Sirena: A Novel

By E. G. Lopez

Epic account of a New Mexico Hispanic family swept up in a clash of empires, one waning and the other ascendant. A tragic tale of parallel nations, peoples, and lovers converging nowhere this side of infinity, marching in lockstep towards disaster.

The twins see it coming. Ron and Jake Valdez, prophets without honor, hamstrung by their own demons, powerless before the juggernaut. After Guantanamo, it was easy, first baby steps, later giant steps.

Homeland Security, Patriot Act, private armies, and concentration camps. In the name of freedom, they destroyed freedom, the bright shining star imploding, devouring itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9781440180231

E. G. Lopez

E. G. Lopez was born in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. He is a Navy Veteran and graduate of the Milwaukee School of Engineering, BSEE, and the University of Pittsburgh, MBA, and a retired investigator for the National Labor Relations Board. In Sirena, he focuses his experience and a 300-year New Mexico oral heritage on an issue as old as humanity that threatens the integrity and the very viability of our great nation today.

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Sirena

A Novel

E. G. Lopez

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Bloomington

Sirena

Copyright © 2009 by Edward G. Lopez

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-4401-8024-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-8023-1 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 12/28/09

Contents

PART I

ILUSIÓN

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

PART II

PASIÓN

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

PART III

PERFIDIA

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

ENDNOTES

This is a work of fiction;

life is stranger.

I dedicate it to

La Gente.

No La Gente, estos

(Not La Gente, these others)

—Old New Mexico woman, 1925,

as to the cause of the degradation

of life in the Kingdom.

PART I

ILUSIÓN

On the boundary between the provinces of Soria and Saragosa in central Spain, looms Moncayo, the mountain, its summit enshrouded by storm clouds, its visage somber, mysterious, nestling in the folds of its voluminous skirts La Fuente de Los Alamos. Gustavo Adolfo Becquer wrote about the spring and the legendary siren that dwelt within the waters of this limpid pool.

A young nobleman, Fernando de Argonsola, first-born of the Marquis of Almenar, and his hunters pursued a wounded deer among the foothills of Moncayo. The deer escaped along a path which led to La Fuente de Los Alamos. Fernando’s hunters refused to go further. Iñigo, the lead huntsman, explained to his young lord that it was impossible for them to proceed farther along that path as it led to a spring wherein dwelt an evil spirit and that whoever should dare to disturb its waters, would pay dearly for his audacity. He likened the hunters to lords of Moncayo, but lords who paid tribute. Any game which took refuge about the spring was considered part of that tribute.

Fernando would not be stayed. He would not, under any circumstances, forego the first fruit of his hunting excursions. The deer could still be seen at intervals faltering, wounded, along the path that led through the foothills. Fernando galloped off in pursuit. He returned after some time with his prize. But in the weeks that followed, Iñigo noticed a deep change in the young man’s demeanor. No longer did he go boisterously to the hunt with his hounds and trumpets. Instead, he daily grew more pale, his countenance drawn and sorrowful. Each morning he would disappear into the thicket with his cross-bow and he would not return until dusk. Iñigo gently prodded him to account for his changed behavior.

Fernando seemed relieved to unburden himself of the dreadful secret he carried within; to talk about the overwhelming desire for solitude which had filled his soul since the day that he had crossed the waters of the spring in pursuit of his quarry. He began to describe the place.

The spring welled forth from a hidden cleft in a rock and fell, drop by brilliant, golden drop, murmuring through the lush foliage surrounding the spring’s birthplace, the drops then combining among the grasses to form a lovely stream leaping, rushing, sighing, laughing, plunging finally to form a pool, profound and mysterious, motionless even in the evening breeze.

Fernando had returned again and again to that pool, to sit on a stone ledge overlooking the waters, to stare feverishly into their depths, enthralled by their songs, laments, strange murmurings. He was drawn by the solitude, intoxicated by the spring’s indescribable air of melancholy. He searched the pool and its surroundings for a glimpse of the vision he had seen on the day that he had first crossed the pool on horseback. In the depths he had seen the eyes of a woman. His own eyes had been captivated by those eyes, his soul filled with a strange, unrealizable desire to find their owner.

And then one evening, after many trips, just when he was becoming convinced that it had all been simply a dream, a mirage, he found a woman sitting at his accustomed place on the ledge. Her garments flowed downward and became one with the waters of the pool. She was beautiful beyond imagination. Her hair golden, and behind resplendent lashes, those eyes, the very eyes which he had first glimpsed in the pool.

Fernando began to describe her eyes, their color, their hue, impossible..… Iñigo interrupted, Ojos verdes! Fernando wondered at Iñigo’s knowledge. Had he seen her, met her? God forbid! exclaimed Iñigo. He had been told a thousand times by his father, who had been told by his father, that the spirit, demon or woman who abided in that pool had green eyes, but of such a green as had never been seen elsewhere, impossible to describe, hypnotic, they would enthrall and eventually destroy whomsoever should gaze into them.

He begged Fernando not to return to the spring. One day the spirit would exact its vengeance and Fernando would atone with his life for his foolishness in having roiled and defiled the pure waters of the spring, for his presumptuousness in attempting to consort with a spirit. Again and again, Iñigo implored his master to forsake his impossible, deadly quest, in the name of his fathers, his young wife, for the sake, if nothing else, of his humble, faithful servant.

CHAPTER I

Fred Valdez found a seat on a pile of adobe rubble and gazed about intently. He searched the surroundings for some familiar sign. How many times over the past thirty odd years had he pictured this scene in his mind’s eye? El Ranchito Alegre. Why had he waited so long to visit this place? Only a hundred miles from Albuquerque.

Might just as well have stayed away, he mused, nothing fits. His gaze moved to the cliffs supporting the mesa a hundred feet above the road. Here the Pecos had split the earth in two, revealing layer upon layer, eon after eon, of life beneath a long dead sea.

His eyes followed the edge of the cliff to where it curved back and around forming a rocky cove, its floor littered with the rubble of landslides and erosion. Only a few mesquites and some clumps of dry grass dared to challenge the rocky landscape. He reflected briefly on the certainty that, with time, the mesquite and the grass would win the struggle.

Everything out there shimmered in the heat. But on this side of the road, he could hear the gurgle of the water in the acequia where it crossed the road here on its long journey to the Gulf. How long had that irrigation ditch been there? A hundred years? More? How much of that water had gurgled past here before? How many hopes and dreams and well-laid plans had gone down these acequias to the Pecos and beyond?

How clear and cool these waters compared to those of the Rio Grande and the acequias of his own valley. His thoughts carried him back. Eight scrawny, burnt-brown and dusty devils racing down a ditch bank, stripping as they ran—four brothers, four buddies, anxious to be swallowed up by the cool, tan water behind the compuerta. But suddenly stopping at the edge of bliss, their mothers’ voices ringing in their subconscious, Mojate la mollera, and dutifully wetting their brows before jumping in to keep from catching only God knew what.

Then diving, rolling, soaking up the coolness. Keeping away from the rushing, sucking water of the culvert supplied from this otherwise placid pool. Once Jake had been pulled into that vortex and only the quick action of a comrade, Solomon, had saved him from becoming a memory.

Now up the ditch bank to lie in the hot sand, to dry off in the scorching sun before leaping in again. Fred sees Solomon whisper to Jake and signal to Noel and Ronald. Too late he realizes he is the object. Too late to run. They are on him, pinning him down, spreading his cheeks and pouring the hot sand in his ass.

Fred grinned now as he recalled the sculptures they created in the loose, hot sand. Faceless goddesses, voluptuous, with pointy breasts and hot sand hips. And the six little brownies lying on the ditch bank by the highway, stark raving naked, wearing only the tiniest sand bikinis and waving at the cars as they passed.

The Cu RRu.. Cu.. Cu of a dove brought him back to the Ranchito Alegre and he turned to look at the bosque a stone’s throw away. Dark and dank, this strip of trees and brush along the river seemed mysterious and forbidding. But he remembered another bosque beside the Rio Grande. It began where the twin tunnels emptied their cargo of acequia water back to its source, the river. And it ended at the West Central Bridge. Actually, it went on forever, in both directions, on both sides of the river, but this special section was The Jungle. His jungle.

It was really David’s, originally. He had always been king of that jungle. For that matter, he and Harold, the oldest, had been kings of everything. Clarise, the third oldest, occupied a special place. She was the only girl. But Harold and David could do no wrong. At least Fred thought so. Until Pop returned one evening and strapped them soundly. What was it for? Flooding the alfalfa when they were supposed to be minding the irrigation? Could it be they weren’t perfect? Still he remembered the struggle, trudging along in their footsteps year after year, through grade school, high school, the Navy even. Why can’t you be like your brothers? Your brother would never have done a thing like that!

But that other bosque had seemed different from this one. He remembered more sunlight among the trees, less brush. Maybe it was all in his mind. A function of perception. Where the child had once seen light, adventure, opportunity, the glass half-full, the jaded adult now perceived shadow, danger, the glass half-empty.

As Fred had ridden along on Pop’s old plow horse, the old bosque had seemed a vast personal domain. Someone once dared to intrude by building a tree house in his jungle. He recalled the short work he, Jake and Ronald had made of that tree. It had come crashing down, tree house and all, after only a few well-placed axe blows.

The soft, intermittent cooing of the dove called his attention to the silence. Many years had passed since he had experienced such silence, and he had to concentrate extremely hard to make out even the rustle of a leaf or a grass stirred by the occasional breeze.

At this point in its course, the Pecos had curved toward the cliffs and had left only an acre or two of arable land between the bosque and the cliff. He sat on what was left of the house. House hell, he thought. Chosa. Two hundred square feet maybe. He remembered Mom’s saying that you had to go outside and around to get from one room to the other. And about how the rains had caused the Pecos to flood and rise one dark night when she was home alone with a passel of kids. Dad was off somewhere, in the hospital in El Paso, or working at Conchas at the dam, or working on the railroad, en la sesión, the section gang. Fred could never keep the stories straight. But Dad was gone, that was sure. And the river had eaten away at its banks and she had listened to the splashing, groaning earth and the crashing of the falling trees, as the river crept closer and closer through that terror-filled night.

David said that Harold and Mom were so close because they had grown up together, in those isolated, desolate places, through those years when Dad was away scratching to keep food in the mouths of an ever increasing horde of Valdezes.

El Ranchito Alegre. Boy, somebody sure had a lotta balls, he thought aloud. Why’s that? asked David. He was kicking at some loose boards. For anybody to have conceived of this place as alegre must have required a lot of brass, replied Fred. It was happy then, contested David. Especially for a kid. Look, this was the cistern. He kicked away a rotten board. Over there was la huerta. We planted a little of everything. This is where you were born, two months premature. Two months later the doctor gave you up for lost, with double pneumonia. Fred had heard this story a thousand times. Who knows, maybe God preserved your life for some special purpose. Strange language to be coming from the family agnostic. Mom nursed you day and night, though, as I understand it, she didn’t have much to give. When she wasn’t nursing you, she was arguing with God. Even gave him some kind of ultimatum. Fred hadn’t heard that one before. When she was carrying you, she would get sick and almost throw up when she saw el chivato come close. Some Freudian implications there, mused Fred. She didn’t like him because he mounted the she goats too regularly, grinned David. Look up there, beyond the bend in the cliff. Let’s go. I’ll show you where we kept the goats.

They climbed the slight rise to the base of the cliff and then began to climb in earnest. David moved with an ease and cat-like grace that belied his pudginess and pot belly. He claimed that he tended to overweight because he was efficient. And indeed, his physical, emotional and mental activities were characterized by a certain economy of energy and motion. Slow to anger, he could be deadly in the frequent debating orgies in which the family was prone to indulge. Fred often caught him playing the devil’s advocate, manipulating the discussion with a slight smile of amusement on his face.

Fred, by contrast, was short of stature, dark and emotional. More athletically built, he nevertheless lacked David’s natural strength, and he would have to train diligently in the weight room to beat David occasionally in an arm wrestling match. Outwardly loose and gregarious, not given to moodiness, still he had smoldered within since childhood in a constant rebellion against constraints imposed by family, society, physique. This rebelliousness often got him into trouble. Over the years he had learned to control it but not to channel it in any way so that it might be of some use to him. It was just one more obstacle which he overcame and suppressed.

But at some expense. His penchant for partying occasionally resulted in drinking bouts, with accompanying hangovers and recriminations from friends, wife and family, which only served to confirm and deepen the isolation which he had felt since childhood and to drive him more deeply into his conviction that he could depend on no one but himself.

Be careful where you step, warned David. There’s snakes around here. Hell of a time to tell me, groused Fred. If you’d told me down below, I’d have let you come up by yourself. Over there, David pointed upwards towards a tall but shallow cave. Rather more like a broadening of the ledge itself along with an overhanging rock canopy. Must have been carved out by water. This whole country is filled with odd rock formations, David commented. They climbed up to the cave. The signs of the goats were still there. Just below, a post, all that was left of the corral which had surrounded the cave. I had a buddy who lived across the river, David remembered. I would stand here and holler across the river to him and he would holler back, and I would holler and he would holler. We didn’t say anything. Just made noise. Can’t imagine what we got out of it.

They descended again to the flat below. The old Valiant groaned and protested in the ruts as they drove off down the dirt road. We can camp here tonight, said David. Strange how even now, though they were both grown, he still led and Fred followed. Well, I guess he is the tour guide, reasoned Fred. On the left now, a small neat cottage. I liked the people that lived there. They had a car so I thought they were rich, said David. I was really heartbroken when I learned in church that a rich man would get into heaven about as easily as a camel would pass through the eye of a needle. I felt so bad for them. Him primarily, because he was the man. The book didn’t say anything about a rich woman. I don’t even remember their names. Around the bend now and to the right. Aqui estaba el rancho de Miterio, said David. Miterio, thought Fred, Didn’t anybody have last names? But he had heard the name before in oft-repeated family stories.

Here the road became an impassable trail. This road used to go on down along the river, said David. We’ll have to go back around by the highway. They turned around, back towards Santa Rosa.

All afternoon they roamed the countryside. The old Valiant never faltered. They visited all of the places which had long been the substance of family lore. The Blue Hole. Bottomless. El Cerro de la Cruz where, allegedly, penitentes and a surrogate Christ would annually lash their tortured way to the cross at the top of the cliff. Pop said that was a lot of crap; that if they had ever been there and had made it to the top, they would have been eaten alive by the lice from the chupilotes¹ perched on the cross. Now as Fred stared up at the cross, a lone buzzard stared back. Fred shivered despite the heat.

They drove south to Agua Negra and the old school house where the family had lived for a time. Down the creek, the old stone house where Peter, a giant hairy creature at birth, had been born. Its massive walls, of stones fitted meticulously, one upon the other, were untouched by the passage of time. The vigas supporting the roof were intact, but the roof itself had collapsed in many places and an occasional breeze would send dirt and small stones cascading down from the dirt blanket on the roof.

They took off their shoes, rolled up their pants legs and waded across the creek where Harold, then five years old, had perched on a rock for hours, in the dark, crying, petrified. He had gone to visit a comadre of Mom’s across the creek and she had told him that the tocolotes² plucked the eyes from little boys at night. On the way back across the creek in the dark, the hooting of those owls had filled his soul with terror, freezing him to the stepping stone, halfway across the creek, where Pop had found him much later.

What do you boys think you’re doing here? the voice, harsh and twangy, startled them out of their reverie. Above them on the creek bank stood a figure, faceless in the glare of the declining sun at its back. But the cowboy boots and hat and the rifle cradled casually in his arm told the whole story. David briefly considered pointing out to him that they had both long since passed their boyhood stage, but thought better of it. He shaded his eyes with his hand as he explained that they had once lived there and were just visiting. Well, this here’s private property now. You boys better git on out of here.

Neither David nor Fred spoke as they drove away, each immersed in his own private interpretation of what had just taken place.

They visited the Twin Lakes where a sirena dwelt, enticing to a watery grave any boy foolish enough to visit the lakes alone. El Puerto de Luna where the moon rested from its nightly journeys across the sky was their next stop. A pretty legend regarding its name. Too prosaic but historically more correct was the fact that it was founded as a sheep camp by a family named Luna. Then back to El Ranchito Alegre by way of a tavern in Santa Rosa.

It was dusk when they returned to El Ranchito Alegre. Darkness overtook them by the time they set up camp. But the light and the crackling of the small cooking fire pushed the gloom back a few feet. Stars began to twinkle here and there and a giant moon began to peep out substantially north of its alleged dwelling place in El Puerto de Luna.

Their conversation over supper was spare, utilitarian, having lost its animation of the afternoon, David now engulfed by haunting memories of a childhood long past, Fred’s thoughts occupied by events of more recent origin and troublesome nature. The smoke from the buñiga³ David had thrown on the fire to keep mosquitoes away lingered lazily among the trees. The use of cow dung for this purpose and for heating generally had a long and respected history. Their reverie continued after supper. Fred lay back on his bedroll and drifted off into a troubled, dream-filled sleep.

CHAPTER II

Presiliano Valdez skipped alongside the wagon as it creaked down the last hill before it began its journey across the seemingly endless rolling plains. Presiliano was five, the morning was young and he had no desire to ride in the wagon with the rest of the family. He would change his mind as the sun climbed higher in the sky and his short, chubby legs grew weary. So it had been the previous day. But today was another day and he could not open his eyes, ears or nostrils wide enough or move his head about fast enough to take in all of the sights and smells and sounds which now assailed his senses. This was their second day on the road. They had left their mountain home far behind and the terrain now presented a wonderful new universe for Presiliano.

Last night he had sorely missed his bed in the house in the box canyon carved by the little turquoise stream they called Agua Azul, which had always been his home. He had never been so far from home and never overnight. The whole family had cried when they left the canyon behind and started on the long trail through the mountains. He thought he even detected a tear in his father’s eye as he turned one last time to examine the canyon carefully as if to engrave on his mind for all time that vision of the little house, the orchards, the goats and donkeys running almost wild in the hills, this little corner of paradise which he had carved out of the virgin forest. But his father caught Presiliano’s stare and he turned abruptly away, clucking softly to the horses as they left their home forever.

Presiliano did not understand why they had to move. The family had always lived on that land. Mi tierra, his father proclaimed proudly from time to time. He had a right to be proud. He and Felicita and the first two babies had settled in that canyon almost twenty years earlier. He had built the first small cabin with his own hands and he had added to it as, one by one, the rest of the eight children had arrived. He had brought with him the cuttings that were to become the most productive orchard in that part of the country, Mora and Las Vegas included. And he had nurtured them with the innate wisdom of a Burbank. He crossed them. He produced new varieties. His grafts were works of art. It was generally conceded that the fruits from the orchards of Tranquelino Valdez were the finest in the land. And Tranquelino was generous with his advice and his cuttings. Still nobody had yet developed an orchard to match his. He was a wizard.

And Tranquelino had prospered in other ways. He had burros and goats literally without number grazing throughout the surrounding hills, many in an almost feral state, and he never bothered to count them. He had sufficient sheep and cows to match his family’s needs. His garden, even in the short season at an altitude of over seven thousand feet, was bountiful. Clearly the Lord had blessed Tranquelino.

He in turn gave the Lord his due and more. He walked in the ways of the Lord quite simply because he had experienced throughout his life, in a very personal way, not only his bounty, but also his justice. He was satisfied with what he had. There was not a trace of envy in his soul. He had no desire for worldly accumulations. He had known privations, heartbreak, hard work, danger, and as a child, the unmitigated loneliness and fear of the shepherd alone with his sheep for weeks and months on end.

But it was through and because of these same privations that he had come to recognize his place in the universe and to place his complete trust in his God and in the abilities his God had given him. Tranquelino explained the ways of God and nature to his children. Every night, he read to them from his big Spanish Bible. Somewhere along the way, he had become a literate man. But his children learned as much by his example as they did from what he told them. For he was known by everyone whose lives he touched, including his wife and children, not only as a man of honor, and love, but of great personal strength as well.

A neighbor from his early days in the Canyon of the Canadian River, Ramon Trujillo, had had reason to rue the day he had tested Tranquelino’s resolve and strength. Though Trujillo towered over the five foot, four inch Tranquelino, he lost some teeth and otherwise ended up on the short end of a dispute in which Tranquelino had been, even according to Trujillo’s own wife, entirely in the right. Eventually even Trujillo admitted the justice of Tranquelino’s position and they became and remained fast friends even to the day. Whenever Trujillo happened to be anywhere within thirty miles of Agua Azul, he would visit Tranquelino and they would talk about the old days in the Canyon of the Canadian.

Tranquelino took special, though he knew illicit pleasure in one particular story Trujillo told. Although he knew he should not delight in another’s misfortune, he could not repress a certain amount of satisfaction at such a demonstration of God’s justice.

His exodus from Agua Azul was not the first time he had been forced to leave behind a home he loved. As a young man newly married to Felicita Chacon, he had settled in a cave in a box canyon off the Canadian River canyon. He had later built a small home, added to it as the first children arrived, planted his crops and developed an orchard. He raised sheep and goats and a small number of other cattle.

Despite the altitude of the plateau cut by the river, his crops and orchard flourished below in the protection of the canyon. His harvests, both of plant and animal, were not only sufficient to feed his growing family, but also to supply a sparsely populated market as far away as Las Vegas and Clayton, depending on which direction he took on any particular trip and how far he had to go on that trip to sell all of his produce.

It was a peaceful and happy place. The Canadian meandered lazily a quarter mile away about the bottom of the main canyon. In the box canyon itself, perhaps ten acres of crop and orchard and pasture supported by the waters from an ojito which bubbled forth from the cave at the closed end of the canyon. It was not without considerable effort on Tranquelino’s part that the ojito had come to irrigate that much acreage. Nevertheless, in a few short years, he had transformed a dry dusty place into an oasis.

Tranquelino’s goats scampered freely about the surrounding bluffs. Occasionally, one would become stranded on a ledge with no exit, having leaped to the ledge from a ledge above in pursuit of some morsel or just out of curiosity as goats are wont to do, and Tranquelino would be forced to shoot the hapless animal from its perch. The family then dined on adult goat even though it preferred cabrito.

Occasional travelers up the Canadian began to stop by the little homestead. The word had spread. The weary traveler, sometimes just a distant neighbor, could be assured of a cool drink of water or perhaps goat’s milk, a little cheese, frijoles, perhaps some dry meat, a tortilla y buena platica. Tranquelino and Felicita appreciated these opportunities to socialize with other people as much as these travelers appreciated their bounty.

Tranquelino’s stay in the canyon, however, was to be brief, cut short by the operation of laws with which Tranquelino had no familiarity. One day, two men appeared at the door of Tranquelino’s house. Felicita answered the door. They were not Raza. They were Anglos. Felicita did not understand what they were saying. She ran out, into the field, to get Tranquelino. Two bolios are here. At the house. I don’t know what they want. She did not call them gringos. Although she and Tranquelino were familiar with the term, it carried harsh connotations which neither she nor Tranquelino nor any of their acquaintances felt. Nor did she call them gabachos. Though not as harsh as gringo, it too carried a certain negative connotation. Bolios properly communicated the concept of a people who were simply not Spanish. They were not Raza. They were not of La Gente. This was not the first time that bolios had appeared at Felicita’s doorstep. Others, wanderers or travelers, had stopped there before and had been treated with the same hospitality that was extended to everyone else. Their company was perhaps not as enjoyable as that of the Valdez’ own people. Tranquelino knew a few words of English. Some of the bolios knew a few words of Spanish. Most did not. Their conversations consisted in the main of much smiling and nodding of heads, a few halting words, a few gracias, de nada, and the traveler was off down the path.

But these bolios were different somehow. They were there for a purpose. They were serious, better dressed, their horses well fed. Tranquelino was able to decipher a sufficient amount of their conversation, enough to conclude that the men were telling him that the land he was on belonged not to him but to one of the two men. Tranquelino looked uncomprehendingly at the man. This man, tall and slim, seemed to take on the appearance, in Tranquelino’s mind’s eye, of a weasel or a fox, un zorro. As the full impact of what the men were saying struck Tranquelino, his swarthy face began to take on a purplish hue, his initial indignation turning to rage. He reached for his rifle which leaned by the door. Felicita touched his arm. The two men began to back off saying something about tomorrow. They mounted their horses and quickly rode away.

Tranquelino stared for a long time at the two men as they rode away. They became two dots on the long path down the canyon. Finally, they disappeared. Still Tranquelino stared after them. Felicita had understood nothing. She pulled at Tranquelino’s arm. Finally he turned and looked at her though not really seeing her or anything else. She pulled him toward the table and gently pushed him into a chair. She said nothing, but quickly and quietly brewed him a cup of Yerba del Manzo tea.

Tranquelino sipped his tea and began to tell Felicita what he understood the men to have said. The land they were on did not belong to them. It belonged to the thin man. The men had said something about homestead. Tranquelino did not understand. Felicita was shocked. This could not be. She and Tranquelino had worked so hard. This bit of paradise which they had hacked out of the reluctant earth could not possibly belong to someone else.

She and Tranquelino looked at each other for a long time mutely contemplating what this calamity meant to them. Ponderously Tranquelino rose reaching for his dusty hat. He felt very tired. He looked at the hoe leaning against the wall as he stepped out the door, and then he looked toward his well-tended fields. He turned his back and shuffled off down the path towards the house of his friend Don Ramon.

He told Trujillo what had happened. They discussed his options earnestly and long. His options seemed few. Tranquelino knew that if the skinny man had the law on his side, he would prevail. Trujillo half-seriously suggested that they should greet the gabachos on the following morning with bullets. But Tranquelino knew that he would not attempt to resist the law. To begin with, the law lay beyond his simple understanding. But more than this, with the inherent wisdom of the simple man that he was, he accepted the law, with all its imperfections, as the only thing that separated men from the beasts. He knew that without the law, men were worse, much worse than the beasts.

Trujillo pulled a bottle of wine from a chest and offered Tranquelino a drink. Tranquelino politely refused. He was not a drinking man and he would not start now. A new resolve was beginning to kindle in his breast. He began to accept this new development. Trujillo described a place where he was certain good land was available between Mora and Agua Negra. It was very wild, very remote. As Trujillo spoke, Tranquelino began to recall certain stories his uncle had told him about the area. His father and his uncles had been born in Las Trampas on the other side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains from this area and his grandfather had been killed in Mora by Tejanos. Trujillos’s people were originally from Mora. Some of his relatives still remained in the area. Trujillo had had occasion to visit these relatives in the past and he knew the area, although more on a hearsay basis than by direct observation.

As Trujillo talked, Tranquelino’s thoughts began to move in that direction. Soon he was lost in his own projections, scarcely listening to Trujillo who was now well into the bottle, having seized the occasion as a sufficient reason to imbibe. Tranquelino’s thoughts were racing far ahead. The area described by Don Ramon was properly remote, far from any possible interference from