Trego's Mountain Ear

You can probably rate a town’s crime by what people steal. I got by in Trinidad, Colorado without encountering thieves for my first two years – and then came the third. I was teaching a Saturday class called computerized farm and ranch management, off campus, at Branson, Colorado. Branson is the southernmost town in Colorado, on the Goodnight Loving Trail, and is basically cattle country – the descriptive phrase was “good country for men and cattle, hell on women and horses.”

In the middle of the afternoon, the school’s office phone rang – it was Renata calling to tell me that our lawnmower had been stolen. I was an hour away from from Trinidad, so the only choice was to finish teaching the class, pack my 5 apple //e computers up in the school’s Chevette, take them to campus, unload everything, and get home for a late dinner.

So I’ve just got home, and have sat down, cracked a can of Colorado kool-aid, pulled my boots off, when Renata yelled “They’re back and they’re taking the rototiller. Since she had added chains and padlocks to the gates, the thieves were slowed, and had to carry the rear-tined tiller along the side of the house. Barefoot, I headed out the front, and yelled “Stop thieves.” That order may work for someone like Batman, but both of my thieves dropped the tiller and fled. A jump from the front porch put gravity on my side, and I grabbed the slower thief by his T-shirt, rabbit punched him as he tried to put on more speed, and broke my right wrist. Fortunately, the thief was out cold, so I put a couple twists on the T-shirt, got a left-handed death grip on his T-shirt and belt, and instructed Renata to call the police. Then I told her to take my Python back inside, explaining that Colorado law didn’t allow you to shoot in defense of property. (I really didn’t want my Colt impounded.) As she left, a car stopped for the thief and me (we took up his lane) – the driver asked “What’s going on?” and received two replies – mine was “I’ve caught a thief.” The thief’s was, “This gringo is beating me up.” The driver asked a second question, “Which one of you is telling the truth?” I replied “We both are.” and he asked if I needed any help. About that time, Renata returned, she had made the call and brought along a shovel.

Hearing that the police were coming, my helper asked if, since I had my wife there to help, would I mind if he left before the police arrived. It seemed impolite to force a man who was willing to help beat on a thief to wait for a meeting with the police – it was obviously something he didn’t want – so I agreed we could handle it without him, while Renata kept the shovel jiggling in front of the thief’s face, and asking, “Where is my lawnmower?” It was a cultural moment – the mower thief, quiet to my questions, was now facing a shovel in the hands of an enraged woman. He sang like a canary. Culture, I tell you. I remember a woman charged with knifing an abusive boyfriend: “No sir, I did not stab him. I held the knife to protect myself and he walked into it.” “He walked into it three times?” “Si. Three times he walked into it.” My thief wasn’t nearly as afraid of me as he was Renata.

When the police car showed up, the thief was joyful – he knew that Trinidad’s jail was safer than staying near the gringa loca with the shovel. The police officer had been part of a class I taught on computers for cops, so we knew each other. He identified Cortez, cuffed him, and put him in the back of the cruiser, and I promised to show up downtown to give a statement. He wasn’t so pleased with me when we spoke later at the police station – our boy had a .25 automatic in his pocket – “What would you have done if he shot you with it?” I answered “Probably killed him.” Just because a guy is enough ahead of the curve to teach computer applications to police doesn’t mean he knows enough to pat down a prisoner.

So we kept our rototiller, but never did get the lawnmower back – it was recovered in a town a couple hundred miles away – had been sold in a bar for $20. By the time it was recovered, we were back in Montana – and a 2000 mile round trip was more expensive than a replacement lawnmower.