Coming Home to La Petite Valley
Copyright© 2014 by happyhugo
Foreword
I'm getting to be an old man. Now and then I think back on my past. I'm sitting on the ground on the bluff looking down on the ranch where I was born. I've lived here all my life, except for the time when I was away fighting during the civil war. People would look at me and say I had made a big mistake taking up arms for my country, but they don't know how I feel about that. I'd say I came home strong and with a sense of righteousness and that the war made me that way. What I faced when I came home would make most men throw up their hands and walk away in despair.
I found my wife Winnie dead and her killer had taken over my ranch. She still lay where she died. I loved her and needed to make it right! I've had another wife, Abby, up until a couple of years ago. I loved her too, and maybe a little more than the first one, but then why wouldn't I? She was with me for many more years and gave me five children. Good kids all.
Today the ranch looks the best it ever has. There are a lot of buildings for the family sprawled around and the ones built of wood are all painted white. The adobe outbuildings are a tan colored shade from the clay they were made with.
The valley looks like it was going to be a good year for cattle and horses. Grass is good. There isn't a catclaw or mesquite bush on any of the grazing land. Most of the valley is like that. The Mennonites had found a use for that kind of brush and showed the rest of us how to make fences of it. It still makes better fences than that barbed wire someone invented a few years ago. Beef cattle and horses ... it makes me hungry and proud to see them grazing.