Marcelino and the Curse of the Gold Frog II: The Next Fifty Years

By Daniel Chavez Sr.

This is the continuing story of Marcelino and the Curse of the Gold Frog that ended in 1920. After the family moves to Texas, the responsible men work hard at their jobs, but Tacito and his cantankerous father work hard at avoiding jobs and creating their own style of mischief and chaos, much of which borders on lunacy.

The family has many good and bad experiences and during this time Ramona and Tacito’s ultimate lifelong friendship begins to develop. He takes on the role of protector, advisor and confidant for the young girl.

After moving to Austin, Tacito views relocation as a great challenge and lives separate from Marcelino’s family making his own living. Late in his life, he marries for the first time and has a daughter. Tragedy befalls the young girl and also claims the life of his wife. Deep, dark depression engulfs him until Ramona enters his life again.

Ramona takes Tacito into her home and he quickly adjusts to his new surroundings becoming his old self. Gone much of the time and supposedly just roaming around Austin, he’s always home for supper. Ramona demands to know what he is doing and after learning of his escapades, a confrontation leads to Tacito moving out of the house.

Tacito gets himself in serious trouble with his doctor by refusing to follow doctors orders and Ramona tries to keep the now elderly man at home which is near impossible. Conflicts develop which land him in a nursing home where he lives the remainder of his life.

After Tacito’s death, Ramona learns the surprising truth of why her dear friend wouldn’t stay at home, and that her biological father is now on his deathbed requesting her presence. She refuses, as she has despised him her entire life for what he allowed to happen to her mother. Ramona must now find a way to put to rest years of animosity before the bell that tolls the loudest chimes no more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brighton Publishing LLC
• Release date: Jun 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781621834830

Daniel Chavez Sr.

Daniel “Danny” Chavez, Sr. was born in San Antonio, Texas, the third-oldest of thirteen children. He didn’t complete high school and says he never missed having a formal education. It’s not that he’s opposed to higher education, quite the contrary, as he adamantly stresses the need to learn all you can, while you can. Looking back through bifocals at thirty-five years in heavy and dangerous construction, he now realizes it was an excellent education. “If you’re not going to finish high school, you certainly need to learn about life.” He figured the best way to do that was to risk his own life, which he did many times, in performing dangerous jobs. “Brushing up against the grim reaper builds strong character and an appreciation for being above ground instead of six-feet under it.” Around 1980, Danny quit traipsing around the country and settled in Nashville, Tennessee. He had learned to play the guitar and write and arrange original songs; so it seemed only natural to dabble in Country Music. After building a home recording studio, he began making music. Chavez admits he didn’t take music as seriously as he should have. Having to produce new material and working upwards of ninety hours a week at a car manufacturing plant eventually took its toll on his nerves. He did, however, love his time in Nashville, the many friends he made, and being surrounded by countless great singers and musicians. Currently, his sister plays many of his songs in an online music room, and she reports that folks enjoy hearing them. Danny says he finds it rather comical that folks enjoy hearing his original music that’s old enough to vote. In 1994, Danny relocated back to Kansas to help his older brother who was suffering with a terminal illness. He soon learned steady work was difficult to find, and going back on the road was no longer an option. He had spent years as a welder/pipefitter foreman, a construction boss installing grain handling machinery, and as a maintenance technician. No longer able to do physical labor meant it was time to put his brain to work. He began writing poetry, screenplays, took up photography, learned woodworking, did some leatherwork, then made bows and arrows. Bored, and with a burning desire for something more challenging, he was anxious to chart a new course. One day, one of his younger brothers who was a university student, asked if Danny had any ideas for a literary project he could work on. After providing a detailed outline for the project, his brother was so impressed, he recommended to Danny he should write the story. Hell, why not? Danny thought. The “why not” became apparent immediately after dabbing a pencil to his tongue. It took Danny a long time to learn how to stop his adjectives from agitating his nouns. Then came the battle of learning how to construct a legible paragraph. Eventually, mastering the craft of writing, his persistence finally paid off. Ten years later, “Marcelino and the Curse of the Gold Frog” joined his collection of completed works. Danny now resides in central Kansas.

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Marcelino and the

Curse of the Gold Frog II

The Next Fifty Years

Daniel Chavez, Sr.

Brighton Publishing LLC

435 N. Harris Drive

Mesa, AZ 85203

www.BrightonPublishing.com

Copyright © 2018

ISBN: 978-1-62183-483-0

SMASHWORDS EDITION

eBook

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. The characters in this book are fictitious and the creation of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to other characters or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher or copyright owner.

Prologue

Now that we are gathered again, children, I will continue with the second part of the story regarding your ancestors. As before, I will share these events as I recall them and quote the individuals as well as my memory allows. You must still keep in mind that these people spoke broken English when they used the language, which was only at leisure times. When things got serious they spoke Spanish. It is the same way with me. And because these events are in my head in Spanish along with their dialogue, I will have to translate from Spanish to English. Doing this might make me speak slowly in places, but we’ll do okay.

Before I begin this extraordinary story I will refresh your memory as well as mine by touching on a few points I have already shared. This will help me set the scene for what your ancestors encountered after 1920, where we left off. Plus, it will allow us to reacquaint ourselves with facts from the first part that will influence this one.

Early in the spring of 1921, Mama Maria’s health was still stable. Fortunately for those concerned, the traumatic as well as hair-raising events her illness caused were slowly slipping from memory. So now with calmness and normalcy prevailing in all its glory, it was like some folks like to say: let the sleeping baby lie. And you can bet there wasn’t one among them who cared to disturb those horrid images—out of fear—fear that the unmentionable would catch a second wind and come back to frighten them worse than before. For this reason they just moved on, a very wise thing indeed, and one of utmost importance. The why is because the future still didn’t hold an ounce of promise. Every single day they faced the same ol’ thing, and every morning they opened their eyes to the same harsh environment. But they didn’t complain; no one ever complained. They were all happy. Anybody with any sense knows you can’t beat happy down even with a fat stick.

At this particular time, Marcelino’s immediate family consisted of his wife, Maria, and her two daughters from a previous marriage. The oldest girl was Alisha who was 11 years-old and still scared of most everything around her. What she’d witnessed in her short life had made her so leery of everything and extremely fidgety. At least she took the first step toward being brave by getting use to her shadow following her around everywhere. Of course, I’m just poking a little fun at the girl without meaning to belittle her. We all know she was a hero that night at the creek.

The next girl in line was ornery Ramona. She was 9 years-old and going on twenty, meaning she was entirely too wise for her age. And then there’s Lucia, almost three, and the youngest is the baby, Fernie. This little fella is more than lucky to still be alive after Mama tried to cook him in the big caldron that time. Praise the Lord for those crazy days being long gone.

To avoid confusion later on and for clarity’s sake, it will help to describe those who live with Mama Maria’s parents. Those folks are Mama Maria’s stepfather, Ignacio (Papa Nacio, is what the children call him). Maria’s mother is Catalina (Mama Lina is what she is called). Ignacio’s cantankerous full brother is Eusebio, who is Tacito’s father. So Tacito, age 37, is Ignacio’s nephew. Tacito (pronounced Ta-key-toe) is a grown man who stands a mighty four-feet and eight inches tall or short, if one considers this height to be tall only when referring to midgets. Thing is, Tacito isn’t a midget. There just isn’t much altitude to the man.

Even though there’s a mama this and a mama that and stepfathers, stepmothers, stepsisters, and stepbrothers in this family it doesn’t mean it’s a step in the wrong direction—not one dang bit. This bunch was super close and always tried to live in close proximity to each other so they could visit regularly all year-round. And they were almost all devout Baptists, which accounts for the deep love and sincere caring they felt for one another. Without fail or hesitation, when someone was in need the others immediately stepped in to help in every way they could. It has always been this way and never will change.

This story will begin with what’s churning in a couple of these men’s minds. When all is said and done, most of them will have relocated to another town. This is where the next chapter of their lives begins and where the first chapter starts for us.

And several other things are worth mentioning: Tacito isn’t an old man like Ramona thinks he is. Sometimes to a young girl everybody over thirty seems old. This thinking may be because they are adults, and that’s the way older folks are seen through young eyes. These times are hard; there’s no denying that, which helps to explain why some people look older than they really are. Most of the premature aging is from working outside under a Texas sun that’s notorious for cooking all flesh. But this isn’t the case where Tacito is concerned. He really does looks younger than his years. The fortunate man will continue throughout his entire life to fool many people about his age.

A curious thing about this little man is the relationship he had with his father, Eusebio. A lot of the time to onlookers, these two men appeared to be headed toward an altercation. That stemmed from the rather rough way they talked and interacted with one another. When they acted this way folks would swear the father and son were going to knock each other’s blocks off, but they never did—ever! That doesn’t mean they won’t say their piece to one another; they surely will. To be frank about it, the only abuse they might be guilty of couldn’t be helped most of the time. This occurred when they cooked for themselves—lookout then! And in the very near future they will both learn how rapidly a cold cook stove builds righteous character.

And to be quite honest, this story is mostly about Ramona and Tacito. Around 1921, and unbeknownst to these two individuals, they were on a path to developing a friendship that would be bound with the Creator’s finest glue. Before the date just mentioned, these two rarely spent a lot of time together because Ramona lived somewhere else. She was kept busy following Marcelino as he traipsed for years around Central and South Texas to eke out a living. Because I know what lies ahead and by looking back, I can see how and why fate drew these two together. Ramona, a little girl still developing into an exceptional person, and Tacito, an individualist for 37 years, may seem like an odd pair to form a lasting friendship. Only when the story reaches its end will you see how natural it was for their paths to cross and keep crisscrossing for so long. And on the day Tacito died he expressed with his last breath what knowing Ramona for so many decades had meant to him. He didn’t really have to tell her. He just wanted to say it one more time before he passed on to where he is today.

Chapter One

Early in 1921, Marcelino saw his wife’s health stabilizing and steadily getting stronger. This allowed him to take seriously the notion to investigate the work Aunt Nava’s husband relayed was just north of Austin, Texas. Marcelino’s urge to move on timed perfectly with Papa Ignacio’s same desire. The two men didn’t wait long to act, either. They borrowed a reliable buggy and journeyed from Creedmoor north to Pflugerville where they each secured a steady job. Separate housing for each household was included, so it couldn’t have worked out any better. All they had left to do was relocate to this small town and start work before something interfered to prevent it, as can often happen.

Two heaping loads in the back of a farm truck (loaned to them by one of the employers) got all their belongings to the new location. Eagerness ran high when the time came to get their houses in order. The men had to start work the following day, but not before the furniture, cook stoves, and everything else was in place. This part had to come first so a new routine could begin that would allow some kind of order to prevail. So, while the men did the heavy lifting back and forth from the truck, the women and the older girls did the housecleaning and arranged the items as they were brought in. This was one of those hectic times when the small children were made to stay out of the way. Hustle and bustle made the opportunity too great for one of them to get ran over, or, worse yet, have a switch taken to them for being in the way. The whipping thing never happened, though. This project worked with military precision the entire time.

Even though the sun had set and complete darkness ruled the night, Aunt Lina and Mama Maria still weren’t satisfied with the appearance of their new places, so they all had a late supper and got to bed around midnight. Tomorrow would to be a big day for everyone. They were starting a new life here and were eager to begin this new adventure.

The new location had a unique setup. What made it unique is that neither Marcelino nor Ignacio had ever seen anything like it on any other place they had worked. The vast acreage (actually one humongous rectangle) was really two separate farms that bordered each other. Directly in the center of this expanse ran a barbwire fence from east to west that separated the two properties. With this fence acting as the midpoint, a half-mile, both north and south, would land you at each respective main house.

The north property belonged to an old man named Royce Lilibridge. His two sons managed the field workers and were the ramrods over the daily operation of the spread. Royce was retired, in a sense, and just piddled around at things to keep active. Along with his two sons, Mr. Lilibridge had a wife who was one fine lady. As a matter of fact, the entire family consisted of nice people, nice as you’d ever meet anywhere.

Something quite rare about Mr. Lilibridge is how he treated his farm help. Each and every one was shown complete respect, regardless of race, creed, or education. And the same can be said of the landowner to the south, Mr. Homer Bedore. He, as well as all his family, were good people. The fairness of these two men could be seen by the longevity of their farm hands. Most of them had worked steadily for a lot of years on these two farms. That in itself made Marcelino and Ignacio very lucky to have gotten these jobs. If they had waited another day they wouldn’t have. They were just fortunate to come here directly after a large family pulled up stakes and headed to California. That vacancy is what Marcelino and Ignacio filled.

But anyway, right at this boundary fence mentioned earlier is where the housing was located for the permanent hired hands. In this expanse set a cluster of shacks (that’s putting it nicely), four were on Mr. Lilibridge’s side, and four on Mr. Bedore’s side. For clarity’s sake, the barbwire didn’t run through this section and separate the shacks. There wasn’t any need for it. These two owners were best of friends and had been for countless years.

Speaking of housing, these small, two-room dwellings weren’t much to look at. None of them were insulated, mainly because during this time period nobody knew what the hell insulation was. But at least the roofs didn’t leak, where some of the walls did. Thing is, these shacks were a place to come home to after a hard day’s work, and they provided shelter for your family. So, meager as they were, these shacks were home sweet home to these folks.

Although these living quarters were made simply, they could be dressed up by the women, extended or repaired by the men, or left as is. The terms of employment stipulated that the owners weren’t going to fool with the upkeep. This responsibility fell to the occupants and was fully understood on day one. No matter what the tenants choose, this setup still beat the wholly heck out of being without shelter. It’s a fact that at one time or another everybody living here had struggled on the migrant road. The harsh lessons there included learning to envy birds for their ability to fly away from misery. But personal misery didn’t exist here unless you just wanted it to.

A good hundred feet separated each shack in this cluster of eight, and each had the same footage behind. All the space was super handy, too. It allowed plenty of room for each family to have a garden, pens for domestic stock, or a chicken house—chickens weren’t supplied, had to get your own. You could basically put whatever you wanted behind your dwelling as long as it wasn’t some kind of business or something illegal. Naturally, an outhouse stood behind each shack. And some of these folks had outbuildings and sheds that were used to store garden tools and the like.

No garages in this housing. Nope, there wasn’t the first one. In fact, up to this time not one of these hands had ever considered purchasing a car or truck. It wasn’t from lack of want for one. It was because nobody ever had money for such fancy things. Even if someone did have those kinds of dollars fear would set in, fear of appearing too uppity to these white folks who paid their salaries. See, all the workers in this housing were Mexicans—straight out of Mexico—citizens of that country. Additionally, most of them were first generation in the United States. If you tried your hardest you still wouldn’t find anyone who spoke good English. The only children born in the States were in Marcelino’s bunch, yet none of them spoke good English. Back to my point where I mentioned the workers and vehicles, to their way of thinking, nothing out there could make anyone purchase any kind of motorized vehicle. Hell, doing so might make Mr. Lilibridge or Mr. Bedore think they were paying too much out in salaries—then they’d cut the workers’ money, or freeze their occasional raises. What could these workers do if that happened? Could they slap their kids away from the table when they’re hungry? Nope! The men always played it safe. To them, the best security for living in America is to have a job, and they all had one. They knew they were very fortunate to have what they did possess. It wasn’t any different living here in Texas versus over there in Mexico—no money buys nothing here as well as over there. If a man was able to sock some savings back he sure wouldn’t brag about it, like a fool is prone to do.

If this rectangular-shaped housing district was sketched out on paper and if a person drew two diagonal lines from each corner right in the center of the X is where the water well stood. Just beside it hung a makeshift dinner bell someone concocted years ago. This contraption consisted of a hardened, bent piece of iron and had a round shaft hanging from a short length of rope. The entire rigging had obviously been salvaged from a scrapped piece of machinery. Nonetheless, it worked just as well as any fancy, store-bought dinner bell. Using this thing worked like this: you’d take the shaft and bang on the iron to call the hungry, or, in a pending emergency, you beat the tarnation out of it like a wild man would do. People always recognized the difference between the normal clangs and the wild ones and acted accordingly.

In the future, Mama Maria will use this noisemaker more than anybody else. Folks will come to think she really enjoys making thunder ring from that thing, but she won’t ever just stand there and play a tune on it, just for the heck of it.

Oh, and Gilleland Creek snakes through both sides of this property, that’s pretty much flat as a table top. From the housing, east, about one hundred yards, is where the creek is located. Needless to say, playing at the creek will be a lot of fun for the kids. And then the main dirt road into Pflugerville is a quarter-mile straight north of the housing. In town, you could find the basics such as a hardware store, a bank, railroad depot, eating places, and grocery stores. If a family wanted to do some serious shopping it required a motorized vehicle or buggy trip to Austin.

Although some folks in Pflugerville did own cars and trucks, Marcelino and his clan wouldn’t own one for years to come. Frankly put, right now the man didn’t even own a horse, let alone a buggy of any kind. The contraption he made and used as one in Creedmoor wore more calluses on his buttocks than he cared to discuss. After he lost possession of it to the witch in Creedmoor, it was traded around to several men. The last one finally parked the ugly looking thing out in the weeds, somewhere, to rust and rot away at whatever pace it chose.

If you spun a circle in the housing area, everywhere you turned and as far as you could see would be farm fields. Hard grains to feed the livestock were grown on some of these fields. Also scattered about in this conglomeration were alfalfa fields of all sizes. After this member of the legume family was harvested and dried good, it acted as feed for the livestock. There wasn’t anybody around here into health foods at this time, so the alfalfa wasn’t consumed by humans. And cotton was still king! It was the main cash crop and source of many hours of backbreaking work for a lot of hardworking folks.

Speaking of folks, Mr. Lilibridge and Mr. Bedore shared all the help in the housing district. Outside of Mr. Bedore’s foreman, a bilingual Mexican man who lived in town, all the other hands were told daily which farm to report to. Even though the man needing most of the help got most of the workers, Marcelino usually worked for Mr. Bedore. Ignacio worked regularly for Mr. Lilibridge, and Tacito and his father would work for both farms. The same arrangement applied to Ramona and Alisha when they worked with the men.

All and all, this was a fine setup in Pflugerville. These two families (three really, counting Tacito and his father as one) took a quick liking to it. Time would show how much it suited them. They stayed here a lot of years, and a lot of things, good and bad, happened to all of them.

It needs to be said that Marcelino and Ignacio were excellent workers, experienced as any, anywhere. They were the type of men you didn’t have to see work to tell how well they knew their business. Talk farming to them and they’d display a great knowledge of every phase of it. Look at either man and you saw a real man with big hands, big muscles and very little body fat. And both were tall for Mexicans. They stood a tad over 6 feet in height in their stocking feet.

I described Marcelino and Ignacio in order to compare them to Tacito and his father. To be quite blunt about it, the father and son are completely opposite to Marcelino and Ignacio. If the father and son had not been related to Marcelino and Ignacio they would have been left to starve to death, years ago! If not that, they would have been staked to ground for the ants to munch on at will. These two sets of men are that different and in every aspect one cares to investigate.

You see, Tacito is the kind of man who loves work. He can sit and watch it all day long, where his father is the total flip side of that. Eusebio doesn’t like to work and wouldn’t sit and watch it if you supplied the food and drinks and a cool place to sit in the shade.

Knowing all this makes it a wonder the father and son are kept around any at all. But they are—because they are family. And it seems like there is never an end to the embarrassment they cause the others. Most of time, these two create mischief without realizing they are causing trouble for others. It’s like they were put on this earth to royally mess up things for everybody and, come hell or high water, that’s what they’ll do! To be honest about it, having the family’s prettiest gal in a whorehouse in Austin would cause less grief and embarrassment—but the father and son are family. So they are tolerated and helped by one and all.

This pair is quirky. There’s no doubt about it. Knowing this makes it easier to understand why there isn’t a woman around either one can call their own. It’s quite obvious that Eusebio had a woman at some time or another. He had to have or Tacito wouldn’t exist. But no one has ever known if Eusebio was married to his son’s mother or exactly what the man’s marital status really is. It’s a mystery, because when Tacito made his entrance into the world Eusebio lived in Mexico and Ignacio was already in the States.

Ignacio did try very hard to get his brother to talk about Tacito’s mother. Hard as he tried and for as long as he tried, he never could get Eusebio to say the first word about the woman. All Ignacio knew as fact is that one fine day here come Eusebio walking into Creedmoor, Texas with a tiny, little boy trailing behind him. And all the pint-sized, little boy knew or would ever know about his momma were three things: zilch, nada, and nothing. The only surviving evidence of Eusebio’s mysterious past that halfway proves the woman did exist is a 5x7 picture of her. That keepsake is tucked away among Tacito’s personal belongings. And he is awfully proud of that picture—awfully, awfully proud of it.

***

Everybody settled nicely into their new surroundings and soon developed a regular routine. For the men, less Tacito and his father, they rose early and usually worked until six in the evening. A harvest of any crop brought about an entirely different schedule. When harvest was on they all worked hours galore and until the crop was completely brought in.

Mama Lina had her corner shack to take care of and her man, which kept her plenty busy. The lady also helped her daughter some. Mama Maria, pregnant with her fifth child, didn’t let her condition slow her down. She had a huge workload to stay on top of, and she did. Besides the children, Maria had to care for Marcelino as well as keep an eye on Tacito and his father to curtail their habitual mischief. When she wasn’t too terribly upset with the pair, she occasionally did their washing and cooking. The extra chores added to her workload, but you’d never hear this woman complain about it.

Maria also began honing her skills as a practicing healer. Being so far from town caused a slight hindrance for the few folks who wanted to take advantage of this unique talent. Word really hadn’t gotten around that a healer lived outside of town. It was still early yet, so in time everyone would know.

On the other hand, word had gotten around town that Maria was an expert seamstress. Although the extra work allowed her to make some extra money, time didn’t allow her to take on every project. After it got to be way too much, she had to turn down most of the work, for the time being.

The older girls, Alisha and Ramona, kept busy with farm work, exploring the creek, and doing girl stuff when they had the time. It needs to be said, quite frankly, that farm work is not something Alisha cares for. She isn’t fond of it and never will be. Of course, she did it when told to—that wasn’t a subject one could debate—and you never heard her whistle while she worked, either. Ramona is the complete opposite. She loves farm work and would rather do it anytime versus little girl things. Even then, Alisha isn’t intimidated by Ramona being so different and doesn’t give a dang about her younger sister’s tomboyish ways. Alisha is content with helping her mama do chores instead of being out in the elements. Mama is always glad to have the extra help when the men can spare the girl.

It’s already