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112 Tamale Ridge by: Chuck Cusimano

They were still living in the barn loft but we had almost finished the new cabin. Claudia was still

a long ways from having the baby. Gilberto kept on learning his English. He was doing very

well. He wrote letters to his mother, brothers and sisters. He had also sent one to Antonio, in

Spanish and Antonio had answered back. He was still waiting for a reply from his brothers and

sisters. He had asked his sister, Olivia, to respond in English and I figured that was going to take

a while.

Claudia and Molly were getting along very well considering they couldn’t speak each others

languages. They would jabber and both talk at the same time. Juan would set, listen and shake

his head and then he’d say to me, “Como los cuervo.” “Just like a couple of crows.”

For the last two days, we had worked inside the new cabin and fed what livestock we could

get to. We had the new cabin all dried in. We could now keep the snow and moisture out but

there was still quite a bit of work to be done on the inside. Juan had decided that the new couple

would not want to walk the hundred yards, or more to use the old outhouse, the same one we

used, so he had started building a new one. Claudia was very happy with that idea. She even

offered to help dig the hole.

There were enough shorter pieces of logs left that Juan wanted to build it out of logs. I teased

Claudia that she had to have one matching her new house. When I said, “Your new house,” she

came and gave me a great big hug. She told Gilberto that she really felt at home now.

No one had been to Newberry for several days so I told Juan as soon as the snow lifted, one of

us should ride into town and get a few supplies and get the mail. I was thinking about all of this

when the cabin door opened and Gilberto and Claudia came in.

“It has quit snowing patron and the last stars are shining,” Gilberto said.

“That’s good news,” I responded.

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