(As I've been cautioned to do, I'll neither confirm nor deny the truth of this. I will say I've heard this story, from different sources, for many years. I've put it all together into a story form, and although it's a departure from the stories I usually write, I felt it needed to be told.)
The burly man chewed the wad of tobacco in his mouth impassively and spat suddenly into the dust, splashing the dark brown liquid onto the worn boots of the teenaged boy nearest him.
The burly man chewed the wad of tobacco in his mouth impassively and spat suddenly into the dust, splashing the dark brown liquid onto the worn boots of the teenaged boy nearest him.
The boy flinched but didn’t take his eyes off the large man
on horseback, who was now talking, even though it was in English, a language
none of the twenty teenaged boys standing before him could understand. He turned to a shorter man, also on horseback,
with a handlebar mustache that curled almost from ear to ear on his plump face,
and said, “Gabe, tell ‘em.”
The stout man, Gabriel, began to speak, and the boys’ faces
relaxed in relief as he repeated what the first man said, this time in the
native Spanish the boys understood.
“He says for you to listen, because he’s not going to repeat
himself. You come with us to work this roundup. It’s three months work to bring
all the cattle in from the northern pastures, branding, dehorning, castrating,
and anything else that needs to be done. You’ll work seven days a week. The
ranch will give you use of a horse and your grub, but you supply your boots and
clothes. You may carry a knife on you, but no weapons.”
“You come across any outlaws or wild animals- you either
take care of them with the knife or hope that your horse can outrun them. You’ll
get your pay, $15 a month, at the end of the three months, but only if you work
hard. If you turn out to be lazy Mexicans, you’ll get what a lazy Mexican
deserves.”
As Gabriel finished, the tobacco chewing man rode his horse
silently in front the new ranch hands. He stopped in front of one, Rico, and
spat a virulent stream with precision just short of the boy’s booted toes. He
turned to Gabriel and said, “Ask him where he got those boots.”
Gabe looked at Rico’s boots even as he began translating.
They were polished and hand tooled, things of beauty amidst the dusty, misshapen
footwear pocked with holes sported by the others.
Rico kept his gaze fixed on the ground as he answered
softly. “They were my grandfather’s. He was a master saddlemaker in Nuevo Leon.”
What Rico didn’t say, but what filled his mind was the scene from the night
before, his mother sobbing as she gave them to him. Since his father had been
killed by bandits on the road to town the year before, 16 year old Rico
struggled to help get enough food on the table for the younger sisters and
brothers who sometimes cried in their sleep, they were so hungry. When this
opportunity to work on a large ranch on the U.S. side of the Rio Bravo came up,
he couldn’t pass it up for the sure money it would bring them, even though his
mother was broken hearted by his decision.
“Son,” she’d said quietly, “take these with you. They were
made by your grandfather and worn by him until he died. May they keep you safe
with every step.” Rico nodded as he somberly accepted them. She stroked his
cheek even as tears streamed down hers.
And now, questioned about the boots, the only sign Rico
showed of the struggle within to steady his composure were small pink patches
of color on his cheeks.
Although Gabriel had already turned away from Rico after
translating his answer to the boss man, Rico added, “I will be a good worker
for you. I’ll work hard every day. You’ll see.”
The ragtag group of boys set off on foot behind the mule
drawn wagon that would lead them to the base camp, twelve miles distant.
And just as the boss man had predicted, the work was bone crushing
hard. They slept with their head on a saddle each night, curled under a saddle
blanket to leach some warmth on the frigid October nights. Their days began
well before the sun rose and continued until the darkness staunched their
vision. They ate quietly most evenings, too exhausted to even banter. Rico,
though, would not go to sleep until he’d buffed his boots to a sheen.
One of the other boys finally asked him, “Why, why spend
time on those?”
Rico answered, “Because when I get back home, I’m going to
give my mother the money I’ve made and put these boots away for the son I’ll
have someday. I want to keep them as nice as I can for him. I’ll tell him of
how hard I’ve worked here and that I’ve also worked to keep these boots for
him. That way he’ll know I was thinking about him, even before he was born.”
The other boys chuckled at that as they drifted off to
sleep. They couldn’t even think of the next day, their thoughts devoured by
exhaustion, much less of the sons and families they’d have in the future.
Finally, the end of the three months came. The cattle had
been branded, dehorned, castrated, and safely moved to their winter pastures.
The boss man came by that evening, Gabriel by his side. “Tomorrow will be your
last day on the job. When you hear Gabe blow his bugle, you line up here and we’ll
settle up.” As Gabe translated, he held up his bugle from his Confederate Army
days.
The ranch hands once again laid their heads on their saddles
that night, but now with lighthearted laughter punctuating the crisp air. Plans
for their trips home to Mexico floated through the night. None of them had ever
had so much money in their hands before as they would have tomorrow. Rico,
though, continued his nightly ritual,
polishing his boots, adding a little saddle wax, until his moonlit reflection
illuminated the burnished leather.
Early the next morning, Gabriel’s bugle pierced the morning.
The eager boys scrambled up, pulling on their hats and boots. Rico gave his
boots one last swipe with his shirt sleeve before he hurried off to from the lateral
line the boss man expected from them.
Gabriel sat on his horse on one side, still panting from his
bugle call, and the boss man flanked the other side of the boys. The boss man
spat, and said, “Look straight ahead, right there into the sun, while we get
what we owe you.” The boys squinted and stood as tall as their frames allowed,
proud of their hard work and expectant of their reward. Both men on horseback
moved back to a stand of brush about ten yards behind the boys and the boss man
dropped his arm in a signal. Ten men stepped from the brush behind the boys
squinting into the sun, pistols drawn.
