FAREWELL TO RANCHO EL NOGAL
Thursday, 20 October 2005

http://www.fallingrain.com/world/MX/19/Rancho_El_Nogal.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeycart/with/2761096209/

Last night was another full moon and cold. Mist settled over the river valley and did not dissipate until well after sunrise this morning. At present we are only four at the ranch: Simon, Dutch, Kathleen and I. The rancheros are all off in Chihuahua. Maybe Alex will get back today. I get up early to make fresh bread for breakfast and to get the water on for coffee and washing up, aware that it will be the last full day for us here. I am a little sad already.

The day warms up. I get a nice big fat German-English translation by email from Frankfurt and with enough time to do it in. Nevertheless, I get started at it right away. It is pretty dry stuff; legal arguments about which manufacturer is stealing another’s brands. Talk about hair-splitting! The only ones making money are the solicitors. And, I hope, the translators!

After breakfast Simon gets a little wood-fire going in the small corral. He has five calves to brand. Dutch goes out to help and learn while Kathleen and I hang on the corral fence to watch. First they go into the big corral on foot amongst the milling cattle to get a rope around the calf’s neck (they are too young yet to have horns to rope) and subsequently pull it, protesting, into the small corral. The idea is to get a rope on its two hind legs and another on its two forelegs. To do this the calf has to be flipped on its side and held down. Dutch struggles with the first calf but it behaves as if it is greased and he cannot flip it. Finally, Simon comes over, reaches across the calf’s back, grabs a hank of skin on its belly and flips it in one motion towards him. The two guys get ropes around the legs and tie them off in opposite directions so the calf is stretched full length on the ground and immobilised. Then Simon gets the red-hot iron from the fire, kneels on the calf to keep it from bucking on the ground, and applies the iron to the calf’s right-rear haunch. A puff of smoke goes up and surrounds Simon’s head as he holds the iron to the animal for about fifteen seconds. The calf lets out a huge bawl, its tongue hanging out. Finished, Simon and Dutch slip the ropes off and the calf makes a dash back to it mamma in the next corral and the cowboys get their lassoes and start to cut out the next calf for branding. The first calf makes no more noises so I guess it is either in not too great pain or the bawling has more to do with the first shock and the separation form it mother.

Dutch gets more proficient at flipping calves and tying them up rapidly and efficiently. After half an hour the calves are all branded and back in the big corral. Dutch & Simon: 5; Calves: 0.

This afternoon, the temperatures are in the high 70’s and the sun bright in the sky, Dutch offers to saddle two horses if Kathleen and I want to take a farewell ride around the ranch. (I am still in too much rib and shoulder pain to lift saddles onto horses.) Kathleen has only ridden once before at the ranch, on Macho Grande when she and Cindy rode out to the warm springs a few weeks ago. I am sure she is not really that keen even today. But she agrees hesitantly and we ride slowly down the steep path to the river and across. She is riding Spot, the appaloosa, and I am riding Gus, Bob’s big bay. Spot knows she has it easy and sashays along while Gus steps out ahead of her. All three outdoor dogs, Greta, Cody and Phil, are along too as are both Chihuahuas. Sparkle, however, is afraid of the water and stays, whining, back on the ranchhouse side of the Tutuaca River. In advanced pregnancy though she is (she should be having her puppies in about ten days time), Moonbeam bravely swims across and runs with the other, much bigger, outdoor dogs. We cross and re-cross the river and she follows each time. By the third and fourth times, however, -we are down past the lower bunkhouse and want to ride along the left bank to see the big Indian caves – she looks like she might just wait till we get back again. Eventually she steps into the water and starts to swim again, her little tail whipping back and forth in the air behind her. She seems to be having the time of her life but I am afraid she will get lost somewhere along the way. This is her first time out on a longer jaunt; the grass is long and the river wide. How will I explain why we lost one dog?

There are two or three big caves with smoke-blackened rooves that have clearly been used frequently in the past. Bob says it was by Tarahumaras, Pimas, or Apaches. I can see how they could be made comfortable but only in this mild climate. They are about fifteen feet deep and high and broad so keeping heat inside would be nearly impossible. Being out of the rain and with a cooking fire I can see how the caves would be habitable, however. But we are not talking The Ritz here.

After the caves we cross back over to this side, the horses picking their way carefully through the rocks in the two-foot-deep waters and plodding along around the rock-strewn beach on the inside of the river bend. Finally we can go no farther; we are blocked by deeper water in the river and big boulders on both sides of the river.

Here, about a mile away and out of sight of the ranchhouse, we could be anywhere in the wilderness of the Sierra Madres, The sun is warm when we dismount and tie the horses in the shade so they can graze. We stretch out in the shade on rocks still warm from the sun. Moonbeam, shivering and damp from her multiple river crossings, crawls up and I tuck her under my shirt for warmth. The other dogs flop down in the sunshine to snooze. The scene is like a western version of a Constable painting. The only sounds in the otherwise infinite silence are the gurgling of the river of the nearby rocks and the occasional blue jay or redheaded woodpecker in the trees above us. The tranquillity is nearly palpable. Leaving will now be that much more difficult for me.

We talk about our time at Rancho el Nogal and our future back on Vilisar. Our vague plan is to get back to San Carlos, finish the translation while getting the boat provisioned and re-rigged for the 250-mile trip to La Paz and there to meet my friend Bob Ferguson on the way down from Seattle by trawler. When he left for Canada again we shall head across the Sea of Cortés for Mazatlan and points south, maybe to Costa Rica or even Ecuador.

Tomorrow morning, if Alex is back, he will drive us the hour and one-half over the miserable ranch road to Yepachic. At Lucy’s two-table restaurant and two-room hotel, we will catch the bus to Ciudad Obregon, eight hours to the south down winding mountain highway. No doubt we shall have to spend the night in the bus station to catch an early-morning bus to Guaymas and then the local out to San Carlos. The bus trip to Obregon is fabulous but I must remember to take lots of aspirin. I am much, much better from my fall off the horse last week. But my ribs and shoulder still hurt if I move suddenly, cough or sneeze. I am glad for many reasons that we stayed for an extra week, not least amongst them is to have given my injuries time to heal a bit more.

Somehow we shall have to cadge a lift out to Vilisar at her mooring in the Bahia San Carlos; we left our two-part dinghy on the foredeck while we were away. Our friend Alex, the Mad Magyar, who’s S/V True Companion is anchored nearby, gave us a lift to shore and then into town in the predawn of September 2, seven weeks to the day before we shall leave here tomorrow.

After an hour or so along the riverbank, I gather up the horse again for the ride back. This time I carry Moonbeam cradled on my right arm so she will not have to keep swimming the rivers. She has stopped shivering and watches from her perch with bright eyes. Gus has a spring in his step as he heads for home and I have to keep him on a short rein so he does not leave Spot and Kathleen behind. Spot knows she has an easy go today and stops frequently to eat grass. Kathleen tries reasoning with her, which however, is only mildly successful. Coming back up the hill from the car ford, Kathleen gets a small taste of what it is like to el Nogal’s ranges as we climb over a rocky cliff on a narrow and rock-strewn path.

I am observing everything intensely, not wanting to miss anything on my last ride at the ranch. Nearly five o’clock now, the sun’s rays are still warm but much longer. The trees and the grass give off a wonderful, clean smell and a light breeze comes up from the valley. The air is like champagne. Below us, the river is silver; above us the hills are golden and the sky is azure. Tonight, I know, the stars will be fiery bright before the moon comes up before midnight and the air will be cold. The horses plod into the corral area and come to a halt.