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123 Tamale Ridge by: Chuck Cusimano

over pond and Juan took care of butchering it all by himself. He could sure make some good

jerky. He made me promise to send some of it over to the Simmons the first time I would be

riding that way. He cut some beef steaks off of it first and we sure enjoyed them. He knew

about barbacoa, or, as we called it, “barbecue” and he fixed a huge roast in the Mexican style

and we ate it for three days. It was a lot easier to keep meat in the winter than when the weather

was hot, of course. I tried to get him to make the trip to Denver this past time but he declined,

saying that he needed to stay here and take care of the animals.

Joe Simmons offered to look after things if Juan chose to go, after all but Juan stayed and

everything was just fine when we got back. I knew it would be, though.

While we were in Denver, I noticed a couple of Colts that looked like they could have come

from Tamale Ridge. I inquired about them and found out that they came from Folsom, New

Mexico. They all talked about a man named Johnson, who owned the sire of these colts.

Johnson! It had to be Jake Johnson that Uncle Trent wrote about in his journal. Johnson, for all

I could find out, lived on Trinchera Pass and his horse was called, “Alamo.”

I knew it had to be “Tamale” I’d been hearing about Alamo and he was reputed to be some

kind of horse. He turned out to be the sire of that good looking strawberry roan that I’d seen in

Trinidad at the rodeo.

I talked to Juan and Gilberto and we decided together to try to buy him and bring him home.

We would each own an equal share. When we pooled our money together, we had one thousand

three hundred dollars. I actually had more money if need be but I wanted the other two men to

have an equal stake in the ownership of this great stallion. After all, he was the one that started it

all. That was a huge amount of money for a horse but to us, we thought he was worth it.

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