Wild Sunflowers Ch. 02

"The old guy that owns this place? What time would that be?"

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Just after four", I answered.

"Oh, he'll be over in about an hour and a half," she giggled. "He gets up early and he always comes over on Sunday morning for coffee and to hit on me."

"5:30!" I cried. "He's coming over at 5:30?"

"Yup, goodnight. He doesn't know about the topless place, so don't say anything," she mumbled and was gone.

I somehow didn't relish being awakened by pounding on the door in a short while, so after she was truly out, I crept out of bed and went to the kitchen. I knew that if I went to sleep no old man with a fancy Hispanic name was going to get me out of bed, so I decided to just stay up. I was pretty bleary, so I put the coffee pot on and thought about a few things, primarily, Chuck's daughter Maria and how to find her. I also thought that if I went very far down this path, I was likely to become more entangled than I perhaps wanted to contemplate.

After a half hour of that thought process and wondering about my growing feelings for that beautiful long-legged woman in the bedroom, I got up and started puttering around the kitchen. For some reason, I'd bought a bunch of pecans at the grocery store on the way down. I like 'em in a salad and they're handy to toss in other dishes. I realized that I could probably scrounge up the makings for a coffee cake if I looked around. The only thing I hadn't located was honey and then lo and behold in the back the cabinet where the flour lived, I scored.

This was another of those quickie recipes in my repertoire and I figured I could pull it off without my cookbook. There's really nothing else in it except tons of butter, flour, milk, sugar, honey and a generous pile of pecans.

When I heard a rattling truck pull up right at 5:30, I was just taking the coffee cake out of the oven and it smelled and looked great. I had a full pot on as well.

I opened the door for Sr. Antonio Velasquez and introduced myself. Chuck was right. He was pretty old and he looked at me like at any moment I might run over his dog or steal his gun or cheat at cards. He was short, stringy tough-looking with a few days of beard on his brown face. He looked like you could pick him up and sling him over your shoulder. Same could be said for a rattler, but it'd be a bad idea, I thought.

"I met Chuck last weekend and we've become friends," I told him in reply to that look on his face.

He grunted. Didn't seem like a good sign. "Where is she? What's that smell?" he asked coming into the kitchen.

"Oh, Chuck told me you'd be over so I made coffee cake. She's still in bed. Should we roust her out?" I replied.

He grunted. "She's been working at that titty bar all night again. Leave her sleep. She's never out of bed when I come over and I have to pound on the door for ten minutes to get her attention. Then I have to make the coffee while she sits there staring into space. Hell, she can't even make beans" the old man says. "You don't look like much," he said, cutting himself a huge piece of coffee cake. He poured himself a cup of coffee and started eating.

"She said you didn't know about the topless place", I replied. "I was to make sure not to mention it."

"I know a lot of things she don't know I know", he said. "The night she was harassed by that young Mexican over there, I knew about it and I can guarantee you, he won't be doing that again. Showed up on his doorstep a few days later with my 45 and told him not to go back in there. Another thing she don't know. When I go, I'm giving her the best forty acres of what's left of the family land and my kids don't know nothin' about it. Don't you tell her now."

"No," I said. "I won't."

"Where you from?" he asked between bites with a sidelong look.

"Oh, all over", I said. "I was born in Michigan raised in Texas, lived in Vermont, twenty-five years in Oregon doing various things and then to Southern Colorado, where I live now. How about you?"

Sr. Velasquez grunted. "I was born about a half a mile from here and never been further than Texas and Mexico. That was in the old days when we traded horses and some cattle. I'll die here not too long from now. I got cancer. Don't tell Cherisse. She don't know."

"Yes sir. More coffee?"

He got up with a grimace of apparent pain and poured himself another cup, took another big chunk of coffee cake and grunted, "This is purty good. What you got there, a little bass?" he gestured with his cup at the cello.

"It's a cello, kind of the same thing, a little higher pitch."

"I used to play the guitaron in a mariachi band." He said. "Know any Spanish songs?"

"Sure do," I said. I walked over to the cello and started in on an ensemble piece by Pablo Casals called La Sardena. I had rearranged it so that I could convey the emotion of the piece with a single cello. It wasn't anything like authentic, but it had a great Spanish flavor and feeling.

I had the old man tapping his feet and staring wistfully into space while he chewed and sipped.

"That's good. Do you know any Mariachi? How about Amor Prohibido?"

"Yeah, actually it's one of my favorites" and I played that as well. Mariachi on the cello? Yeah, I know, but I had been moved by a deep interest in the passion of some of the Mariachi in the last five years of living in the area. I had adapted some of the slower ones to my instrument, mostly the sad ones. Mexico blues, I called them.

"You're good, you know. We used to play that at weddings and funerals. It wasn't the right kind of thing to play, but everyone liked the way we played it and we didn't know a whole lot o' songs. People weren't choosy back then. Lots of places didn't have radios. I remember the girls used to come around after we played that and I woulda had to fight 'em off if I cared to. That's how I met my Maria. She was a woman, a real woman. She fell in love with me the first time she heard me play and she was dead set on having me. I was still having too much fun. It took her a year to convince me to marry her. We was married fifty-two years and I never regretted a day of it. She passed on nine years ago now and I've been on my own over at the rancho ever since. If it wasn't for Cherisse, I don't think I'da bothered to stay around." His eyes glistened and mine did as well.

"So you and Maria, you lived on the land here and raised cattle and horses?"

The old man snorted. "Hell we stole cattle and horses from those uppity Texans half the time. Then we'd go down into Mexico and sell 'em and steal some more while we was down there and bring 'em up to sell to the Texans to replace the ones we stole. They treated us like dirt and were living on our land. Almost got myself killed several times. Got the scars to prove it. Sometimes we'd go down into Mexico and round up some horses or cattle and drive 'em up to Santa Fe to sell. Then we'd save one out and kill it and have a big fiesta."

"How long has your family been on this land?" I asked.

"Oh, since the late sixteen hundreds. The land was part of a grant that my abuelos got for holding off the Indians and setting up a trading post here in Ocate. It was over a hundred thousand acres back then, but there's only a few thousand left now. The house and barns are cavin' in and I've just let 'em go since my Maria died. It don't matter now. The kids live in Albuquerque; some of 'em live in California. They don't care about it except for the money it'll bring when I finally die. Play me another song. Do you know Serenata Huasteca?"

I played the piece for the old man. When it was finished, Chuck came stumbling out in her bathrobe.

"That was beautiful. I'm sorry I missed it. Hi, Tony! What have you boys been doing?"

"Well I'm sitting here talking to one lucky gringo, if he's getting to spend time with you." Tony replied. "He can cook and he sure can play that big violin. How are you, my darling?"

"Oh, sleep walking, so far. How you doing, Tony?" she asked concerned as she grabbed a cup of coffee.

"Ok, I guess. I haven't been able to come over lately. Wasn't doin' too good last week, but I feel better now. What are you doing picking up men and bringing 'em home, Cherisse? I thought you 'n me had a thing goin'"

"We do, we do, Tony. You'll always be my first love, but you like Dan Ok?"

"Yeah, well, I can't like him too much if he's takin' you away from me." Tony replied.

"I'm not goin' anywhere as long as you're around, Antonio." She pronounced his name with a Spanish accent. "Usted es mi un amor verdadero. You are my one true love."

"Well it won't be long for me anyway." He said. "I'm almost ninety and now he comes along just when I almost got you convinced to marry me. Hard for me to like a guy that steals my girl."

Tony turned to me. "I'll tell you one thing, Cherisse ain't no gold-digger, I can tell you that. I don't have much money, but there's over three thousand acres left of the old land grant and I'd have given her all of it. Anything she wanted. Anything at all."

"You're a sweet heart, mi amor. I'll always love you best."

We visited for over an hour after Chuck got vertical and then Sr. Antonio Velasquez headed out in his pickup. I still wasn't sure whether or not he liked me and maybe he wasn't sure either.

"He's a proud, old Mexican", I said after he drove off.

"He isn't a Mexican, Dan, and he wouldn't like it if you called him that. He's Spanish. His people were from Spain. Mexico didn't exist as a country when his family came to Ocate. Oh, maybe there was some intermarriage with the Indians, but he is Spanish to the bone. Santa Fe is the oldest city in the US."

"I didn't know that."

"Yeah, there were Spanish explorers here in the fifteen hundreds."

"Wow, I'd like to learn more about that. How are you feeling after your two hours of sleep?"

"You're a sweet surprise to wake up to, Dan. Maybe we should grab that coffee cake and go back to bed."

And we did go back to bed, went pretty much straight to sleep too and didn't stir until after three.

Given our twisted schedule we had about 14 or so hours to do what we wanted and we were now well rested. We each jumped into the shower, as it was barely big enough for one guy with a hard on.

We had a quiet afternoon. We had wandered down to an arroyo where we walked through the bosque, (the cottonwood stand surrounding the dry creek bed), holding hands, kissing occasionally and not talking a great deal. The clouds broke out around 4:30 and by five the thunder and lightning began. The rain began to pour down in huge drops only a few moments later and we took shelter under the overhanging branches of one of the big cottonwoods. Now this is normally about the dumbest thing you can do in the high desert of Northern New Mexico. First you have a decent chance of being hit by lightning since the only thing taller than a mule is one of those cottonwoods and then there's the danger of a flash flood in the arroyo. We talked about making a break for it but decided against it. Guess we were feeling lucky. I sure was. Something about the wind and the crashing thunder and rain in the leaves and highly charged air fired us both up and before we knew what we were doing we were tearing at one another's soaked clothes and rolling in the dirt and leaves like animals. It was good; funky, lusty, growly good. It gave me some ideas for future play in the bosque and that made me hard all over again. I also had another idea I wanted to talk to Chuck about. It was almost dark, the rain had stopped but the blowing wind cooled us off quickly. Our clothes were wet and muddy and there wasn't much point in putting them back on again, so we pulled our runners on over our bare feet, picked up or clothes and picked our way carefully between the cholla, prickly pear and yucca back to the house wearing nothing else. The sky had cleared and the first stars were beginning to appear by the time we made it to the house.

I told her on the way back that I wouldn't be able to come next weekend and that I'd be gone all the following week. I had a trade show where I was doing some work, the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. The usual story. Clients had waited until the last possible minute and had piled work on me a couple of weeks before the show. I shouldn't even be away from the computer now I told her. I'd be working 'round the clock until the following Monday morning when I would get on a plane with whatever I had accomplished and deliver it to the clients at the show. Then I had to spend the week in meetings and conferences, give two talks myself and do some sales training for another exhibitor. This was the annual big show for Consumer Electronics and I had three clients in that space. It was also the biggest show in Vegas and one heck of a drag.

"Here's the deal Chuck," I had said. "I'll be working my butt off while I'm there. I can't miss a single opportunity to connect with each of my clients and with any potential clients. This only happens once a year and it's a big deal. If you think you can stand it, I want you to come with me. I don't doubt that having a statuesque blonde follow me around would be an asset to my business, but that's not why I want you to go. I want you there so we can be together and have some playtime. You'd have to disappear when the heavy conversation started. Alternately, you could cruise the strip, shop or whatever. My usual schedule is getting up at around 6 AM, going to the show until 5 or so. My evenings involve dinner with clients and then drinks with other people after dinner. I am free Tuesday night and you are welcome to join me for the dinners. The guys may not pay much attention to what I'm saying and the women will probably be jealous of you, but we can work with it. It'll be busy: A whirlwind tour. We would be leaving Monday afternoon and returning Friday morning."

"I can't just up and leave," she said a bit wistfully. "And I can't really spend the money on the plane fare."

"The flight's cheap and it's on me. The cost of the room is already covered, 'cause you're staying with me. Come on Chuck. I can't guarantee it would be a blast, but at least we'll get to have some play time together."

"Don't get me wrong, I'd love to go. You know I've hardly been anywhere. I was born in Rio Rancho about twenty minutes from here and I've been to Los Angeles exactly once. I was practically the only whitey in town in Rio. I don't know, maybe if I called Maria or Katie and see if they can take my shift at Trader Joes and Tony would probably come over and hang out with Marv and feed her. You know what? I'm gonna go! Thank you for asking me!" and with that she flung her arms around my neck smooshed my lips with hers and jigged her way around me while I stood there with a foolish grin on my face. Then I took her hand and we headed inside.

To be continued.