Don Francsico (October 1, 1970) Page 2 Continuing...

She still stared at me as if I had been addressing my post mortem on the chains to the octillio cactuses thirty yards beyond.

"Well, what ideas do you have?"  Might as well shift the onus on her; that’s of course, what wives are for.

"I think we better go for help.  We are never going to get out by ourselves. That's obvious!” she said.  Jesus Chest, I didn't need her pontificating on the obvious.
"Well, where?”I asked. "What we need is a tow truck to lift those fucking wheels from those nice ruts I just dug. (I fantasized about getting a surge of adrenalin energy in which with one massive effort I could lift the rear of the car and put it on the road again.)

"Why don't we go back to the old man? Maybe he can help.  Or we can go the large trailer sitting on the bluff and ask the people to help us.  I'm sure those people must have some kind of vehicle to tow us," she ventured.

I wasn't all that sure.  All I could remember was seeing the trailer itself, nothing else. Maybe they had gone off to town in San Felipe and would be back later.  Yet it already was dark; if we had difficulty navigating the roads during the day, well, uhh, the task was almost impossible in the dark.

As far as F. Gutierrez, the old man, I surmised he would be totally useless.  He was old.  What would he know about stuck cars?  So short and gaunt, he probably didn't even weigh hundred lbs. and five feet tall at the most.  What I needed was manpower if not horsepower; he just couldn't deliver. But there was the possibility that he knew someone who could.

We left the flashlight on the roof of the car as a beacon for our return.  We retraced the car tracks back to the larger road and across the arroyo to the sign which said: Propiedad Privada:  F. Gutierrez.  A second sign in the form of arrow had Punta Estrella pointing to the right.  Pico was having a great time running ahead and bounding back to make sure we were coming. 

As we approached the shack of Don Francisco, several dogs began to howl. Pico now was behind us creeping cautiously to see what would happen as the other dogs went silent. The house of Don Francisco—it sloped on all sides leaning toward the middle with pieces of twisted iron pipe, sheets of discarded metal, and splintered boards of wood all forming an integral part of the make shift walls precariously balancing the fulcrum in the middle; one slight movement of any' of these pieces would destroy the equilibrium, and the hovel would come tumbling down--was totally deserted.  No electricity, no lights. Only the sign illuminated by the sky full of stars—Fresh Water for Sale/F. Gutierrez —with black lettered paint on a trapezoid of wood—indicated that this hovel ever was inhabited by man.