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Abe Peña's  "From the Past" newspaper colomn

All material used with the kind permission of the author, given to me personally.

Published Monday, October 26, 2009 5:42 PM MDT

"Don Tranuilino: La cobija de los pobres

" With clear skies, the sun was about to rise when I drove up, lowered the window of the pickup, and asked Don Tranquilino, “What are you doing?”

With emotion, he answered, “Hijo, estoy esperando la cobija de los pobres.” (Son, I'm waiting for the blanket of the poor.) He was sitting on an eroded adobe wall, looking east to where the sun was about to rise that cold winter morning on the Hubbell Ranch in the Quemado country of western New Mexico.

The expressive phrase by Don Tranquilino happened in 1956, and, ever since, la cobija de los pobres has become a part of my and my wife's vocabulary. At that time, Viola was an expectant mother, expecting her first child. The words of Don Tranquilino Garcia, a fence builder, sheepherder, and homespun philosopher, have given us something special when we look for the sun. The sun is like a mother's gentle arms, gently embracing and warming her child in a cradle of love.

Besides building and maintaining fences, Don Tranquilino, like the others in the fence crew, helped with the lambing in the month of May. Lambing was a busy time of the year. We were running about 10,000 sheep. Some 1,700 were yearlings and about 300 were rams, and the other 8,000 were mother ewes. It took about 80 herders to care and try to save 8,000 lambs from that many ewes dropping (giving birth) to their lambs in 30 days.

There were eight drop herds of about 1,000 ewes each, and about 10 herders to a herd camped throughout the 250,000 acre ranch. Don Tranquilino was at Mireles camp and word came to headquarters that he was suffering from a severe toothache.

Frank Hubbell, the manager-owner, was a good friend of Don Tranquilino and was worried. He told me the nearest dentist was in Holbrook, Ariz.

I drove the old 1936 Chevrolet coupe that had been armor plated underneath to drive cross-country, and drove to the Mireles camp. Don Tranquilino was in agony. He was laying down on his bedroll and could hardly speak with a swollen cheek.

I told him we were going to the dentist and he began to resist, muttering, “I have been putting Aceite Mexicano (Mexican oil) on it and it seems to be getting better.” I turned to Valerio Chavez, the caporal in charge of the camp, and asked what he thought. “Take him to the dentist. He's been in pain for two days.”

He picked up his hat and put the Aceite Mexicano in his pocket and we took off. He kept holding his chin as we drove towards Holbrook on pretty fair country roads but occasionally hitting a bump, and he quietly bore the pain in silence. I suffered along side of him.

When we reached Holbrook, it took a while to find the dentist. It was a Sunday, and we finally found him. We went to his office down the street and he pulled the molar after giving him a local anesthetic. He felt much better. The doctor put a gob of gauze in the hole and told him “keep pressing down to keep the blood in check.”

We started back to the ranch, and, some 30 miles from home, traveling at about 25 miles per hour, the car blew a piston with a loud bang and sparks flew in the cab. Don Tranquilino, holding his chin, yelled, “Muchacho!” while I maneuvered to a stop. We lifted the hood and saw a piston sticking out like a sore thumb out of the motor. The whole thing was smoking but did not catch fire. I asked Don Tranquilino to sit while I built a fire. We had the fire going pretty good when a neighboring rancher came by and took us to the ranch headquarters. Don Tranquilino's swelling went down and he recovered nicely from the sore tooth.

Don Tranquilino was my friend. When I first went to work as foreman of the ranch two years before, I was 27 years old and most of the caporales, straw bosses, were in their 50s, with years of experience. Understandably, some wondered why they had to take orders from “a boy still wet behind the ears.” Don Tranquilino sought me out and advised, “Work hard, be courteous, show them respect, and they'll come around.”

His wise words have played an important role in my life, and every sunrise brings memories of Don Tranquilino looking east, “waiting for the blanket of the poor.”