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39 Tamale Ridge by: Chuck Cusimano

“Hees daddy, he was okay but the boy, he much trouble.”

Billy acted mad at the world sometimes. I think he didn’t know how to belong somewhere.

Maybe if his daddy hadn’t got killed, he would be easier on himself and others.

The way I heard it, Seth Watkins went to work gathering some cattle over near La Jara

Colorado and was never seen again. His horse came home but they never found his body. Billy

was just a teenager when that happened so his mother raised him all by herself. She experienced

a hard time of it. Women in those days worked at home with their menfolk. They took on

sewing and washing to help with the financial matters and a lot of women milked the cows and

took care of the chickens to sell eggs and butter. It was a hard world sometimes. Mrs. Watkins

washed clothes for some of the area coal miners and did the best job she could with Billy but he

had a wild streak in him. I do know that on his good day, he could ride a bucking horse about as

good as anybody. If he’d use some of his energy in a positive way, it would better for everyone.

CHAPTER SIX

I was choking and in a cold sweat, fighting for my life as someone pulled me by my coat

collar to safety. The shells exploded around us and I could smell the gun powder and dust

everywhere.

“Gid! Hang in there we’ll get you behind the wall!” It was Big Jim Two Feathers.

“I’m okay,” I said. When I said that I woke myself up from that same dream I’d been having

for the last couple years.

I couldn’t sleep so I put some water in the coffee pot and added wood to the fire.

“Geel, Ju no slipp again tonight,” Juan said.

“Oh! I’m sorry Juan. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” .

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