carlana approached and greeted the governor. “Ave Maria,” said Carlana in a clear voice. “Sin pecado concevida,” the governor replied. Valverde gave the chief his own plate of boiled meat and vegetables . Carlana ate the mutton but not the chicken. (Apaches didn’t eat poultry.) He told Valverde that because of Ute and Comanche attacks, 5 CHAPTER Carlana [The French and Pawnees] can without impediment penetrate into that realm if our allies, the Carlana Apaches, do not block their passage . . . Inform [theTexas governor] how affectionate are the Apaches of La Jicarilla , in El Cuartelejo and in the Sierra Blanca towards our people . . . — Juan de Olivan Revolledo, 1720.1 42 I FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT he fled his country with half of his people to get help from the Jicarillas ; the rest went to live with Apaches farther inland, led by Chief Flaco. The Carlanas lived in the northern Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a southern spur of the Rocky Mountains, and in the Sierra Blanca range near present Raton, where the mountains melt into a mesa reaching east into rolling prairie, green or gold with the change of seasons, and buttes stand square-shouldered on the horizon. The allied Comanches and Utes had rained devastation on the Eastern Apaches and Spanish settlements for nearly twenty years, and Valverde intended to punish them, which cheered Carlana. He and his people would guide them to the land of the enemy and show them all the best places and springs. Near Rayado Creek,3 the expedition entered several villages where unnamed Apaches and Jicarillas complained bitterly that Utes and Comanches had attacked their villages many times and killed and captured so many of their people, that they hardly knew where to live. They’d even burned their piles of maize. These enemies might return and finish them off. An old Apache woman on horseback arrived to say her people would place themselves at Valverde’s service. Chief Carlana and his people had abandoned their home in the Spanish Peaks and erected their twenty-seven tipis at a Jicarilla village of seven terraced houses on Ponil Creek, where proficient farmers with irrigation ditches were harvesting corn. Carlana and the Jicarillas repeated their offers to accompany the Spaniards. At the Canadian, twenty (Flechas de Palo) Apaches appeared. They too had been attacked by Comanches and joined the expedition. On September 27 Chief Carlana reappeared with sixty-nine Apaches. “They circled the camp on their horses, jubilantly singing and shouting. In the evening these same messengers danced according to their custom, some covered with red and others with white paint . . . After they had danced for a good part of the night, [Valverde] ordered them entertained and feasted,” wrote the expedition chronicler. The next day Carlana sent out seven young scouts armed with arrows, machetes and oval leather shields. About two-by-three feet, Carlana 43 their tough convex shields were made from wet hide tightly stretched and molded in a shallow depression in the ground; arrows and even bullets were known to glance off these convex shields unless they hit dead center. Other Apaches hunted game and one day drove deer into camp with “great glee and shouting.” They were in a favorite hunting ground near present Walsenburg, Colorado, which they had avoided out of fear for the Utes. When the expedition caught up with Carlana’s spies, they had sobering news. Five enemies had gone to Carlana’s former home and, not finding any Apaches, turned around. Other Apache spies found three trails...