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95 Tamale Ridge by: Chuck Cusimano
“Hermano, I do not wish to see you killed, nor do I wish to see you kill another man,” she
said.
He flipped a small stone into the air and pulled his gun and fired. He missed. Ramon was
trying so hard to be a man, yet he was but a boy. Fifteen years old, wishing he was twenty-five.
She could almost understand his plight. There was no one else on the ranch his age and he didn’t
have any friends his age. He wasn’t a baby anymore and he wasn’t a man. Just a lone boy
caught in the middle. His father didn’t push him to do a lot of things that other boys his age had
to do, because the Guerra family had pretty much, an easy life. While other boys his age had to
work to help the rest of the family eat, Ramon was trying to amuse himself.
Trying to find something to do to use up some of that energy, Rosemarie went again, to Raul.
“Raul”, she said, “Would you please take Ramon with you and the other men when you go to
move the cattle to fresh grass?”
“But Señorita,” he said. “What will your father think? He will get mad, no?”
“No Raul, I don’t think he would mind. Ever since Teresa has been gone, my father does not
pay enough attention to Ramon. He needs something positive to do with his time.” She said.
“Maybe you are right, Señorita, I will ask him to go with us and find a job for him.”
“Gracias, Raul,” she said.
They would be leaving in the morning to start changing pasture on a big bunch of cattle. They
would be busy gathering and driving nearly one thousand cows and calves. It would take a week
or a little more.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
95
