The Rustlers

This event may have happened around 1928, when my father was barely thirteen. His father, brother Fred and he were on horseback winding through an area full of pines, with some mules taking loads of quarried stone to another site where rock was heated in ovens to break up into limestone gravel. This was in a heavily forested part of Durango that is now barren of  trees since protective environmental laws didn't exist in the late 1960's to keep the area from becoming denuded. They were asked by men on horseback if they had seen anyone taking cattle from a nearby ranch. My dad told me he was pretty scared, as he and his brother received looks not to speak and he saw his father (whom I refer to as Papa Luis) discreetly touch his rifle to be ready if necessary. Papa Luis explained they had been getting stone and had not seen anyone. As they travelled down the mountainside, which took another day or so, what they came upon was incredibly gruesome. (Cont'd on Rustlers 2)