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28 Tamale Ridge by: Chuck Cusimano

playin the fiddle and he wasn’t very good but he wasn’t hurtin’ anybody. Montana asked him to

quit torturing the thing but the man didn’t know any English and took it as a compliment. He

just grinned and started playing louder. Montana threw a beer bottle at the Mariachi and the

place exploded in a huge fistfight. The big, stout bartender came from behind the bar, took a

hold of Montana and grabbed him in a choke hold. Big Jim hit the bartender with a broom stick

and busted it over his head. The bartender never even looked back. Everybody got in on it.

Punching and slugging! It became a big free for all. Big Jim made sure to smash the fiddle on

the bartender while finding things to smash. That bartender got lost in his own little world. He

was just about to choke Montana to death, it looked like, when the Americano pulled his pistol

and fired a shot into the roof. Everyone stood quiet for a couple of seconds and the bartender let

go of Montana. We all ran for the door with Jim and I dragging Montana out with us.

We found a way back toward the tents. We were all lucky that nothing ever came of it.

The Americano stopped by for a few minutes the next day and we laughed about it, then he

rode off. I felt like I’d known him someplace before but we never exchanged names.

Big Jim stayed around and helped me on the place for three months. He sure proved to be a

lot of help. There were a lot of things that I wanted to tell him about. It could wait. I never told

him about seeing Juan Torres on Francisco Guerra’s rancho and I never told him about

Rosemarie. He worked hard and ate plenty and made a hand. When he rode out he led the little

blue stud colt with only about thirty days riding.

Things were pretty uneventful during those three months, except a lot of hard work. We

worked on the cabin quite a bit and one day he said,

“You get this place too purty and some durn female is going to want to move in!”

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