Spaña Town

Excerpt

The face of the adobe church was dark, the courtyard shadowy under an ebony sky varnished with moonlight. She waited, leaning a hand on the rough wood arch, scanning humps and edges, stiffening against the freeze-dried norteña night. Nothing moved. Was this Churro’s idea of a joke? She should have taken the money to cover her wasted time. But a chorus of faithful crickets chirped an unceasing rhythm that said ‘clock-time is an illusion,’ ‘the only reality is flow.’ Lulled her to poise at the courtyard entrance, noticing chilly breaths sawing at her throat, feeling the weight of quiet on her eardrums, jazzed by the crickets and a thread of lapping water. The space felt crystalline, sacred. What difference did it make if Marcos showed or not?

Then she heard a car engine that stopped. She walked to the middle of the courtyard and paused by a rough hewn cross on an adobe base.

“Marcos?” she called out. “Churro sent something for you. If you answer a few questions I’ll turn it over to you.”

Her words seeped into the night. Chill air rising off the flagstones numbed her fingertips.

“Marcos? I’m leaving with the key Churro sent for you if you don’t come out.” A misshapen overfull moon shot beams at the courtyard leaving the facade of the church in darkness. After another pause she turned to leave.

“Wait.”

She spun around, peered at the church. A dark form emerged near the corner of the church. 

“Are you…?”

“Exactly. The one who nearly took the hit for you when that sicario visited Paco’s.”

“Sorry about that. I had no idea that dude would—”

“I know. You’re blameless. It’s all just bad luck.”

He moved briefly through moonlight to disappear back into shadow on the other side of the church.

“You got the key?”

“Questions first.”

“Listen, I got no idea where Deandra is.”

“I know where Deandra is. That’s not what I want to know. Things have changed, Marcos. The stakes have gone up.”

“Look, I know the fam is worried sick about me. You tell ‘em I’ll lay low with Grifo in the Burque till things quiet down up here.”

At that moment, tires rolled over the gravel in the parking lot at the entrance to the compound. Marcos burst into the central area of the courtyard, his wiry silhouette suddenly splashed with ivory light.

“Gimme the key, quick.“

Minoa heard steps, spun around. Shots pinged off the adobe facade of the church, ricocheted off paving stones. Marcos doubled over and slumped to the ground. 

New Mexico Curiosities

Espanola
Española, the inspiration but not exact model for Spaña Town, in 1919-20.
Española today.
Española today.
Unique restored cars and lowriders are an important part of New Mexico culture.
And New Mexico has a non-stop love affair with classic pickup trucks.
Lowrider car
Lowrider car
Española is often called the lowrider capital of the world. After decades of cruising the streets and back roads of northern New Mexico, lowrider cars have come into their own as a symbol of Hispanic cultural identity. Lowrider culture likely began in Los Angeles in the 1940’s.
The rise in popularity of cars modified to hang low resulted in a backlash: the California vehicle code made it illegal to operate any car modified so that any part was lower than the bottoms of its wheel rims. In 1959, mechanic Ron Aguirre found a way to bypass the law by installing hydraulics that could raise and lower a General Motors X-frame chassis by flipping a switch.
Today lowrider types include ‘bombs’ (large, rotund American cars ca. 1930–1955), ‘originals’ (old cars restored to their original condition), ‘hoppers’ (cars outfitted with hydraulic lifters that allow them to bounce and jump), and ‘hot rods’ (classic American cars modified with large engines).
New Mexico legalized tribal casinos in 1995, and now there are 24. They range from slot machine venues such as Pojoaque Pueblo’s Cities of Gold Sports Bar to luxury resort hotels like Buffalo Thunder. They are managed by the tribes themselves and income from the casinos has been used to provide education for tribal members, capitalize tribal companies and fund other needs of tribe members.
Each year some 300,000 people make pilgrimages to the Santuario de Chimayó during Holy Week. Some pilgrims walk from as far away as Albuquerque, about 90 miles. Visitors sometimes take a small amount of holy dirt in hopes of a miraculous cure. Formerly, they often ate the dirt. Now seekers of cures more commonly rub themselves with the dirt or simply keep it. The Church replaces the dirt in the pocito from the nearby hillsides, sometimes more than once a day, for a total of about 25 or 30 tons a year.
The 56-mile High Road to Taos is a scenic, winding road through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains between Santa Fe and Taos. It winds through high desert, mountains, forests, small farms, and tiny Spanish land grant and Pueblo Indian villages. Scattered along the way are the galleries and studios of traditional artisans and artists. The High Road continues on State Road 75 into Peñasco. The villages of Llano San Juan, Llano Largo, and Santa Barbara in the Peñasco area were first settled by Spanish colonists in 1796, the same year as Taos.