West Of The Llano Estacado
South Towards Lincoln
Photo (c) Paul Heidelberg
West Of The Llano Estacado
By Paul Heidelberg
Now we sit
with microphone
and speaker,
from New Mexico,
in the chair of
the Silver Star recipient --
Europe, 1945.
Van Gogh
hanging
nearby,
dos gatos
on the run.
The heavy snow
again
reminds me
of the Battle of the Bulge
(do not use the term
in stupid PR/advertising
fashion
for such things as losing weight:
if I find out,
you will hear
from me).
...Now we sit
at computer
deciding against
microphone-for-creation
techniques;
but it is
a different creative method --
not my usual longhand:
just movement
of fingers
on keys...
The snow has stopped,
for now;
icicles-melting-in-the-sun
kaleidoscopes
brighten the windows
of mi casa,
with diamond-like sparkles
in the strong
New Mexico sun.
I have lived here
nearly two years,
but only recently realized
I am about 80 miles from
where The Kid shot
Sheriff Pat Brady in Lincoln,
and about 110 miles
from where Pat Garrett killed
The Kid in Fort Sumner,
ending (or beginning?)
one of the greatest legends
of the American
Wild West.
Billy The Kid
left New York
with his mother
as Henry McCarty.
They sang
Irish folk songs
to entertain themselves
as they crossed
the hard-assed American landscape
that has helped shape
many Americans.
His mother died
when Billy was young,
forcing him to
grow to manhood
years before his death at
age 21 in 1881.
Fluent in Spanish,
Billy was loved and protected
by the Hispanics
in the New Mexico Territory --
he was a tough hombre
with a big smile
and good dance-steps.
Slight of build
he killed a bully in a bar
who had sat on The Kid,
punching him repeatedly
before Billy stopped the thug
with a stomach shot
from his six shooter:
Don't mess with
Billy The Kid.
His real Outlaw Days
began when his friend
and employer John Henry Tunstall
was killed by
the crooked sheriff Pat Brady
at the beginning
of the Lincoln County Wars
(hundreds would die before
the county's Wild West battles
were over).
Billy and Outlaw Brothers
killed Brady before
Garrett pursued and jailed
The Kid,
when Billy used cunning
to escape, killing two guards
before he rode off singing.
The Kid's end came at night
when Garrett found
Billy at the home of
his senorita sweetheart.
"Quien Es, Quien Es?"
Billy had asked
his sweetheart's brother
who had given him up
to Garrett.
The answer came from
Garrett's firearm,
and Billy The Kid
lay dead
in his sweetheart's casa.
Billy-The-Kid Outlaw Ways
helped delay New Mexico statehood,
which came 31 years
after The Kid was killed.
Thousands of years before
Billy The Kid
walked and rode
This Land,
Native Peoples gathered salt
at the salt lakes
in the Estancia Valley,
not far from my home.
Flying over the salt lakes,
then, and now,
golandrinas, hummingbirds,
eagles, hawks, doves, ravens and sparrows
fill the blue skies, often
clear with low humidity.
...............................................................
Golandrina
(Swallow)
A small,
round, grey
bird in hand
had fallen
from
the nest;
later,
it seemed
gone,
but has come
back to life.
Much later,
the hawks
we humans love
to watch soaring
will jeopardize
that
one
fragile
life,
again.
...............................................................
Up 285
from Texas,
dirt road
into Carlsbad,
broken Burma-Shave signs
souvenirs of the '50s,
South of Route 66.
The wind --
West Texas Wind Squared.
Then I read of
strong winds in Provence;
there is comfort
in knowing
it is blowing
like hell
somewhere else.
Not long ago,
in snow,
an eagle at the water --
if not an eagle a huge hawk,
not unlike
the Imperial Eagles
in Spain.
The one eagle
one morning there,
hunting the sparrows.
A hurled snowball
was used
to set it into flight,
words hadn't worked.
Near
a moon-like landscape
West of the Manzano Mountains
where I have seen descendants
of Ancient Peoples
on a single-file walk
of the centuries,
a five-engine BNSF train
appears frozen
in Time and Space.
It is moving,
but the many miles
of open territory
that surround it
seem to slow its speed.
The trains that moved
populations to The Wild West
continue --
they are constantly crawling
East and West.
Photographic donations
to St. Alice Church --
works made at the
German-Austrian border
in the Bavarian Alps.
Standing in 20 degree weather
on a shaky wooden walkway,
rattled by the force
of melting snow storming
from a nearby waterfall.
The priest has left town --
transferred to a church
West of here.
I hope he left
the Virgin Mary
behind:
a statue set into a
space carved
into a granite wall
next to the walkway.
A Black Madonna
faded by many winters'
ice and snow
and years of
wind and rain.
So it is a
hearty hello
to the future,
back from Europe
to the Home Country,
ensconced in this
creative haunt,
Wild West Art
in the Land of
Billy The Kid.
PH/NM
2012
