There were another 24 or so similar villages in the kingdom of Quivira. The Spaniards spent nearly a month riding disconsolately among them, gradually absorbing the truth that riches of the kind they wanted lay neither here nor, as far as they could learn, further east. (During the same period., De Soto was arriving at the same opinion while wandering through parts of Arkansas.) Angry questions were inevitable. Why had the Turk sought to mislead them both with his tales and his guidance? Under pressure he said the people of Cicuyé had put him up to it on the supposition he could lure the invaders to their doom. Perhaps they had. Or perhaps El Turco was simply trying, in his extremity, to shift blame.
The last straw came when Ysopete, El Turco’s enemy, said the Pawnee was trying to stir up the Quivirans against the Spaniards. Acting on Coronado’s orders, a party of executioners strangled and buried him, secretly at night lest the Quivirans be aroused.
There were no repercussions. Guided by several young Quivirans, the scouts returned by a direct route to the Rio Grande Valley, arriving in mid-September. In Coronado’s mind, the absence of treasure was conclusive, but among those who had not gone to Quivira were many who believed that if the scouts had continued eastward, they would have found the Seven Cities. Coronado agreed half-heartedly to make another attempt the following spring, but fate intervened. During a horse race with a friend, his saddle girth broke and he was thrown under the hooves of his opponent’s mount. Though his body gradually recovered, his spirits did not. After another miserable winter in Alcanfor, he ordered the army to start home. He was carried much of the way in a litter swung between two mules hitched in tandem.
On the great plains Coronado encountered a nomadic people he variously called “Teyas” and “Querechos.” They were the buffalo-hunting Apaches, who followed the migrating herds, packing their goods from place to place on travois hauled by dogs. They impressed the Spaniards more than any Indians they had met. “They are a gentle people, not cruel,” wrote the expedition’s chronicler of the Apaches, “faithful in their friendship, and skilled in their use of sign.”
By dying, De Soto escaped being tried for failure. Not Coronado. He was investigated for derelictions in connection with an Indian rebellion that swept his province immediately after his departure, for mistreating the Indians of Tiguex, and for failing to press on beyond Quivira. Every enemy he had and a pack of opportunists and publicity hunters in quest of an audience took the stand against him, often blurting out scandalous rumors that had nothing to do with the case. Ill, his mind cloudy, he testified poorly in his own defense. But he had supporters, too, and in the end, largely through the help of Viceroy Mendoza, he was cleared of all legal charges. Though he lost the governorship of Nueva Galicia and some of his property there, he retained his seat on Mexico City’s council until his health, poor since his return, broke completely. He died on September 22, 1554, aged 44.
There is a footnote. A few Mexican Indians stayed in Háwikuh and Cicuyé and a survivor or two were found in those towns when Spanish exploration of the Pueblo country resumed four decades later. Some religious people also stayed. One, old Fray Luís de Ubeda, the builder of crosses, settled at Cicuyé, hoping to spread Christianity by baptizing children. His fate is unknown.
Fray Juan de Padilla’s tale is more dramatic. Obsessed with saving Indian souls by bringing them to the Church and dreaming still of the Seven Cities, he accompanied the young Quiviran guides back to their homes from the Rio Grande. Helping him drive along some pack mules, a horse, and a flock of sheep were two Indian donados of Mexico named Lucas and Sebastián, Andrés do Campo, a Portuguese, a black “interpreter,” and a handful of servants. (Indians were not allowed to become full-fledged friars, but if they were “donated” to the Church by their parents, they could, as donados, serve as assistants.)
The missionary adventure was short-lived. While attempting to press on east of Quivira, the group was attacked by unidentified assailants. Padilla died, bristling with arrows. Do Campo, the two donados, and perhaps some others escaped. Separated, the donados and do Campo traveled along different routes from tribe to tribe for at least four years until at last they reached Pánuco, Mexico—trips as astonishing but far less famed than the odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca, whose cross-continental traverse had put all these ill-fated land expeditions into motion. And so, except for the salt-water adventures of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, the epics had reached full circle.
