Wednesday, July 13, 2011


The walls of the long hallway from the spacious living room that leads to the bedrooms are lined with photographs of cowboys (of both sexes) from the past of south Texas. Some might have even hired the likes of Bat Masterson to carry some necessary acts of quick justice. Among those photographs are those of a woman (a great aunt of Mike East) Sarita Kenedy East who managed her ranch with an iron fist while at the same time finding time for a dialogue with her Catholic God. And if God should fail or need any help she had mounted a Gatling gun on the top of her La Parra Ranch to take care of any possible restless natives.

Every time I have been at the Santa Fe Ranch I have lovingly examined every one of those pictures. This year there was an important difference that affected me directly. Some of the pictures on the wall are mine and some day, when I am long gone, I would like to think that some guest might do what I did and peruse the faces and wonder who those brave and self-assured men and women were.




I might even hope that someone sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms might hear sometime around 5:30 in the morning the jingling of the spurs of a ghost. Dead or alive, that ghost would be Mike East getting ready to navigate his Toyota Tacoma or inspect La Mula on that wonderful horse, Grammercy Flow.

The jingling (jangling?) would persist as the ghost would walk down the hall of photographs, down the living room with the Texas Longhorn on the entrance to the dining room, across the dining room, past the wine cellar and into the kitchen, which is the real life and center of activity of the Santa Fe Ranch.