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58 Tamale Ridge by: Chuck Cusimano

It was the twentieth of April and we were done branding the calves. My horses would come

next. I had some foals on the ground already and it was still, occasionally, snowing. I was

hoping we wouldn’t get a big storm or a bad cold spell. Juan had recruited a milk cow out of one

of my range cows. He gentled her enough to start milking her and we made butter. We even

mixed some good clean snow with some sweet cream and made our version of Ice cream. I sure

got a kick out of Gilberto when we were in Denver and he tasted ice cream for the first time.

Juan didn’t want to go to Denver so this was his first experience.

“Thees pur-good!” Juan said “I tink meby we sell it. Get reech!”

I thought about Rosemarie all the time but I never mentioned her unless it had to do with horses.

Old Juan knew I was a gonner over that girl and sometimes he dropped hints.

“Señor Geel, I tink mebe, when ju go to Chihuahua, thees time ju bring back la Señorita.” He

had mentioned it a time or two that she spoke of me as if she were interested. He never could

say, “Gid”. It sounded more like “Geel”.

“La Señorita, che tink Geel mucho hombre, che tell Juan, OH! He’s a nice man.!”

He said it in a high pitched voice and was holding the dishtowel over his head and I don’t know

who laughed the hardest, Gilberto, me or Juan.

I was getting things ready to go to Mexico and I had to leave someone here. I knew that Juan

wanted to go and I figured that Gilberto would like to go and see some of his family also. He

never mentioned it but I think he was more than a little homesick. I wasn’t sure if Juan was in

the clear with Francisco Guerra either.

The horses were doing real well and I had put the three mares I got from Rosemarie with my

stallion. I could hardly wait for those colts to hit the ground. Several times Juan mentioned that

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