Visitor

John Davila, one of my oldest and closest friends in New Mexico, is a former rodeo cowboy and a rancher with land- grant roots who lives where he was born, many long dirt- road miles south of the pavement in Catron County. These days he raises half- Japanese grass- fed cattle, another story, and manages the land for elk. He is a world traveler, an opinionated cuss, a former chickenfighter, and full- proof New Mexican. Before he traveled so much he kept everything from peacocks and homing pigeons to blooded horses on his off- the- grid homestead with its passive solar stone house. He and his ex- wife Becky Daniel, also a good friend, appear throughout Querencia- the- book, and John leads off my first essay in Edge of the Wild with a goshawk he caught when it was picking off fifty dollar chicks (30 years ago...)

He came by this week, I think to make sure we were OK and to assure us he was, told ten or fifteen outrageous stories and uttered as many strong opinions (Daniela, who likes him very much says "I have never known anyone so sure of himself!") He gave us the latest inside dope from the Caucasus and the Ossetian conflict (ex- Soviet Georgia, Brazil, and the museums of southern Europe are among his regular destinations). He talked about how a demented fan of Karl May westerns in Germany refused to believe that he was a cowboy ("I didn't like mustangs") or that his former wife was half- Navajo and "half Mormon" (she is).

We played Tom Russell and drank a bit of vodka in memory of wilder times past (he is the only person who ever got us kicked out of the Spur, twenty- something years ago), read Kipling aloud (McDonagh's "Order the guns and kill!"; Arithmetic on the Frontier, Pict Song, Bonfire on the Ice-- cheery stuff), and looked at my "new" gun.

One of John's long time contentions is that his people, like many of the oldest Spanish settlers, are crypto- Jewish conversos-- he is dead sure of that (as he says to Israel- born Daniela, "I'm a Jew!"), and he seeks out history and lore and connections. (Interestingly several of his relatives have married into Jewish families-- I once met a "Marcie Cohen" at a party who turned out to be his first cousin, nee Guttierez!)

I tend to pass a lot of this off as romantic mythology, but as he says, as he ages "I look more Jewish". Damn if with newly gray hair he isn't starting to resemble some pix of Leonard Cohen, albeit armed and wearing a cammo cap.

What do YOU think?