by Marian Huyck Grossi

Created on: December 27, 2008

YOU MAY HAVE SEEN ME

Dateline 1850s

W
hen we high-tailed it out of Mexico we rode our mounts nearly into the ground and it showed: their coats were covered with the white froth of heat, manes stuck to their hide, and grunting as we pushed them harder. Our horses were relieved when we stopped for the night at a deserted tumbling down adobe near San Diego.

We knew where we were headed.

There were three of us: Joaquin Jalama; his long-time friend, Garcia, or better known as "Three-fingered Jack", and me - Pablo Camarillo. They called me the "Pablo Wooden Head," because I was unable to speak. In the early days of my career as an outlaw, I had my tongue cut out for spitting at the sheriff of San Diego. Instead of going to trial - he told me he had had his fill of being bad-mouthed for the month and decided the next person who bad-mouthed him was not going to be able to talk that way to anyone again. I happened along at the wrong time, but I'll tell you about that in a little while.

*

Although I can't speak, my brain is alive and well. I sided with Jalama for all of the reasons he went on his murderous rampage. I was witness to the events that occurred in my hometown of La Paz when the rancheros and their two-gun no good low-lifers decided La Paz was where they wanted to stop and "fuel up" for the rest of their journey.

When they had bellied up to the bar several times they went loco. Plumb loco in the cabeza. Those pendejos lit out of the saloons like a Mexican bull was chasing them. They ravaged, raped, and murdered many of the women in the tiny village; my wife included. She was pregnant and we were to have our first child. She died while giving premature birth to our child. Only minutes later our baby, a girl I named Maria after her mother, died. I buried them atop a hill with the wind facing their grave - a single grave - for I had Maria holding our daughter. They would go to eternity together. I said the Rosary while gently laying a handmade rosary in their hands to take with them on their journey.

As I was leaving my wife and child's gravesite I met up with a solitary man who loosely held the reins of a black stallion which was pulling a buckboard carrying a pine coffin. He was sobbing; mumbling to himself. His wife was also a victim and had suffered the death of rape: her soul died then; and the death of fire, for her body died in the smoldering ruins and she was released into the heavens by our Father above.

The legend says that may or may not be true, but who

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>