Gutierrez on the Rancho!

I was working on an interesting shell and really didn't want to be bothered. Ken, who's camped on Carrizalito beach, he shows at our place all out of breath. A pickup with three Mexican males, none of them seeming friendly, had driven past the palapa he and his wife were staying in...and then out onto the beach. There they were walking around with video camera, shooting up everything. His impression was that of them as some form of real estate promoters.

Like I said, I was preoccupied, didn't want to jump to any false alarms. If they'd gotten in, maybe they'd gotten the key from the restaurante. Why shouldn't people who they let in want to take pictures? I wasn't about to go chasing after this. Marcia, however, who'd just come back from long run with dogs, and who was feeling still pretty good in her sweated-up condition, decided to further run to the gate, about a kilometer away, to check its condition.

Her report back to me, shortly there after, was that there'd been a forced entry. The chain had been worked down to bottom of wooden post...and a vehicle had driven over it. She didn't have a key with her so she couldn't readjust it.

It's early afternoon when Chayo comes into camp, him interrupting my writing time. "Was Gutierrez on the rancho?" He questioned almost immediately.

"Well, maybe," I replied. To which he quickly followed with, "Si!" He'd passed his pickup on rancho road there near hot pool beach. He'd seen its tracks come onto the rancho. By then the chain had be correctly rearranged, someone staying on the rancho here having done it. I questioned as to whether he was sure the pickup that he'd pass was that of Gutierrez, and, him having had many encounters with this man by then, he was absolutely positive. O.K. That was last straw then.

That evening I call our partner Ernesto and describe the event. Should we put a demanda against him? was my main question and Ernesto did hesitate in stating that he thought we should. This had been a main point on our conversation just weeks before when I traveled with him to his orange ranch. Because of the problems that this bad actor had been givin' Chayo prior to our arrival, he'd talked to our LaPaz lawyers and was contemplating a demanda on the strength of those aggravations. We'd decided then that the very next time this acting-big shot crossed the line, we'd strike. He just had.

So we're nearing the date when we pick up Chayo finished plano, when we're going to move against Trojillo. We'll do the Gutierrez one too then. But even before we head off to do that Gutierrez comes back and confronts Chayo at locked gate. He demands that he be allowed to pass! He wants the key! He threatens to have Chayo locked up; this threat he'd already made several times in the past. He spouts off that he was going to be voted the new ejido chief, Chayo's brother Crencsio's term ending. That, he assured Chayo, would be the end of his protective shield.

Ha! His brother had done anything but been that.

By now, Chayo's quite hardened towards Gutierrez's rantings. He was quite anxious to get on with this other demanda, too.

Email: david@dondavidonbaja.com