A JOURNEY IN TIME

by

Bruce F. Barber Ê

I seek the impossible: The grave of a man history has placed in the shadows. I seek a grave historians say is in the Mexican state of Sonora-I am searching in Baja California. I know the terrain in which the man was buried. I know precisely what his burial mound looks like. And, although disintegrated now, I know of the papers he placed in his pocket, the saber he carried, and the medallion he wore around his neck.

The man I seek was buried on January 18, 1541. Sought by historians and arch¾ologists alike, his grave has never been found. When it is, and opened, his remains may tell a shocking story. That is, the historic records says he died an accidental death: I believe he was murdered.

His name was Melchior D’az. Appointed in 1531, he was the first Mayor and Military Commander of the fledgling outpost at Culiac‡n in theMexican state of Sinaloa, a post he held with honor for eight trying years.

An experienced explorer who spoke several Indian dialects, D’az was a self-made man. With above average intelligence, and a reputation for succeeding where others failed, the nobility of New Spain looked upon this common-born man as their equal. Don Melchior was a revered Spaniard, a beloved husband, and an adored father. In fact, one of his closest friends, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, awarded his daughter a small town for the countless acts and favors her father had so willingly performed for him.

When, in 1536, Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions wandered out of the bush to describe six horrifying years of enslavement by North American Indians, it was Melchior D’az who nursed them back to health. When Cabeza de Vaca and his companions described seven gold-filled cities somewhere in the unexplored northern territory, it was Melchior D’az who was called upon to verify their existence.

When the expedition formed to conquer the Seven Golden Cities of C’bola needed supplies, it was Melchior D’az who was called upon to obtain themÉ

On September 29, 1540. Melchior D’az headed into the sunset with twenty-five hand-picked soldiers and twelve Opatas Indian guides. Five months later all but one of them returned to report the death of their noble leader.

"He died of an injury sustained by accident," they saidÉ and no one cast a doubt."We buried him alongside the trail," they saidÉ and no one has found his grave.

The story of the C’bola expedition was told by Pedro de Casta–eda, a common soldier who had participated in it. Written at a time he felt the deeds of those with whom he had toiled and suffered may be forgotten, and largely from hearsay, Casta–eda published his story twenty years after the fact.

The original Spanish transcript is preserved in the New York Public Library. This and related documents were copied for their historic value and published in 1896 in a text prepared by George Parker Winship. Other historians have presented their interpretations of the story including, but not limited to, Mota Padilla in 1746, Adolph Bandelier in 1890, and Herbert E. Bolton in 1949.

Because that portion of the narrative entreating D’az's California expedition is incomplete, other historians attempted to establish beyond doubt which route he had taken. In a 1936 edition of Hispanic American Historic Review, Dr. Ronald Ives said D’az followed the Sonora River to the coast before turning north to the lower Colorado River Valley.

Writing in the same periodical a year later, University of California Historian Dr. Carl Sauer insisted the D’az party followed an old Indian trail subsequently named The Devil's Highway. Bolton ascribes to the same theory. In 1986, when I began my search and research, I found it impossible to believe D’az had traveled any route other than the one that would keep him supplied with potable water. There was no drinking water along Mexico's northwest coast between the Sonora and Colorado rivers.

D’az sought Hernando de Alarc—n whose ships carried supplies for the C’bola expedition. Departing Acapulco, Alarc—n was ordered by the Viceroy of New Spain to sail close enough to shore to enable contact with representatives from the C’bola expedition. In compliance with those orders, Alarc—n continued his northerly course to the mouth of the Colorado River. Then, in a spirit of adventure, he entered the Colorado and began what may be termed an effort to reach the seven cities by boat.

The first time I read Casta–eda, I was not impressed. In fact, I was more upset by the mundane manner in which the author handled the first sighting of the Grand Canyon than I was with the death and burial of a second string Lieutenant. Some years later, however, while reading an article by Choral Pepper in the now-defunct Desert Magazine, I learned of the discovery of a grave in Baja California which could be the grave of Melchior D’az.

I was so overwhelmed by the article I dedicated myself to discovery and began my research, a project that led me to the University of New Mexico, the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson, the office of a San Diego printer, and the home of a man who had worked for Desert Magazine. Having met or heard from men who had owned the magazine, I learned Pepper was an author whose stories were not always based on fact.

After studying every word I could find on the subject, I went into the field to familiarize myself with the terrain. The area I explored was northwestern Sonora and northeastern Baja California. Starting from the tiny pueblo of Banamichi, nestled on the banks of the Sonora River, I made my way through ancestral Pima and Papago Indian territory attempting to follow what I believed to be The Melchior D’az Trail. I chased him over mountains and followed him beside still waters. From Banamichi to Cucurpe to Magdalena; from Santa Ana to Caborca and Sonoyta.

Forty miles west of Sonoyta, I entered the Sierra Pinacate to drink from the Tinaja de los Papagos. A natural reservoir in an otherwise waterless desert, I had no alternative but to believe I was drinking from the same pond my Spaniards drank from four hundred fifty years before me.

The trail led to the junction of the Gila and Colorado Rivers where D’az met an Indian who described a tree Alarc—n had emblazoned to indicate letters buried at its base. Whereas D’az found the tree, unearthed and read the letters, I could only guess where it might have been. But, because those papers have never been found, I believe he folded them and placed them in his pocket.

I am a romantic who frequently journeys in time. I look at a building and see the ground it sits upon as it was before the building was erected. I was in Yuma before it existed. I crossed the untamed Colorado on a raft. I tracked the Spaniards over five hundred miles of trail, being so close I could smell the smoke from their campfires. I closed my eyes and heard the sounds of their horses, their harnesses, their stirrups. I heard the men talking as they rode through territory that had never before seen a white man.

Thirty-eight mounted men do not pass silently through anything. I heard themÉ but I can no longer find their trail. I feel like Harrison Ford (of movie fame) searching for the Holy Grail. I see my quest as Ford saw his surrounded by a thousand vipers. Like him, I hold the key; I simply cannot find the lock.

They carried him twenty days, they said, hoping to return him to his confessor. D’az died and was buriedÉ and a grave was found in the Baja. Is there a connection? Is it possible no one has found his grave in Sonora because it simply doesn't exist?

Melchior D’az was a nobleman. He was loved and respected by all who knew him. The grave I seek is five feet high, ten feet long and composed of hundreds of skull-size stones. Called a curious pile of rocks by the man who found it in the 30s, it is a labor-intensive creation by workers numbering more than a few.

They carried him twenty days, they said, and a grave was found in the Baja. If Casta–eda was wrong, then Winship, Bolton and the others were wrong, too. But, if they carried him twenty days and buried him in Baja, it could mean those twenty-five Spaniards were farther south than they reported themselves to have been. This fact not only makes these the first Europeans to set foot on Baja California Norte, it suggests they were forging a route to La Paz, the site of Cortez's pearl harvesting colony.

The presence of the D’az grave in Baja California could be the result of foul play. I do not believe twenty-five men could keep a secret as serious as murder but I do believe one or two could have committed the crime and convinced the others of an accidental death. The man to whom they reported, upon returning to (Banamichi), was under indictment for trial as a slaver. He had a reputation as a troublemaker and, in fact, was killed when he caused an Indian uprising shortly after the D’az party returned.

Subsequent to the return of the Coronado Expedition from C’bola, two courts of inquiry were convened without one word of testimony about D’az's death. If D’az died at the hands of others, his murderer(s) committed the perfect crime. The man I seek was not a rapist. He was neither a slaver, murderer nor thief. Neither was he Pizarro, Cortez, Coronado or MendozaÉ but an honorable man history has placed inthe shadows. I know this man and, for the years I've spent chasing him, I believe he knows me, too.

The grave I seek is somewhere within a one thousand square mile tract. Searching by the process of elimination, I have reduced that figure by half. Assuming he awaits me, he is seated in a narrow valley with an arroyo cutting through its center. He sits on a knob of land on a hillside draining to the west. I cannot see him from a distance, but I'll know him the moment we meet: A curious pile of rocksÉ and a man on a journey in time. Ê