Flamenco Hips and Red Mud Feet

Davy Crockett Meets Coronado

| 38 Davy Crockett Meets Coronado (relatives who researched genealogy claim we are related to both.) Whiff of pot liquor and stewed coon hocks smack into a bank of mussels y caracoles drifting up from the gulf, leapfrogging centuries as Davy Crockett meets Coronado— must be Tennessee, those explorers veering off course again, searching for spices, fountains, and eternal stuff but finding cold scat, chiggers, and forbidden real estate. They give their names anyway to peninsulas and sites of future theme parks. This day when they meet, the air sizzles with polarities sharp enough to be almost visible— Coronado’s compass twirls inside out, 39 | and he is up to his shins in mud the color of chile colorado. Davy has sleepwalked for days trying to dislodge from his head a tune bounced off a mountaintop, careened from a coil of cotton baling wire, zinged out of the future from the mouth of a woman named Ella, known for a kind of scat Davy could never divine that would send him up an unmarked trail to the future parking lot, where Fess Parker would flip the keys of his classic Jaguar to the classic black valet, who will notify security that a dirty old guy in buckskin is digging up the asphalt, armed and certainly dangerous, refusing directions, as all men do. Coronado had his chance but hid from the women on spotted ponies, preferring the alchemy of sunspots | 40 and male intuition, which has now brought them together; Davy, humming like a bear in a winter trance; Francisco, dragging his feathers and heavy coat of mail from one mirage to the next. And so they meet— dream walking, dyslexic warriors, Coronado’s parrot translating: “That’s some elegantiferous hat. You new to these parts? Ya lost?” Davy flashes a vote-getting grin. “Don Francisco de Coronado lost? Two straits I discovered yesterday, three corridors, a small continent, and an isthmus. You insult me, Señor.” “Don’t go gettin’ yer tail in a knot. Somewhat of a scout myself. Just took me two possums and a covey of quail with one shot. I got the prettiest sister, fastest horse, and ugliest dog. My father can whip any man in Kentucky, and I can lick my father. Sure you wanna go thataway?” Davy points 41 | with Old Betsy. “There’s Creeks up ahead.” “Sí, agua.” Davy grins, sun sparks on steel as they take two steps apart— a crooked Tennessee waltz bent for one second into Flamenco Puro. Then they turn and march toward equidistant horizons and fates. But Davy turns and hollers back over a fringe of sweet gum, “Y’all can go to hell . . . Ahm going to Texas,” which the ancient parrot translates: “Thank you, Don Coronado, for the directions. You have a lovely parrot.” ...