[Illustration: Coronado’s army on the march]
Perhaps there was no gold in the town, but there was food and the Spaniards were half-starved. Coronado deployed horsemen entirely around the town to prevent anyone’s escaping while he himself dismounted and led an attack on foot up the slope toward the pueblo’s single narrow, twisting entry. Clad in gilded armor that attracted attention (and must have been clumsy to run in), he was straightway knocked senseless by a huge stone. Two officers shielded his body while he was dragged to safety.
Advantage of position was with the defenders, and the Spaniards, we are told, were in bad shape. The strings of the crossbows, rotted by the sun, snapped when cranked tight. The arquebusers were too weak from hunger and heat to join the onslaught. Yet no one was killed and only a dozen were hurt. Within less than an hour the town surrendered, an outcome difficult to understand unless the defenders hurled their missiles so wildly that none took effect, whereupon they gave up, terrified by the enemy’s relentless momentum and flashing swords, a weapon they had never before encountered.
After Coronado had recovered from his concussion and his men had sated their hunger on Háwikuh’s corn, beans, and turkeys (which the Indians raised for feathers rather than food), he began assessing his situation. Couriers brought in delegations from the neighboring towns, and he put what he learned from them into a long letter he wrote Mendoza and dated August 3, 1540. It is a prized ethnographical document now because of its generally accurate descriptions of the Pueblos. Mendoza must have found it discouraging. No gold. But Coronado was determined, he wrote, to keep pressing the search. To strengthen his forces he sent orders, via the letter-bearers, for the bulk of the main army to advance to Háwikuh. The remainder were to establish a halfway station beside the long trail. This station was entrusted to Melchior Díaz. As soon as Díaz had put things in shape there, he was to ride to the Gulf in search of Alarcón’s supply ships. Fray Marcos, ill, disgraced, and fearing for his safety, went home with the messengers.
_On Cíbola: “Although [the Seven Cities] are not decorated with turquoises, nor made of lime or good bricks, nevertheless they are very good houses, three, four, and five storeys high, and they have very ... good rooms with corridors, and some quite good apartments underground and paved, which are built for winter and are something like hot-houses [kivas].... In [Háwikuh] are perhaps 200 houses, all surrounded by a wall.... The people of these towns are fairly large and seem to me to be quite intelligent ... most of them are entirely naked except for the covering required for decency ... they wear the hair on their heads like the Mexicans, and are well formed and comely ... the food they eat in this country consists of maize, of which they have a great abundance, beans, and game.... They make the best tortillas I have ever seen anywhere, and this is what everybody ordinarily eats.”_