The Resurrection

   A few years after they married , sometime in the early 1920’s, grandpa Rollie  was offered an opportunity to be a foreman for a large ranch over the border in Mexico.  Mr. Kennedy who was a neighboring rancher owned large land holdings on both sides of the border.  He offered Grandpa the opportunity to run one of his ranches about 80 miles over the border from Eagle Pass not far from a little town called Rosita.   Grandpa took up the offer and  they moved to Mexico .  Those days were treacherous days on the Mexican border.  Revolution had plagued the land since 1908 and Carranza and Zapata were battling for power along with Pancho Villa.  Bandits and gunrunners abounded in that country in those days but in spite of it all Grandpa was not going to be put off by a little Revolution.  Rollie spoke fluent Spanish and he had a large cadre of Mexican cowboys to work the stock.  One day he was riding the ranch with a dog trotting along side next to the horse, when suddenly the dog perked up and took out after a type of wildcat the Mexicans called a Tigeria.  The dog soon treed the cat and grandpa rode up and pulled his pistol and shot the cat right out of the tree.  He picked up the cat and slung him over the saddle horn and turned the horse to home, back to the ranch house.  Grandpa figured that an old couple that lived in a little jacal on the ranch might like to eat that old cat and so he rode up to the little mud hut and called out to the house.  The old woman walked out of the front door and greeted grandpa. Grandpa just asked her if she would like to have the tigeria and upon getting a hearty “si si,  senior”, he threw the cat down at the doorstep and then sat back in the saddle and began striking up a conversation with the lady. After a moment or two to the amazement of them both the old cat suddenly stood up, took one look at the two very surprised onlookers and immediately bolted into the little jacal hut running madly around the walls wailing and screaming like a banshee. The old woman got very excited, took up her broom and went in after the old cat doing plenty of screaming and howling herself as she tried to chase the frightened cat out of the house. Finally after tearing up the house the old cat found the door just in time to come muzzle to muzzle with grandpas old dog and then the chase really began. The old dog ran the cat up a tree in no time and this time grandpa rode up and dispatched the cat soundly with a shot from his pistol. That old cat caused quite a lot of excitement all right but grandpa always mused over what would have been the excitement if that old cat had come alive while he was draped over his saddle horn. I’m sure it would have been a lively resurrection.