son of loss? Marco cried, but
who was I to answer. To God,
we said, crossing ourselves and
staggering around the yard like
hobbled horses. When Marco
went down, tall grown man that
he was, wailing like a coyote sent
off alone, I held him like a
brother and rocked him to the
ground. On our knees, I whis-
pered at him what I knew to say,
When Marco
went down, tall
grown man that
he was, wailing
like a coyote
sent off alone,
I held him like
a brother and
rocked him to
the ground.
Your mama and papa are in
God’s arms now, is there any
better place to be. I kept him
still. We slept out on the dirt tan-
gled into each other, our clothes
shot through with cactus spines.
The sky shone so bright I
believed it held no remorse for
its inherent beauty. What He
gives, He sees fit to take away.
We made good in Valentine
working for Mr. J, keeping the
house and running drives for
extra money. We got invited to
big suppers and dances, being
new to town and all the girls
looking at us with fresh eyes.
Miss Darlene Whitbold and I
did think we would get married
and have pretty babies, and set
to buy a five-acre mesquite piece
on Highway 90. Even Marco
said, She is the one, marry her,
Raulito. Said it right in front of
her, too, made her blush and get
quiet. He courted a girl from the
ranch, and the nights we stayed
up on the porch talking about
such things: all the world in our
grasping hands, and knowing
where we belonged.
Marco came home from the
sorry Van Horn grocery in
August with no jalapeños
because there were none, and a
slimed-up little bunch of
cilantro. We popped the tops off
a few Lone Stars, raised a toast,
and broke dirt on a kitchen
patch. We fenced it against the
livestock but when the bunny
rabbits came in low, we added
another round of chick wire
sunk into the ground four inch-
es. When the antelope jumped
the fence, we took it up to six
feet. There was a ranch hand
ran water out to a spigot cour-
tesy of Mr. Johnson. We had
jalapeños, cilantro wanting to
bolt, collards, thick-skinned
tomatoes, hills of squash, and
everyone talking about what we
did. The garden came right up
out of what we thought was
dust, same way mine does now.
If you tend to something, it will
give back, Daddy said. I don’t
know there’s anything more
unnatural than dirt and water,
what comes from the mix.
Marco got promoted to
working cattle year-round, and I
was the full-time handyman.
You’re good boys, hard workers,
Mr. Johnson said. He gave us a
bigger casita to live in for free. It
was only the 12th of December
that year when Marco was vac-
cinating calves, and I was screw-
ing tin back down onto the
bunkhouse roof that the wind
peeled off like aluminum foil
last wind storm. The foreman
came driving up fast that morn-
ing, spinning dust in the road
and all out of breath when he
got out of the truck, took his hat
off and stared down at the
ground. Mijo, he said. I was
grown enough to know what a
man holding his hat in his hands
means to say: it is no good. I
wished to spin the dust from his
truck backwards in fast motion,
to erase the slow dulling sound
of his boots ascending our
porch, to put the hat back on his
head where it belonged in a
right world. To seal his lips
closed for all perpetuity, to close
the day at noon, to dial the
hands on any clock face back to
the time when I knew how to be
awake.
The cowboys at the funeral
told how Marco’s horse pitched
a wall-eyed fit in the corral, sent
him sideways into the steel gate.
The crazy cattle stepped on his
head until it split right open and
!"#$"%&'()*&&'+"$,
GALLERY
cy and intent. Unspoken love is
as the old vultures that fly south
in the winter, some years to
expire in Mexico, nor to return
to the high mesas of my boy-
hood.
We had a job mending Mr.
Johnson’s five-wire fence, and
one of his old adobes to rent for
60 dollars a month if we kept
the plaster up after the rains,
and furniture from Monahans.
He’s my third cousin somehow
removed, and a big-time ranch-
er although you don’t ever ask a
man how much land he has.
People say the J Bar is 50,000
acres if it’s a hundred. I came to
know it after tending his roads
for three years.
It was serendipity how the
day we left Monahans a neigh-
bor shot a javelina that had been
rootching his kitchen patch and
gave the berserk orphan pigling
to Momma. She named it
Lucinda Elida and had another
Spanish baby to raise up. I told
her from the pay phone next
day how we were settled in with
our saddles and my books from
school. Mr. Steinbeck talked
about the Okies trying to survive
in my Daddy’s day, even to the
gruesome rightness of Miss
Rosasharn offering her childless
teat to a starving old man. Mrs.
O’Connor told about a fight
with God, how maybe you
shouldn’t be so damned proud
else a bull might kill you out of
sheer meanness. The ways in
which I see these things now is a
great stone on my back from the
truck to the porch every day. No
release has come; it is mine to
carry; I will.
Now I will tell you it was
August of 1970 when the sheriff
from Van Horn came onto the
porch. We were only fixing
beans and pork shoulder for
supper with a clean casita for his
parents to stay. Boys, now which
one of you is Marco Estrella
from Monahans?
We got pretty liquored up
after he left, all pale and sorry
and shaking from behind his
gold star and starched shirt. We
agreed that when a semi crosses
the median at full speed, there’s
likely not even one moment of
pain or fear. With a fire out back
we sent photographs up to heav-
en in the flames. Am I the only
C ONTEMPORARY W EST T EXAS A RT
401 N. 5th Street • Alpine TX 79830
(432)837-5999
Representing work by
Charles Bell • Karl Glocke
Ling Dong • Carlos Campana
Hours vary or by appointment
Art and Guitar classes • Weekend workshops offered
Hand-painted signs and graphics
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/-&-$$-$$+
1.".!#
)3"4.%$""
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'$# &+%"
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