Page 44 - Tamale Ridge_113017

42 Tamale Ridge by: Chuck Cusimano

“My brother is older than me and my other brothers and sisters and sends money every month

to the madre to help carry the burden of feeding and clothing the rest but Gilberto has been

making his own living for two years,” he said

I asked him how old he was and he told me he would be twenty in July.

“Cuantos Anos Tiene?” I asked, curious about his age.

“Este Julio, tengo vente anos, Señor,” he politley answered.

That was the way of it, those people worked extremely hard. They were brought up in a dirt

poor or filthy rich family but they were all brought up with manners. There were not very many

in-between families. I really liked having Gilberto along and looked forward to seeing what he

could do with some of my colts. I’d been breaking and training all the colts since I’d been

running Tamale Ridge but now I had someone else I could trust to help give my colts a good

start.

My Uncle Trent used to like to write things down so I knew, from the journals my Uncle

Trent left around the place, that he believed all young horses needed good foundation in their

training and a lot of use in a positive way to nurture them along.

That blood bay that old Juan had brought back had been Uncle Trent’s last personal saddle horse,

that he called Jack. Although I had given him to Juan, I had occasion to ride him also. Jack was

a prime example of what Uncle Trent meant. He could be depended on to go anywhere or do

anything that was asked of him, because of a good foundation built with care and trust in man.

We all rode the train together till we got to Isleta and after we dropped Big Jim and his horses

off so he could return to his folks, Gilberto and I got back on the train to Las Vegas.

They were having a real bad blizzard up ahead we were told. The conductor said,

42