The Perfect Fight!

THE PERFECT FIGHT!

It's after the blistering "Radio Comondu" and "Radio Loreto" attacks, me the big, bad gringo; after our complete investigation by Immigrations...all of this having fallen flat. The Week-of-Easter has descended upon us, a time when Ernesto harbored great fear that our attackers would descend, in mass, upon us. There'd been loose talk of a breaching of El Carrizalito's one-locked-chain gate. For a long time Ernesto had considered not coming. Marcia was, but I wasn't, nervous. Not after us so decisively winning that last round.

Ernesto had arrived for a four day stay, him along with his new woman Gabriella, their two daughters and Gabriella's mother. They'd camped under the palms on Playa Carrizalito, them along with a small kayak group tucked in there at Window Rock, far enough away from them. There was only one other camp on the rancho, that as far north as rancho's road i'l take one, albeit only in four-wheel drive. As the festive week slipped past...tranquility reigned.

Well, almost. In the afternoon of Ernesto's third day there a large group of acquaintances, shattered piece and quiet there on his beach. They hadn't been expected, invited. One in this six vehicles assemblage had been there once before with his parents, good friends of Ernesto's, the year before. He and this crowd, maybe there'd been 20 of them, had bull-shat Chayo out of that gate's key, there at first check point at San Cosme. Surprise! They all landed there right next to my partner, this about an hour after he and I had shared a relaxed conversation there under those palms.

The jest of our conversation was just that tranquility. He could hardly believe that after all the noise made by the Ejido, a number of irate parcel owners (those who'd been duped), nothing was coming of it. We were self congratulatory, I do remember that. "Do you think they finally understand that this is a fight they won't easily win?" Ernesto questioned. "Sooner or later this will come to them," I prognosticated, me pretty sure of just how hard I was going to make battle against them.

Saturday, the one just before Easter Sunday, was a critical day. By late afternoon the vast majority of Week-of-Easterers pack up and head back to town. That certainly was the case on Playa Carrizalito; Ernesto and all those uninvited guests clearing out by five p.m. I'd seen their dust, heard the vehicle noises of departures. The rancho waxed ultra quiet and peaceful again.

TROUBLE ARRIVES LATE

It's mid martini time when we hear hooves falling in straight-line heading for our camp. There's a distinct difference in an animal's foot falls walkin' loose and of one that's being ridden. A mounted Chayo moves quickly into our space.

"There's a big problem with Saul Trojillo!" he shouts to me without dismounting. He goes on to tell me that this recalcitrant hombre has shown up at what he claimed as his parcel, him and a bunch of others, barachos; them with fencing materials; them stating their intent to encircle that area.

"Is Saul drunk, too?" I questioned. I'm thinking that Saul, who we knew to have been partying with a large group on a beach much further south, had finally imbibed enough courage to make some sort of stupid, last-minute challenge.

"Si," Chayo assured me that the whole contingent was well liquored up. My reaction was to simply laugh, "That poor dumb bastard," I'm sure, I said to myself.

This parcel, #30, was within the bounds of "historic" Carrizalito. We had a document signed and sealed by the vast majority of the ejido members that they "respected" these historic limits. Ernesto and I had, just that morning, discussed how we were going to fight for those limits, those as opposed to what the Reforma Agraria had cut the rancho down to. We stood firmly united about this.

"Does Ernesto know of this?" I came back. And, "Si", according to Chayo, he did.

There'd been a crossing-paths confrontation back at San Cosme, where Ernesto had stopped to say his goodbyes to Alejo and family. Great! I was glad he knew. There was little we could do just then, it being still the holiday weekend. I assured Chayo that Ernesto would take appropriate legal actions on Monday. We would take actions there on the rancho, too. I instructed him to gather materials to construct a short fence with gate just on north end of low-tide-only pass. We'd fence Saul off come Monday A.M.

Drunks wouldn't build much fence. I figured they'd head out of the area soon, back to town like most others. There would be jobs to be back at. We'd have plenty of time to work out these wrinkles, effect our defenses.

The next day, Easter Sunday, I get an update, again from Chayo. I was curious as to status of Saul's work force. I'm told they'd been trapped on rancho side of low-tide-only pass, for the night, them not having anticipated the significant water rise; them almost totally unprepared. They'd departed by early morning, presumably back to town. My informant goes on to tell me about the mayor of Agua Verde showing up with three municipal police officers, them investigating a complaint by Saul that two men toting pistols had arrived, by ponga, and threatened his crew.

PHANTOM GUN MEN

"What?" I return, "Two men, by sea, with pistols?"

"Si." Chayo goes on and tells me that this is all hog wash. The sea was very calm that evening (which we knew well because we been out fishing in our tiny boat). If a craft had motored past San Cosme there would have been no way it could have done so unnoticed. All those there, 10 adults, had told police that they'd seen nothing of the sort. We both laugh about Saul's latest attempt to start trouble. I still held to my prediction that this gang would sober up and not return until the next weekend, if at all. Chayo, because of posts and equipment they'd brought, was skeptical.

So Monday comes and Chayo, per my instructions, moves one of the rancho's signs ( one that advised those traveling the rancho road that there was a locked gate ahead) to first high ground on north side of that tidal pass. This before goat herd and cowboy chores consumed most of the rest of his day.

Late that afternoon, provisioned for a long stay, Saul and crew return, them intent on building that fence. This big cone-headed school teacher flips out at sight of that sign, Chayo's gathered materials; him in this rage removing that offensive notice and hauling it all the way to front of Alejo's restaurante, where he ceremoniously hurled it into the dust. "Take that! Dahveed!" that was his general message. A worried Chayo asked me what to do next? My instructions were to put the thing back.

I'm not surprised when Chayo's little red pickup makes its way to our camp early next morning. "We've got problems," he claims. The cops are back, them supposedly guarding Saul's contingent from eminent attack. "Attack from who?" I have to laugh back. From us, from me, I'm told. Saul had called in to the Loreto station that there'd been more threats. Chayo says the law wanted to talk directly with me. He also tells me these cops had told him that he was to halt his fence building, him not having any written proof that he had any authorization from my partner to do this. Before he could do more he'd have to have a letter from Ernesto, the on-file owner of Carrizalito.

Fine. That was great. I told him to leave the chain down and tell them that I was inviting them in. Also, I instructed him to be on his way to Ernesto for that letter. I went back to my morning exercises...waiting.

I didn't have to wait long. Within half an hour I detected carro noises approaching.

Not rattle-trap noises but those of newer vehicle, like the Loreto cops drive. Then the dogs start barking and I can catch glimpses of this moving through distant vegetation...and soon, close up and in plain sight, here's this white pickup with blue and red lights atop, official lettering on it side; that with three serious lookin' lads in back, them bristling with heavy armament. The law, with Saul in passenger seat, stops there in my open-gated camp; us there real low profile like...in the way outback, south Baja.

I meet them as they halt. Saul is first out of the cab and as he swings around front of truck he puts on ultra-false face, him with his big paw out in greeting. I wave his false-front off. I tell him right in front of four police officers that I wouldn't touch his hand on a bet. Poison. I left no doubt that I found him infectious, diseased. His advance abruptly halts, he titters back just a notch before regaining himself and hissing that if that was way I wanted to play things, Well! that was just fine with him! "See!" he shouts to them cops. "Didn't I tell you how hostile this gringo is?"

These lawmen, the tough old salt who was the driver, the three young lads back in the box, they're caught off guard, don't know whether they should be laughin' with their paisano, or what? The older one, pot-bellied, ya know, much like many of the state-side, long-time donut munchers, he takes command of situation, him asking me what I knew of the recent problems in the area?

"Problems?" I question back. "Everything has been pretty calm here." I go on to emphatically state that the only problems I was aware of were those created by this hulking, now turned ultra-sour school teacher. If there were problems it was my firm opinion that there... stood the creator! At this point Saul started jumpin' up and down and shaking his finger my way and again telling these others all this same stubborn-gringo bull shit. Me, not ta be out shouted, I go inta the false radio and Immigrations attacks that he'd initiated, that he'd so recently failed at. My assault has the desired effect on my target. Excited cops get between us, work at calming things down. Marcia, she's back there nearly hidden in camp, watching and hearing all this unfoldin'.

CAUGHT RED-HANDED

Saul shouts to the officers that he wants to press charges against me because my truck is involved in an illegal operation! What the hell was he talking about? I laugh this off but one of these overarmed gents reads off a description of my pickup, complete with State and plate number. I'm told that two men were, at that moment, taking gravel from the federal tidal zone.

I didn't think so, I come back. Those two hombres, Raul Quijano and his son-in-law Salvador, had been working for weeks already on the straw bale casa for Maria and Chayo, the rancho caretakers. My truck had been intimately involved. I knew where they'd been getting their sand and gravel and that was considerably inland from that tidal zone. "No! Where they'd been digging was on the rancho," I defended adamantly.

"Jump in the truck," I'm told by the older cop.

I'm hesitant. The way it's comin' down, I don't know whether this is an order, or, a request. "My glasses, my hat!" I'm not going anywhere without these. "Si," says the old and round one. He waves me free to go fetch these. "You've got to go with them?" Marcia worriedly questions from her lay-low position. "Yeah," I reply, "don't see how I can refuse the offer. Something about Raul and my truck".

So I'm in the back with the three gents armed with riot guns, bandoleers filled with shot gun shells. I'm pissed and I don't waste the opportunity to spout off about my exact opinion of that big ape down there riding in the cab, and I don't give a shit if he overhears me. "Calm down," several times, I'm advised by these kids. Instead of heading to behind Playa Malecon, the site of the workers' previous excavations, this pickup turns for Playa Carrizaltio. "Oh, no," I'm thinkin', "they couldn't have...."

There, right out in front of those palms where Ernesto had been camped, right on the beach and well within that federal zone, there sets my pickup, Raul and Salvador in the illegal act of fillin' it. For an instant I'm speechless. "What the...who the hell...?" But that was beside the point. There they were, with my truck, and at a bad time.

I jump down and bring these workers to a sudden halt, tell them to set to emptying what they'd already shoveled. I march down to the right-then tide line, turn and count the paces back to site of digging. No question about it, we were in the wrong. I walked back to cops' truck, me admitting us in error. I had to take responsibility, the heat. It was my truck and they did work for me.

"Demanda! Demanda!" Saul hollers as he's gleefully smackin' his palm with other fist. He'd sign it! He'd gladly push the complaint! Finally he had solid offense to push against me. He simply danced with elation.

Damn.

Me and my big mouth, inviting this problem onto the rancho. Quickly I resigned to taking my lumps...whatever those might be.

The cops want me back in that truck. In my confusion I think I'm being pinched. Again, I hesitate. I tell them if they're taking me, I'd at least like to go back to my camp, tell Marcia, get some money and my documents.

"No! No!" I'm assured that I don't need to worry about any of this. I wasn't bein' busted. We were just going to ride over to Saul's fence building activities, the site of supposed problems. I'm assured by several in the box there that they'll soon bring me back to my camp. This was simply something that they had to do. I jump back in but I don't have a clue as to what comes next.

THAT UGLY FENCE

I'm surprised at how far this fence building has progressed. Good posts, five taunt strands of barbed wire. The gate-way where rancho road passes through was well constructed in heavy duty fashion. There's at least five sweating hombres in scant shade of small mesquite, them already holding Tecate cans. Long and straight this cleared northern boundary line ran back up towards close mountain, way back to where I could see it blocked two historic trails that Alejo needed for his animals, his mule-ride business. Lots of others hiked these, also. Offensive to the senses, that's how this scene was...the chopped down vegetation. My instincts were ta see these changes erased. And pronto!

The reason I've been brought here is an insistence by Saul that I sign a statement that i'l not molest "his" fence, nor he "mine"...and that he'll leave "his" gate open as long as I leave "my" gate open. My immediate response was to state this all as highly ridiculous because, in the first place, "I" did not own a fence nor a gate there. The rancho was in the name of Dr. Ernesto Gonzalez Moreno; and in the second place, Saul had no legitimate claim to anything there, either. And that, as a matter of historic fact, he was trespassing on Rancho Carrizalito.

Saul must have had great luck in his life with loud noise and nearly violent bluster. He charged to his carro, a late model Jeep Cherokee, where he scoops up a fist full of official lookin' documents, which he comes back ta wave in these officers faces. He had this form from that office and here was this paper sealed and signed by so and so and....

Straight B.S. Enough for the snow job. That's what this hustle was. I knew he didn't have the signatures he needed to lay legitimate claim. The fact was, plain and simple, not one of those ejido parcels had been legitimized. As far as Mexican law was concerned, they didn't exist. Our LaPaz lawyer's research had recently reconfirmed this.

During his show-off-papers antics I started jokin' with two of the younger officers.

"The man's a fool," I get across. And, yeah, they think his act runs that way also. "See that stone fence up there in that saddle?" I steal his show with...as I point off and up into the
hills. "That's the historic fence, the historic boundary line!" And it always had been, too.
Hand-laid rock that dated back well over 100 years. They could all see this up and distant structure in a place where it made sense, a natural boundary. "We've got documents that clearly state that Ejido San Jose De La Noria respects the "historic location" of Carrizalito, I laughing holler out. "This clown is trespassing!"

Saul explodes into fits of red faced rage at this. "That fence didn't count anymore!" he bellows. "Those documents that I say I've got don't count for anything anymore!" he raged on. The only thing that "now" counted was "his" parcel!

My words were worthless, just noise from a "pinche gringo".

"And you, Sr.," and I'm pointin' right at him, "I consider extremely stupid'!" This trips an immediate rush from this big, gorilla-like adversary. He's twenty years younger than me and out weighs me by a hundred pounds, easily. I'm in the right mood: Cocked and loaded, ready. I'm sizing up where to strike first, but just short of tripping that trigger he halts his advance. "Comon," I give him through almost clenched teeth, I'm not afraid of you, Saul."

"I'm not afraid of you either!" he hurls back snappishly. From his crew there's shouts. "You can't talk to my brother like that, you pinchi gringo!" This other big fat guy make moves towards getting involved.

THE MAYOR'S INVOLVEMENT

Benito Gonzalez, the now mayor of Agua Verde, had arrived on the set, him walking in from San Cosme, over that sometimes wet pass. Benito was an ejido member and he'd been the lucky winner of this parcel #30 in Francisco's grand parcel drawing. Benito had sold this parcel to Saul. Initially Saul'd bought it thinking he could fence me off of Carrizalito. He'd since been educated that he couldn't.

Benito, getting in the middle of this heated discussion/shouting match, him saying that peace had to be restored there, this as them cops get between me and any other contestants. The mayor and the law, they want some sort of an agreement signed so as to prove there'd been action taken, problems solved. Benito runs his fingers through his thick and curly black hair. He wipes sweat off his brown and handsome young face.

Saul and I simply had to sign an agreement, wouldn't I be willing to do this just to smooth the situation over? And, believe me, I was all in favor of getting out of there, back to other things I'd have much preferred to be spending the scant amount of time left me...how ever much that may be.

I ran the joke of "me" who owns nothing there, who's signature counted for nothing in regards to Ernesto's gate, signing something with another who didn't own anything either, the obvious ridiculousness of this all, around a couple more times; did it from several different angles. This act got some laughs from the law, from some in that work crew, about the correctness of my logic. But, never the less, Benito and these officers are now asking me, real nice, almost like "pretty please," to go ahead and move through this.

"OK! OK!"

Stating again my views of the farce of it all...I conceded. At this point nearly all the tensions evaporated. Saul was ready with paper and pen. He and the mayor got their heads together, setting conditions, correct wording down. These cops are all now smiling, relaxed.

"What about that "Demanda" concerning my truck on that beach, are you still going to push that?" I ask my overstuffed, belligerent adversary.

"Si! Si!" Saul responds, him shaking fat finger at me. He wasn't about to give up this minor infraction, this pure gem, not after waiting so long to get a shot at me.
"I'm signing nothing then!" I shout, me setting off in march fashion back towards my camp. I'd had enough of this!

I'M NEARLY BEGGED TO SIGN

"No! No! No! Dahveed." There's this little rush by officialdom to stop me. I'm assured by the old salt officer, the younger ones backing him up, that there will be no charges brought against me. They guaranteed it! They were all witnesses. They'd seen no offense. It would not be written up.
OK. Under those terms the deal proceeded. Saul wasn't pleased but that was tough. The cops, they really did want ta get the hell outta there...back to the comforts of Loreto. It was hard for me to imagine this overstuffed school teacher taking this agreement as seriously as he was. But he fussed over wording. And put things through two or three rewrites.

The law needed an official report filled out, also. Two of the younger gents asked me over to police vehicle, so I could over-see this document before I signed off on it. The one doin' the pencil pushin' is sort of nervous. He admits to not being really good at writing down Spanish. I had to help in the spelling of several rather easy words. These guys, me, we get close to "good buddy" comfortable. There's nothing counter to me whatsoever in their somewhat simple report. Easily I sign off on it.

MASTER OF HOT AIR AND SMOKE

CREDIBLE EYE WITNESS

Later that day I had occasion to go over and visit the straw bale casa construction. Naturally Raul wanted to know all about what transpired with Saul and the law. We got on the story of the two pistoleros in ponga, which Raul knew for exactly what it was. He and Salvador had worked that Saturday on that casa. I was surprised to find them there that day but I had. His wife Juana and his son Juanito had been there with them, too.

At end of day they'd all walked back to where their carro was parked at San Cosme, and happened to be crossing right through the area where Saul had claimed this incident had taken place, them there exactly at attested-to time. The sea had laid flat, there'd been no ponga. All was peaceful when they'd passed.

Raul asked me if my cell phone was working?

"Yes. It is. Why?"

He tells me that he wants to call his cousin, Payo, the chief of police there in Loreto. He wants to tell him what he didn't see. (Raul, like Chayo, is close cousin to Payo.)

I go back home and get the bag phone. We plug it into my truck's cigarette lighter, that truck still being employed there.

The call goes through and the correct contact is made. Raul tells his story to the chief who's already highly suspicious of Saul, his motives. The one sided conversation that I'm following goes on for maybe ten minutes. I could get the drift with just Raul's expressions and his half of this.

When contact is broken he fills in more detail. Payo doesn't appreciate these bogus police reports. Payo doesn't like Saul very much in the first place, didn't like what he tried to do to me with his other false attacks. "There's a chance he'll ask me to come in and sign a statement," Raul says. His cousin, according to him, really wanted a piece of that big, lying clown.

Email: david@dondavidonbaja.com