Place at the End – Fat Tail Daily | Australian Markets

“Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin Six dance-hail maidens to bear up my pall Throw bunches of roses all over my coffin Roses to deaden the clods as they fall.”

—Streets of Laredo, Johnny Cash model

“Death is not something to be feared. It is just a part of life,” the priest defined.

We had been listening to the funeral oration for one of our employees who died immediately final week. A younger man, he bought pneumonia… after which, on the approach to the hospital, died of a coronary heart assault.

“We do not fear death,” the Padre continued. “Because God let his only son die. We follow his example. And we do so in the knowledge that Jesus conquered death for us all. So, we die… but like our brother Jose… we will have eternal life.”

Thus had the priest spelled out the most dramatic promise of Christianity. People imagine it. Still, they’re in no rush to put it to the check. A younger man steps on the gasoline. An older man is aware of the place he’ll finish up… he’s in no hurry to get there. Jose was one of the younger ranch arms who had been on the job once we bought right here — practically 20 years in the past. He was 48 when he died.

For the benefit of new readers, we’ve come down to Argentina to test on farm properties, now run by our daughter and her husband. These had been the outcome of making an attempt to resolve one downside by shopping for more of them. The first ranch by no means ran at break-even…so we purchased one other ranch subsequent door. Fortunately, Argentina was in a financial disaster, so the quantities weren’t enormous.

But we needed to assume of the future. We hoped to go away our kids with a lovely property that more or much less paid for itself. But the two ranches, working collectively, nonetheless failed to provide a revenue. So, we purchased more farmland — however cropland this time, far to the East. There, the real estate is uninteresting…flat, fertile and productive. And there’s enough rainfall to remove the expense of ‘regadors.’

‘Regadors’ are irrigators, who go round with shovels directing small rivulets of water all through enormous fields of alfalfa, corn, onions or different crops. Wages are very low right here, however…they add up.

Typically, the older employees spend their days irrigating. The youthful males, like Jose, are cowboys. They experience on horseback tending the herds. They are hearty males, able to wrestle a calf to the ground…combat off condors…or puncture the intestines of a bloated cow.

Jose was a cowboy. Short and stocky, he was very sturdy and really match. In one round-up, we watched him lasso a large cow, wrap the rawhide rope behind his back, and get pulled by the indignant animal, skidding throughout the corral as if he had been water snowboarding.

So, the news that he had died got here as a shock. Along with kin and buddies, we hastened back to the ranch to say goodbye.

The little chapel held solely about 50 people. It over-flowed. All of the mourners, besides your editor and his household, seemed to be associated. Dark pores and skin, heads full of shiny black hair, it was as if the Spanish blood had by no means reached the valley. And perhaps it didn’t. Our ranch is known as ‘Gualfin’ — which implies, the ‘place at the end.’ It is at 9,000 ft. Dry. Windy. And it backs up to a high desert that stretches over to Chile.

We’ve by no means really seen the back of the ranch. We tried as soon as. We mounted an expedition to experience on horseback, additional up the valley after which over a mountain ridge to the desert. There, in the center, is the ‘River of the Ducks,’ stated to have the tastiest trout in the world. The experience was presupposed to take about 24 hours. Our objective was to experience up, spend the evening at a distant stone cabin, after which proceed the subsequent day onto the desert and to the river.

The bother was, it was too late in the season. Overnight, the temperature dropped and every little thing froze. Not solely that, however we had been camped over 10,000 ft. In our late 60s, we couldn’t sleep. When the morning solar rose, we packed up and headed back down the valley.

Jose would have continued. He was a powerful hombre.

After the mass was over, we piled into pick-up vans and drove over to the soccer discipline. Jose had been a participant and a fan. His teammates dug a gap on the discipline and buried his jersey. Horns honked. Hands clapped. And a cheer went up.

Next got here the unhappy half. The cortege made its approach to the ranch graveyard. Surrounded by a stout granite wall, in the winter months the graveyard appears like the most forbidding, least welcoming resting place you possibly can think about. A terminally sick man, seeing it in July, would possibly need to maintain on at least till September.

But yesterday, there was nonetheless a smattering of inexperienced grass and leafy bushes. The sky was clear — because it virtually all the time is — and our Boot Hill didn’t look so unhealthy.

Six jolly cowboys carried the coffin and laid it subsequent to the grave. Until then, the poor widow, who’s deaf, had appeared dazed, however sturdy. Then, she bent to the box and kissed it. She cried quietly and held fast. Then the sobs grew louder and more determined.

Finally, a couple of cousins — for they’re virtually all cousins, nephews, uncles — pried her unfastened and held her tight. Then, got here the sons…brothers…sisters…father… mom. Many of them needed the consolation of kin — sturdy arms shored them up…light phrases cushioned the falling tears. We Episcopalians are taught to not show emotion in public. But with a lot wailing, sobbing, and keening…all of it so genuine…so transferring…even the North Americans in the group discovered their glasses fogging up.

One little boy, a nephew, was inconsolable. His father needed to take him away from the gravesite.

When we had all sprinkled water on the coffin, some of Jose’s favourite issues had been laid on prime — a lasso…and a flag from his soccer workforce. And the Padre, who had been watching occasions from the periphery, stepped ahead. He pronounced the acquainted phrases…from mud to mud…ashes to ashes.

The cowboys lowered him into the ground. We walked over, grabbed a handful of grime, and tossed it onto the coffin as the grievers poured in bottles of wine, of coca cola, and whiskey. They tossed in cigarettes. And coca leaves. More of Jose’s favourite issues.

“It is not exactly a Catholic custom,” the priest defined. “But here in the valley, we have always mixed a little bit of Pachamama with our religion.”

And then got here the shovels…and the clods fell…rapidly protecting the coffin. One man shoveled for a whereas after which turned the instrument over to another person. It continued till the gap was stuffed. Rocks had been positioned on prime…with a picket cross at the head…and bouquets of flowers…so many who they virtually coated the grave.

When all was so as, Jose’s father shouted out due to everybody who had come to say goodbye and introduced a luncheon to comply with at Jose’s home.

After sharing a meal of beef, potatoes and tomato salad, we expressed our regrets as best we may and took our depart. It was early night… shadows had been marching up the mountains to the south. And a cool wind was starting to blow throughout the high plains.

Regards,

Bill Bonner,
For Fat Tail Daily