El Paso: Techsan

Several authors are coming out with stories based on three songs by Marty Robbins: El Paso, Faleena and El Paso City. The story titles will be: "El Paso - author's name" e.g. "El Paso – Jake Rivers"

This is a follow on to our first "invitational" in the fall of 2006 with entries based on the Statler Brother's song, "This Bed of Rose's." If there is continuing support we might make this a regularly semi-annual event.

Thanks to Copperbutterfly for her editing work.

It was a hard country, this central part of the relatively new state of New Mexico. The terrain was rough, hilly, cut from centuries of flash floods and baking sun. Vegetation was sparse, filled with cacti, saw grass, and creosote brush. The few trees that grew in areas where their roots could find any moisture at all were mostly mesquite, scrawny little trees that provided little shade and only crooked little branches coated with hard inch-long thorns, or scraggly little crooked juniper trees.

Yet it seemed like the land of promise to 'Nando Gonzalez and his wife, Reena. Both of them had come from large families of poor Mexican dirt farmers who tried to scratch out a living in the arid sands of the state of Chihuahua. At least here they were able to stake out land of their own, to put down roots for a family of their own, rather than share everything with so many other family members. Here was a chance at independence for the young couple, something that Mexico did not offer them.

With little in the way of natural resources for building, 'Nando had dug into the hard dirt, excavating a space large enough to create a two-room dugout house, with a thatched room covered with layers of dirt to take advantage of the lower temperatures below the surface of the scorched earth.

In the meantime, Reena had hacked out a little space for a garden so that she could grow some vegetables for their meals. As she carefully planted seeds brought with loving care from their former home, Reena drew and carried water from their well and nurtured the seeds.

Their water source started out as a seep from a rocky outcrop behind the dugout; 'Nando had carefully dug out a well a few feet from the seep, having to excavate nearly 25 feet before he hit a fairly steady stream of cool water. It took days of tortous work to prepare a concrete-like mixture and lower it bucket by bucket while he packed the walls of the well to keep it from caving in.

That first year, most of their food came from the results of 'Nando's hunting trips into the surrounding area. He felt lucky when he found the occasional white-tailed deer and brought it back for Reena to smoke. More often than not, the fare consisted of one of the areas abundant jack rabbits, tough but life-sustaining.

It was a tough life but not without its rewards. 'Nando and Reena both felt a deep sense of accomplishment in making their own way and that only deepened their love for each other. Tired from the day-after-day backbreaking work that lasted from sunup to sundown, they still found time for each other in the evening hours. So it was no surprise to either of them when, in the early fall of their first year together, Reena informed 'Nando that she was with child.

The following June on a night filled with lightning and desert thunder, Reena delivered their first child, a beautiful baby girl that they agreed to call Faleena. She was the apple of her daddy's eye and the love child of her parents' union. As it turned out, Faleena was just the first of a large family; she would have four brothers and three sisters in the next fourteen years.

Even as a toddler, Faleena became used to the hard life of her parents. She went with her mother to tend to the crops during the growing season. Her mother taught her how to carefully distribute the precious seeds into the rows behind her hoe as she worked the dry soil. 'Nando provided Faleena with a double-bladed hoe of her own when she was only half as tall as the hoe handle; yet she learned to wield it well enough to keep the weeds down around the young plants.

Faleena was put in charge of the scrawny chickens, providing feed to supplement what they could scrounge from the countryside as well as gathering eggs every morning. It didn't take but one accident with the egg basket for her to learn to be careful lest she and her family go hungry when the eggs spilled on the ground.

When 'Nando brought home a deer from a successful hunt or butchered the occasional longhorn, Faleena learned how to tan the hides, scraping them free of the excess meat and fat, working the hide into soft leather that she then watched her mother fashion into clothes for family members. Perhaps hardest of all was cutting the meat into strips and jerking it to keep it from spoiling.

Late summers and early falls were filled with harvesting corn and beans. The corn had to be shucked and silked, then dried so that the kernels could be scraped from the cobs and stored for the winter; Reena would later grind the corn into meal for tortillas. The beans were shelled and dried and became the basic staple of the family's diet. Every one of the little ones learned how to help with these chores as soon as they could hold bean pods.

Generally every third winter, when the harvest was in and work slackened off somewhat, 'Nando and Reena packed their little ones into an old buckboard wagon hitched behind a pair of mules and headed south through the sprawl of El Paso, across the Rio Grande, through Tiajuana and into Chihuahua to visit their respective families. It was always fun for all of the family to spend time with their relatives but, for Faleena, the big attraction was the city of El Paso. She had never seen so many people, wearing such bright clothing.

Riding through the streets of town, they could hear the sound of music from the plethora of saloons and raucous laughter from the inhabitants, both male and female. Shops abounded like she had never, ever pictured could exist anywhere. People walked on boardwalks all over town as if they never had work to do. Instead of scrambling everyday to make a living like Faleena's family did, those people seemed to be happy and without a care in the world. On the trip during her twelfth year, Faleena vowed that one day she would be just like them.

Yet nothing seemed to ever change. As hard as they worked, nothing ever got easier. Each year, 'Nando and Reena cleared a little more land for planting, digging the stubborn cacti out with hoes and axes, sometimes using the mules to pull the wiry mesquite tree roots from the ground. Yet every time they cleared more land and planted it, another baby came along to demand even more food for survival.

By the time Faleena turned fourteen, she had already begun to dream of a life away from the rugged farm, a life like those people in El Paso lived – carefree and full of laughter. She dreamed of spending her time dancing and going from shop to shop to find everything she needed in life. Her dreams provided her the respite from reality that let her keep going from day to day.

At the same time, Faleena was well aware of changes in her body. Within the past year, her breasts had grown from little bumps to plump apples, not as large as her mother's but already more than she could hold in her tiny hands. Of course she had reached the age of monthly flows during her eleventh year, but now it seemed like she frequently had a sort of itch between her legs; she had found that she could relieve that itch herself with a hand in the right spot but ... she wondered if it would be different with a boy/man ... like she had seen her mother and father doing. Now she had developed a waist, with hips that flaired out distinctively, instead of the straight up-and-down boyish figure she had been used to.

In her fifteenth year, their trip back to visit relatives only served to cement Faleena's resolve to move to a better life in the city. They stopped to rest the mules, to have a meal at a real restaurant, and to spend the night before resuming their trip. With her mother's permission, she was allowed to walk the boardwalk and look into the shop windows.

She had not gone far before a cowboy walking in the opposite direction had tipped his hat and said, "Howdy, ma'am."

His face had a look of ... lust? Faleena smiled at him and bowed slightly as they passed. As she continued looking in the windows, her mind was racing with the thought that the cowboy had thought her worthy of attention. She began to notice other people along the route, men in particular. Many of them looked at her with desire in their eyes. Faleena laughed inwardly at that thought and smiled back at them. By the time she returned to the circle of her family, her mind was filled with thoughts of fun and frolic; her feet seemed light and dancing, just barely touching the ground as she glided along.

After that, Faleena dreamed almost every night of living a fun, carefree life in the big city, with men staring at her in wonder ... and desire. Her body began to react to the thoughts and dreams of men that wanted her. She seemed to have an itch within herself that she just could not satisfy. As time progressed, she came to know that it would never be satisfied by a life on the farm, caring for the chickens, working in the fields, chasing ornery cows. There just had to be something more wonderful out there in the wide world of the big city.

The week after her seventeenth birthday, Faleena finally concluded that she had to follow her dream. Tying her few belongings into a small bundle, she kissed her crying mother and sad father goodbye, hugged all her siblings and set out to find a way to Santa Fe, the closest large town which held promise of better things for her. It took her several weeks to complete the journey, having to stop several times along the way and work at a little cafe or helping out at one of the sparse ranches to earn meals and some meager wages.

Faleena was awed by the town square with it's big adobe Governor's Palace on one side and the various shops and stores around the other facing sides. And there were so many people! Even inside the square, vendors sold corn shuck-wrapped tamales from wash tubs to passers-by. Another sold tamales by the sackfull. Yet another offered sopapillas with fresh honey. It seemed that anything a person could want was available just by taking a short stroll around the huge square.

Carefully using the bit of money she'd saved from her last job as a ranch cook's helper, she purchased a meal and ate as she took in the sights of the sprawling town. As soon as she had finished, she began to canvas the possible employment prospects in town, mostly the small restaurants that dotted the square.

However it wasn't until she had gotten away from the square onto one of the roads that led south of town that she found an owner willing to hire her. The owner, a wizened gray-haired woman who spoke a mixture of Spanish and profane English, was gruff with her but offered to let her use an empty room upstairs for living quarters as part of her compensation in exchange for being a waitress and part-time cook.

Faleena settled into working at Nita's Cafe. Her assignment was to work the front, taking and delivering orders, except on the rare occasions when Nita took time off. On those few times, Faleena worked in the kitchen while one of Nita's young nieces took care of the front. However it didn't take long for the men of Santa Fe to learn that Nita had hired a beautiful young waitress. And it didn't hurt business that Faleena liked to flirt with the men, making pleasant talk with them, letting each one think that she might be his 'special' friend.

As time passed and she had time to visit the city before or after work, Faleena began to reflect on the town of Santa Fe, comparing it with her memories of El Paso from her family's trips to visit relatives. It was at those times that she came to realize that Santa Fe, while a far cry from the boredom of her parents' ranch, was still just a sleepy little town. It didn't have the numbers of people – nor the excitement – that a bigger city like El Paso held.

Just a year after arriving in Santa Fe, Faleena thanked Nita for her hospitality and kissed her goodbye before climbing onto a stage coach bound for the largest metropolis Faleena knew, El Paso. It was a long dusty, dry trip that took most of four days, with the three nights spent in uncomfortable, hot wayside inns. Yet when the stage pulled to a stop in El Paso, Faleena felt like she had come home. The laughter, the sounds of a tinny saloon piano, the sights of so many people all put her in a mood of anticipatory euphoria. Now she could live!

It didn't take long to find an inexpensive room at a boarding house but finding a job was more difficult. It took her three days before she found Rosa's Cantina in the outskirts of the city. The owner liked her outgoing personality, knew that men would like the looks of the young woman, and decided to take a chance on hiring her as a dancer to entertain her customers.

Although musicians – piano players and guitarists mostly – came and went with alarmingly frequency, there was always someone to play for her and Faleena was a hit with the men who frequented Rosa's place. She swirled around the floor, occasionally singing, always laughing, twirling her luscious body just out of reach of the many who longed to touch her.

Frequently the customers asked Faleena to let them buy her meals and she often accepted, providing them with thirty or forty-five minutes of lighthearted banter while they ate. It was not unusual for the same customer to return in a day or two with a little token of his appreciation for Faleena: a bright colored scarf, a necklace of turquoise stones, or some other little trinket to add to her sparkling personality.

Faleena was good for business and sooner or later, virtually every male that passed through El Paso came to Rosa's Cantina to eat, or drink, or simply to watch the beautiful young dancer. It didn't matter to Faleena who they were; she flirted shamelessly with one and all, married or single, young or old, short or tall.

Her job was to bring in customers and she did it well. The fact that she loved flirting with every man, knowing that they wanted her, never hurt her performances. She quickly learned that the more she flirted with the men, the nicer their presents to her became.

One night a few weeks after she started work at Rosa's, a young drifter named Ragan came strolling into the cantina during one of Faleena's performances. He was like a dozen others already there: long sleeve shirt topped with a leather vest, a ten-gallon hat covering his head, two guns tied down at his hips, spurs jingling each time his feet moved, looking like the average cow jockey. Slapping his hat against his jeans to dislodge some of the dust of his long ride, he stepped up to the bar to quench his thirst, turning to watch the beautiful dancer while he savored the cool drink.

Laughing and smiling, Faleena whirled around the room, making eyes at the cowboy as she flashed past. He was instantly smitten with the long-haired, dark-eyed beauty. He stayed as long as he could that night, hoping to catch the girl's attention, hoping for more than just her passing laughter. Not until closing time for the cantina did Ragan gather the reins for his horse and head to the livery stable, knowing that he would be back the following night to see his new love.

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso

I fell in love with a Mexican girl.

Night-time would find me in Rosa's cantina;

Music would play and Feleena would whirl.

Night after night, the drifter went to the cantina to see Faleena, sometimes coming early enough to ask her to have dinner with him. She often accepted and they made small talk as they ate, she always with a smile on her face and laughter in her eyes, he with a more intense emotion held barely in check. He knew he had fallen in love with her the first night he saw her but, when he spoke of love, she simply laughed at him and moved to another subject.

Ragan had developed something of a gunfighter's reputation, first in San Antone, then in Fort Worth and finally in Abilene, each time settling a disagreement with the flash of his guns. At first he had been reluctant to us them until goaded into it but each time he found his temper flaring quicker as he lost his tolerance for being pushed. Each time he had killed or wounded, the local law had encouraged him to move on to other environs even though they had not been able to prove that he had done anything other than defend himself.

Ragan had begun to despair of ever settling down into any sort of good routine life ... until he met Faleena. She had made him dream of a home of his own, with her as his wife, perhaps starting a little horse ranch somewhere nearby. Ah, of such dreams is life made!

Each time he saw her, he was more certain of his love for Faleena. Yet he could see that it was not returned. She was carefree, loving but not in love, interested only in enjoying life day by day. Yet she agreed to spend time with him so he took what he could get, yearning for more. And each day, his jealousy grew as he watched her whirl around Rosa's Cantina, entertaining the customers and flirting with the men of west Texas and southern New Mexico.

One night as Ragan stood at the end of the bar, nursing a drink and seething inside as men reached for the flashing Faleena, a wild young cowboy burst through the doors with a whoop, accepted the proffered drink of homemade whiskey, and downed it with a yell. With a huge grin on his face, he turned to the crowd. When he spotted Faleena, he strode across the room and took her in his arms, whirling her around the room faster and faster as the music rang out.

Ragan's anger simmered. But when the cowboy pulled a laughing Faleena to him and planted a long kiss on her sweet lips, Ragan could no longer contain himself. With a shout, he called the cowboy out, challenging his manhood. There was a sudden mad scramble as patrons hurried to get out of the way. The cowboy flung Faleena to one side even as she cried to Ragan to make him stop. It was too late.

With a flash of hands down to tied-down guns, both men drew and fired, the explosions deafening in the confines of the cantina. The acrid stench of gunpowder hung in the air and as the smoke cleared, Ragan still stood, looking down at the lifeless body of the young cowboy.

His anger just as suddenly abated, Ragan knew he had gone too far. The young cowboy was a stranger but the Sheriff of El Paso County, Sam Dawson, was a grizzled old hand. Ragan had been walking a tightrope in El Paso under the watching eyes of the old man and, while Ragan might be faster on the draw, he knew that Sam would never let him live without paying for the death of this stranger, especially for such a crime as kissing a willing woman.

Quickly he turned to the back door of Rosa's and ran, turning to the hitch rail just outside. There was no time to go to the livery stable for his own horse. He scanned the row of horses and picked what looked like a good one, jumped into its saddle and rode away as fast as he could.

He had heard the uproar of Rosa's customers, outraged at his actions, as they boiled out of the cantina. He knew it would be just minutes before Dawson put together a posse and came after him. Into the night he rode, heading north, soon crossing the border with New Mexico, hoping that Dawson would honor the loss of his authority at the border.

His tactic must have worked because, as Ragan paused to rest his horse in the hills beyond the town, he surveyed his back trail and could find no sign of a posse. Breathing a sigh of relief, he rode on into the badlands of New Mexico until exhausted, he made camp, and thankful that the horse he had taken had a bedroll tied behind the saddle.