Pecos River

“ Before him stretched the sloping valley of the Rio Pecos. Glancing to the right, he could just catch the glimmer of the river as it flowed by in the moonlight, the banks being low and not wooded, while looking straight up the valley, his vision was bounded only by darkness itself. Carefully running his eye over the ground, he was confident that the slyest and most stealthy Indian that ever lived could not approach within a hundred feet of him without detection.
“And the minute I'm certain its a red-skin, that minute I'll let him have it,” he added, instinctively grasping his rifle. ”

“ The Little Colorado River, and afterwards the Pecos River in New Mexico, I have often seen so thick with dead and dying cattle that a man might walk up and down the river on the bodies of these unfortunate creatures. ”

“ Shortly after reaching the plains east of the Pecos River, Alvarado’s explorers found themselves in the middle of a vast herd of buffalo. Lancing the huge beasts from a running horse and afterwards dining on the tender, roasted meat of their humps made for high living, but the sport was soon forgotten in a greater excitement. The Turk said he knew where there was gold. In Quivira. And even more in Harahey.
This ancient pueblo kiva at Pecos is one of two restored kivas in the park. At center is the firepit and stone draft deflector. ”

“ At the end of, and immediately following, the first World War, around 1919 and 1920, the United States Government Commission of Reclamation was constructing several dams along the Pecos River some 20 miles east of the site of the big Bat Cave. The purpose of the dams was to impound river water for irrigation of the surrounding agricultural lands. ”

“ It will be to Santa Fé and Las Vegas what the beautiful drive between Naples, Sorrento, and Amalfi is to Southern Italy. This scenic road will wind up to the Dalton Divide, nine thousand five hundred feet high, where Lake Peak, glittering with snow, Santa Fé Cañon, and other peaks and precipices and cañons, are all about, and the Pecos River is seen far below as a thread of silver. This drive will be one of the famous features of the entire West when completed. New Mexico monopolizes the greatest belt of coal deposits west of the Missouri, while Arizona has the monopoly in pine forests. ”

“ The place fixed for the location of New Boston was in a gently sloping valley, with the Rio Pecos running on the right. The soil was fertile, as was shown in the abundance of rich, succulent grass which grew about them, while, only a few hundred yards up the river, was a grove of timber, filled in with dense undergrowth and brush—the most favorable location possible for a band of daring red-skins, when preparing to make a raid upon the settlement. The hunter turned the head of his mustang in the direction of this wood, and rode away at a slow walk. ”

“ The altitude of this valley is on an average not less than six thousand three hundred feet, [87] while the mesa on the right bank of the river rises abruptly to nearly two thousand feet higher; the Tecolote chain is certainly not much lower, if any; and the summits of the high Sierras in the north rise to over ten thousand feet at least. [88] p. 38
The Rio Pecos (which empties into the Rio Grande fully five degrees more to the south, in the State of Texas) hugs, in the upper part of the valley, closely to the mountains of Tecolote, and thence runs almost directly north and south. ”

“ And we learned, also, that the Apaches from the Guadalupe Mountains, west of the Pecos river, had fled back to their own retreat more than 100 miles away; and that Captain Lee had been to our battle-ground. ”

“ For many hundred miles it courses through a wilderness rarely traversed by man, more rarely by men claiming to be civilised. Its banks are only trodden by the savage, and by him but when going to or returning from a raid. For this turbid stream is a true river of the desert, having on its left side the sterile tract of the Llano Estacado, on its right dry table plains that lead up to the Sierras, forming the “divide” between its waters and those of the Bravo del Norte.
On the side of the Staked Plain the Pecos receives but few affluents, and these of insignificant character. ”

“ They kept at first up the west fork of the Trinity River, crossing a patch of heavily timbered country. Then they struck the main fork of Brazos River and followed it for some distance; then took the track across to the Rio Pecos. It led them by a toilsome journey across an elevated and arid country without wood or water, save that which they obtained at the head-waters of the Double Mountain River and from four small streams which united lower down to form the north fork of the Colorado River. ”

“ Nearly in the centre of this triangle, two miles west of the river, and one and a half miles from Baughl's, there rises a narrow, semicircular cliff or mesilla, over the bed of a stream known as the Arroyo de Pecos. [89] The southern end of this tabular cliff (its highest point as well as its most sunny slope) is covered with very extensive ruins, representing, as I shall hereafter explain, three distinct kinds of occupation of the place by man. These ruins are known under the name of the Old Pueblo of Pecos. ”

“ Its tributaries in the latter States are the Pecos, from the north; the Conchos, Salaclo, Alamo, and San Juan, from the south. The whole course of the river, in a straight line, would be near 1,200 miles; but by the meandering of its lower half, it runs at least about 2,000 miles from the region of eternal snow to the almost tropical climate of the gulf. The elevation of the river above the sea near Albuquerque, in New Mexico, is about 4,800 feet; in el Paso del Norte about 3,800; and at Reynosa, between three and four hundred miles from its mouth, about 170 feet. ”

“ The Red River Road, from Ute Park, west over the divide, and down Red River to Questa, thence to Taos, has now been finished.
Good roads recently built by the Government and state into portions of the Sacramento Range and into the White Mountains have opened up areas for recreation. Among these is the beautiful Ruidoso Creek, now reached over an excellent road from the Pecos Valley and through the Mescalero-Apache Indian Reservation, and the area at the north end of the Capitans recently chosen by Roswell for a municipal camp. ”

“ It can be nothing else than Pecos, whose aboriginal Indian name, in the Jemez language, is "Âgin," whereas Pecos is the "Paego" of the Qq'uêres idiom. There is no other Indian pueblo answering to its description and geographical location as given by the chroniclers of Coronado. The fact that "when the army quitted Cicuyé top. 21 go to Quivira, we entered the mountains, which it was necessary to cross to reach the plains, and on the fourth day we arrived at a great river, very deep, which passes also near Cicuyé," [58] does not at all militate against it. ”

“ For these, see the itinerary, Apr. 30th-May 13th, pp. 668-678, and notes there. The lakes Pike proceeds to mention are in or on the border of present Coahuila. The situation of the Presidio del Norte, where the Conchos discharges, is lat. 29° 33 ́ 53 ́ ́ N., long. 104° 36 ́ 27 ́ ́ W., by the river 346 m. above the mouth of the Pecos, and 348 below El Paso—both of these distances much in excess of the direct line between these points. "Batopilis" is very far out for the source of the Conchos, unless Pike refers to some other place than the modern Batopilas. This is situated below lat. ”

“ In this retreat they were free from the intrusion of prying neighbors, and the inquisitiveness of passing travellers. It was and is a lovely place. There are few traces of the presence of man in that wilderness land. The Pecos flows miles away from their place through a valley full of natural beauties. But the region is lonely—so lonely! There are only trails occasionally followed by a band of predatory Lipans, or traversed by marauding parties of Comanches and Kickapoos, on raids to the Mexican border through that vast region. ”

“ But there is not the least vestige of former human dwellings, so far as I could see: the top of the mesa of Pecos is, and was, a wilderness. It may have been the hunting-grounds of the tribe even in winter, but as for their exchanging their large pueblo at the bottom for a residence on the top it is very much as if the good people of New York City should spend Christmas week on the Catskill Range, or the Bostonians take winter quarters on Mount Monadnock. We followed the crest of the mesa for nearly four miles, ascending two of its highest tops. They are steep, denuded, and craggy. ”

“ A man's a dam' fool to steal a thousand dollars' worth of cattle and only git eighty dollars for it."
Three days later, riding by a trail that led ever to the east, Pecos came upon a narrow valley filled with cottonwoods and wild walnuts and echoing to the music of running water. A fine brook, flowing down from the brushy heights of the Peaks, leaped and tumbled over the bowlders and disappeared through a narrow cleft below, where the two black walls drew together until they seemed almost to block the cañon. ”

“ The ruins of Pecos Pueblo and Spanish missions of the 17th- and 18th-centuries crown a small ridge overlooking the Pecos Valley in upper New Mexico. At the time of the Coronado entrada, the pueblo was a giant apartment house, several stories high, with a central plaza, 600 rooms, and many kivas—home to 2,000 souls. The village prospered because it commanded the trade path between Pueblo farmers of the Rio Grande and buffalo hunters of the Plains. Pecos was a crossroads of commerce and culture, and its people grew adept at trade and war. ”

“ The altitude of Santa Fé Baldy, for instance, exceeds twelve thousand feet.
[89] Not to be confounded with the Rio de Pecos proper. The arroyo is not found on most of the maps. Its width is about 100 m.—330 ft.—but there is scarcely ever more than a mere fillet of very clear, limpid water in it.
[90] This is, however, only accidental, and exclusively due to nine months of consecutive drouth. Generally the strips of bottom-land have a rich soil, and grow fine corn, wheat, and oats.
[91] They are very picturesque objects, and stand out boldly, appearing to rise directly from the plain. ”

“ It is about 800 m.—2,620 ft.—from the foot of the mesa, in a belt of fine large pine timber, very high, and gives glimpses of splendid views over the valley of Pecos to the Sierras beyond. Climate fine, but nights very cold. The buildings are as yet nearly all temporary; it is more a camp than a place as is it now. I spent ten very happy days here, from the 28th of August to the 6th of September,—or rather nights, since the days were, with two exceptions (5th and 6th of September, when I visited Pecos town and explored the high mesa) , devoted to the study of the ruins. ”

“ The Rio Pecos is crossed just beyond Bernal, and thence on he speeds towards the west and north: to the left, the towering Mesa de Pecos, darkp. 39 pines clambering up its steep sides; to the right, the broad valley, scooped out, so to say, between the mesa and the Tecolote ridge. It is dotted with green patches and black clusters of cedar and pine shooting out of the red and rocky soil. Scarcely a house is visible, for the casitas of adobe and wood nestle mostly in sheltered nooks. Beyond Baughl's, the ruins first strike his view ”

“ They are so important as to deserve special discussion in a laterp. 91 portion of this report. I therefore cross the creek back again to its eastern shore, and thence to the south side of the old church, proceeding thence southwards. From the church a grassy slope, very gentle and with almost imperceptible undulations, extends to the road which runs almost due W. and E. from the creek towards the Rio Pecos. The distance is about 300 m.—1,000 ft.,—of which 74 m.—240 ft.—are taken up by the embankments, walls, and foundation lines already described as pertaining to the church building. ”

“ Grass Mountain is used as a lookout station for fires on the Upper Pecos. The world literally lies at your feet. You have all the exaltation of the mountain climber without the travail and labor; for the rangers have cut an easy trail up the ridge; and you stand with the snow wall of the peaks on your north, the crumpled, purpling masses of the Santa Fe Range across the Pecos Cañon, and the whole Pecos Valley below you. Not a fire can start up for a hundred miles but the mushroom cone of smoke is visible from Grass Mountain and the rangers spur to the work of putting the fire out. ”

“ I therefore returned to Baughl's, and thence to Santa Fé, with the firm determination to revisit Pecos at a future day, and then do what I was compelled reluctantly to leave undone this time. Should, in the mean time, some archæologist explore the same locality, correct my errors, and unravel the mysteries hovering about the place, I heartily wish him as much pleasure and quiet enjoyment as I have had during my ten days' work, in which the dream of a life has at last begun its realization. ”

“ In the middle of the north wall a hole is knocked out, but the two coats of plaster (dark and white) are almost everywhere preserved. Great interest attaches to this apartment, from the fact that, according to Sr. Mariano Ruiz, the sacred embers ("braza") were kept here until 1840, in which year the five last remaining families of Pecos Indians removed to their cognates at Jemez, and the "sacred fire" disappeared with them. Sr. Ruiz is good authority on that point, since, as a member of the tribe [125] ("hijo del pueblo") , he was asked to perform his duty by attending to the embers one year. ”