Our good mountain animals, Enrique’s mule and my mare, step brightly, anxious to stretch their legs after several days of rain. Fluffy, fair-weather clouds reach high in the morning sky and it seems a good day to round up stray cattle, check fences, and maybe spot a rogue bull that has been inseminating ranchers’ cows.
The precipitous trail clings to the edge of the mountain, the lake’s sweeping splendor far below, village and highway vehicles shrinking to tiny toys. Springs send rivulets down the rocky trail, leaving muddy swales but above and below all is verdant. Droplets sparkle on leaves and shower our denims as we brush against foliage. Jewel-like wildflowers glisten. Fern clings tenaciously in rock crevices.
Up, up, we climb, Enrique leading, the animals finding rocky footholds, then thrusting their weight upward. A startled cotton-tail bounds up the trail ahead of us. A pair of scrapping ground squirrels streak into brush. Enrique is in his element. He begins to whistle.
As we reach the summit, silvery vapors emanate from the animals’ heaving, steaming bodies. We rest a bit and gaze out at the unending vastness, Mt. Garcia’s gaping, broken crater to the east. The trail eases and turns inward along a cliff. We pass through a hand-adzed gate, hung so gravity keeps it closed, yet one can open it from the saddle. The heavy gate slams shut, assaulting the mountain’s quiet and we continue into rolling brushy country.
Suddenly Enrique, his legs protected by heavy leathers, plunges into “cat’s claw”, a heavy raking brush – he’s spotted a cow and calf. The cow, bearing his brand, threatens with her long horns and bellows, scuffs the ground, protective of her newborn. With shouts of “Hey-ya”, and aggressive urging from behind he expertly drives the cow and gangly calf onto the trail toward the big dam where most of his herd will soon be watering.
Enrique looks like a cigarette ad model: weathered skin, craggy features, hard-muscled, graying temples and rugged confident air. His pistol is tucked under his belt, machete ready for trail clearing. He blends into the environment as neatly as a rabbit. But the gut-wrenching work of Mexican ranching is not glamorous; it’s callous-making, back-breaking. It’s a demanding life and the men who pursue it are tough.
The air tastes crisp and clean as we drive our little herd of strays, now grown to eight. We laugh as a calf tenaciously clings to its mother’s teat from behind, all the time sucking and walking. One youngster, a couple days old, trips and falls, struggles to get up. Enrique leans down, grabs him by the ear, and hoists him into the saddle.
Just over the next hill, in a cozy valley, lies the largest of several dams. The spillway streams abundantly, noisily down to lower country. Muddy banks and fields surrounding the dam are crowded with lowing, ruminating cattle. Our strays water deeply, and then mingle naturally with the herd. Cattle nudge Enrique as he throws handfuls of rock salt, all the time calling them by name and speaking to them in his deep, resonant voice.
The rhythmic squeak of our saddle leather blends with soft whispering sounds of tasseled corn, healthy and tall in this abundant rainy season. We yield to temptation, dismount and slip through barbed wire. Raw, the little white kernels are like succulent pearls of honey. We eat greedily, giving the husks to the animals. Then begin heading home by way of the shorter barranca trail.
Deep in the barranca, strata of cinder reveals the long-ago eruption of the once mighty Mt. García when it spewed a vast carpet of lava. Perhaps this ancient barranca began as a fissure created by violent, quaking earth, torrential rains tumbling and gouging through it down to the lake. Even today, suspended volcanic ash impairs the clarity of the lake.
Wild zinnias and dahlias, both bright red, spark the barranca’s beguiling beauty. Silk paper trees gleam golden, their ragged strips like banners in the sun. Like a secret love, the canyon pulses with color and energy. For Enrique, married to the mountains, it’s just another day on the trail.
