On the evening of the second day we rode into the mud-hut settlement of the Indians of Santo Domingo and admired their large new church with its external fresco of horses. The horse came to the Indians at the same time as the Cross, and perhaps to them is as holy.
We rode along the broad street, three times as broad as New York's Broadway, and hoof-marked and wheel-marked from wall to wall. The squaws were ascending and descending ladders to go in or come out at the doors which they have in their roofs. On strings along their roof-taps chunks of meat were dessicating in the sunlight. But in front of many houses were portals of green branches and boughs brought up from the woods along the bank of the river.
The Indians neither saluted us nor welcomed us. But their dogs barked at us and we passed on—away through their cornfields down to the Rio Grande-the great river. And there we camped, where the rapid flood rolls down from the Rockies, red with the color of Colorado.
It was the eve of the festival of St. Dominic. Indians in their covered wagons were coming from all parts—Jemez Indians, Tesuque Indians, Navajos ... Indians also on horseback, galloping along the opposite bank of the river and plunging their horses to the ford. All night long the moon among her clouds looked kindly down upon the river and listened, as it were, to the galloping of the horsemen and the crunching of the wheels of the wagons on the valley sand.
Indians encamped in the valley and let loose their horses, built fires beside ours and fried their corn and broiled their coffee; gay men and tittering squaws and wild-eyed little ones. Up in the settlement the guests slept in the streets on the roadways, though all night long music never ceased, nor the throb of the drums for the morning. On the white mud church where the horses were painted on the outside walls they lit seven flaming altars which blazed into the night sky. It looked then like an Aztec pyramid lit for human sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl—the god of the air. Perhaps to the Indians it was. Who knows their minds?
As for us, we slept in the bush on the verge of the red-flowing waters, and our horses neighed to one another and whinnied, the night long.
Next day, as on the night before, we swam in the river—its rapid current flattering our achievement. It was red and warm and mighty, rolling us in wave motion ten feet at a thrust. Yet it was weak. It would be a strong Indian who would swim the Rio Grande when it is in its strength. For it is then capable of washing away villages and towns as it goes. Has not the old church and half the pueblo of Santo Domingo been swept to limbo by the river?
Three beautiful youths come and sit by our camp fire and smile at us—one is in a black velvet coat and with a crimson ribbon in his long ebony hair—he is handsome and romantic as Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Following him we ride up to Mass in the church of the painted horses, and we find the pueblo arrayed in the many colors of gorgeous Indian life. And on top of the kiva or council chamber is a banner crowned with a cluster of many-colored painted feathers. An Indian takes our horses into his yard and we go into the church.
What was there more impressive than the service in Latin, completely in Latin, with not a word of Spanish or of English! Or the Indians singing the chorus of praise and serving at the altar! A giant, as it seems, in terra cotta-colored coat and neatly tied, voluminous black hair standing constantly at the altar steps.