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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504923774 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 08/26/2015 |
| Pages: | 380 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.85(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Dog Soldier of "Los Cerrillos"
By J. C. Cantle
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2015 Jacques FaureAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5049-2377-4
CHAPTER 1
– Alpha
The rain was steady now but the dog moved along at a fast clip on the lead. Cecil kept his eyes on the black Labrador. The dog stopped, the lead slackened, Cecil halted, dropped down on one knee and hand signaled to the rest of the team behind him. The rain wasn't going to cease just yet but the scent the dog followed was still strong enough. The Lab knew there was an ambush just ahead of them and Spec. 4 Cecil understood his dog's body language. The Tracker Team was in the "undeclared war", Vietnam.
PUEBLO, CHICKEN PULL
Cecil drove his Ford panel truck north on Interstate 25 heading towards Santa Fe. Normally he would take I-40 east then turn up highway 14 at Tijeras, the renowned Turquoise Trail and over the mountain, through and past the town of Madrid and its abandoned coal mines, and on up the road to the small town of Los Cerrillos. There he would head home up the gravel road into the BLM and the deserted turquoise mining district. Today he decided to use the freeway instead. He had been visiting as well as helping out a friend in Corrales for a couple of days and he didn't want to back-track south through Albuquerque and the heavy traffic, so he drove north. He'd thought about taking county road 22 (the cut-a-cross) except that it did mean a rough drive, even if that dirt road would take him south of Highway 14. The canyon road to Waldo would be a few less miles and from there he would take the gravel pit road on home.
His home for the past six years was a refurbished old school bus, hand painted an earthy light buckskin color, the color of the desert ground. He had staked a mining claim on the BLM, among other ancient claims of a previous and much more prosperous time that had long since played out in the Cerrillos hills. Though there were power lines running nearby that hummed incessantly on very windy days next to Cecil's bus and mining claim, but which was not accessible for him to have electricity. The lines ran on to the gravel pit some distance away. This was no hardship to Cecil; he was free of any rent, exorbitant or minimal. His claim had cost him ten dollars. All that was required was that he worked his claim/site in lieu of an annual assessment maintenance fee of one hundred dollars a year and that was enough to prove that he was not just a squatter. He'd hire a backhoe operator to dig a pit in the ground for $35 an hour. And at the end of three hours, pay the operator, get the bill from him and send him on his way until the following year. This was his scheme to live free on land that once had belonged to his Native American ancestry from some seventeen thousand plus years ago.
A mile before he reached the Algodones Exit, Cecil saw two men standing off of the highway in front of a very faded red 1989 Chevy. The pickup with a blown rear tire was sitting on its rim. One of the men was holding out his thumb in an attempt to hitch a ride while the other man drank from a bottle in a paper bag. Both men looked Indian and had long dark hair. Cecil signaled, braked and moved his Ford Econoline over onto the shoulder of the interstate. He came to a stop off of the blacktop and on the gravel near the litter of cans, bottles, papers, and wreathes of dry tumbleweeds collected in the borrow pit next to a dead dog of unknown breed. He didn't see the macabre dog half eaten by scavengers, as Cecil was looking into the rear view mirror watching the two men hurry towards his truck. They didn't run, only walk fast, as if they felt that he would pull away and drive off the instant they reached the rear of the van. The first man had his hair in a ponytail and wore a Dallas Cowboys baseball cap, jeans and a black T-shirt that said FBI in large white print. Cecil, himself Indian, knew that the description written in small print under the three capital initials of FBI was the intended acronym for Full Blooded Indian.
The other man looked the same age, late twenties, and had on a red and blue wide striped western long sleeve shirt and faded black jeans. No hat and his lengthy hair blew about his face as an eighteen-wheeler passed traveling at 75 miles per hour. He carried a paper bag and the way he held it, it seemed to Cecil that it held a bottle of wine or whisky. Both men wore the popular Wal-Mart type of off brand athletic footwear.
When they reached the open window of the passenger side of the van, the first man looking at Cecil asked, "Hey Bro! You headed to Santa Fe?"
"Yeah, hop in. One of you'll have to sit in the back on the mattress."
The man with the FBI shirt opened the passenger door and jumped in and shut the door. The other man opened the side door. Cecil glanced at him; he had droopy eyes and looked "half in the bag." The man climbed in, slammed the door shut and plopped on the mattress behind the driver and leaned his back against the van's side panel. He saw a pillow lying nearby, reached for it and used it as a backrest. He looked around the interior of the truck; saw a cooler, an olive drab Army fatigue jacket, a silver ten gallon propane tank and a large red Snap-On tool chest with a multitude of drawers. The propane tank sat in a square milk crate and was bungee corded to the tool chest, which was chained and padlocked to the sidewall frame of the van.
The whiff of liquor hit Cecil's nose and he turned his head towards his open window, signaled his intent to get back on I-25 and started the van moving forward. Seeing an opportunity to get back on the highway, he shifted gears and sped on, throwing dust and gravel into the air.
"Where you guys headed?" Cecil asked once he had caught up to the speed limit.
"San Lazaro Pueblo. Got to find someone there to loan me a spare rim and tire. I know my uncle will. He's got a Chevy truck up on blocks with a blown tranny that everyone's been usin' for parts. An' I think he's got at least one wheel still in the truck bed. If someone hasn't taken it."
The man sitting in the back spoke up, "Hey man! You's got a cigarette man? Trade you for a drink, Bro." And he held the open bottle out of the bag and over the seat to Cecil.
It was Four Roses whiskey. Cecil knew it to be pure rotgut bourbon.
"I don't want a drink. I'll give you a cigarette."
Cecil reached into his shirt pocket, pulled a half empty light blue pack of Natural America Spirit out. He shook one loose and held the pack over his shoulder. The man in back took the cigarette and slurred, "Yah gotta light, man?" Cecil picked a full book of Union 76 matches off the dash and passed them to the man in back. Then he turned to the guy next to him who had taken the bottle from his friend when Cecil had refused a drink.
"He's not going to burn my truck, up is he?" Cecil asked.
"Nah. He's pretty drunk but I'll keep an eye on him if he falls asleep."
They sped up the interstate at a little over sixty-five. Cecil noticed off of the frontage road, old highway 85, the brown log sided, low-pitched roof bar surrounded with Chinese Elms and a few tall-gnarled cottonwoods. On a tall post, two signs promoted Coors beer and Pabst Blue Ribbon under which in addition read Package Liquors. Neon signs behind barred windows boasted other libations, the choices: Budweiser, Michelob, Dos Equis, Corona, Tecate and Tequiza. A banner claimed "Live Entertainment." Raphael's Bar brought memories of an old haunt. Way back when the place was called Raphael's Silver Cloud, after the British Rolls Royce and a time Cecil and his wife spent a few evenings in that bar drinking and listening to "The Blues" misic. Entertainers such as Freddie King or the Bluegrass of Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys played there.
On evenings that Cecil and Cinema spent time at Raphael's, their two years old, slept next to their dog in the Volkswagen camper-bus parked in the parking lot. Kalea loved blues music as much as she did rock n' roll. She would check on little Cinema and Mangus, a Yellow Labrador, in the parking lot at while the entertainment took their break. And many times Cecil himself would check on Cinema while getting away from the bar's stale and smoky air. No one could come close to the VW without the dog growling a low warning. And, if a drunk bumped the vehicle, the Lab would attack the windows with a savage force.
They passed through the San Felipe Indian Reservation. The landscape was almost barren of vegetation. Scattered junipers peppered the mounded hills that lay to the east. To the west Cecil gazed for a few seconds at the mesas and long plateau with its cliff formation of gray-black basalt slabs and rubble stone running to the green bosque of cottonwoods along the river's course. Strewn along the cliff margin laid the ruins of the "Old ones," where walls of structures had fallen into diminished piles of rubble rock and there the ghosts of the past hid in under rabbit brush and cholla.
Above the sky was clear of clouds except to the north and southeast where white anvil shaped cumulus clouds loomed. To the far northwest, over the Jemez Mountains cumulus clouds with ominous bases and dark virga hanging below slowly moved northeast towards Los Alamos. Two long contrails crossed one another overhead. The wind had picked up, sending discarded plastic grocery bags to balloon and become airborne. Dust rose from the road's edge and huge tumbleweeds rolled into the path of traffic and exploded into segments as vehicles ran head-on into them.
"What's your name? I'm Ramon Salazar. He's Frank Lamas," the hitchhiker asked and informed the driver.
"I'm Cecil Franklin. It should be Cecil High Pipe but my grandfather had to change his last name to an Anglo name when I wasn't even born yet. My grandfather was James High Pipe and when the white authorities came to his home they said he had to change his last name, and that he was not to use his Indian name. He told them he didn't know any white-man names he wanted to be called and they said that for the census he had to have an English or Spanish name. He looked around the house and saw my grandmother's sewing machine with the manufacturer's name Franklin on it. And so that became our family's last name," Cecil explained.
"Yeah, that's the way it was for my grandfather also. We ended up with Spanish names. I don't know what my Indian name is. Me, I'm Kewa and Spanish as blood goes. Frank, he's Tewa ... was born on the Santa Clara Pueblo, he's Bear Clan. The Winter People. In Spanish we're mestizo, you know, half-breeds. Not really full blooded Indians like the T-shirt says, man. I guess I should say I'm Native American. You know?" Ramon sneered and smiled sarcastically as he glanced at Cecil.
Cecil chuckled.
"Ramon! Give me the booze back if you just goin' ta look at the bottle, Man. Got ta get rid of it before we get to the Rez." Frank muttered, reaching for the almost empty fifth of ninety proof straight bourbon whiskey. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open and the cigarette hanging out of his mouth lost its half-inch of ashes and a cloud of smoke had spilled from his mouth as he had begun to talk.
"Here! Give me a drag off that butt." Ramon handed him the bottle after taking a long pull of the whisky.
Frank wavered and handed Ramon what was left of the cigarette. Ramon sucked in a big drag and held it, then exhaled up to the roof of the van and the blue smoke blew to the back of the van. He hung his arm out the window and crushed the butt out against the door and snapped it with his thumb and forefinger out to the side of the road.
He looked over to Cecil, "What pueblo you from?"
"I'm not. I'm Cheyenne on my father's side and my mother is of Lakota Sioux and Kickapoo. I grew up on the Northern Cheyenne Rez in Montana."
"How'd you end up in New Mexico?"
"It's a long story. Got enlisted in the mid sixties. Did my time with the Army in Nam, Was there during the Tet Offencive. Got out of the Army in San Francisco. Got married. She was from Santa Fe. We moved here in 1974. Got divorced in seventy-nine. She moved to New York and left me to raise my six-year-old daughter here. End of story."
"You didn't go back to your Rez?" The Tet Offensive meant nothing to Ramon.
"Only once. To see my mother. And to see if it was worth living up there and raising my daughter. But, my kid would get a better education in Santa Fe than on the Cheyenne Rez. There was no work for me there. We couldn't live on just the ADC checks. I had a house I'd bought in Santa Fe. Being a vet, I got a break on the mortgage, so we came back to New Mexico."
"Me and Frank ain't lived nowheres but the pueblos all our lives. Except if we got to go out of state to fight fires. We're Hot Shots," Ramon noted and looked back at Frank who had slumped down on the mattress and was snoring quietly. In his hand he was still clutching the neck of the whiskey bottle.
"Frank's asleep. How about a ride to our pueblo? They're havin' a Fiesta. An' a rooster pull in the plaza. There's lots of food at the church, Man like chicken an' potato salad an stuff. Just let me and Frank off before you get to the plaza. Don't want anyone to see that Frank an' me been drinkin'. Don't want any shit from the elders or Rez cops."
"Rooster pull?"
"Yeah, that's what they call it. A bunch of guys ride horseback and try to get hold of a chicken hangin' off a line in the air between two poles. An' the guy that gets hold of it has to ride back to the starting line while all the other riders try an' grab it from him before he makes it back. Took part in one once when I was real young, an' some old man snagged it an' as I tried to take it from him he kicked his horse into mine. I fell an' got run over by another horse. Broke my leg. An' I had a broken nose from hittin' the ground face first. Never entered another pull after that. Never was much for horses nohow."
Cecil said nothing more for a while. He just stared ahead at the traffic and blacktop. The Ford accelerated up a grade. A carved cross with someone's name on it had recently been planted by the highway sheep fence on which bits of ribbon and feathers flapped in the breeze. He had noticed the two black rubber brake tracks that had run into the borrow pit and furrowed the earth to the wooden cross. Someone from the pueblo must have died there, he thought. Above and to the east a hawk was in an aerial dogfight with two crows. The hawk flew erratically trying to lose its pursuer. Finally they split off into two different directions, low to the ground and the buteo lost interest and gained altitude, banked to the right, caught the wind and glided to the top of a power pole, then landed. To Cecil's right at a distance, scattered groups of diverse colors and breeds of cattle and one old horse were all hunting for browse on an arid stony landscape of yucca, cholla and other cactus. Large billboards on both sides of Highway 25 advertised tourists' needs and what to see while in New Mexico.
The San Lazaro Pueblo exit sign told him it was a mile ahead. He moved the truck over after passing a truck plodding up the grade pulling a fifth-wheel trailer loaded with racehorses. The heat of the day was 98 degrees at two o'clock and Cecil needed a drink. He'd forgotten to bring water along. He took the exit and turned left, then drove the overpass spanning the four lanes of I-25 and headed towards the abajo of the Rio Grande. The road signs along the road to the pueblo sported multiple bullet holes of varying calibers. Every pullout on each side of the road was littered with beer cans, broken wine and liquor bottles. The DO NOT LITTER sign had been peppered by a shotgun blast. One corner of the sign was obliterated. A sudden gust of wind blew an aluminum pop can from where it rested and it scooted across the road. Cecil drove on towards the river and pueblo.
Over-grazed gravel pastures on both sides of the road flourished with scattered dome clumps of yellow-blossomed snakeweed and patches of prickly pear cactus. A great bladed windmill spun slowly in the wind and the large rectangular stock tank overflowed its capacity, darkening the low end of the concrete bulkhead, spilling precious water onto the sandy soil.
Below the tableland lay the bottomland with the sprawling pueblo and further on, the rich fertile Rio Grande floodplain with acres of cultivated fields. Here in these fields grew and matured corn, squash, beans, peppers, and melons. Arroyo Lazaro Viejo and its tamarisk breaks of smoky mauve blooming salt cedars meandered towards the grand river. Blackened by fire, stubs of tamarisk trunks burnt during the spring rains, held their ground near the growing fields.
The Econoline rumbled over a cattle guard, and then bounced on the single pair of railroad tracks. Frank Lamas groaned with the vehicle's jarring, coughed and went back to a smooth snoring. Ramon looked back at Frank, saw he was out for the count and remarked to Cecil, "Man! Ol' Frankie ain't goin' to be able to walk, let alone stand up. He's big time hammered an' out like a light now. Maybe it's best if you dumped us off at my place."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Dog Soldier of "Los Cerrillos" by J. C. Cantle. Copyright © 2015 Jacques Faure. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
In Military Phonetic Alphabet,Chapter 1 - Alpha, 1,
Chapter 2 - Bravo, 25,
Chapter 3 - Charlie, 42,
Chapter 4 - Delta, 51,
Chapter 5 - Echo, 58,
Chapter 6 - Foxtrot, 74,
Chapter 7 - Gulf, 93,
Chapter 8 - Hotel, 108,
Chapter 9 - India, 121,
Chapter 10 - Juliet, 137,
Chapter 11 - Kilo, 146,
Chapter 12 - Lima, 166,
Chapter 13 - Mike, 179,
Chapter 14 - November, 196,
Chapter 15 - Oscar, 208,
Chapter 16 - Papa, 221,
Chapter 17 - Quebec, 232,
Chapter 18 - Romeo, 240,
Chapter 19 - Sierra, 249,
Chapter 20 - Tango, 257,
Chapter 21 - Uniform, 270,
Chapter 22 - Victor, 296,
Chapter 23 - Whiskey, 319,
Chapter 24 - X-Ray, 328,
Chapter 25 - Yankee, 341,
Chapter 26 - Zulu, 355,