When pueblo Mexicans first saw Concha Rosales, they were surprised. It was because she was too young to be riding such a spooky horse jerking its head at the tight streets and noisy people.
It was because Concha was usually riding alone, without any of her family’s menfolk along side. It certainly was because she rode bareback astraddle her nervous gelding, wearing a hard-used pair of stiff dark pants. This was the early 1960s when women in Mexico never wore pants. It would shame them. Women wore ankle-length dresses then. If they rode, well-off females rode sidesaddle. And they seldom ever rode into a pueblo alone.
Concha – she hated being called Conchita – also was stared at when she rode into the pueblo alone because she was at an age adults called “a dangerous time,” fifteen. Once females hit puberty, they usually were pushed to marry fast. People also gawked because Concha wore a scabbard on her belt sheathing a long, straight-bladed tierra-caliente machete. When she went into town on errands, some people made unkind remarks about her boldness, her family’s “lax” supervision. Once a loudmouth at a table under the portal of the Rooster’s Soul pulqueria, noisily said, ”She’s got that big machete to protect her virginity. But I don’t think she can use it.”
Before he knew it, Concha’s horse was up into the portal, his table slammed against the wall of the cantina. The man was under it, too surprised to swear. Concha glanced down at him hard, as if memorizing his features. Then she was gone.
“Chinga, I bet she’s one of the familia Diaz,” said another cantina patron, setting up his tipped-over equipale.“No,” said another, “she’s a daughter of Chema Rosales. He married into one of those big families up on what they call Cerro Alto.”
“That little bitch,” said the blowhard, brushing off his shirt and pants. “I’ll paddle her tight little ass.”
“That clan minds its own business, but gets fierce when people try to interfere with them,” said the cantinero, wiping off the righted table that showed new scrapes in its leather top.
Concha wasn’t Chema Rosales’ daughter. She wasn’t any kind of relative of any of the Rosaleses. Fifteen years before, the ancient bus that ran the zig-zaging dirt road to Guadalajara went off a steep turn, killing all of its passengers but one. A week later, when Selmo’s wife, Guadalupe, heard that the survivor was an infant girl that hadn’t been claimed or identified, she went and got the child. Country officialdom did things their own traditional ways then. Lupe Rosales left her name in case relatives came to claim the girl. That was Concha, who didn’t know her near-death story. Hardly anyone did either. They only knew that even as a tyke, she was a hardy, independent little girl, who seldom cried. The Rosaleses’ kids were educated by Chema’s aunt who had once been a nun, but lost her calling somewhere along the way, and came home educated but not a noisy believer anymore. She spoke roughly to the santos, but her respect for curas (priests) had shallowed out. She told children to believe in the Church, but to stay wary of feverish “people of the cloth.” Her closest friend was the local bruja that some believed to be a curer, others a witch, still others said she was both. School-taught docs were few, and of those few, most were unskilled. When ill, it was either the owner of a distant large-pueblo farmacia or the bruja.
Concha was a good pupil, quick in learning the teachings of the former nun, of the bruja, too. The latter did not please Selmo, who used her himself to cure stubborn wounds and sickness and to fend off spells. These were “just in case,” strategies to deal with tangled problems that were hard to solve. But Concha’s mother, Guadalupe, went to Caridad, La Bruja, to get words of advice when Concha began to grow bold, and some of the relatives disapproved of her forwardness. Concha didn’t spend time in the kitchen, or in cleaning house, but in the corral, trying to rope livestock, to milk cows, asking questions as menfolk were shoeing and breaking horses, treating animal wounds and sicknesses.
In the portril she learned to rope calves from the horse Chema gave her when she so little she had to get the gelding close to a fence so she could climb up to get mounted. She learned the dangers of throwing a loop on large animals, how one person could stretch barbed wire to close a fence gap when working alone. She sewed when her britches or shirt were torn, but was learning more about sewing leather for bridles and other tack.
Lupe was afraid Concha didn’t know she was a girl, a woman. She gave that up when realizing the lessons livestock taught were not lost on the girl. But Concha never forfeited her boldness, her impatience with bullies, bocones – loudmouths – any one who believed women were naturally weak and subordinate.
The bocon from the Rooster’s Soul must have remembered that and soured on it. He found where Concha lived, misjudged her family, mistook a past so secret the girl didn’t know about it about it herself. Still, she seemed to sense it, to act on its concealed breathing.
I helped the Rosaleses with their harvest that year, but was more interested in their livestock. Concha and I chased down incorrigible cattle that tested every fence, every strand of alambre de püas, all the posts. Ornery cattle but good stock, some for beef, some for milk.
Those fields were hers, carefully cultivated for rainy season richness, or left to grow thick wild pastures for stock. She cooed to all the musical-voiced birds, hooped as they sprang up to soar past the trees, into the blue sky. Concha lassoed, noon-time sleepy tlacuaches, coyotes, ferrets, the small bears that came down from mountain palisades. Her gelding, Castaño – named by her half-nun teacher – readily adapted to all the abrupt challenges Concha offered him.
Later, on a day when I could see Concha up on a mountainside tracking a wolf that had killed, then eaten most of a sheep in the night, the bocon found her. He carried a thick, coiled wagon whip, and in a moment when Concha squinted into the sun to see him clearly, he lashed her right out of her saddle.
I was down below, fixing a fence some cows had mauled getting away from the scent of the wolf. I wasn’t worried about Concha’s fall. One of the first things, campo kids learned was how to fall, even on boulder-strewn soil. But I knew – anyone would have known – that bastard from the cantina had other things in mind. I kicked my horse straight uphill, and in an instant knew he’d soon run himself out. I put him into a zig-zag, hearing the bocon swearing and the lash popping. Damn, I’m too slow, I said and kicked my mount harder.
Concha, hatless, shirt front torn, was back on her gelding when I saw her next. She had the split ends of the wagon whip tight in her gloved left hand. She rode right at the bocon, dallying the whip slack around her saddle horn, then reined her horse sharply sideways. The dallied wagon whip jerked the swearing man almost out of his saddle. Seeing that, she did something I didn’t expect: she spurred her horse right at him. The two mounts collided, but Concha’s gelding was leaping downhill. The bocon’s mount, dancing nervously, went over backward and landed rolling toward the pasture below. That mare rolled right over the bocon. Concha’s horse followed, sprinting across his body which jerked as hooves struck.
I tied the groaning bocon across his horse and delivered him to The Rooster’s Soul, with a note: “We’re giving this idiot back. If you got more like him, keep them at home. This one was too dumb to be diverting.” It was signed simply: “Concha, aged 16.” She was about to celebrate the imaginary date of her birth.