Letting Go of Alamo 1    Page 1

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     I neglected to complain when Jimmy helped himself to far more than his share of our caramel popcorn.   I was too caught up in the action. In dimming light, camera caught a desperado drawing a brief bead on straggly sweat-stained cowhands plodding up a scree-strewn trail. Hoof striking stone caused the Marshall’s horse to falter. Saddle leather creaked. 

     “Uno y dos y tres.”

     At the count of cuatro, my hand fell. Scrabbling fingers encountered few remaining kernels, ones that had failed to pop. I shrugged.  After all, Jimmy was my pal.

      On the stroke of cinco, a mid-valley butte, more splendid than the replica in the Jeep Cherokee commercial, was dramatically backlit. At ‘diez,’ a distinctive ping was heard and no it was not from a bullet. The ten count could just as easily have been a lament for the dying of the day. Rock striking rock coincided with shameless shredding of the rim’s halo.

     Inky black fingers scaled the valley wall.  As gingerly as a bandage being unwound from a wound caused by knife striking bone, shadow creep kept pace with grinding horses and patient riders. Jagged black knives slashed across seven reckless men bent on seeing justice done at whatever cost.

        A moment of carelessness promised an exit preceded by total terror resulting in a lifetime compressed into too many and too few seconds, until ultimate oblivion brought peace to man and beast.

     Optical magnification drew animals and their masters near.  Drama deteriorated into a Mexican standoff.  I was about to finish off my popcorn when I realized that Jimmy Butters had already done so.   Desperados, stuck on a hide-away ledge, mere seconds from the summit, awaited the cloak of darkness. 

      If the moon were shining when the posse gained the summit, the desperados would lose themselves in the blind box canyons of the Sierra Madre. It was anybody’s guess, which side would win. I was sure of one thing.  Come what may, Jimmy and I would hold differing opinions.  We always did.

     The camera tilted up to the ledge where the desperados waited patiently for failing light.

     “Gringo Sheriff rides like an old woman,” the stone-tosser said scornfully.

      The speaker was a mean looking mejicano with a scraggly mustache. He looked much better fed than did his partner, who was as thin as a rail and twice as mean looking as a polecat.  Peering precariously over the lip of the ledge, the thin one dangled a fist-sized shard carelessly as if to say that whatever it hit could not possibly be of any consequence.

        The desperados did not have long to wait. A close up of their smiles suggested that their fondest wishes were at that very moment being granted. A slate shard must have shattered at the feet of the lead horse and spooked it.  What else could have caused it to shy so? A rattler perhaps? Hoofed vibrations rendered that possibility highly unlikely. Long before a horse was likely to shy, a snake with any sense would have slithered away.

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