Rachel's Windmills

Chapter 1

The late afternoon sun was a glowing red-orange orb, kissing the purple haze of the distant desert. I pulled my four-wheel drive Chevy pick-up onto the shoulder of the empty, two-lane highway that I’d been following for the past hour. When I opened the door, the searing desert heat blasted me, stirring childhood memories of opening my grandma Sarah’s ancient oven to see what sweet kosher delight she was baking. I stood alone. Not lonely, just alone, a good alone.

In the distance, the silhouette of a lone windmill was the only man-made object in sight. The wind turned the blades, twisting gears that lifted and lowered a string of sucker rods deep in the well bringing clear clean water to the surface. These life-giving elements, wind and water, were the cause and effect that sustained the South Eastern New Mexico desert.

Most of the ranchers here lived for the land, not from it. They were families that treasured open space above everything, and I’d become one of them. I was not a rancher, not a cowboy, but a lover of space, open space. I was a sucker for peace and quiet and being able to see for miles in any direction.

After I’d left the narrow rutted cow trail that stored decades of dust, forming into smoke bombs when disturbed, trailing behind me, I’d finally hit the paved county road. One thing was sure, in arid Monterey County the dusty rooster tail left no doubt where you were, or where you had been.

 Where I’d been was on a little field trip. My first stop had been to O.C. Hendricks’ place, the flying H ranch. O.C. was a straight-out-of-the-storybook, old time cowboy, complete with ragged hat, faded Wranglers, manure encrusted boots, and a wrinkled face that copied the gullies and ravines that crisscrossed his spread. 

He laughed when I asked his age and said, Let’s just say I’m the oldest piece of wore-out equipment on this ranch. Some’s a little more rusty but none’s as hard 

After my visit to the flying H, I’d driven another six miles west to talk with Lucy Welch at the rocking W. Some folks called it the Rocking Widow Ranch because at sixty, Lucy refused to be the typical prim, sorrow-filled, life-has-passed, western widow woman.

She once told me, When Jake died, I had two choices, follow him as I’d always done, or let my new life begin. She’d chosen the latter. Nowadays, Lucy was the first to arrive at the local dances and the last to leave. Some gossiped that Lucy had a hard time keeping a ranch foreman, not because the daily work was too hard, but because the nights were too long.

I’d left Lucy’s place and made it to Bill and Rita Coogans’ by noon. Then after a typical ranch lunch of country-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and spicy ranch beans, we drove out to their south pasture. The sight was the same as I’d seen at my first two stops, a lone windmill, a small muddy pond, and dead and dying cattle. There was no doubt from the smell at each stop what had killed the stock because the odor of New Mexico crude oil filled the air. Oilmen called it the smell of money, but most ranchers called it the smell of death and destruction, especially if they didn’t own the mineral rights to their spreads, and many did not.

The surface of the water in the pond, called a tank by cowmen, held the colors of a dull rainbow, evidence that the old adage oil and water don’t mix was true.

 Oil, water, and cattle have always been a disaster in the making, Bill Coogan told me as we stood under the whirling, clanking aermotor windmill. He pointed at two coyotes silhouetted in the distance. "Listen to um’ hungry, howling, and ready to be the first customers at my new smorgasbord of top choice raw Angus beef.

Rita had been walking around the parameter of the pond, collecting samples from the oil-skimmed water. She dipped a pint Mason jar into the polluted tank water, filled it, and then screwed the lid tight. She returned with the jar in one hand and a soft feathery dove in the other.

Kinda’ reminds you of one of them oil spills on the coast they show on TV, she said as she handed the dead bird to Bill.

Bill held the bird in his rough, callused rancher hands and said, Yeah, but the oil companies couldn’t hide from those disasters. There was always a big old tanker out there.

Why do you think the oil companies would dump crude in your stock tank? I asked, knowing Bill’s answer already.

Meanness. Spite. Save a buck. Who the hell knows? he said. All I know is, ain’t nobody else gonna bring a load of oil out here to the country and pour it in our livestock tanks.

We finished our open prairie meeting as I had at my first two stops, walking ever-increasing circles around the pond, looking for tire prints. In the New Mexico sand, a print lasts until the next good blow or until a dust devil whips through. There were no prints, no evidence of any kind, here or at Lucy’s place or at O.C.’s Flying H. Soon after, I left Bill and Rita under the rusty windmill, with a promise to call them after I’d finished my field trip.

I spent the rest of the afternoon meeting with the Wilson’s, Matt Henshaw, and Todd and Phyllis Gains. Every stop found the hosts filled with anger, frustration, panic, and fear. They were angry at whoever had poisoned their water and frustrated that they’d found no clues as to how it had been done. They were experiencing panic and fear that these malicious actions could end their chances to make it as independent agribusiness families. Most of all, they were scared they would be forced to live the life they despised, eight to five, Friday paychecks, and no space.

Now I stood watching God score another three-pointer for heaven’s team. As the glow of the disappearing sun slowly faded, I thought about windmills and water wells and how my new life had become a part of this life and death struggle. And how thankful I was to be here and not in New York, or LA, trapped in a high-rise law office seeing sidewalks below filled with lonely people who seemed to have no place to go.

Chapter 2

Two weeks earlier, the saga had begun. My sometimes-boring storefront law practice had received a rash of calls. All about the same subject, oil polluted water tanks. Who was responsible? What could be done? When would this precious commodity, now tainted, be useable again? Most importantly, where did we go for answers?

Any fool can see the oil companies are in deep shit, Ed Reems said, his voice rasping with anger. Now use your pretty little mind and figure this thing out, honey.

I hung up the phone in slow motion after Reems ended the conversation with Earn your money, Miss Goldman; I have to. A million thoughts rushed through my pretty little mind because his call had been one of nine I’d received that week. Business wasn’t bad for an almost new attorney, in a new office, in a new town, Mesacity, New Mexico, especially for what some locals called me, the Jewish-queen from New York City.

My mother had always found the Jewish queen thing a real explosive description of us sweet, Star of David debutantes, but I used the description to my advantage. Most south-westerners could not tell the difference between the true religion and the Ethnic jokes. They only knew that Rachel Goldman, that cute little brunette Jew girl attorney in Mesacity with the big brown puppy eyes and the compact little body, would take their case without a retainer.

It had never been easy in Mesacity, being a female in an all-male profession. I’d heard every reason to give up and go home. My mother thought up most of the negatives in her weekly downer calls, as I liked to refer to them. For instance, she would remind me that I was her only child, and that she needed me at home. "You’ll end up a poor penniless alteh moid like Mrs. Finegold’s daughter Ruth. You’re kalleh moid, where you gonna find a nice Jewish boy in Mexico?" She’d say.

Mom, I’m not looking for a nice Jewish boy, and I still have most of my trust fund and Mom, for the hundredth time, it’s not Mexico; it’s New Mexico, land of enchantment. I’d remind her.

She always forced me to a state of pleading, something I hated her to do. I told her what it was like to feel the space and smell the air. It reminds me of the Kibbutz in Israel when I was in the summer exchange program. This feels so perfect, like I was meant to be here. I believe there is a purpose for me here.

I would always visualize my mother in the dead silence that followed, sitting on the rich velvet sofa in her Manhattan apartment, wearing her pink, silk day robe, looking for a sign from God as she stared at the ceiling, slowly shaking her head in frustration, saying, "Shoyn fargassen."

 Then a week later she would have Phillip, my ex-fiancée, call and leave messages concerning my mother’s well being, or lack thereof. However, I hung on, rented space for an office, bought a house, furnished it, and learned to act western. The locals treated me like I was an anomaly, but they were polite and friendly until I’d proved myself as a real western, small-town, trial attorney. Before that, they’d just watched and waited.

Then I rose to the challenge, and they started talking with me, not about me. They mentioned to each other that I’d won a $500,000 award in the Barn’s case. Some even repeated what Danny Barns said: That Miss Goldman, she’s damn smart, and by God, honest, and that’s saying a lot for a lawyer.

The Barns case, legally known as Barns vs Chadwick Drilling, had been my coming out party. I’d met Danny Barns the day I was unpacking my law books and setting up my office. I was wearing my jeans and a stained ‘NYPD T-shirt, and my hair looked like I’d been in a whirlwind. He stuck his head through the door-actually, his sweat and dirt stained hat were all I’d seen — as he said in an almost apologetic voice, Pardon me, Ma’am; they told me at the Court House a new lawyer was moving in here. Is he taking clients yet?"

I’d stood up to maximize my towering five foot four inch height and replied in my best west Tex accent, I’m him, and I’m available. Poor Danny had turned every shade of red as he removed his hat and looked down, examining the remnants of morning chores on his scuffed boots.

He cleared his throat and said, Sorry, Ma’am, they just said R. Goldman. I didn’t ask if it was Mr. or Mrs.

Miss I said, as I held out my hand to shake his. He went through his color change again, wiped his palm on his dusty Wranglers, and shook my hand.

I’d talked with Danny for over three hours that first meeting. After he’d gotten over his initial shock and routine shyness, he had explained how Chadwick Drilling had caused all sorts of headaches and financial chaos for him and his mortgaged-to-the-hilt cow-calf operation. There was everything from damaged fences to yearlings shot by roust-a-bouts target shooting, and an above ground tank blown to bits by roughnecks trying to boom-fish, as Danny called it.

The oil under his land was a curse. He did not have the mineral rights to his land, but he did have a contract that gave Chadwick certain rights and responsibilities. They could transport equipment, dig slug pits, and, eventually, have access to their pumping well, if the drilling was successful. This contract was supposed to pay Danny for repairs and damages to roads, the occasional overflow, and any stock that might be hit by late night, sleepy crew changes. However, the fact was, as Danny put it, I’m batting a thousand when it comes to making Chadwick pay for their damn damages. I’m a thousand percent loser. He had the receipts to prove it. Four lawyers, four cases and four verdicts later, Danny was still losing, and Chadwick Drilling seemed to go out of their way to make things worse. Danny was desperate.

Hell, last week I caught’em having a barbecue at the well site.

I’d given him my best incredulous smile and replied, Even in New York that’s not a crime.

It is, if it’s my calf they’re barbecuing. I even found the hide with my brand on it, floating in the slug pit. Miss Goldman somebody’s got to stop these son-of-a-… His voice trailed off before he finished his curse. He was too much of a gentleman cowboy to use bad language in front of a lady.

I being new, and as familiar with oil field terms as any other New Yorker, asked, What is a slug pit?

If I’d not already agreed to take Danny’s case without a retainer, I’m sure that question would have ended my New Mexico law career. As it was, Danny patiently brought me up to snuff, as he said, on all things oil field. I soon learned a slug pit was a large pond dug by the drilling company to hold everything they took out of the well during the drilling process, most of it vile, chemical, and as they said, not fit for man or any living thing. Danny educated me throughout the Barns VS Chadwick case. He’d even taken me out to a neighbor’s ranch to meet the man who made a living picking up the dead cattle. Animals that had been hit by oil field trucks, oil field sharpshooters, oil field pump jacks, and oil field flu as Buck, the big-eared, carcass collector called the basis of his livelihood. According to Buck, "The rendering business is real good lately, especially at Danny’s ranch.

In the end, I’d been a good student and a better lawyer. I won my first case and Danny was given his damages, previous court cost, my fees, and a little hide, as Danny referred to the punitive damages he’d collected from Chadwick. After the trial, we’d had a celebration dinner with Danny, his wife, and all seven of the sometimes wild and always woolly Barns children. Danny estimated that the five hundred pound steer that the oil field crew had butchered and barbecued cost Chadwick Drilling and their insurance company a thousand dollars a pound.

The two hundred thousand dollars I’d earned made my immediate financial future a lot less troubling, and established my new reputation as a Jewish Princess Legal Bulldog. I wasn’t sure my mother would accept this added descriptive, but the Barn’s case had done what every lawyer prayed for in the beginning of his or her career, which was have either a highly publicized big win or an unknown small loss. My big win, big for Monterey County, had brought me as much fame and fortune as any lawyer could hope for in a county with a population of less than thirty thousand.

I was even recruited by the Chadwick attorneys, Harper, Miles, and Ludlow, local boys that knew I would be a better partner than an adversary, as far as their firm was concerned. I declined gracefully and hired their best legal secretary, Mary Francis Woods, to be sure they got the point.

Chapter 3

Mary Francis took over where Danny left off in my continuing Tex/Mex cowboy education. She was a native daughter of one of Monterey Counties’ oldest families, divorced with two grown children, and as she said, a half-a-litter of grandkids. That meant four to Mary Francis, who expected her own children to double her kid production so she would never have a shortage of grandchildren to spoil.

Mary Francis was the opposite of me in every way, and that made for a perfect office environment. Where I was small in stature, she was a big robust woman with frosted auburn hair and a raspy voice that demanded attention. She could match a roughneck’s language during the week, and on Sunday take her famous Angel Fire chili beans to the church social and chat with the other devoted ladies without so much as a damnation in her description of the place sinners go. Soon, she became my right hand, or claw, depending on what was required. I was unorganized, but she was able to have everything in its place in the blink of an eye. For example, whenever I got a call, before I could ask, she’d have a file and notes she’d made from memory relative to the clients’ history both legal and personal. She knew everyone in Monterey County, their kids, their horses, and their secrets.

The only area of our relationship that caused me any concern was her obvious compulsion to find me a man. She seemed to be on some wavelength that was connected directly to my mother. She was very smooth in her efforts but as she would say, A woman as purty as you needs someone to put you on a pedestal.

Therefore, I was forever reminding her that I did not need, in order: a man, a husband, a lover, an admirer, or a male boy toy...’yet’. I assumed the ’yet’ made Mary Francis continue her search on my behalf, or maybe hers, just in case yet might come sooner than later.

It wasn’t that I’d given up on men. It was just that the only three in my life that ever meant anything had broken my too fragile heart. My father Samuel was the first. He had let me learn to love him. He’d pampered me with all sorts of baby girl presents, put me in dance class, and never missed a performance. He’d taught me grace and humility, given me strength and stamina, made me wise beyond my ten years. Then, he left. We never saw him again, but I missed him every day until I taught myself to forget. I was never able to forgive him.

 Dad’s mother, my Grandmother Sarah, had taken over the financial responsibility of our family.

My brother Joseph was the next to leave me. Probably spoiled even more than I, he was an honor student, a Junior Nationals Tennis Champion, and a caring, sensitive young man found dead of an apparent drug overdose. At least, that’s what a feature story in the New York Times had said. Another lesson in forgetting was all that I was left with.

Forgetting was never easy when my mother scolded God at every opportunity for taking her husband and her son, and, now her daughter. She hadn’t cornered the market on self-persecution, but she had a strong position.

Philip Gregory Martin was our paperboy when we’d met. I was almost twelve and he was every girl’s dream.. After that first meeting, I never let Mom put the check in the mailbox. I wanted to pay Philip in person, in hopes that when he reached for the check, our hands would touch, or maybe I would swoon and he would catch me, and then tenderly kiss me awake. That was Junior High. By high school, we thought we were the most-perfect couple in history. After graduating, we both were accepted at Columbia, both studied pre-law, and both graduated Cum Laude. We’d spent years planning our lives, our careers, and our family.

But in the end, he loved the money more than he loved us together. I left him and New York to avoid his ultimate destruction.

My mother, who never understood my leaving, just added her only daughter to her list of divine grievances.

After the Barns case my life settled into the normal mundane small town practice that includes the Four Ds: divorce, drunk driving, defense and disposition, as in last will and testaments. My defense work included clients like Mindy Evans, who never wrote a check she thought would actually clear the bank, including the one she wrote me. There was also thrifty, shifty Billy Allcott. He had the strange misfortune of always buying goods at great prices. The fact that they just happened to belong to other people who hadn’t sold them constituted a crime. Billy always had a receipt from some Harry Black or Tom White that proved his business practice was as pure as his fictitious seller’s names. The use of less-than-creative names became his undoing. I was actually relieved when I lost Billy’s case. Particularly after I found out his talent for recruiting adolescent thieves was creating an increased drop-out rate at the local high school. I did get his charges reduced. Instead of going to the state pen, he lounged in the Monterey County Jail or pulled weeds in the parking lot, waving and grinning as I drove by. In spite of his incarceration, he said I was his favorite lawyer friend.

I was fortunate enough to take the case of one Carlos Roosevelt Pope Gonzales, the largest man I’d ever seen. He was Mexican-American and excluded from joining the local police force because of, you guessed it, his size. It didn’t seem important to the local Police Chief that there were no Mexican-Americans on the force in a community with a forty-percent Hispanic population. Captain David Bell only saw the problem of outfitting Mr. Gonzales. He’d said the chances were slim, no pun intended, that there would ever be another recruit that was six foot ten and weighed three hundred and twenty pounds. Therefore, the cost of Mr. Gonzales’s uniform would be a total loss to the city.

However, when I asked him in court if he had considered the possibility that Carlos might actually succeed as a patrol officer. Then wear out his uniform, while in service to the community as other officers routinely did. The city attorney asked for a side bar with the judge, and the case was quickly settled. Racial prejudice was never mentioned, but the fifty thousand-dollar settlement and the offer of a job filled in between the lines of the next day’s newspaper account titled: Big Man Gets Big Judgement.

As for Carlos, he’d decided he didn’t really want to be a cop anyway. I worried that his life long dream had been shattered because of a silly government going to trail for a ridiculous reason. Carlos in a rare moment shared his Latin philosophy with me. "There is a Mexican saying about making mistakes young, El que más temprano se moja, más tiempo tiene para secarse: The earlier one gets wet, the more time to dry. Little did I know how wet one could become in a little storefront law firm in a sleepy New Mexico town.

Since he, Mary Francis, and I had become a team while working on his case, and since he’d been so effective in helping me collect some of my past due accounts, including Mindy Evans, check writer,