Among the inhabitants is a Jewish storekeeper, Solomon Bibo, once Governor of the Indian pueblo of Acoma, near by, and lord of the "Enchanted Mesa." "Mesa," by the way, is our old friend "mensa," a table, with the "n" left out, and means in Spanish a tableland. As the main characteristic of the country is the dark, sharp-edged tableland, we may have frequently to refer to "mesas."
As a young man, Solomon Bibo came into these parts and sold goods by the wayside, sold them to the Indians, started a trading post, married an Indian girl, won his way to the hearts and councils of the Acoma Indians, who, by the way, four hundred years before, from the height of their mesa, fiercely withstood Coronado. And Solomon who must have learned their language, and danced their dances, entered the tribe and was elected Governor.
That partly answers the question why Jews are not seen to go to Aberdeen. Why should they, when they can go to Acoma and become, as it were, princes?
However, Sol Bibo had had his day at the pueblo and was now leading storekeeper in San Rafael among these less congenial though not less profitable Penitente Spaniards.
Epiphany brought me my horse and we set off. To Cibola from San Rafael is somewhat over eighty miles, through the Zunyi mountains and the Mormon village of Ramah, getting on to what used to be a great but desolate highway in Spanish times from the South to the North.
The trail climbed upward from the warmer lower levels of the lava beds and wound into the mazes of great rock débris, up to banks of unmelted snow and long snow trails where spruce and pinyon blurted from the rocks. We reached wide, untrammeled fields of snow and entered a snowstorm which enveloped us in white veils. Epiphany took a blanket from under his horse and tied it about his shoulders, and I put on my gloves and turned up my collar. We cantered the horses through the snow, even galloped. For the snow made the Spaniard uneasy, and he urged speed. His horse Diamond did not look as if he would last out, but his master had no doubts, and though he plunged and stumbled and got into holes Epiphany merely swore at him, pulled him up, and urged him on the faster.
When the snowstorm lifted Epiphany seemed to be more at ease, but he had broken one of his stirrups and that forced him to a steady trot. We rode across to a deserted cabin, and he sought some wire to mend the stirrup whilst I opened a can of tongue and cut up a rough lunch. Epiphany then admitted he had never been to Ramah before in his life, though he had heard that it was Mormon and you could have more than one wife. This tickled his mind a good deal and he said: "I'll write to my girl when we get there to come and be my first wife." And while he spoke he arduously wound alfalfa wire about the wooden foot-cage of his stirrup.