Sierra Blanca

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(Sierra Blanca, Texas: unincorporated county seat of Hudspeth County. Elevation 4,529 ft. 2019 population 764. Located at the intersection of Ranch Road 1111, Interstate Highway 10, and U.S. Highway 80. 80 miles southeast of El Paso, Texas. Location of Sierra Blanca Mountain, elevation 2100 meters [6889.764 feet].)

Even this late in the year the heat out there in the middle of the day just bounces off the ground and makes wavy sheets in the air.

But first, I’m gonna have myself another refill on this here ice tea.

I reckon it must be around one now. I been sitting here in the Oasis Truck Stop Restaurant 'bout a hour and a half, ever since I finished the carne guisada, tortillas de harina, rice, and frijoles Maria gimme for dinner around 11:30.

One of the good things about the Oasis Truck Stop is that it has the best carne guisada in Sierra Blanca.

It has the only carne guisada in Sierra Blanca, ‘cause it’s the only restaurant here.

I eat in here every day – morning, noon, and night. Ain’t nowhere else to go.

I don’t cook much myself – mainly only when I’m sick or something or when I can’t sleep, late at night,

I used to have a Mexican gal living with me in my trailer. She was a pretty good cook, but she up and left seven years ago.

We never got along too good anyhow.

I guess I’m just a loner, 'cause that what it is out here, just plain lonesome.

But I like it here. It suits me fine.

I been here working at the station next to Oasis Truck Stop restaurant about fifteen years now.

Come down from Dell City to Sierra Blanca with a ol' boy who had some business here, found out about this job, and I been here ever since,

They give me a little trailer to live in and pay me a little money and my meals at the restaurant.

The job ain’t no big deal, just fillin' up cars off Interstate 10 on their way somewhere.

Most of the time I just lay back and get fatter. I say that 'cause since I been here I put on a few pounds -- maybe 70 or 80 -- and I wasn’t so skinny when I come, just a chubby 28 year old boy.

Maria finally fills up my glass again.

It’s about time.

I swear, that woman’s worse than me, she gets lazier by the day.

But.I can’t complain about her. She been pretty good to me, really.

Sierra Blanca’s just a little place named for the mountain.

It don’t have no more than 600 or 700 people at the most and Maria’s one of the best ones I guess.

Maria’s been busy putting up Christmas decorations, like she does every year, since it’s already the second week of December.

She pretty much has the place all decorated, a nice plastic tree and all the other geegaws and all.

But she fusses with everything all the time, moving something or other around and then moving it back.

The weather’s nice this year. It's been getting up around 90 near every day. At night, though, it cools down pretty good.

I finished my tea, so I tell Maria I’ll see her at supper and I go outside,

I glance over toward the station.

I stretch and let out a couple of good farts.

I see that, parked alongside the pumps, there’s a tow truck with a home-made carryall trailer attached that looks like a worked-over open U-Haul, a old rig.

I recognize it right away,

That crazy old coot Karl is here again.

I go inside the station and sure enough, there he is, sittin', with his feet propped up on a stack of boxes of Quaker State motor oil.

Karl still looks pretty good for 82, walks around better than me, and goes almost naked year round, wearing only a pair of old khaki shorts.

His skin is as brown as leather and he’s as skinny as a snake and people say he’s just as mean as a rattler.

Karl comes around a couple of times a year, drivin' that contraption all the way from Albuquerque.

I don’t know how he makes it.

He spends about a week around here, diggin' up yucca plants in the desert, loosenin' them up a little and then pullin' them out of the ground with the old winch he has on the front of his truck.

He gets himself a good load then hauls them back to Albuquerque or Santa Fe to sell.

Some people pay hundreds of dollars for them to put in their houses or patios or front yards,

Karl says that the southwest look is in right now, even in the actual Southwest.

He’s been makin' a little money the last few years with the yuccas.

Karl gets up and nods to me.

I ask him how he’s been and he says “all right.”

He says that he’s just here for three days this time 'cause he needs to get back home to his ol' lady in Albuquerque to rest up before Christmas,

Karl lives with a 24 year old girl up there in Albuquerque.

He calls her his “ol' lady.”

They been together a couple of years now.

She never comes down here with him.

Karl says he feeds her a line of bull and she thinks he’s loaded and is gonna leave all his money to her when he kicks the bucket.

She don’t know he really don’t have much.

She just thinks Karl is a cheapskate and is savin' it all and she’s satisfied cause she’s sure he’ll die pretty soon and she’ll get that much more.

Karl is real pleased with that set up.

I tell Karl we should go over to the restaurant and have some ice tea before I fill up his tank and he goes out to camp in the desert.

When we walk in Maria says “Oh no, not you again,” to me, but she sees Karl is with me and she says it in a friendly way.

We sit down and I tell Maria to bring us two ice teas.

Karl talks a little about problems he been having with his truck, mainly brakes and hoses and water pumps – nothin' real interesting,

He says that business been pretty good lately and he’s expecting it to pick up because a lot of northerners and artsy-fartsy types have been movin' to New Mexico.

He raised his prices so that, now, for a six to eight foot yucca he gets from two hundred twenty-five to four hundred dollars, dependin' on who the customer is.

I tell him he must be in the right business.

Karl says Connie, his ol' lady, didn’t want him to make this trip.

She wanted to go to Santa Fe for a visit, then to all the malls in the whole southwest to shop for Christmas.

Karl told her he didn’t have anyone to buy Christmas presents for and even if he did he wouldn’t spend the money and he needed to make this trip to take advantage of the market for yuccas while there still is one.

Like I said, Karl does what he wants to do and nobody tells him nothin' different.

Karl asks me what my plans are for Christmas.

“Plans?” I say, “the same as always. I’m gonna stay right here in Sierra Blanca, get up every morning and look out at that big grey mountain, stretch a little, and come in to the restaurant to have my breakfast.”

The phone rings.

Maria picks it up, then tells me I got a phone call.

I never get phone calls.

When I get back to the table, Karl looks over at Maria and says to me that I should get myself a woman again.

“A man ain’t meant to be by himself so much” he says.

I tell him he’s beginnin' to sound like my old mama up in Dell City.

She just called me.

She wanted to know if I would be goin' up there for Christmas.

I tell Karl that I told her I never lost nothing in Dell City and I would be just fine right here in Sierra Blanca, and besides, I have to work.

Mama said it’s been six years since I been up there to see her.

I reckon it has been.

But she’s 78 and she’s in good shape and she don’t need nothin' from me,

She told me that it ain’t healthy for a man to be by himself so much and that I need to come up and see her or at least get myself a wife to keep me warm at night.

Maria refills our glasses and she says to me “Yeah, they’re right. You need someone to warm your feet for you at night.”

I tell her that if I want my feet warm I’ll just get up and put on another pair of socks.

She frowns, then laughs and goes back behind the counter.

I tell Karl about a few places I seen on the Cabeza Seca ranch off Quitman Canyon road where there are some pretty good yuccas.

I tell him about a litter of coyote pups about a month old I seen up there a while back.

Their mama had been shot by some hunter.

Karl says that if he had been around it probably would’ve been him 'cause he don’t mind helping the ranchers out once in a while.

I ask Karl if he would try to catch one of the young ones to bring back to me if he happens to run across them.

I always have pretty good luck raising wild critters I pick up here and there.

Karl gives me kind of a funny look and says sure, he’d do it.

But I know by the way he says it he won’t.

We finish our tea then we go out and I fill up his old tow truck.

I’m anxious for Karl to get going now.

I’m moving faster than usual, humming some ol' honky-tonk song to myself.

The End

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