Hollywood found their own gold mines in
developing stories about the American west and feuds over water and land
rights. Here we are, in the twenty-first
century, living out these same feuds.
Society has grown, we have electric cars and AI, but humanity continues running on its own basic instincts.
I have written here in this blog about the
water feud with the neighbor on my north side, Juanito. The lovely meadow below his property lies
fallow, while he locks his horse up in a hot tiny yard of an ancestor’s
abandoned adobe house with dried weeds for food. The poor creatures bones grow more and more pronounced.
The neighbor on the south side continues to
flex his muscles unchecked. The way the
politics are set up here, a small hamlet like El Pozole gets to elect for a
three-year term someone who will function as the ‘law’. When Gloria held that post, I mirrored the
other old ladies in calling her the Mayor.
Now that elected post has fallen to Beto, who is called the Judge. He got the vote, in my opinion, because the
other candidates running were various brothers of one very large family, and
loyalties of the rest of the village were split among the brothers. In other words, this unpopular candidate won
by default.
Barred from Juanito's pleasant meadow, the horses still needed a safe place to graze. Their corral is just prairie dirt before the rainy season. I needed access to the public land contiguous to my
land. Beto, at the time this hectare was
sold to become Luz de Compasion, put up fences around that piece of public land
and applied for a water permit for exclusive use of the little pool of water
that lies within its borders. I asked
him to be a good neighbor and let me use my piece of land, if I would enclose
the south side with a fence so my horses would not stray to his land. He said no.
I called upon the powers that be in the municipality, that being an
office called ‘sindico’, and a mediator judge.
The word translates to ‘union’, but I have no idea what factions
comprise it. First two guys from that sindico office came, to assess my complaint.
They were stunned to see the public lands enclosed by fences.
People live here as they did one hundred
years ago. What laws may have changed in
the intervening years seem to have escaped the awareness of these people.
These guys called another meeting, such as
we had when Juanito complained about my use of his well. Beto also attended that first meeting,
because I was asking for access to my land.
The lady judge, Juanita, came to this meeting, with her assistant
Chayito. Begrudgingly, Beto agreed I
could open up the fence that separated my land from the public land, as long as
I put up a fence on the south border confining my horses to ‘my’ public land. The subject of the little pond arose, I asked
for a small piece of it for use by my horses.
He apparently agreed to share.
Sadly, nothing was ever written up. No notes, no reports were ever recorded.
It took me a week to assemble the materials
and the workers, but the fence was done while Beto was coincidentally visiting
his brother in California. He was
secretive about the length of his visit, telling one person one thing and his
boss another.
Beto returned, and was not happy with the results. Another meeting was called, and again Beto
agreed that I could continue access of a small portion of the pool.
Beto then proceeded to tear down my fence,
and move it about ten meters further north into what should have been the land
contiguous to my property, thus cutting me off from access to the pond. What treachery. I cut the barbed wire, so my horses could
continue their occasional five-minute frolic in the water. But then there was no barrier to keep them
from then proceeding onto the public land contiguous with Beto’s private land,
and, uhoh, his private land, because he never enclosed that with fencing.
Beto is jealously protecting this pond, 'for
his cows'. These cows come to this
three-hectare site only for a few months each year, about ten of them, during
rainy season. They have a tank of water
for drinking, which is on Beto’s private land, provided by the municipal
irrigation water system that happens to be located on this piece of land. Since he never enclosed his property with
fencing, the cows have access to this large span of property. These are not dairy cows, but saleable meat
on hoof.
There are laws governing this Federal
land. This land is a flood zone, an eco
system. The laws governing its use, so
that the flood zone maintains its function.
It is to remain open, no one can construct
barriers (such as fences). It is not to
be used for commercial purposes, such as grazing cattle meant for market. The natural springs and pools appearing there
are not to be interfered with. No
damming them, no expanding them. No
permits are to be issued for private use of their waters.
Another section within the Mexican
Constitution pertraining to water rights says that if the pool of water, for
which you obtained a certificate for private use, is not being used as intended
and stipulated in the certificate, the certificate should be invalidated. This pretty much describes the situation, but
is there any force behind this law.
There is the law, and then there is Beto. 'And never the twain shall meet.'
I have tried the legal process. Four times, the mediators have come out to
the property to meet with my neighbors and settle these disputes. The terrorist on one side has won. I have access to my well, but I do not put my
horses down into that lovely meadow anymore.
He does not put his hapless horse down there either, unfortunately.
Beto, however, is recalcitrant. He may have
paid lip service to an accord allowing me a little access to ‘his’ pond, but
out of the sight and hearing of the mediation committee he has reneged. And so it is time to call upon the true law
of the land. Not the municipally
sanctioned ‘syndicates’, not the mediation judge, not the police. The organized crime group is the only
reliable muscle. This is what I have
always been told, and so I am putting this truth to the test. I have taken my complaint to the storefront
in town where the chiefs hold court. I
had to wait many hours over various days until a chief was free to speak with
me, but I finally got a hearing. He has
called a meeting between me and Beto for two days hence. I reacted with fear at the words, but he
reassured me that it would be fine. I
really don’t want to try to talk with this man, Beto, again. His evil is so intense that it scares me.
I am surprised to hear that mediation was
also a first step with these people. I
think they take their responsibility seriously.
Let us hope so! I will ask for
deadlines for the fence to be built, so that he can not agree to the face and
drag his heels when pressure is off. I
had been told that the MO for enforcement was that the first step was a certain number of whacks on the back
with a bat, like three or five. If the
person does not comply after that, a limb might be broken. This is the rumor. Now I will find out the reality.
And two days later, I arrive primed for
confronting Beto yet again, with the map and ‘acuerdo’ in hand at the little
storefront with the sign ‘SIX’ above the door.
The young man who sits at the horseshoe desk in the unlit back of the store called
his chief when I arrived. There was no
Beto in attendance. And so I was told,
once again, that I needed to come back again tomorrow, same time.
I have to wonder just how much attention
this ‘chief’ is giving this situation.
Does he not know that this situation has already been mediated four
times, with the same null results? I
have documented in a nutshell the summary of these talks, the reasonable
solution. I have decided that I will not
again endure facing Beto, who lies as easily as breathes. If this alternate justice system cannot deal
with this situation either, then I have to give up, surrender, be the victim.
Yesterday I went down to the riverbank to
explore more closely how things stand now.
Beto has reinforced the fence he put up on my side of the public land,
without access to the water for my horses.
I climbed over to his side of the fence, and took pictures of the fence
lined up with LdeC buildings seen clearly through the trees. His boldness is brazen.
The horses followed me down to the
riverbed. I did not tie them. I cannot leave them there tied, because they
wander and wrap the ropes around shrubs and trees, until they can no longer
move. I left them there, and went about
my investigating. When it was time to go
back home, I looked for the horses. I
did not see them. I followed the hoof
prints on the soft ground, walking quite a way to new turf. On the other side of the riverbank the fencing
is in poor condition, so that the horses crossed inland. I continued a ways in towards the edge of the
broad riverbank. I climbed up the
embankment there, seeing that there was a fence line perpendicular to the
rise. That is when I saw two mules, inside
the fence across the river. My horses were so excited to
discover these new friends, they romped and tossed their heads,
vocalizing. In their excitement I was a
little worried they might trample me, they were so including me in their
joy. I called them, I put a rope on
Cinderella, and they followed me back down the embankment towards the
river. I tempted them with pieces of
carrots. And then they had enough of me,
and ran back to their new friends, trailing rope in the mud. I knew there was no use in chasing them, so I
went back home. The humidity is high at
this time of year. The outing had worked up quite a sweat, and so I jumped into
the shower and focused on getting to my meeting.
Later in the day, when the horses did not
return on their own, I walked back down to the river. The land down there is thick with
shrubs. I wondered if the dogs and I had
left enough scent on the trail for the horses to find their way back. They heard me coming, and whinnied before I
saw them. I called to them, and met them
half way. I lead them through the
thicket of overgrowth to the hole in the fence, and then they went on ahead of
me across the overgrown field, up the embankment, and straight to their corral.
I learned that I could indeed allow them to
roam free at the river’s edge, but I would need to clearly mark the way home
for them. I have a roll of tape like the
police use to rope off a crime scene. I
will have to string it along the fence opening and on both sides of a path
through the bush to the clearing.
Hopefully that will do the trick.
They will always come home at sunset, if they can find the way, for
their evening measure of alfalfa. In truth, they had more surprises for me.
The next I let them out of the corral
again. They grazed for a while in the
newly growing grass, it being rainy season.
They eventually wandered down the embankment to the riverbed. They must have retraced their steps to the
two donkeys. Later in the day I went to
check on them, and also to try to string up the tape to guide them home. I wandered up and down the river bank, but did
not see them. I called, but they did not
answer. I did not see a lot of fresh
hoof prints, nor droppings. I went back
to the house, curious, a little concerned, but without energy to walk a few
miles to track them down. I opened the
roadside gate for good measure, just in case they followed the riverbed to the
road crossing. All I could do now is
wait, and trust.
Late in the afternoon, approaching dusk,
they popped up over the embankment and moseyed on up to their corral, where I
had laid out some alfalfa. I closed the
gate.
Having decided that I would blow off the
day’s appointed meeting with Beto and the ‘chief’, I was feeling
unsettled. I could just imagine Beto
showing up, the two of them having a cozy meeting, and deciding it was not
necessary to do anything further to appease the old lady. I felt the need for a go-between, to pursuade the 'chief' to see my position more clearly. There were three people who had suggested
using the malandro option. I
thought about each one, and then chose to approach Jose.
Jose, the Carpenter, is an interesting
character. I first met him in the parking
lot of Aurrera, the Walmart subsidiary.
I had just parked, when a motorcycle pulled up next to me. Jose greeted me with a friendly smile, and
struck up a conversation. I saw a
middle-aged man with a very Italian face, a nose reminiscent of my father’s. He introduced himself as a carpenter, and
gave me his phone number. I later on did
try him out on a few projects. His work
proved unreliable, but he grew on me as a friend. One time I went away for three weeks, and he
‘housesat’ for me. I thought that meant
he and his wife would move out to my ranch and take a break in the
countryside. When I returned I found my
cats well fed, my plants watered, but no sign that anyone had been in the
house.
That is when I finally asked him about his
limp. It was obvious. He spun some story about falling off his
motorbike, but when he rolled up his jeans I saw a swelling or growth. The word carbuncle came to mind. It was not the raw wound of a fall, but more
a chronic condition.
As the months and year went by, I began to
see him more and more on his motorcycle, carrying envelopes and small
packages. When I visited his small shop
I saw less activity there.
One day we passed on the street and stopped
to chat. He said he was working at the municipal
building. As is typical here, there were
no details, no specifics. It was left to
me to figure out from clues just what was going on.
It has been three or four years now since
that first meeting. Jose is a regular
fixture at the municipal building. My
Pozole friend, Rita, sits in a anti room, perhaps she is a secretary to
whomever sits in the office at the front of the building. She has established that Jose and I are
friends, so anytime I pass by and greet her she informs me that Jose was just
here, or is coming right back. I guesses he functioned as an official currier.
At dawn I sent him a message asking him to
call me, as I would like to ask a favor.
He called me around 9:30. I tried
to explain what I wanted, but it was too difficult over the phone. I quickly dressed and drove down to town,
before he disappeared again. I knew from
past conversations that he had friends among the organized crime groups. It appeared to me that everyone did, these
people are well integrated into the community.
I asked him to speak with this ‘chief’ for me, to explain to the chief
that my presence was not needed at yet another mediation meeting with Beto;
there had been four attempts so far, through the official process with
municipal ‘sindicos’ and the judge. Jose
had been in close contact with the sindicos throughout, and new all the
details of those four meetings. All I
asked was that he speak with the guy by phone.
It is human nature, isn’t it. People never want to say ‘no’ to your
face. This was the task I needed done,
no other. I pleaded with him, if he
couldn’t do it, just tell me. Don’t tell
me ‘tomorrow’, or ‘I’ll see’, or ‘I know a guy’. I could have saved my breath. He was silent for long moments, looking off
to the distance as we sat just inside the entrance to the municipal building,
on the two chairs before the reception/information desk under the
stairwell. He turned to me hopefully,
‘Maybe the President can help?” The
recently elected president of Canatlan, Angela, is also wife to a prominent
member of the organized crime group. I
would be embarrassed, importuning, to think that she would care about my
piddling problem. True, Beto was an
elected official who was totally abusing his office, but in the greater scheme
of things what did it really matter.
I gave him a copy of the acuerdo, and
the map from Google Earth, and left.
Over a number of days, and many hours sitting in their storefront waiting, in the end it came to nothing. Perhaps if I had offered a significant amount of money, I might have gotten attention. I did mention a payment, and was told that this was not expected. The 'chief' arranged a meeting between me and Beto, which I felt was totally unnecessary but, whatever. I turned up at the appointed time; Beto did not, nor the 'chief'. That was the end of that.
I accept that my horses will have no water when they are down on the riverbed meadow. There was a break in the public fence leading to the river, through which the horses could escape, cross the river, and wind up on the other side of the sierra. I innocently expected that they would always come home at the end of the day. One day, however, they did not. At dawn I drove around, up into the sierra, to the farm where the donkeys live, but I did not see my horses anywhere. What more could I do. I waited. Sure enough, in the afternoon Tocho came roaring up to my door on his motorcycle. He started with the usual, 'I could call they police', 'they are causing damage, who will pay' kind of rhetoric. That blew past, and I asked where they were and could I pay next week, as I was awaiting a pension check. I changed my shoes and hopped in the car, without stopping for ropes. He led me to a fenced in hillside. The horses were on the horizon. I called to them. They came ambling down towards me, while Tocho waited and watched, off the side. We opened the gate, the horses followed, and turned right. My car and that way home was to the left. Gosh. I rushed home and grabbed some rope and returned, but by then they had disappeared. I drove further in the direction they had walked, and realized that there is a section of the riverbank, on the opposite side from my farm, that had no fencing. By the time I got home, the horses were in the stable munching their way through a bale of alfalfa.
With the post hole digger and a roll of barbed wire in hand, I tried to fix that part of the fence. There was about twenty feet that needed shoring up. I worked all morning, but just could not manage to get the poles to stand up, without cutting all the wires and starting from scratch. I gave up. Next day, I returned to the fence line and dragged dead branches of trees. These seem to be the trim left over from cutting down a tree to use as a fence post. Big gobs of smaller branches and twigs heading in all directions. I pulled them all over to the fence line and laid them up against it. I was able to build enough of a barrier, so that now the horses cannot escape to the river. Surprisingly, they now seem to be willing to spend hours down there. In the past, I would want them to go down there but after an hour, they would return. The rains have come since then, and greened up the place. Maybe that is why.
The fight is over. Their side has won. It is all meaningless egoistic chest thumping in the end. The horses are fine, when they are thirsty they know their way back to the corral and the water trough there. Meanwhile, they have turned the farm into a lovely pastoral scene. The rains have greened up the fields, their grazing has left them well-trimmed, .Luz de Compasion now looks like a lovely park, which is how I had envisioned it years ago. Life is good.
