Gentleman
Of Rio en Medio
Juan A. A. Sedillo
It took months of negotiation to come to an understanding with the old man. He was in no hurry. What he had the most of was time. He lived up in Rio en Medio, where his people had been for hundreds of years. He tilled the same land they had tilled. His house was small and wretched, but quaint. The little creek ran through his land. His orchard was gnarled and beautiful.
The day of the sale he came into the office. His coat was old, green, and faded. I thought of Senator Catron, who had been such a power with these people up there in the mountains. Perhaps it was one of his old Prince Alberts. He also wore gloves. They were old and torn and his fingertips showed through them. He carried a cane, but it was only the skeleton of a worn-out umbrella. Behind him walked one of his innumerable kin – a dark young man with eyes like a gazelle.
The old man bowed to all of us in the room. Then he removed his hat and gloves, slowly and carefully. Chaplin 3 once did that in a picture, in a bank – he was the janitor. Then he handed his things to the boy, who stood obediently behind the old man’s chair.
There was a great deal of conversation, about rain and about this family. He was very proud of his large family. Finally we got down to business. Yes, he would sell, as he had agreed, for twelve hundred dollars, in cash. We would buy, and the money was ready. “Don4 Anselmo,” I said to him in Spanish, “we have made a discovery. You remember that we sent that surveyor, that engineer, up there to survey you land so as to make the deed. Well, he finds that you own more than eight acres. He tells us that your land extends across the river and that you own almost twice as much as you thought.” He didn’t know that. “And now, Don Anselmo,” I added, “these Americans are Buena gente, they are good people, and they are willing to pay you for the additional land as well, at the same rate per acre, so that instead of twelve hundred dollars you will get almost twice as much, and the money is here for you.
The old man hung his head for a moment in thought. Then he stood up and stared at me. “Friend,” he said, “I do not like to have you speak to me in that manner.” I kept still and let him have his say. “I know these Americans are good people, and that is why I have agreed to sell my house to them. But I do not care to be insulted. I have agreed to sell my house and land for twelve hundred dollars and that is the price.”
I argued with him but it was useless. Finally he signed the deed and took the money but refused to take more than the amount agreed upon. Then he shook hands all around, put on his ragged gloves, took his stick and walked out with the boy behind him.
A month later my friends had moved into Rio en Medio. They had re-plastered the old adobe house, pruned the trees, patched the fence, and moved in for the summer. One day they came back to the office to complain. The children of the village were overrunning their property. They came every day and played under the trees, built little play fences around them, and took blossoms. When they were spoken to they only laughed and talked back good-naturedly in Spanish.
I sent a messenger up to the mountains for Dan Anselmo. It took a week to arrange another meeting. When he arrived he repeated his previous preliminary performance. He wore the same faded cutaway,5 carried the same stick and was accompanied by the boy again. He shook hands all around, sat down with the boy behind his chair, and talked about the weather. Finally I broached the subject. “Don Anselmo, about the ranch you sold to these people. They are good people and want to be your friends and neighbors always. When you sold to them you signed a document, a deed, and in that deed you agreed to several things. One thing was hat they were to have the complete possession of the property. Now, Don Anselmo, it seems that every day the children of the village overrun the orchard and spend most of their time there. We would like to know if you, as the most respected man in the village, could not stop them from doing so in order that these people may enjoy their new home more in peace.”
Don Anselmo stood up. “We have all learned to love these Americans,” he said, “because they are good people and good neighbors. I sold them my property because I knew they were good people, but I did not sell them the trees in the orchard.”
This was bad. “Don Anselmo,” I pleaded. “when one signs a deed and sells real property one sells also everything that grows on the land, and those trees, every one of them, are on the land and inside the boundaries of what you sold.”
“Yes, I admit that,” he said. “You know,” he added, “I am the oldest man in the village. Almost everyone there is my relative and all the children of Rio en Medio are my sobrinos and nietos,6 my descendants. Every time a child has been born in Rio en Medio since I took possession of that house from my mother I have planted a tree for that child. The tress in that orchard are not mine, Senor, they belong to the children of the village. Every person in Rio en Medio born since the railroad came to Santa Fe owns a tree in that orchard. I did not sell the trees because I could not. They are not mine.”
There was nothing we could do. Legally we owned the trees but the old man had been so generous, refusing what amounted to a fortune for him. It took most of the following winter to buy the trees, individually, from the descendants of Don Anselmo in the valley of Rio en Medio.