Page 124 - Tamale Ridge_113017

122 Tamale Ridge by: Chuck Cusimano

ranch in Las Vegas where Antonio worked and twenty colts next year and then thirty to fifty the

following year. We were going to make the quota this year, easy enough. With all the new

mares, we should be able to deliver fifty colts in two, or maybe three years at the most. The

contracts kept growing, as the word got out about our horses. We were successful again at the

past Denver Stock Show and a lot of folks were interested in the bloodline.

I had to laugh at Claudia in Denver! She was worse than Gilberto his first time. She saw

everything and asked a lot of questions about everything. By the time we were in Denver,

Gilberto could carry on a conversation with just about anybody in English. Claudia, still held

back trying to speak English to no one except us at the ranch.

One day while in Denver, an Anglo walked up to Gilberto and not knowing just how well he

spoke, asked him,

“Buh-waines deah, Don-de el um-bree cone cav-ieos? Meaning, “Good day, where is the

man with the horses”?

Gilberto just looked at the man like he had lost his mind and turned to Claudia, her with a

bewildered look on her face too.

“Shoot, I cain’t tell what the feller wants, I guess he don’t speak English”.

The man turned two shades of red and carried on the rest of the conversation in English.

Juan never aged, or not so I could tell. He never complained about anything and he always held

up his end of whatever was going on. He loved to make ice cream and even better than making

it, he loved to eat it. He shoveled a lot of snow this past winter and he talked non-stop, about the

huge garden he planned this summer. He kept us entertained through the long snowy days and

nights in the cabin. He helped with the chores and wouldn’t let any one except Claudia, help him

cook. We had to put a steer down a month ago because of a broken leg, when he fell on the iced

122