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Abe Peña's  "From the Past" newspaper column

All material used with the kind permission of the author, given to me personally.

"Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:56 PM MST

Villages of Rio Puerco

Abe Peña is a local author and historian whose award winning books 'Memories of Cíbola' and 'Villages and Villagers' are available at bookstores throughout New Mexico.

Abe Peña, a lifelong resident of Cíbola County, is an author and historian.

It was a trip to remember. On June 20, 2001, Alfredo Apodaca and I drove from Grants via San Mateo north to the remote and now-abandoned villages of the Rio Puerco . . . Cabezon, San Luis, Guadalupe, and Casa Salazar. The road we took follows more or less the stage coach route that came from Santa Fe to Fort Wingate (now San Rafael) in the 1870s and 1880s.

For 83-year-old Alfredo, the trip was to re-live and refresh his memory of a country he knew as a young man. For me, it was to see an area which fascinated me from hearing and reading about it but had never seen.

It was everything I imagined and more. The terrain is massive, stark, and diverse. The arroyo, almost a canyon, cut by the Rio Puerco is immense. Millions of cubic yards of silt have washed down stream on the way to the Rio Grande and on to the Gulf of Mexico. It is from the muddy water which occasionally flows from run-off that the Rio Puerco, Muddy River, gets its name. Most of the year, the river is dry.

El cerro del Cabezon, Big Head, a huge volcanic plug which rises more than 2,000 feet above the valley floor, dominates the skyline. The flat-top mesas nearby literally look like huge tables. They are all different colors, and most picturesque.

Other smaller volcanic plugs and mesas with interesting and pictorial names are: los cerros cuates, el cerro parido, el cerro del cochino, la mesa prieta, el cerro de las yeguas, el ojo del Padre; and those plugs come in all shapes and forms. No doubt the whole scene was touched by the hand of God.

Nasario Garcia, a professor and dean at Highlands University, has written several books about the area. Nasario was raised in Guadalupe. In “Recuerdos de los Viejitos, Tales of the Rio Puerco,” published by UNM Press, he interviews old-timers who lived in the villages and they tell their stories in both English, but mostly Spanish, recalling their many blessings as well as their unending struggles.

The story which riveted my attention was “La muerte de Ruperto Gonzales (The death of Ruperto Gonzales).” Ruperto Gonzales was a fascinating character. I first learned about him from Celito Jaramillo, who called me in the 1980s to ask if I knew the story of Ruperto Gonzales. I told him no, and he recited a couple of verses from the ballad of Ruperto Gonzales:

“Yo soy Ruperto Gonzales, - I am Ruperto Gonzales,

que me tratan de ladron, - whom many call a thief

me siquo la Policia - the police followed me

de Albuquerque al Cabezon, - from Albuquerque to Cabezon,

al llegar a la angostura - as we approached the narrows

el Pajaro me salio, - a Sheriff in blue appeared

me izo levantar loz brazos, - made me raise my arms and

y en el corazon me dio.” - Shot me through the heart

When he was through reciting, he said, “Ruperto was the father of Evaristo Gonzales, who herded sheep for your father years ago.” Of course I remembered don Evaristo Gonzales. In the summer of 1939, I was his assistant herding a flock of sheep at Los Cerros de Alejandro, on the north end of Mount Taylor. Don Evaristo was not only a good sheepherder, but also a leader of los Comanches, a pageant we celebrated for Christmas.in our hispanic villages.

What I've learned about Ruperto Gonzales is that some people considered him a Robin Hood. He stole from the rich to give to the poor. By the same token, there are others who considered him simply a horse thief. Ruperto, it seems, had an eye for pretty women and pretty women had an eye for him. I believe that explains the thinking of some of those, especially husbands, who considered him a horse thief.

We are fortunate that Nasario Garcia took pen in hand to write about the Rio Puerco villages. The villages were settled and thrived for about 150 years. Today, they stand as a testament to a hardworking people who succeeded in a world that was swiftly changing around them. Nasario has also written “Brujas, Bultos, y Brasas, Mas Antes - Voices from the Rio Puerco,” and “Abuelitos, Comadres, Platicas, y Tata.” All are part of the story of the villages of the Rio Puerco.

The villages are now abandoned, except San Luis, where a few families still live and still celebrate Las Fiestas in mid-June. We were there on June 20, but signs were still up announcing the Fiestas for June 16 and 17.

Most of the homes were built with adobes and are now in various stages of decay and erosion. Some still show signs of families returning from time to time and attempting to keep them up. The red ojelata roofs are rusting and dislodging when the high winds blow. Once the roofs are gone, the process of erosion will accelerate and in a few decades little or nothing will be left. The adobe walls will return to their original loam and the villages will be but a memory.

“From dust you came and to dust you shall return.”

Abe Peña is a local author and historian whose award-winning books Memories of Cíbola and Villages & Villagers are available at bookstores throughout New Mexico."