The Son

Chapter Fifty-seven. Ulises Garcia

There had always been a rumor that they were descended from wealthy Americans, it was a story his mother liked to tell about his father’s side of the family. His father had died when he was two. The Dirty War was going on, and the last anyone heard of his father, he was being taken into a police station.

After that, they had moved around a lot, finally settling in Tamaupilas with his grandparents. His grandfather worked on a ranch, tending the fences, repairing the windmills and outbuildings, more time on a truck than on a horse, but this is what vaqueros did now. In America, the cowboys now flew helicopters. Or so it was said.

His grandfather had worked for the Arroyos his entire life and was no richer now than when he started; the Arroyos had owned the land since the 1600s and paid as if no time had passed since. Sitting at the fire with the old-timers, he could see his entire life from birth to death, it was good work, he was lucky to be born into it; his friends would end up in the refineries, or selling trinkets to tourists, or with the narcos.

Still, there were nights he woke up thinking he was as old as his grandfather, he would turn on the light and go to the mirror and look at his face. He was dark, people thought he was mulatto, he had a soft nose and a heavy brow.

In winter the men would trickle back from the north with thousands of dollars in their pockets and some would blow it all — a season’s work — in a night or two of gambling. His grandfather just shrugged. Mercedes Arroyo would spend three thousand dollars on a scarf, what was the difference?

As for Ulises, he watched the Arroyos’ pretty granddaughters come and go, their drivers and BMWs; when they passed he smelled perfume from inside the cars. The house was full of stuffed jaguars and elephants, exotic rugs, bathrooms done in gold, but he’d only heard this; he’d never been allowed inside.

His mother went to work in Matamoros and he stayed with his grandparents. One day he was going through a suitcase she had left, which was full of her junk, old pictures and keys, birthday cards from people he didn’t know, letters, faded receipts, his father’s university ID, and then, in its own paper bag… his grandmother’s birth certificate. The document was in Spanish but the name of the father was not: Peter McCullough. And there were letters written in English.

He knew that his grandmother had tried to get in touch with the American side of her family, but they had spurned her, and then his father had tried as well, and also been sent away, and he could not imagine how the McCulloughs (he now knew their name) had done this. He tried to imagine their point of view, a person showing up on your doorstep and asking for money. The details mattered; it would have to be handled a certain way.

He began to daydream about visiting them, and being received, and given land, and made wealthy. Of course they would not simply do this for no reason; he would show them that he knew cattle, he knew their business, he was not simply some freeloader, he was a hard worker, and then, once he had proven himself beyond question, he would make a formal presentation.

Those daydreams had gone on for several years; they were straight out of a telenovela and he was not clear when they had materialized into a firm plan. But in September of 2011, he crossed the river and rode onto the McCulloughs’ ranch. His grandfather knew someone on an olive plantation on the Mexican side, just a few miles upriver from the ranch, and he and this old man had waited for a dark night and crossed. After that it was easy. He was not some pollo, he was a vaquero, and he belonged.

HE FOUND THE white foreman and offered to give up his hand-tooled saddle if any bronco in their remuda could throw him. The foreman burst into laughter, then explained they did not have any broncs in the remuda, it had probably been half a century since they had broncs. They did their big roundups with helicopters and bought most of their horses as three-year-olds from other ranches.

But he could see the foreman was impressed with his appearance, he had not thrown Ulises off the ranch immediately, he’d carefully inspected his tack, his chaps. Ulises threw a few loops for him, caught a calf by the neck and then the foreleg. I roped an eagle in flight once, he said. It was not exactly true — it had been a turkey. But he could see the man liked his face. I can also use a welder.

He spent the rest of the day in the man’s truck, helping with chores, repairing a fence, running a tractor with a bale spike. At the end of it, the man said:

“Two fifty a week. La Migra mostly stays off the property, but if you stick your nose out and get caught you’ll spend a few months in the pokey. Normally we’d never do this but we are shorthanded and getting shorter.”

He noted this, but decided not to ask why.

“If you’re still here after a few months, we can talk about applying for a permit. Though none of us are sure if this place will even be around that long. I lost two guys this week alone. So if you’ve got other prospects, I suggest you follow them.”

HIS SALARY WAS not much by norteamericano standards but he had nothing to spend it on. On smaller ranches the ICE agents came and went daily but the McCulloughs kept their own security and La Migra was rarely around. It was dangerous to leave the property, though: the white-and-green trucks were everywhere; it was a bit like being under house arrest.

He had a bunk and a few nails to hang his shirts. When he wasn’t working he sat around watching TV with the other vaqueros. When they wouldn’t let him watch the American programs — they did not care about their English — he borrowed a rifle and went out into the brasada and shot an occasional javelina or rabbit, or trailed the big-racked deer that were everywhere. They were too valuable to kill; the Americans would pay thousands to shoot them.

He snuck to town once a month and sent his grandparents half his salary and bought a new shirt, though he had to ask for the hanger it came on. At Christmas he spent a long time looking at some Lucchese handmade boots but decided on Ariats, as they were a quarter the price. He also picked out a Leatherman tool. He felt rich. Then a white man with a gun walked into the store and everyone got quiet. Some kind of deputy. Ulises stood by the cash register, waited for his items to be bagged, watching the man’s reflection in the window. He felt disgusted as he walked out. He paused near the trash bin, considered throwing away everything he’d just bought. It could not be worth this.

It will be better when you get your permit, said Romero, when they were back in the truck. No estoy recibiendo mi permiso, said Ulises, but Romero pretended not to hear. He had worked for the McCulloughs five years but still got stopped by the ICE, who pretended not to recognize him. Ulises could see the pride he took in the new white truck, though it was not his any more than the ranch was, and it struck him that Romero was a fool and he was a fool as well.

THE OLD LADY was dying and had no one to take over the business. Her daughter was a drug addict and her son, it was said, was not fully a man. There had been a grandson everyone liked, but he had drowned in three feet of water. The other grandson visited the ranch with his friends: they wore sandals and never shaved and were constantly smoking mota. One look and you knew why the vaqueros were leaving. This place would die with the old lady.

HIS PLAN WAS ridiculous. The old lady rarely visited the ranch and the foreman, who was likely looking for another job himself, forgot his promise to apply for a permit. But still it was better than the Arroyos. So he stayed.