Alex and the Hobo: A Chicano Life and Story

CHAPTER 3: THE VALLEY

CHAPTER 3 THE VALLEY Joe Taylor set Alex and the Hobo in the San Luis Valley, a high alpine basin in southern Colorado extending north and south between ranges of the Rocky Mountains. Alex moved across the valley floor between the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east and the San Juans to the west. In this he replicated Joe Taylor’s experience of moving from a rancho near San Luis in the valley’s southeastern corner to Antonito in the southwest. Joe Taylor modeled the rancho after the plaza (small settlement) of El Rito, where he spent his early childhood. He was five years old when his family made the move to Antonito in 1943. He set Alex and the Hobo in 1942, when Alex was nine years old, basing the story on his recollection of his later childhood during the war years. Tracing Alex’s Steps with Joe Taylor To gain a sense of the story’s setting, Carole Counihan and I had many conversations with Joe Taylor about his memories and experiences in the valley from the early 1940’s, as well as his thoughts and observations about the valley in its present state. As an adult, he spends a great deal of time in the llano, the vast space between El Rito and Antonito. He defines himself as a llanero, a man who is more comfortable on the plains than in the mountains, and we discovered that his llano is filled with memories, mystery, and magic. With Joe Taylor, we retraced Alex’s steps as he made the trip across the llano to his grandmother’s home on the other side of the valley. On that trip, Alex headed east out of Antonito on Eighth Street, passing irrigated alfalfa fields owned by an Anglo who had been in the area long before Joe Taylor and his family moved there in 1943. 73 The San Luis Valley. Map by Beatrice Taggart. THE VALLEY As we continued on that road a few miles, Joe Taylor pointed to a small Catholic church in the tiny hamlet of Lobatos, also called “La China.” He explained that the hamlets on the valley floor all had their little groups of people. During the war, they used to all pile into one vehicle and . . . go to town as a gang. When you went as a gang in town, you more or less watched over each other. They used to call these guys “La China” because they’d just go to town and they’d fight each other like the Chinese. The similarity between the nickname for Lobatos and the murder victim in Alex and the Hobo is purely coincidental. “China” is a Spanish nickname for a woman who has curly hair. As Alex passed through Lobatos, he could see the rock formation that looked like a prehistoric animal at the foot of the Piñon Hills. He had spotted it earlier from the ranch, where he had gone with his family to fetch the ewe. The old man Alex met at the ranch told about seeing balls of fire above the rocks during Lent and Holy Week. Joe Taylor explained that those balls of fire were seen over here until somebody dug out a treasure and then they quit seeing them. These spirits of greed, they stay around a treasure. And when the treasure is gone, the balls of fire are gone. But they’re there to protect that treasure. They’re there to scare people away, to intimidate people. He took us to the rocks and showed us how they could provide shelter and a view of the valley from a crevice large enough for a person to stand in. The roof of the crevice was black with soot. This is where they say the Spanish used to melt gold and where witches from Antonito continue to practice devil worship. Alex continued down a dirt road between two rivers flowing out of the San Juans: the Conejos to the north and the San Antonio to the south. Willows lined both sides of the lane, and Joe Taylor recalled that in his youth they were full of magpies’ nests. You’d have to see it to believe it, and then there were a million jackrabbits around here. All of the fields over here have wild irises. I’ve seen people come over here and take the seed pods away by...