The Legend of the Black Rose

By M Avery

The Legend of the Black Rose

A TRUE STORY:

In the 1960s, star-crossed lovers fall in love on the Spanish Trail, too young to imagine the consequences...

Martinez had me looking straight down the barrel of his rifle before I could close my truck door and get to the garden gate. I froze just as I was, half-turned.

Rosa was screaming my name behind her Papa inside the front door, and I could hear her mother yelling at her and restraining her.

"Get off my land, Bobby, or I'll call the police!" Martinez commanded.

"It isn't her fault!" I shouted straight down the sidewalk because I had no other choice.

"Bobby!" she was screaming. "Papa dont shoot Bobby!"

Martinez discharged the rifle where he stood, above my head. That settled it. Raising my hands, I slowly backed into the cab and got in. She screamed until she heard the GMC start up; then, realizing I was still alive, it stopped."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483608884

M Avery

Born in the Alaskan Territory in 1954, M Avery attended St. John’s College of Santa Fe (1972) on scholarship before graduating from University of New Mexico, 1980. After ranching and farming in Monticello Canyon, Quemado, Clines Corners, and along the San Juan River, Avery continued teaching in public, tribal and college programs. Eventually traveling the width and breadth of the Nuevo Mexico territory, Avery now lives and works in Taos, focusing on spiritual and political encounters between the New Mexican tri-cultural peoples. The author emphasizes the peoples’ unified response to the Nuevo Mexico vastness and our on-going struggle to become one community out of great diversity.

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Copyright © 2013 by M Avery.

ISBN:

   Softcover   978-1-4836-0887-7

   Ebook        978-1-4836-0888-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a historical love story. Names were altered to protect the innocent. Dates are approximate; conversations and events are actual and true to life.

Rev. date: 05/20/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

ONE:  BOYHOOD

TWO:  IWO JIMA

THREE:  GRANDMA

FOUR:  GRANDPA

FIVE:  THE UNICYCLE

SIX:  SHEPHERDS

SEVEN:  THE SIXTIES

EIGHT:  THE COMMUNITY DISSOLVES BENEATH US

NINE:  RIP, ROARING, AND HAVING A GOOD TIME

TEN:  ROSE

ELEVEN:  THE DONS

TWELVE:  THE LAMB

THIRTEEN:  OUR KINGDOM

FOURTEEN:  THE ANVIL

FIFTEEN:  GRAVE SITE

SIXTEEN:  MARTN

SEVENTEEN:  P.O.W. CAMP

EIGHTEEN:  BEING NEXT

NINETEEN:  THE THORN OF SECRECY

AFTERMATH

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The following families are responsible for providing lessons of farm and ranch, personal stories, and cultural wisdom that prepared and aided me in the writing of this small history. They shared the challenges of daily life in that great river we call our New Mexico community – as my neighbors, mentors, and friends. And they told many a tale of betrayal, courage and overcoming:

Thelma Tucker Wynne of Cuchillo, New Mexico and her sister Rosella Orr of Walsenburg, Colorado, and daughter Gail Sheppard of Caballo, New Mexico; Garlands of Placitas; Medlins, Armstrongs, Padillas, and McCoys of Quemado; Dave and JoAnn Fuller of Mountainair; the Valdez family and McKinnons and the Neva Havely Bunch of Blanco; Begays and Sandovals of Dulce; Emersons, Littlefields, and Morenos of Gallup; Ossorgins and Oroscos of Santa Fe; Padillas and the Chavez family of Chimayo; Romeros and Estradas of Truchas; the Nailors of the Picuris; Luceros, Garcias, Perraglios, and Lueras of Española; with special thanks to Mary Medlin, Penny Emerson, Helen and Darrel Showers and boys, and of course Bobby Kennedy himself whose tale became a windbreak in the icy storms.

Many thanks to the editorial team who developed the manuscript: Tenney W. Walsh, Class of 1985, Yale University; Marsea L. Wynne, BA; George R. Jaramillo, MLS, M.Ed.; Dr. James Robert Garcia, Ph.D.

Dedicado a todos mis amigos quién dicien

que el Señor viene.

ZACHARIAS 4:7

What are you, Oh great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain; he shall bring forth the head stone amidst shouts of Grace, grace unto it.

And the mountain shall become a plain.

Y la montaña que va hacer llano.

INTRODUCTION

Y ou are on a quest, a rancher from the wild part of Archuleta County said to me. LuAnn Baker’s ranch house sat part way up a steep incline covered with tangled brush. Rocky escarpments studded the sides of a narrowing gap nestling her home. Just beyond the southern ridge of her lands, Cat Creek tumbles into the mighty San Juan River. For what it was worth, she stated beliefs that were obvious to both of us. We agreed that the rest of ‘out there’ felt dysfunctional now. Our active western life ideals were no longer sought by most folks.

Surprised that I’d applauded her summations, she shared numerous extraordinary experiences with her Spanish and Indian neighbors in response to my questions. We traded ranching and Jicarilla stories a bit before she wrote Frank’s number on a scrap of paper. Frank Chavez, a Spanish rancher, was at home when she called him to introduce me to him over the wires. Frank’s ancestral ranch was in Caracas and not far beyond our location. You see, although LuAnn knew about farming with draft horses, sweeping rattlers out the front door with a handy broom, and the very last days of the Gomez Mercantile, it was Frank who knew about the Wars!

Both elderly ranchers had deeded lands in the Ute Reservation checkerboard region near the New Mexico Colorado border. Originally from Iowa, LuAnn lived in her cardboard palace in Pagosa Junction to get started. The Midwestern farmer considered her first shelter a ‘palace’ because it had electric. As a newcomer she rented it from Martinez’s at thirty-five dollars a month before the town shut down around her ears. Yes, Pagosa Junction became a ghost town during her passage into a ranch of her own. Eventually the old mercantile was moved into Pagosa Springs, then rebuilt as an open-air-museum main attraction. It had been reassembled and restored for city dwellers vacationing out of their SUVs.

Frank’s family had always lived along the San Juan River. His ancestors were the first to arrive and settle. His farming operation featured a pair of white guard ducks that made up their relatively short stature by raising a great commotion upon my arrival. Although his mother’s home had been rebuilt on the north side of the river on the flatlands, it was very well protected. The home was more accessible than LuAnn’s, but ingenious forms of security existed on Chavez’s historical establishment. The pair of ducks was one of these. I had never been pecked by a duck and had no desire for such adventure today, so I let Frank handle the afflacking, aggressive ducks. The eighty-year-old moved protectively between us as we entered the garden gate.

Reaching safety, we settled in for the first of two lengthy interviews within his mother’s cozy old home. The front room was filled with many generations of memorabilia. Family pictures covered every wall space. He pointed to a 1954 photo of elementary students sitting in their classroom taken in the Pagosa Junction school house. When he spoke about the World Wars and the Korean Conflict, Frank proudly referenced uniformed relatives.

As our interview progressed, Frank told me that he and his brothers frequently rode over the ridge just beyond the New Mexico side of the San Juan River when he was a boy. The objective in mind was the sheep camp. It had been Frank’s turn at the sheep camp to help the neighbors, the Jicarilla Apaches, with their sheep. He was twelve. According to his dad, Frank needed to learn about a man’s day of work without his father putting up with his constant complaining.

Actually, the Spanish families took turns helping their neighbors on the Apache Reservation voluntarily as had been their way from 1910 on. They had been taught to befriend the less fortunate. His older brother left Frank alone at the sheep camp for five days with their Jicarilla friends. When Frank returned, his father said he could hear him whining clear over the river from more than three miles away. His Papa teased him mercilessly very much to the amusement of his older brothers.

It didn’t end there. Frank was the last in line and the baby of the family. When Frank wanted to sign up for military service, his father asked him:

Why do you want to join a man’s military when you were such a cry baby at the sheep camp?

I was going to die of loneliness, Frank answered.

Trail of Tears #2, we’ll call it, his older brother had chimed in.

His father took him aside, as he had with Frank’s six brothers, and one sister, and gave him this advice: As you go along in life: don’t live beyond your means. Frank was taught to stand on his own two feet early on. His mother took them all aside and gave this advice: "Don’t come to me with all your aches and