Looking Back

Jerry Martinez
Looking Back
by Jerry Martinez
Copyright 2019 Jerry Martinez
All Rights Reserved
Front and back cover photo and art by Jerry Martinez.
ISBN 978-1-7337939-1-9
Published by Michael Martinez
PO Box 64324, Sunnyvale CA 94088
Printed on demand starting 06/2019
 ***
We traveled from our home across the San Francisco bay, the tiki-
tiki sound of the train becoming its own heartbeat, a mechanical
relentless insistence of time passing. The miles alternately flashed by
and slowed, desert mountains a tapestry of colors, shapes, and sounds
imagined. Endless vistas rolled by in a warm blanket of raw heat. My
eyes flooded with the strange difference, ugly sights becoming beautiful,
clearly yet indefinably, eternally stamped into my brain.
Albuquerque was flat-roofed, flameless fire seemingly undulating
from the pavement. But Albuquerque was not our destination; our
journey took us through Santa Fe and Las Vegas, which I do not
remember. Perhaps I slept. Onward we went in a northerly direction till
we turned west at Sapello, jostled by a dirt road to arrive a few miles later
at a village nestled on the eastern side of the Sangre de Cristo
Mountains. Not that I was terribly mindful of these names at the time,
much less able to pronounce them.
Remote, El Carmel consisted of ten earthen brown houses, adobe it
turned out, with pitched tin roofs. The spare yards were packed earth,
not a blade of grass or weed in evidence. I never did see anyone
weeding or beating the yards. Maybe La Llorona occupied her nights
idly stripping the vegetation while she plotted to snatch unsuspecting
children from the ditch.
Most of the yards did, however, sport low rounded adobe
structures with an opening on one “side.” These were outdoor ovens.
The residents primarily looked to be of European blood, dark-
haired, dark-eyed, not much different from our previous neighborhood,
with the exception of one grandmother apparently of Native American
descent. These were natural observations of physical aspects, not the
knowledge or vocabulary of a seven-year-old which came much later.
Oh, there were a couple of blue-eyed blondes in the mix.
The elderly neighbors spoke Spanish, no English. We stared at one
another in amazement.

1
 Camaraderie came easily, being kids, and we soon picked up the
language, bad words first. We didn’t know what we were spouting off,
just had a vague sense they were naughty. My sister, Jackie, and I were
seated under the kitchen table, trying out the syllables of several choice
words, spicy upon the tongue, when our mother said in a voice of
admonishment, “Girls!” Mierda is a first cousin to the French merde.
Oops.
We explored the surroundings, gazed upon the nearby snow-
capped mountains, inhaled the sweet aroma of the rainstorm fast upon
the heels of clouds mounting till they burst like balloons, lightning and
thunder applauding.
Other scents invaded, vied with one another to impress. The
smell of the rosa de castilla, grass, pungent weeds, intermingled with
dampened dirt to inundate and hold hands with the slow chuckle of the
stream, marry the rustle of reeds stroked by a breeze, sunlight woven
patterns upon the whole.
***
Everyone had horses. Everyone but us. I made it my unswerving
mission to nag mom till she finally, finally purchased a bay Morgan filly
broken to halter. She nervously ran off with Jackie the very day we got
her, which unfortunately set the tone of our relationship, adversaries for
life.
Since we didn’t have pasture per se, I struck up a deal with Jose
Rodriguez, or Joe Rogers, as mom called him, unable to pronounce his
last name. Old Joe for short, furthermore, as he was in his eighties. So,
since we had about 70 laying pullets along with a few mean roosters, I
offered Old Joe a dozen eggs a week in exchange for the use of
whichever pasture he had available.
Old Joe and I got along very well though we seldom spoke. One
week I forgot to take his eggs over. There was a sharp rap on the screen
door. There he stood with his cane raised to rap a second time when I
appeared. He didn’t say a word but thrust out the empty egg carton.

2
Mortified, blushing, I quickly grabbed the box, spun into the house and
returned it to him full. He simply turned and left.
He’d come by once in a great while to sit in the garage/lean-to
where we tethered the filly when she was to home. We’d sit, not saying
anything, studying Prisky’s conformation, admiring her swishing tail, her
prick of ears, the occasional stamp of a hoof. The only observation he
ever made was I should breed her. Ewww.
He caught Jackie and I stealing apples from his orchard once. All
he grunted was to be careful not to break any branches. We took his
plums, too. I don’t remember his catching us but no doubt he knew.
We played in his meadow by the creek, grass and reeds up to our knees
when we were younger, first arrived, skipping home hand-in-hand.
I borrowed one of his many fine horses once and raced her up
and down the dirt road behind the shed till her flanks heaved and white
foamy sweat coated her. It was then I felt guilty, with a selfish pang that
he might not let me borrow her again intermingled with grief that I’d run
her too hard. I walked her, rubbed her down, walked her some more,
but her coat remained stiff and darker than normal. I had to return her.
He looked her over critically, took the reins and turned to leave without
a word. Worse than a dressing down.
Once in a while Old Joe would ride into Mora, get drunk and ride
the seven miles back. The horse knew the way home. I suppose
someone at the cantina helped him mount because when sober he took
forever to get into the saddle because of his age.
I have the fondest memories of Old Joe, even though his dog
bested my beloved Rover in a fight. The elderly rancher was tough,
riding about checking on his cows and fences, wearing a slicker as the
weather dictated, handling his horse with a firm hand. I’ll never forget
his profile, visage set, hawk nose thrust at life. Years afterwards when I’d
moved to Las Vegas, he landed in the hospital, having spent a night in
one of his pastures in the middle of winter upon being thrown or having
fallen from his horse; I never learned the exact lowdown. He called for

3
me, somehow knowing I worked at the hospital. None of the elders in
the village could pronounce my name, instead saying Jere or some form
thereof, instead of Jerry. So that’s how he referred to me. I could hardly
speak, so close to tears to see him brought low in a hospital bed.
I guess our connection was a love of horses. That, the eggs and
some sort of kindred spirit thing.
I miss him still.
***
There are all sorts of horse stories, everything horse for me unless it
was books while cracking piñon. There’s the time one of the Sandoval’s
plow horses stepped on my foot and we could not budge the implacable
beast for love or money. Gawd, it hurt, but it was easy to forgive him
since he was a horse. Then there’s the time I raced Prisky flat out, belly
to the ground like in a cartoon, from the curved road and up our drive
past the front porch. It wasn’t till we rounded the corner of the house
that I remembered the looming clothesline. Sonofabiche. With seconds
to decapitation, I ducked to the side of her neck and hauled her to a
screeching stop just before the ditch. Scarier than hell, our heaving
breaths matched in exhilaration.
Speaking of the clothesline…. Well, a few of us kids were hanging
out on the north side of the house, shooting the breeze, when our good
buddy (young) Joe rode up on his big rawboned mare, slid off the saddle
and dropped the reins so she could graze. I was tossing pebbles into the
air. Am sure that’s not what caused her to bolt, but bolt she did like a
shot out of a cannon, straight under the clothesline. The lines caught on
the saddle horn as she charged pell mell to hell across the yard, down
the ditch and on into the Sandoval’s yard, taking the lines and posts with
her. We were cliché white-as-sheets. Too bad it wasn’t Halloween. We
could’ve been sick on candy instead of fright. Oh, forget that.
Halloween was not celebrated with trick-or-treating. It was at Christmas
that children ran around pidiendo mis Crismes.
Riding bareback became second nature and ended up making me

4
one with the horse, breath for breath, muscle for muscle, move by move.
A beautiful symphony.
Bareback riding was so much easier than hauling a heavy saddle
onto the animal’s frame and cinching a reluctant horse holding her
breath. I’d have to knee her to get rid of the excess air from her belly,
whereupon she’d try to nip my rear. We anticipated one another’s
actions and reactions in a dance of stupidity. I know, the opposite of a
beautiful symphony.
No mere walking or trotting when I picked up the mail a mile away
or rode for whatever reason. I yearned to be a jockey, a pipe dream as
we were poor as you know. But Prisky was as hard on me as I was on
her. Hard to ride - she changed her gait to rocky anytime it suited her -
hard to catch, just hard, the insolent little... I’d approach her with a
handful of grain, for instance. She’d stand on tippy-toe hooves, stretch
out her neck, her lips as far as they would go without tilting herself over,
grab what she could, ready to run. If I could fist a handful of mane or
slip a rein around her neck, she’d stay put. But that became more and
more difficult as she kenned to my tactics. I ended up bringing a wire,
hoping it was less visible, crouching while holding my handful of grain at
ground level, slyly putting the wire around her fetlock. One day when I
went out to fetch the wretched beast, she refused to come close even for
grain. Nooo, the battle of wits had escalated, much to my detriment.
She ran circles around me, around my dog, Rover, around the two of us.
At last exasperated, I threw the bridle on the ground and turned to the
gate. She threw her head up, ears pricked, as if to say “What?!” I
paused, gauging her mood, picked up the bridle and walked right up.
She accepted the bit. Well, I’ll be damned.
We lived to torment each other. Another time when I was tugging
on her ears and pulling her upper lip, not too hard (batting my lashes
innocently), she swiftly opened her mouth over my upper arm, ready to
bite. She stopped before she executed an amputation, probably
wondering how she would live without our peculiar relationship.
She turned on a dime as well as any cutting horse. She never lost

5
me, though I came close once, half off with one foot hooked over her
spine, hands gripping her mane. She stopped, being fair that way, till I
fought back to a mounted position.
She could come to an abrupt plunging stop. We told our neighbor
Leo when we left her in his care to go to California not to say whoa. Did
he listen? No. Served him right when he flew over her head.
She spooked at many of the same spots, over and over. She threw
cousin Ted at the precise location I’d warned him about. He was such a
good sport, he laughed. Luckily he wasn’t hurt.
She lashed out at me once on our way to the creek, Jackie leading
her. I’d been bugging Prisky with a switch, teasing her flank. Her hoof
almost connected with my stomach which I sucked in at the last second,
if memory is accurate. No seas chucha. “Don’t you dare tell mom.”
***
My obsession with horses did not extend to cows. Sure, those huge
eyes attended by flamboyant lashes were beguiling, but horns and gross
splatted pies! Horse excrement was easier to run across.
***
Canuto had one heck of a mean cow. We taunted young Joe to get
into the meadow with his grandpa’s animal. Much to our horror, el
pendejo did. She was grazing with her back to him as he made his
approach. By this time we were sweating and screaming hysterically,
cursing him with such epithets as sonso, safao (safado), since he was
stupid to accept the challenge; terrified he’d met his end and at such a
young age, too! Never mind it was at our instigation. Happily, he did
survive. Told us later he’d poked her in the eye when she turned and
took a step towards him.
Young brown-skinned Joe and his fairer, freckled brother, Alex,
were the first to befriend us, promptly followed by Mattie and her
brother, Nayo, short for Nazario. Mattie spent her time basically as a
housekeeping slave, at the imperious beck of her grandmother.

6
Meanwhile, Nayo grew adept throwing stones while he herded cows all
day. It was because of their dad’s separation from their red-haired
mother who lived across the street from us that they lived with their dad
and their awful paternal grandmother.
Their father’s name was Pat. I have but two memories of him.
He was silent as a tomb, unless inebriated, and he was so agile in briskly
guiding his horse-drawn wagon standing upright through the village as to
be occasionally admired.
***
The things cows are good for are cream, milk, butter and meat, in
that order. I’d go to Mildred’s for a jar of cream so thick you could
spread it like butter. On homemade bread, it was eyes-rolled-to-the-
back-of-your-head delicious. Once when I rounded the corner of her
house to make such a purchase, she opened the screen door and
shockingly threw…dirty dishwater directly into my face and hair. I like to
think she gave me the cream.
Ah, Mildred of the hazel eyes twinkling good humor. Good thing
she wasn’t too close when her pressure cooker blew, plastering pinto
beans all over the ceiling. She was the only neighbor who read. We
avidly traded paperbacks and magazines back and forth so fast the air
crackled.
Back to the dirty dishwater episode. You see, we had electricity
but no indoor plumbing. Water was vigorously hauled hand-over-hand
in a bucket attached by rope to a pulley from a well, a wooden structure
over a simple hole in the ground. No indoor plumbing meant you slung
the used bath, laundry and dishwater into the yard.
Our well was downhill from the house. We walked the empty
buckets downhill and returned uphill with them full. Gave one
character.
We had a neighbor who’d come over the hill east of our house to
get her water from the same well. Prisky was tethered to the west side of

7
the hill one day when this poor senior citizen clambered over the hill.
For some darned reason, the mare pinned her ears flat to her head and
charged. The image of the elderly spry woman fleeing, arms and legs
akimbo, buckets clanging, is burnt on my retinas.
I don’t remember her name but she had a grandson, Jean, who
struck my fancy. He was handsomely dark, quiet as in never speaking,
the perfect Gothic romance hero. Of course, since he was a hero and I
about 13 at that time, I worshipped from afar. I much, much later
learned he was not quite right in the head. How sad. I hope he knows I
esteemed him, no matter how juvenile the feeling and he unable to
recognize the emotion. To be perfectly callous in retrospect, it’s a good
thing nothing came of it.
***
Nonato was an old guy who lived alone in a tiny house. He had a
donkey he used to carry wood. A few of the neighborhood boys snared
and rode the donkey in the corral, laughing and generally making fools
of themselves. Don’t believe young Joe, Alex or Nayo were involved, so
these were probably visiting cousins of someone or other.
Nonato kept to himself; I don’t remember ever speaking to or
having any interaction with him. He must’ve died shortly after our
arrival. Maybe it was at his wake I developed a dislike of not just being
in the same room as a defunto but the overpowering sweet perfume of
lilacs. I’d loved lilacs before, but it was years before I could be anywhere
near them.

***
No plumbing meant we had a wood-burning stove and heater.
Old Joe let us haul wood from the forest that was part of one of his
pastures. We used Prisky for that. We learned how to chop wood, being
careful as winter approached to stockpile it since the village was just over
7000 feet in elevation and the winters were cold, snowy and fairly long

8
with temps on occasion well below zero. I remember scurrying down
from the attic one freezing morning to huddle near the kitchen stove, so
close my pajamas scorched. We had to take hay to Prisky when the
snow was deep. Mom wrapped gunny sacks from the tops of our boots
to our thighs.
***
Let’s get back to the chickens. We had roosters as well as hens.
The roosters were beautiful, strutting around in all their machismo but,
being macho, they were as mean and aggressive as the devil flying into
your face with beaks and claws extended. Inexplicably, the outhouse was
smack in the middle of the chicken yard and chicken house. Pardon,
not in the middle but at the farthest point in the yard from the very gate
which became a sweaty central point of interest. These hombres were
surprisingly sly. They’d pretend not to notice your approach, the only
thing alerting you to their evil attention a dropped wing, perhaps. You
gauged your chances of reaching your smelly destination before flinging
the gate wide, charging to the port of call, flinging that door open and
slamming it shut.
When you were ready to exit, if you were lucky not to have
encountered black widow spiders, bees or wasps, you peeked through
the cracks to check where the roosters were in the yard. Reverse
strategy, fling the door open, charge across the yard, grab the gate and
slam it shut behind you.
***
Rover was my buddy. Protective, smart, loyal. I got him as a pup
from a 15-year-old student in our elementary school married to or living
with an elderly man, not that I understood at the time what that meant.
There was a slackness in her face, certain slovenliness in her attire. The
other kids warned us to stay away because of her piojos. They were
cruel to her which made me protective. When she offered to share an
orange, I struggled but could not refuse her kindness. Mom was pretty
upset when I ended up with head lice. It took forever to rid my long hair

9
of the nasty things. Our friends were in the kitchen tattling that I hadn’t
listened to their warnings, which only made her more irate.
Anyway, my pup was worth it. His roly poly body tumbled about,
exuberantly skidding around all over the kitchen. The kitten’s dish was
on one side of the floor with Rover’s opposite. He’d interrupt his meal
to check on the other dish, not happy he couldn’t have both. So off he’d
charge, the cat then trotting to Rover’s dish. This exchange went on at
every meal, back and forth, back and forth.
It doesn’t take long for a pup to grow into an adult dog. He’d
meet us at school at the end of the day to accompany us home.
He and Pepper, our female German Shepherd mix, accompanied
me whenever I went horseback riding. They worked in tandem to catch
rabbits, one guiding the rabbit, the other intercepting. They were very
good at it. Off they’d go, frequently arriving at home after my ride.
One day Rover disappeared on such an outing and did not
respond to my whistles. I took a different route back, over the hill
behind our house. It was from there I spied him, nose to the ground,
running in the opposite direction, the one we’d taken on our way out.
He seemed terribly relieved when I called him. Mom said he showed
up before I did and when he realized I wasn’t there, took off in search of
me.
When he encountered a porcupine and came home with a
muzzle full of quills, Mom tied him to a post and tried to pull them out,
but he, shall we say, vigorously opposed her. Later when he was on the
porch, he allowed me to gently extract them.
There was the time our friend Mattie began to birthday-paddle
me, a swat for every year. Rover liked Mattie but got between us,
growling in warning. We’d leave Rover with young Joe when we went to
California. He was confused for a time, living with us when we came
back but visiting the Archuleta family every once in a while. This was the
dynamic when a bunch of us played tag, Rover running amongst us.
When young Joe tapped my head, Rover jumped and bit him in the

10
stomach. Whew. Everyone screamed we had to tie him up to make
sure he wasn’t rabid.
Old Joe was the only one who kept his dog tied. All the other
village dogs ran free. Rover seemed bloated when he fell into the stream
one day. I carried him home, as stiff as he with apprehension, and
consulted Old Joe who said Rover suffered from poisoning and told me
to give him a bucketful of lard, which treatment worked!! My fear is as
vivid today as then.
Much later we had only Pepper, my beloved Rover having
succumbed to a bullet by an unknown cabron hand, rendering me
hysterical.
***
We returned from a California trip to find Pepper had refused to
stay with her host family. Instead, she hung around our house, hunting
game and getting food however she could until we came back. She was
gaunt but otherwise hale and ecstatic to see us.
Bernice (aunt) and cousins Ted and Sandra periodically visited us
and we visited them when finances permitted. We had a blast exploring,
riding, climbing trees, splashing across the stream, dodging summer
lightning bolts, shooting marbles, playing board games to the smells of
baking goods.
Inconsolable, Jackie and I cried so hard and long when they left for
California, Mom did the unheard of and brought our dog into the house
which, despite the novelty, did nothing to alleviate our grief.
***
There was a capilla where we attended Mass on the occasions the
priest was available. The pews were hard, the incense overwhelming, the
winter cold biting. The men gathered in a herd at the back of the
church, ready to stampede. The women competed for piety, kneeling
beyond reasonable time while their fingers slipped over rosary beads,
their lips feverishly, silently uttering prayer after prayer. Or perhaps they

11
were telepathically gossiping? Some were true in their faith, but I knew
many to be hypocrites, avidly gossiping at top speed, not pausing for
breath, continuing to speak as they inhaled and exhaled in the execution
of venomous slander and disparagement of their victims’ character.
Mostly fervent in my own faith, still I wondered why women were
only allowed to clean and set up for the religious ceremony. The priest
was the male dominant in position of authority. Altar boys had to be…
boys. Perhaps I would not have questioned it at such an early age but for
the remarks our friends made in regard to the morada squirreled away in
the pine trees on the hill behind our house. Penitentes were local men
who preserved the faith in isolated areas , meeting in secret in these
almost-churches to observe rituals outside the realm of the church
proper, not precisely condoned nor completely banned. There were
whispers of self-flagellation and more during the period leading up to
Easter, especially on Good Friday. The children alluded to women
being granted the privilege, privilege! of leaving food offerings outside the
morada for the men to consume when appropriate during their fasting.
It immediately incensed me, no pun intended. It was also a completely
intriguing idea, the how’s and why’s of these penitentes disappearing into
history.
There was an abandoned church constructed of block or stone
halfway between the two-room schoolhouse and our village. Let me
digress. The two-room school was for all eight years of elementary
school with one teacher handling the first four grades, the other fifth
through eighth, such was the minute size of the community.
Backspace to this block/stone church which was so incongruous
in otherwise adobe-constructed buildings as to be ludicrous, especially
since it was Protestant in a strictly Catholic terrain.
We rushed past it on our way to school, our friends insisting the
devil lived within. In proof of this, they’d point to a winged black insect
with a red spot burrowing into the ground, proclaiming it to be the devil
himself. Wide-eyed, we concurred. On top of all this, there was a
crumbling small two-story house next to the church wherein resided who

12
knew how many evil entities. We were brave enough to enter it one day.
I can smell the dust, feel the terror pumping my heart faster and faster
till it nearly burst from my chest.
***
In honor of La Nuestra Señora del Carmel, there was a fiesta
every July 15th with food booths. Mass first, naturally, followed with all
sorts of mayhem, the men quite soused, ending later in the evening with
a dance in the hall not far from the church.
Between adult legs similar to the trunks of trees, I clearly saw a horse
race involving a rooster buried in dirt, only his head visible, the rider
thundering past to lean over and swipe that poor bird right up.
I had to go home to use the privao (privado). I don’t know why;
surely there were outdoor privies at the fiesta. Anyway, a young
horseman came charging up. I tried to get out of the way but wasn’t
quick enough and, since he was no doubt drunk, he didn’t have the
presence of mind to turn his mount. He and his equally dumb horse
just kept coming. Glancing back, I stumbled over the rocky ground just
before they went over me, but one of the horse’s hooves clipped my
ankle. Lo! Evidently the rider did have the two brain cells to spark self-
preservation and disappeared altogether, el mugre.
***
The food was delicious. Empanadas with shredded pork, piñon and
spices; tamales; bread, both fried and baked. Chicos with beans and
chile, tortillas. Cousin Sandra called them tortills. Chicharrones. The
soft custard of natillas.
All this talk of food reminds me of panocha, a kind of cross between
pudding and coarse cereal, one of the ingredients being sprouted whole
wheat flour, usually made for the holidays. And queso blanco eaten with
a healthy swirl of syrup.
Something else I liked was the succulent meat from the baked head
of a sheep. Unable to look, I commandeered mom to hand strips to me

13
in the next room. So false, the dichotomy, for if I had to hunt and dress
my own kill, I’d opt to live off vegetables, fruit, nuts, grain, milk, and
whatever I could muster from the white liquid.
***
I remember the snow, the stinging wind, the blue-blue of the sky
in contrast to the towering pure white clouds, the powerful
thunderstorms, el crescente rushing down the ditch. Endless images with
which to wrap oneself.
These are some highlights of life spent in the beautiful mountains of
northern New Mexico.

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