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52 Tamale Ridge by: Chuck Cusimano

“Verdad,” I said. As we rode along I thought about that.

We rode into the camp, at dark and we could feel the cold. We weren’t making any noise but

we were riding along and I told Gilberto that old Juan was probably watching us.

“Ju take long time to get Jeem from the Jail,” Juan spoke from behind us.

We turned and saw him holding a rifle and steady as a rock. He lowered the rifle and said.

“Come to El Campo. I poot the café on the stove.”

We were looking forward to that. We could sure feel the chill at that time of night. I introduced

Gilberto to Juan and the two of them seemed to hit it off real well.

“I’m teaching Gilberto to speak English,” I told Juan.

“Eet be long time, he larn. Steel he no talk like Juan,” said Juan.

“You sure are right about that Juan,” I laughed.

Juan just smiled at the joke and then started laughing out loud. We all started laughing then.

Gilberto was laughing too, without knowing why.

After we warmed up and ate something, I showed Gilberto where he could throw his bed roll,

and soon I began sleeping like I hadn’t slept for weeks. The next morning we found a new

blanket of snow on the ground and more falling. Gilberto went outside and stood amazed. It

dawned on me then that he had seen a blizzard and he had seen snow on the ground but he had

never seen it snow like this! Those big, flat flakes were falling so thick you couldn’t see the

barn. It remained very still.

“Por favor, Señor. Como se dice Nieve?” he asked me. Meaning, “How do you say, ‘snow’

in English, Sir?”

“Snow.” I told him.

“S sn oh”. He said.

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