Dog Soldier of "Los Cerrillos"

By J.C. Cantle

In the 1900s, technology was advancing at a speed which was at that time in Santa Fe as well as everyplace else, not only very new, but confusing and scary to many, especially for the older folks that were comfortable with the way things were. Particularly, it seemed so in most of New Mexico, where tradition was fossilized in a state of maana, tomorrow. Whats the hurry? Like everything else, with time, people accepted what was new in their life and soon found these new technologies a real need. From small and large companies to each individual, new electronic gadgets became both lifesavers as well as hindrances at times.

Dog Soldier of Los Cerrillos encompasses the life of some old military combat veterans and their tributes to freedom as well as their unhealed wounds. For many, the thousand-yard stare stayed with them for years. Combat made many soldiers chain-smoke, use drugs, and drink themselves drunk in hopes of reducing the pressure of always being in that life-or-death situation through every mission that would, as time went on, manifest itself into a lifetime of addiction.

Cecil Franklin was no different. As a civilian who constantly fought his alcoholism. Falling off of the wagon came and went as lifes pressures grew or ebbed. Being Cheyenne and raised on the reservation in his early years was to teach him the old ways but as he became a young man he had searched out a trade in hopes of assimilating into modern society and move from the poverty of the reservation. He was, as were many other young men, serving in the military and the war in Vietnam. By a stroke of luck he became the handler of a black Labrador called Jet and one of a five man tracker team that searched and hunted in what was sometimes called Indian Country behind enemy lines. After his service, Cecil married, had fathered a daughter, divorced, and raised his daughter on his own after moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where his life took many turns.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504923781

J.C. Cantle

The author, J.C. Cantle, was born in France in 1939 and came to America by steam ship when he was eight. He has lived on both coasts, graduated in 1963 from Boston School of Practical Arts, moved to San Francisco, and attended California College of Arts and Crafts and later Laney College for graphic arts. After a stint in the military and marriage, he moved to Wyoming in 1972 and presently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Book preview

DOG SOLDIER

of

Los Cerrillos

J. C. CANTLE

47066.png

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2015 Jacques Faure. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/19/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-2377-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-2376-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-2378-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015911651

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter 1 – Alpha

Chapter 2 – Bravo

Chapter 3 – Charlie

Chapter 4 – Delta

Chapter 5 – Echo

Chapter 6 – Foxtrot

Chapter 7 – Gulf

Chapter 8 – Hotel

Chapter 9 – India

Chapter 10 – Juliet

Chapter 11 – Kilo

Chapter 12 – Lima

Chapter 13 – Mike

Chapter 14 – November

Chapter 15 – Oscar

Chapter 16 – Papa

Chapter 17 – Quebec

Chapter 18 – Romeo

Chapter 19 – Sierra

Chapter 20 – Tango

Chapter 21 – Uniform

Chapter 22 – Victor

Chapter 23 – Whiskey

Chapter 24 - X-Ray

Chapter 25 - Yankee

Chapter 26 – Zulu

Other books by J.C. Cantle

Waldo, A Young Wyoming Cowboy, Warrior and The Lonetree Incident, Coulee, The Growing Years.

Dedication and a very special thank you

T o those that fought the many wars for our and others’ freedoms, and to those thousands that sacrificed their lives in the process, enabling all of us the freedoms that they no longer are able to enjoy. Bless them one and all, for they are the bravest that deserve our daily thoughts. Let us never forget them for their patriotism and courage.

… … … …

To the dogs in our lives

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.

Roger Caras

… … … … …

Acknowledgements

My gratitude to my wife Beth, Mark Golde of the 1st CAV Division, Vietnam, Michelle R. Beasley Vietnam 1971 -1972, Richard Krasin (Visual Arts), Jacques C. Fauré (Cover design), Rob Sisson and to my good friend Kathy Myers and Nickie Hudelson for all their help with this novel, for which I am very much appreciative.

Thank you.

… … … … …

A dog’s nose is something for us to wonder at. It is perfectly remarkable and reminds us that there is a world out there that we can never know. At least not as human beings. Roger Caras

… … … … …

To all, War is hell but combat is a son-of-a-bitch.

… … … … …

Introduction

Y ears ago, I had taken one of my dogs to a dog specialist veterinarian in Albuquerque and as she and I waited to be seen, I sat idly picking up animal related magazines and thumbing through them, not reading but just looking at the ads and photo articles. My mind was more on what the veterinarian would diagnose was the problem with my dog.

In one of the jumble of these old magazines I came across an ad about a book on the war time history of dogs called, War Dogs: A History of Loyalty and Heroism by Michael G. Lemish.

Since I was the only one in the reception room at that time and not having anything to write with and seeing that the receptionist was busy on the phone, I just tore the ad out of the magazine and stuck it into my pocket just as the vet-tech came to usher us into one of the examining rooms.

That evening I ordered the book on line and read it as soon as I received it. The book was for me a new appreciation for man’s best friend and how much these dogs meant to all their handlers during war time.

I had planned to write another book, a novel about Santa Fe and surrounding area and in particular an imagined character that lived in an old bus in the ancient mining district of Los Cerrillos. But nothing of this individual was materializing in my mind that was satisfying me as an individual to build on. But after reading War Dogs and learning that there had been tracker teams with dogs that hunted for the dangerous and very elusive enemy or lost soldiers and pilots behind enemy lines during the war in Vietnam, it then made me want to write about these little known heroes. All of which gave birth to the soul who lived in that bus amongst the derelict mines in the hills near where I had built our home. Over the years I had never met or seen the individual that had called the bus his residence, even as often as I and my dogs had scoured the many miles surrounding Cerrillos and looked towards the bus until one day it had disappeared from the vicinity.

I invented this fictitious individual, the main character, to have been a dog handler and part of a tracker team in Vietnam. And through my life as well as life experiences of other acquaintances of mine having relayed different accounts of having been in Vietnam or having lived in Santa Fe some decades, I thus established the history and spirit of the man living in his Dodge bus in Los Cerrillos. Cecil Franklin’s persona as well as his life and his acquaintances in this novel began to form in my imagination and so I put them into written words.

… … … … …

Vietnam now many years after the, fall of Saigon in 1975 and a nation that felt no gratitude for those that had fought and died in Vietnam, which was a shameless attitude to have taken towards those who did their duty for God and Country in the name of Freedom. In 1982 the military men and women were honored by having the black granite Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall built in Washington D.C., with the names of 58,195 that have died in that war. In recent years, the populace began to have the beginning of understanding of what is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It made people realize a need to finally care for those who served.

General W. C. Westmoreland once said, "I do not believe that the men who served in uniform in Vietnam have been given the credit they deserve. It was a difficult war against an unorthodox enemy."

"The military don’t start wars. Politicians start wars."

General William C. Westmoreland

Chapter – Alpha

The rain was steady now but the dog moved along at a fast clip on the lead. Cecil kept his eyes on the black Labrador. The dog stopped, the lead slackened, Cecil halted, dropped down on one knee and hand signaled to the rest of the team behind him. The rain wasn’t going to cease just yet but the scent the dog followed was still strong enough. The Lab knew there was an ambush just ahead of them and Spec. 4 Cecil understood his dog’s body language. The Tracker Team was in the undeclared war, Vietnam.

PUEBLO, CHICKEN PULL

C ecil drove his Ford panel truck north on Interstate 25 heading towards Santa Fe. Normally he would take I-40 east then turn up highway 14 at Tijeras, the renowned Turquoise Trail and over the mountain, through and past the town of Madrid and its abandoned coal mines, and on up the road to the small town of Los Cerrillos. There he would head home up the gravel road into the BLM and the deserted turquoise mining district. Today he decided to use the freeway instead. He had been visiting as well as helping out a friend in Corrales for a couple of days and he didn’t want to back-track south through Albuquerque and the heavy traffic, so he drove north. He’d thought about taking county road 22 (the cut-a-cross) except that it did mean a rough drive, even if that dirt road would take him south of Highway 14. The canyon road to Waldo would be a few less miles and from there he would take the gravel pit road on home.

His home for the past six years was a refurbished old school bus, hand painted an earthy light buckskin color, the color of the desert ground. He had staked a mining claim on the BLM, among other ancient claims of a previous and much more prosperous time that had long since played out in the Cerrillos hills. Though there were power lines running nearby that hummed incessantly on very windy days next to Cecil’s bus and mining claim, but which was not accessible for him to have electricity. The lines ran on to the gravel pit some distance away. This was no hardship to Cecil; he was free of any rent, exorbitant or minimal. His claim had cost him ten dollars. All that was required was that he worked his claim/site in lieu of an annual assessment maintenance fee of one hundred dollars a year and that was enough to prove that he was not just a squatter. He’d hire a backhoe operator to dig a pit in the ground for $35 an hour. And at the end of three hours, pay the operator, get the bill from him and send him on his way until the following year. This was his scheme to live free on land that once had belonged to his Native American ancestry from some seventeen thousand plus years ago.

A mile before he reached the Algodones Exit, Cecil saw two men standing off of the highway in front of a very faded red 1989 Chevy. The pickup with a blown rear tire was sitting on its rim. One of the men was holding out his thumb in an attempt to hitch a ride while the other man drank from a bottle in a paper bag. Both men looked Indian and had long dark hair. Cecil signaled, braked and moved his Ford Econoline over onto the shoulder of the interstate. He came to a stop off of the blacktop and on the gravel near the litter of cans, bottles, papers, and wreathes of dry tumbleweeds collected in the borrow pit next to a dead dog of unknown breed. He didn’t see the macabre dog half eaten by scavengers, as Cecil was looking into the rear view mirror watching the two men hurry towards his truck. They didn’t run, only walk fast, as if they felt that he would pull away and drive off the instant they reached the rear of the van. The first man had his hair in a ponytail and wore a Dallas Cowboys baseball cap, jeans and a black T-shirt that said FBI in large white print. Cecil, himself Indian, knew that the description written in small print under the three capital initials of FBI was the intended acronym for Full Blooded Indian.

The other man looked the same age, late twenties, and had on a red and blue wide striped western long sleeve shirt and faded black jeans. No hat and his lengthy hair blew about his face as an eighteen-wheeler passed traveling at 75 miles per hour. He carried a paper bag and the way he held it, it seemed to Cecil that it held a bottle of wine or whisky. Both men wore the popular Wal-Mart type of off brand athletic footwear.

When they reached the open window of the passenger side of the van, the first man looking at Cecil asked, Hey Bro! You headed to Santa Fe?

Yeah, hop in. One of you’ll have to sit in the back on the mattress.

The man with the FBI shirt opened the passenger door and jumped in and shut the door. The other man opened the side door. Cecil glanced at him; he had droopy eyes and looked half in the bag. The man climbed in, slammed the door shut and plopped on the mattress behind the driver and leaned his back against the van’s side panel. He saw a pillow lying nearby, reached for it and used it as a backrest. He looked around the interior of the truck; saw a cooler, an olive drab Army fatigue jacket, a silver ten gallon propane tank and a large red Snap-On tool chest with a multitude of drawers. The propane tank sat in a square milk crate and was bungee corded to the tool chest, which was chained and padlocked to the sidewall frame of the van.

The whiff of liquor hit Cecil’s nose and he turned his head towards his open window, signaled his intent to get back on I-25 and started the van moving forward. Seeing an opportunity to get back on the highway, he shifted gears and sped on, throwing dust and gravel into the air.

Where you guys headed? Cecil asked once he had caught up to the speed limit.

San Lazaro Pueblo. Got to find someone there to loan me a spare rim and tire. I know my uncle will. He’s got a Chevy truck up on blocks with a blown tranny that everyone’s been usin’ for parts. An’ I think he’s got at least one wheel still in the truck bed. If someone hasn’t taken it.

The man sitting in the back spoke up, Hey man! You’s got a cigarette man? Trade you for a drink, Bro. And he held the open bottle out of the bag and over the seat to Cecil.

It was Four Roses whiskey. Cecil knew it to be pure rotgut bourbon.

I don’t want a drink. I’ll give you a cigarette.

Cecil reached into his shirt pocket, pulled a half empty light blue pack of Natural America Spirit out. He shook one loose and held the pack over his shoulder. The man in back took the cigarette and slurred, Yah gotta light, man? Cecil picked a full book of Union 76 matches off the dash and passed them to the man in back. Then he turned to the guy next to him who had taken the bottle from his friend when Cecil had refused a drink.

He’s not going to burn my truck, up is he? Cecil asked.

Nah. He’s pretty drunk but I’ll keep an eye on him if he falls asleep.

They sped up the interstate at a little over sixty-five. Cecil noticed off of the frontage road, old highway 85, the brown log sided, low-pitched roof bar surrounded with Chinese Elms and a few tall-gnarled cottonwoods. On a tall post, two signs promoted Coors beer and Pabst Blue Ribbon under which in addition read Package Liquors. Neon signs behind barred windows boasted other libations, the choices: Budweiser, Michelob, Dos Equis, Corona, Tecate and Tequiza. A banner claimed Live Entertainment. Raphael’s Bar brought memories of an old haunt. Way back when the place was called Raphael’s Silver Cloud, after the British Rolls Royce and a time Cecil and his wife spent a few evenings in that bar drinking and listening to The Blues misic. Entertainers such as Freddie King or the Bluegrass of Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys played there.

On evenings that Cecil and Cinema spent time at Raphael’s, their two years old, slept next to their dog in the Volkswagen camper-bus parked in the parking lot. Kalea loved blues music as much as she did rock n’ roll. She would check on little Cinema and Mangus, a Yellow Labrador, in the parking lot at while the entertainment took their break. And many times Cecil himself would check on Cinema while getting away from the bar’s stale and smoky air. No one could come close to the VW without the dog growling a low warning. And, if a drunk bumped the vehicle, the Lab would attack the windows with a savage force.

They passed through the San Felipe Indian Reservation. The landscape was almost barren of vegetation. Scattered junipers peppered the mounded hills that lay to the east. To the west Cecil gazed for a few seconds at the mesas and long plateau with its cliff formation of gray-black basalt slabs and rubble stone running to the green bosque of cottonwoods along the river’s course. Strewn along the cliff margin laid the ruins of the Old ones, where walls of structures had fallen into diminished piles of rubble rock and there the ghosts of the past hid in under rabbit brush and cholla.

Above the sky was clear of clouds except to the north and southeast where white anvil shaped cumulus clouds loomed. To the far northwest, over the Jemez Mountains cumulus clouds with ominous bases and dark virga hanging below slowly moved northeast towards Los Alamos. Two long contrails crossed one another overhead. The wind had picked up, sending discarded plastic grocery bags to balloon and become airborne. Dust rose from the road’s edge and huge tumbleweeds rolled into the path of traffic and exploded into segments as vehicles ran head-on into them.

What’s your name? I’m Ramon Salazar. He’s Frank Lamas, the hitchhiker asked and informed the driver.

I’m Cecil Franklin. It should be Cecil High Pipe but my grandfather had to change his last name to an Anglo name when I wasn’t even born yet. My grandfather was James High Pipe and when the white authorities came to his home they said he had to change his last name, and that he was not to use his Indian name. He told them he didn’t know any white-man names he wanted to be called and they said that for the census he had to have an English or Spanish name. He looked around the house and saw my grandmother’s sewing machine with the manufacturer’s name Franklin on it. And so that became our family’s last name, Cecil explained.

"Yeah, that’s the way it was for my grandfather also. We ended up with Spanish names. I don’t know what my Indian name is. Me, I’m Kewa and Spanish as blood goes. Frank, he’s Tewa… was born on the Santa Clara Pueblo, he’s Bear Clan. The Winter People. In Spanish we’re mestizo, you know, half-breeds. Not really full blooded Indians like the T-shirt says, man. I guess I should say I’m Native American. You know?" Ramon sneered and smiled sarcastically as he glanced at Cecil.

Cecil chuckled.

Ramon! Give me the booze back if you just goin’ ta look at the bottle, Man. Got ta get rid of it before we get to the Rez. Frank muttered, reaching for the almost empty fifth of ninety proof straight bourbon whiskey. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open and the cigarette hanging out of his mouth lost its half-inch of ashes and a cloud of smoke had spilled from his mouth as he had begun to talk.

Here! Give me a drag off that butt. Ramon handed him the bottle after taking a long pull of the whisky.

Frank wavered and handed Ramon what was left of the cigarette. Ramon sucked in a big drag and held it, then exhaled up to the roof of the van and the blue smoke blew to the back of the van. He hung his arm out the window and crushed the butt out against the door and snapped it with his thumb and forefinger out to the side of the road.

He looked over to Cecil, What pueblo you from?

I’m not. I’m Cheyenne on my father’s side and my mother is of Lakota Sioux and Kickapoo. I grew up on the Northern Cheyenne Rez in Montana.

How’d you end up in New Mexico?

It’s a long story. Got enlisted in the mid sixties. Did my time with the Army in Nam, Was there during the Tet Offencive. Got out of the Army in San Francisco. Got married. She was from Santa Fe. We moved here in 1974. Got divorced in seventy-nine. She moved to New York and left me to raise my six-year-old daughter here. End of story.

You didn’t go back to your Rez? The Tet Offensive meant nothing to Ramon.

Only once. To see my mother. And to see if it was worth living up there and raising my daughter. But, my kid would get a better education in Santa Fe than on the Cheyenne Rez. There was no work for me there. We couldn’t live on just the ADC checks. I had a house I’d bought in Santa Fe. Being a vet, I got a break on the mortgage, so we came back to New Mexico.

Me and Frank ain’t lived nowheres but the pueblos all our lives. Except if we got to go out of state to fight fires. We’re Hot Shots, Ramon noted and looked back at Frank who had slumped down on the mattress and was snoring quietly. In his hand he was still clutching the neck of the whiskey bottle.

Frank’s asleep. How about a ride to our pueblo? They’re havin’ a Fiesta. An’ a rooster pull in the plaza. There’s lots of food at the church, Man like chicken an’ potato salad an stuff. Just let me and Frank off before you get to the plaza. Don’t want anyone to see that Frank an’ me been drinkin’. Don’t want any shit from the elders or Rez cops.

Rooster pull?

Yeah, that’s what they call it. A bunch of guys ride horseback and try to get hold of a chicken hangin’ off a line in the air between two poles. An’ the guy that gets hold of it has to ride back to the starting line while all the other riders try an’ grab it from him before he makes it back. Took part in one once when I was real young, an’ some old man snagged it an’ as I tried to take it from him he kicked his horse into mine. I fell an’ got run over by another horse. Broke my leg. An’ I had a broken nose from hittin’ the ground face first. Never entered another pull after that. Never was much for horses nohow.

Cecil said nothing more for a while. He just stared ahead at the traffic and blacktop. The Ford accelerated up a grade. A carved cross with someone’s name on it had recently been planted by the highway sheep fence on which bits of ribbon and feathers flapped in the breeze. He had noticed the two black rubber brake tracks that had run into the borrow pit and furrowed the earth to the wooden cross. Someone from the pueblo must have died there, he thought. Above and to the east a hawk was in an aerial dogfight with two crows. The hawk flew erratically trying to lose its pursuer. Finally they split off into two different directions, low to the ground and the buteo lost interest and gained altitude, banked to the right, caught the wind and glided to the top of a power pole, then landed. To Cecil’s right at a distance, scattered groups of diverse colors and breeds of cattle and one old horse were all hunting for browse on an arid stony landscape of yucca, cholla and other cactus. Large billboards on both sides of Highway 25 advertised tourists’ needs and what to see while in New Mexico.

The San Lazaro Pueblo exit sign told him it was a mile ahead. He moved the truck over after passing a truck plodding up the grade pulling a fifth-wheel trailer loaded with racehorses. The heat of the day was 98 degrees at two o’clock and Cecil needed a drink. He’d forgotten to bring water along. He took the exit and turned left, then drove the overpass spanning the four lanes of I-25 and headed towards the abajo of the Rio Grande. The road signs along the road to the pueblo sported multiple bullet holes of varying calibers. Every pullout on each side of the road was littered with beer cans, broken wine and liquor bottles. The DO NOT LITTER sign had been peppered by a shotgun blast. One corner of the sign was obliterated. A sudden gust of wind blew an aluminum pop can from where it rested and it scooted across the road. Cecil drove on towards the river and pueblo.

Over-grazed gravel pastures on both sides of the road flourished with scattered dome clumps of yellow-blossomed snakeweed and patches of prickly pear cactus. A great bladed windmill spun slowly in the wind and the large rectangular stock tank overflowed its capacity, darkening the low end of the concrete bulkhead, spilling precious water onto the sandy soil.

Below the tableland lay the bottomland with the sprawling pueblo and further on, the rich fertile Rio Grande floodplain with acres of cultivated fields. Here in these fields grew and matured corn, squash, beans, peppers, and melons. Arroyo Lazaro Viejo and its tamarisk breaks of smoky mauve blooming salt cedars meandered towards the grand river. Blackened by fire, stubs of tamarisk trunks burnt during the spring rains, held their ground near the growing fields.

The Econoline rumbled over a cattle guard, and then bounced on the single pair of railroad tracks. Frank Lamas groaned with the vehicle’s jarring, coughed and went back to a smooth snoring. Ramon looked back at Frank, saw he was out for the count and remarked to Cecil, Man! Ol’ Frankie ain’t goin’ to be able to walk, let alone stand up. He’s big time hammered an’ out like a light now. Maybe it’s best if you dumped us off at my place.

They passed the elementary and middle school, an older building built in the fifties with four unattached modular classrooms. No one was around. Three yellow Blue Bird school buses waiting for the next school day parked by a grove of Russian olive trees and a giant globe willow that swayed in the light breeze. The swings along with the slide and basketball hoops remained idle.

Farther on, a white BIA cruiser with the pueblo police seal on the door panels pulled out of an empty lot just ahead of them. It had been parked behind a large sign waiting for someone to break the law on pueblo land. The large sign stood at the entrance of the road into the pueblo and it read,

"Welcome to San Lazaro Pueblo

NO PICTURE TAKING – NO SKETCHING – NO RECORDING – NO GUNS. The Governor."

The newer houses on the dirt street, all single storied homes and made of adobe, block or wood framing covered with the earth toned color of buckskin stucco, set close to one another with parked vehicles here and there. The older structures sat on rubble foundations of round rocks; adobe mud-plastered exterior walls showed signs of the characteristic countless eroding surface cracks in the dried mud and straw, creating a natural abstract beauty. Most homes had two or four beehive shaped adobe hornos in which loaves of white round pueblo bread are baked. The pueblos from the early Spanish colonials had adopted these ovens to bake in. Most of these kilns made of mud bricks were protected from melting in the rain by concrete stucco shields. Cecil hit his brakes as a large mottled dog pranced across his path with tail and ears erect, intent on two other dogs hunting the oil-drum trashcans sitting next to a primer gray painted and rusting ‘muscle car’ of 1974, a GTO. The hood and trunk stood open. Here and there mature lime green globe willows gave the homes shade. It seemed as though everyone was at the festivities.

Ahh, shit man. You better hang back an’ let that cop go on ahead, Dude. I shoulda tossed that whisky bottle out of the truck before we got this far. Ramon became agitated, "That ol’ cop is married to one of my cousins. He’s Bennie Pinto, a Dineh. You know, Navajo. If he finds out we’re drunk man, he’ll come down on us like a freight train. A drunk driver killed his pregnant first wife as she was crossin’ a Gallup street on Easter Sunday ten, twelve or so years ago. He married Taresa… Hey Man! Hang a right by them there corrals. That there alley get you to my place."

Cecil flipped on his turn signal for a right hand turn even though there was no traffic behind him. The corral was a makeshift coyote fence of cedar, pine poles, and scavenged odd sized planks. A brush and rusty corrugated metal roof held down with concrete blocks and old tires made up the arbor. The shelter was sided with sheets of old plywood. It was haven from the sun and bad weather for the horses that inhabited the pen that was at the present empty. The bent metal tube gate lay open and no animals were in the enclosure.

That there white trailer is my place. Pull up to the door. An’ if I can’t wake Frank, help me get him inside, Ramon suggested.

Ramon’s dated trailer with peeling paint was supported off the ground on concrete blocks. It wasn’t large. The wheels were missing. A TV antenna sat attached by hose clamps to a long length of galvanized pipe and towered over the trailer. By the door sat a V-8 engine block on railroad tie cut-offs. The front window of the trailer was broken out and patched over with old fiberboard. Close to the side of the abode stood an off white fiberglass outhouse. The trailer roof had a blue plastic tarp covering it which was tied down with bungee cords and weighed down with tread-less old tires.

Frank moaned when Ramon tried to wake him.

Frank! Come on man. We’re home man. Be cool man. Wake up man!

Frank wasn’t going to wake. He was in a deep drunk sleep of darkness and without dreams. Cecil had been there many times himself. Together they managed to pull Frank out of the van and up on his feet momentarily as they both took hold of an arm and pulled them over their shoulders and held him around his waist. They drug Frank up the stairs. Ramon had already pulled the unlocked door open before they took hold of Frank. They had to walk sideways in the tight quarters of the trailer. The trailer was dark, musty and with the smell of stale smoke. They dumped Frank on a greasy fiber filled sleeping bag that covered the worn out mattress in the back bedroom. The small sink was stacked to overflowing with food-encrusted dishes. The counter was grimy and empty bean and pop cans lay about. Trash from McDonald’s bags and wrappers spilled out on the floor from the plastic wastebasket. On the table sat an open milk carton, a milk stained glass, and an open bag of corn chips. A chrome hubcap ashtray crammed with cigarette butts and a crumpled empty pack of Camels also sat on the table.

Ramon sat down on a rusted chrome kitchen chair with a plywood seat and motioned for Cecil to sit on the wooden chair. He did and Ramon grabbed a corn chip out of the bag and handed the bag to Cecil. He shook his head no.

Thanks for the help, man. Frank lives on the other side of the pueblo but I’ll let him sleep it off here. He’s gotta wife an’ kid. We’re firefighters you know. ‘Hot Shots’ like when there’s forest fires. I guess I already told you that, man. Well if Frank’s wife knows he’s drunk she’ll report him to AA, man. He don’t normally go off the wagon, you know. He found a twenty-dollar bill layin’ in plain sight in a mud puddle parkin’ lot off of Central Street. We got some burgers an’ fries at Wendy’s an’ there was a liquor store right there across the street, so it seemed like it should be, man, Ramon ventured.

Yeah, Cecil answered.

Hey man. You want a doobie? I knows from some of the vets here you guys in Nam did a lot of weed.

Cecil nodded and agreed, Yeah, we did. Lots of good bud to smoke and hash.

Ramon pulled a tin box from under the table, as if by magic, and opened it. It held a packet of Zig-Zag cigarette papers and marijuana.

You want to smoke a joint?

Sure. Does it have any kick? Cecil mumbled.

It ain’t the greatest, but you’ll get a buzz, he theorized while rolling a fat one using double paper. He pushed the makings over to Cecil, then licked the glue edge of the cigarette paper and wrapped it into a smoke.

Make your own reefer. An’ eat the roach. Don’t want any evidence around. Know what I mean, man.

Cecil rolled one for himself. It was tight and he had it folded to the form and licked the outside of the gluey side of the paper. And he pressed it lightly with the tip of his thumbs. The saliva went through the thin paper and wet the glue and thus held the cigarette together without licking the actual glue edge. Ramon had already lit his doobie, dragged in deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs for a minute. Then he exhaled as Cecil lit his joint with a Bic lighter Ramon had produced. Cecil also drew the smoke into his lungs and held it there before exhaling.

Like I said, it ain’t the best. But it’ll give you a buzz, Dude. Ramon apologized, We had this weed growing along the railroad tracks and the ditch but now if anyone sees it, the council gets guys out there an’ they tear the shit out of the ground and burn it. An’ I bet they all suck in the smoke while they doin’ it. It’s the Feds that make ’em do it I’m sure.

The sailors that rode the gun boats up and down the rivers patrolling in Nam called it smokin’ hemp, ‘smokin’ the rope.’ An’ those guys would smoke a lot of rope and do an equal amount of hash. Dope was easy to get there. You could buy a paper shopping bag full of loose leaf grass for a pack of cigarettes. Everything from heroin, morphine, and opium, was available for the taking if you had something to trade or scrip to pay for it, Cecil stated. "Koon sa is what the Vietnamese called wacky weed. Some guys even just aced on G.I. gin which is cough syrup. They’d get it from the medics and hammered themselves with it. G.I gin is full of codeine and sometimes it was chased down with ‘tiger piss,’ a beer."

Yeah, I heard that man. Ramon went on, So man, why they call weed, rope?

I was in some Saigon bar and drinking with a few navy guys that patrolled the Mekong River delta and was told by some half drunk petty officer that was with these guys, that in the old sailing days when sailors sailed those square rigger sailing ships they’d cut up a piece of rope, shave it into the bowl of their pipe and smoke it. Back then all the ships had miles of rope for the riggin’ and whatnot and in those days the rope was made from hemp fibers. They’d get a bit of a buzz from it. I believe him. I don’t think the old guy was bullshitting me. Besides, those sailors would at some point run out of tobacco for their pipes at sea. You know, out at sea for months at a time. So smokin’ rope was all they had left.

Wow! Man! Didn’t know those dudes did grass in those days. Thought grass was discovered in the hippie days like LSD man. You know, the sixties.

It’s been around and used for a long time. In the thirties an’ forties the Bohemians, you know the Beatniks, called it tea.

Tea? He started to laugh to the point of getting the giggles. Ramon was starting to get stoned. The aid of the whiskey seemed to have sped the process.

It was called tea because it was hidden in the teapot on the shelf. And later it became known in the hip circles by the metaphor pot instead of tea, Cecil said with a fatuous look on his face. He doubted that Ramon new the meaning of the word metaphor.

Cool man. Ramon was holding the butt with his thumb and forefinger and sucking in the smoke. Then he unclipped an alligator clip from the hem of the closed flower printed curtain on the window and hooked the tip of the clip to the corner of the butt. He then took his last hit on the roach, unclipped it and passed the clip to Cecil to use. Once the roach stopped burning he popped it into his mouth and swallowed it.

Cecil was getting thirstier and the thought of a chicken dinner ran through his mind.

Ramon was light headed. Hey man, want another, man? he chortled and started to roll himself another joint.

No. Got to go get something to eat. I’m starved. Get some dinner.

Solid man! Ramon giggled. I ain’t goin’ to get back to the pickup today no ways. He was feeling the effects of his indulgence. I’d go to the fiesta with you but I better stay here with Frank. You go on an’ get some chicken dinner for yourself. There’s all sorts of food there. Just go back to where the cop car was parked an’ go right past ol’ Thomas Yaha’s Tradin’ Post. Head for the church, you’ll see an’ hear the goin’s on. He lit the doobie and took in a long pull and held it as Cecil got up to leave.

Be cool man, Ramon said after exhaling to the ceiling.

Yeah, Cecil responded.

Cecil left the bag and empty liquor bottle in the outside oil trash drum and drove up Magpie Road to Katcina Drive passing a huge long pile of coal ashes mixed with melted bottle glass, plastic and burnt rusted cans. He guessed the tribal maintenance crews used the ashes to speed the melting of snow on the streets after a snowfall. Turning left, he saw the trading post across the way. The stucco building was now a fading turquoise-blue with a painted advertisement on the side that read Indian jewelry, pottery, Navajo rugs, pawn, antiques, guns, and grocery. All the small windows were barred with rebar welded to an iron frame.

A hundred or more cars and trucks in snaky rows sat baking in the June sunshine. From the rearview mirrors of numerous vehicles hung a singular eagle plume or webbed hoop Dream Catcher. The bumper stickers on the vehicles said Native