A little over a year ago I did a blog titled "Tom Mix of Ecuador." In it, I talked about an eccentric Ecuadorian cattle rancher who had a thing for Tom Mix, the old Hollywood matinee idol, the cowboy actor. The Ecuadorian Tom Mix took to dressing like Tom Mix, and as I explained, even wore a six shooter and a white ten gallon Stetson! He met an untimely death in a shoot-out that took place at his ranch house on the banks of the Rio Taura. The house is said to be haunted since that time and no one has occupied it. Surprisingly, it stood in fairly good shape, despite the tropical climate with heavy rains and humidity. I guess they don't build them like they used to! A typical tract home that you find stateside today would have crumbled into a pile of rotting timber in that climate and in that space of time. Yet, that building stood some 40 years after it was abandoned, still apparently structurally sound and appearing almost unscathed, except for some old bullet holes left from that infamous shoot-out!
This blog, however, is about his nephew, Reinaldo Diaz, a real character in his own right and just as eccentric as his uncle, in my opinion. I talked about Reinaldo in the previous blog, about how he got into trouble with the law back in the 1960s when he shot a cattle rustler on his ranch. Reinaldo went on the lam for 7 years, hiding out in "El Norte" in "Nueva Jersey." He fled to the states, via Tijuana (illegally, of course!) and lived and worked in New Jersey for 7 years. He finally returned when his Dad sent word that the coast was clear, that the Police Chief (his nephew was a rustler that Reinaldo shot and killed) had been arrested for various crimes (including cattle rustling) and was serving time. So Reinaldo returned to Ecuador, surprisingly not speaking a word of English after 7 years in New Jersey! As he explained to me, he didn't need to learn English. Where he lived and worked, everyone spoke Spanish!
Reinaldo inherited one of the largest cattle ranches in that region. Back in the old days, before his uncle got himself killed, there were two large ranches. One ranch was owned by Reinaldo's father, and the other by his uncle, the Tom Mix of Ecuador. When Reinaldo's uncle was killed, his brother (Reinaldo's father) inherited the ranch, so the two large ranches were combined and made into a huge piece of property. When Reinaldo's father died, Reinaldo ended up with this enormous cattle ranch. The ranch stretched from Rio Taura to Rio Churrute and beyond. During the dry season, it was mostly lush pasture land broken up with stands of scrub jungle. During the rainy season (winter), most of the pasture land on the ranch flooded and was impassable except on horseback or canoe! The cattle, which was a hardy breed that was developed for tropical South America, originally came from Southern India. But that was over a century ago and by the mid 20th Century it developed into a unique breed of cattle that seemed to thrive even in flooded pastures, sloshing around like water buffalos and eating leaves off scrub jungles on the fringes of pastures.
I once asked Reinaldo how many heads of cattle he had and he wasn't sure, finally ended up just saying one word, bastante - a lot! Being an eccentric, Reinaldo had his share of quirks. He did not believe in branding his cattle. He told me that it was unnatural to mark cattle, that it was cruel to brand them with a hot iron! Yet, he raised his cattle for the beef market, and once sold, they were, of course, all butchered! I guess it was O.K. to kill the cattle, but not brand them! Anyway, his unbranded cattle were always prime pickings for rustlers! Amazingly, Reinaldo and his vaqueros were able to identify each head by its markings! Many of his cattle were semi wild, freely roaming since birth and hiding in the scrub jungles that spotted the ranch. It was truly a wild time at round up, since most cattle refused to be controlled or guided by humans on horseback. It was a very dangerous time as well for the vaqueros!
My good friend Lorenzo (who introduced me to Reinaldo) told me that Reinaldo was very wealthy. You wouldn't know it by looking at him. He always wore cheap clothing and drove a beat up old pick up truck. I don't think he even owned a suit and surely didn't know how to put on a tie! He lived in a cheap, somewhat rundown house not far from his ranch in the town of Duran, just across Rio Guayas from the city of Guayaquil. Duran was not a wealthy town, it was a working class town then and still is mostly occupied by lower socio-economic class residents. Reinaldo did not see any need to spend more money and live in a costlier place. His wife desperately wanted to move to Guayaquil to a better neighborhood and better home, but Reinaldo would not have it! Reinaldo often stayed at the ranch and slept at the "ranch house." The so-called ranch house was nothing but a one room casita on stilts, a typical house in that part of rural Ecuador. It did not have electricity nor running water (no plumbing whatsoever). Water had to be carried from Rio Taura a few hundred yards away, and bathroom facilities consisted of a crude outhouse with a shallow hole, not the best of facilities! All people living in that area lived in such housing. They were built on stilts to keep them off the water once the area flooded in the winter!
Reinaldo was quite proud of his casita, which he told me that he built himself. I am no carpenter or house builder, but I've built better dog houses and sheds with my limited skills than that casita of Reinaldo's! Once on an overnight hunting trip, I slept in that casita. If it had not been for the mosquito netting that draped over each hammock that we used, I would have ended up looking like a pin cushion! The mosquito activity outside of the netting was absolutely astounding.
We (Lorenzo and I) often hunted on Reinaldo's ranch, especially for ducks during winter months. We had to traverse the flooded ground on horseback. Reinaldo's cow ponies were a lot like those hardy little Mongolian ponies, they were small. The saddles were something else, they were wooden with no covering whatsoever, and painted in gay colors, usually bright blue, green, or red. The stirrups were round metal rings suspended on thick ropes, they were not adjustable! To put it mildly, it was very uncomfortable to ride those Ecuadorian ponies. But, that was the only form of transportation and we couldn't very well walk in water that ranged in depth from knee high to chest level.
On one memorable overnight duck hunt, we slept outside. Well, we tried to sleep. But the mosquito activity was so ferocious that Reinaldo and I ended up building a huge, smoky fire to keep the hungry mosquitos at bay. We sat up all night, talking, roasting plantains (verdes) and keeping the fire fed with wet wood that produced smoke. It was on that occasion that Reinaldo told me his life story, about fleeing to the states after killing the police chief's nephew and finally returning and ending up being the patron of the huge ranch. I asked him if he ever wanted to return to America and live, and he answered with an emphatic no! I asked him why he didn't want to live in America and his response was that the people here did not know how to live. He said that in his 7 years, he never saw anyone really living, everyone just worked everyday, came home tired, ate, watched TV, went to sleep, then started the process all over. Some of the younger ones he said went out drinking or dancing, but that was it. That was not living for him. He preferred to live as he did in Ecuador, even if it meant living in his casita with no electricity or water!
At that time he boasted that he was as in good shape as I was, and he had at least ten years on me! Funny how as time passed, those ten years began to shrink to eight, then six, then four, and finally last year he told Lorenzo that he was the same age as me! Lorenzo had attended Reinaldo's birthday celebration which was held at this ranch, a real outdoor parrillada (Ecuadorian barbeque). Lorenzo said that Reinaldo was in remarkably good shape and looked years younger than his mid 80s or so, Lorenzo wasn't sure. It was on that occasion that Reinaldo asked Lorenzo about me, since he knows that we keep in touch, and mentioned that we were of same age! Good old Reinaldo! I am old, very old, but not quite as old as Reinaldo. But if he wants everyone to think that he is "only" "seventy something" rather than "eighty something", so be it!
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