good lazy sunday morning, Coffee? Here is a story of a typical day that Jim may experience.

Don Jose de La Mancha

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One fine boring sunday afternon, such as this my German friend, A Koppen, burst through my front door. He enveloped me in his arms - he was over 6 ft and heavily muscled, while i, soaking wet, hit 145 - 150, and delicately said "Jose thank you, you are going to be my assayer". "Assayer" I questioned? "Yes , you have three days to learn, then it is off the mine, I can't spare any more time.". , I thought "what the heck, I am bored here", so I became his assayer, and his alter ego, i.e. I did everything necessary to keep a mine operation running.

After bouncing around from different mines, including a bout at Cosala, Sinaloa, we ended up in the high sierras, literally on the back bone between Sinaloa and Durango. It was beautiful country between 6 - 7000 ft. The mine was called la Colorados, it was at the end of a 10 hr drive from the last town.from the west. The road ended there. To the west lay Culiacan, some 10 minutes by air. To the East there was some thousands of sq. miles of the deepest and wildest barrancas known to man. A country of still no maps, law, roads, but full of lost treasure stories. The most important was that of El Narajal, a lost gold mine of incredible richness..

We set up camp and rebuilt an older cyanide operation .into a free gold, physical / chem separation. I left the old cyanide tanks in place just in case, constructed a assay lab and trained a Mexican to do assaying.

I quickly established a relationship with the workers as being a friend, but also the boss, they kinda liked me, and since they trusted me, they told me of their many personal problems. I became their father confessor.

About this time my lovely wife joined us up there.

The mine was on the top of the left side of the steeply ascending valley, at 6000 ft in dense Pine an oak, perhaps 2 - kilometers wide. It was 2 kilometers from the mine down to the lower camp site and the dinning hall. I used to walk down with the men and eat in the dinning hall with them. This showed that we were well aware of the food up there and so stop any problems that way. I must admit that the food wasn't gourmet, but it was filling provided the Jalapeno can was kept on the table...

As time went by I became quite friendly with the cook and her twin daughters of about 13. Her hubby was the physical forman of the laborers of the
mine. Since the big house hadn't been finished yet, we stayed at the old building near the cook shack, The spot was a notch cut out of the mountain to form a flat area perhaps 20 meters around, with the hill sloping up in the back around 40 degrees.

It was presently a comb ware house, office, and sleeping quarters. Koppen, and we had our own rooms. Koppen had brought this giant, black Rottweiler "Frank" who loved to eat Mexicans, or anyone else that was handy. I quickly decided that my best future was to become friends with Frank ASAP and soon we were non chomping friends. His favorite trick, encouraged by Koppen, was to quietly sneak up on my canvas cot, slid up and we would both end up using the same pillow. I have no idea how many times I woke to see that big black head full of teeth, just an inch or so from mine on the same pillow. I quickly learned that a yell or push to get him off only earned an extremely deep, thoroughly convincing growl, the same if I tried to push him off of the cot. I finally found that I could get up, then upend the cot sliding him to ground would work.

One day one of the men came to me very agitated, he said that some the men wanted to kill our foreman. Since there wasn't any law up there, i said that wasn't nice and we couldn't allow that. Peace was restored for a day or so then the next indication of trouble was when my wife was in the office, the door was violently shoved open and a group of men entered with the Foreman front who had a lil Llama .380 pressed against his head.

My wife who normally is shy , especially with Mexican machos, simply got up, walked over to the guy with pistol and gently pushed it aside saying " now this is not very nice". He just looked at her with his mouth open. She then asked "what is the matter? if you wish you can go talk with Jo', me, pronounced Ho)

They fumed and hawed a bit, then said "we have to kill him. he cheated one of us then fired him because he threatened to tell Jo or el senor Koppen, honor demands it, plus it will show others that we do not accept this treatment". She sent one of them up to the mill for me. when I entered some actually took off their hats in a sign of respect, which I was glad for under the circumstances..

I then faced them and asked "what is your problem senores" .?. (Cal es Si problem senores) they repeated what they had told my Bert., so I said "well, we can't let a ligitamate complaint not be answered, but first ,put that pistol back in your belt".which he sheepishly did. We then discussed the complaint, so I finally told them "Caballeros, it appears as if you might have a legitimate complaint, but you realize that I must check records and ask questions of different people to be true and meet our obligations no? They agreed and left

well things were fairly quiet for a few days, then I noticed an unusual no of mules and Indians moving around our little mining settlement. I cornered one of the Indians that liked me, and proceed to give him the third degree until he finally opened up. They were gathering together for an assault on the mine to kill the foreman and any one else that got in their way. They were merely waiting for their known killer to arrive to lead them.

I found that part of his salary was to be one of the twins of the foreman. I told him to tell the others that I was responsble for all of them, including their safety, which included being their medical officer.. and I couldn't allow this to happen, he blinked, then left carrying the message to the group.

Now understand that Mexico in her magnificence, did not allow any firearms for her citizens, despite it being clearly stated in their consitution, so we had 'no' firearms, but the Indians did, and knew this..

For a few days I escorted the twins to and from their quarters to the cook shack and back, making a show of it for the watching Indians benifit.. The best that I could do for a weapon a quarter staff, which if handled correctly is actually a very efficient weapon for close in combat.. .

There was no way that we could leave with the foreman, assuming that they would allow it, since the road down was so slow that any one going directly down the side could beat any vehicle, nor could we go to the airfield, so La bert and I were stuck with protecting him and his little family or abandoning them, . This neither La Bert, nor I, could even think of doing because of our personal moral code. Nor would you.

We commenced rearranging the main quarters which afforded the best defense since it was surrounded by drop offs on 2 sides. Our main weakness was the fact that the house was on a cutout section of the hill. While we could shift various things around to protect from fire coming in from the front, we were very vulnerable to fire coming from the hill in the back. They could merely sit up there and shoot holes in the roof. We eventually had a small secure area.

we were asked if we wished an airplane sent up to evacuate with, we had to reluctantly thank them and say no. When we asked if they could send up a state policeman or two or send up arms. They then explained that where we were was effectively a no mans land, no one claimed authority for it,.nor would they assume law enforcement responsibility for it, so we were on our own if we refused the airplane. as for sending up arms , no way ..

Since we had an abundance of torvex (ammonium Nitrate explosive for mining, similar to dynamite) I sat on a bench in plain sight, in fact I moved the bench to where they could see me easier, and commenced to make up improvised grenades. I tied two sticks together with 6 ft of line with separate fuses and detonators. This would discourage anyone from picking one up and trying to throw it back. Both were connected with the main fuse for about 2 inches,

I then sat with the Bert lighting small sections of fuse, which I lit and she timed, I then threw them out into the patio in plain sight, obviously timing their burn rate. I did this with elaborate gestures for the watching Indians benefit. They were about 50 meters away, but took an interest in what I was doing, I could see them explaining to one another. Finally I used a short stick and tossed it out into the patio where it exploded with a gratifying boom. the watching Indians looked a bit uncomfortable and were moving around.... .

While we were in the midst of this, my friend and top boss Koppie, landed on a bounce hop in a Cessna, and came down to the camp. I accused him of being just as big an idiot as we were, he just grunted, However psychologically it was a tremendous boost against the Indians, it was easy to see that they were not pleased to see our reinforcement.

The next day when the expected killer was due to arrive, Koppie and I went through my little routine of tossing experiments, so when I had their undivided attention I gave Koppie two full sticks tied together to throw. frankly they made two simultaneous huge impressive explosions, our Indians were quite impressed.

we then set up our final internal defense system. We had an assayers balance table which consisted of a 4" x 4 ft x 6 ft concrete slab on top of concrete legs set in bed rock to eliminate any vibration.. I told her to hide under it when they started shooting, She just looked me in the eye and said "no way Jose, if you go, I want to go also" that's my lovely little wifey sigh.

Well the killer Indian arrived and met the men. I could see much arms waving and fingers pointing in our direction and the patio, I presume that they were explaining my little psychological play, he finally left on his mule obviously in complete disgust

The next day everything returned to normal and nothing was said, except that the men seemed to have a different opinion of me, more respect.? So the foreman was allowed to leave with his twins who grew up to be married, rather than having a fate worse than death.

My friends, I forgot to mention that when the mean Indian left, I thought that the foreman had been hidden long enough in the back room of our building, so I took him outside to sit in the sun for a bit. As we were talking some one about 200 meters away shot at us. I heard the distinctive crack as it passed between us. So I casually got up and suggested that we go inside for a cup of coffee. I waved in the general direction of the shooter to let him know that I knew that he was up there.

I don't think that he knew that we had been shot at. I had to do it slowly to keep face as they say, since I assumed that the shooter could easily have hit us if he had wanted. As it turned out I had guessed right, they wanted to see my reaction. I still have an excellent reputation up there as being ok.

Understand, in true combat, I would have been on the ground, as al Sire Trucker well understands.

My reputation grew a bit after this, word spreads rapidly in the back country. Koppie said that he wouldn't have missed it for any amount of money, he still talks aobut it.

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Appreciate your jim, he faces this potential daily, hmm on second thought with all of those half cooked peanuts, he has an excellent defense..