FirstThe 267,000 square miles east of Los Fresnos, Chihuahua, stretching 770 miles, east to west and north to south, is an area known in times modern as Texas, tejas, the Hasini Indian word for friendly. Its northwest neighbor New Mexico can add another 121,600 square miles, an area alone larger than New England, with New York State as well. Humans are not native to this southwest land. Every race that has come here has arrived as visitors, invaders, wanderers, crossing a narrow land bridge from Asia. They were hunters – chasing the sun – the sun that makes grass grow and browse – that feeds game. The hunter's favorite place was Llano Estacando. This is where the great ancient elephants thrived. Life was a difficult and dangerous business for these early, almost subhuman beings, killing elephants, mastodons, ground sloths, enormous buffalo-like beasts, but outnumbering them by a factor of four – all killed for food with stone-tipped spears. flint perhaps. Over an unknown period of time, the animals disappeared, as did those who pursued them with their crude spears. They were courageous beyond our limited understanding of the full meaning of the word. Then, perhaps on the same narrow spit of land that connected Asia to this new land, others arrived. Mongoloid-skinned, to be called Indians when light-skinned Europeans arrived a few millennia later. Indians did not consider themselves Indians – they were the people. The people shared at least one trait with their "smarter" Europeans who invaded much later: they knew how to wage war. Waging war for sport or pleasure, but usually to defend their hunting grounds and women. There was a place and a station for all the people - all but...... middle of paper ....... We bounced back, the caliche road descending back to the river plain, the mighty Rio Grande showing at barely a trickle. I explained to the girls that the river dries up during drought years because cities, towns, and farms suck up all the water as it flows south through New Mexico and between Texas and Chihuahua. As the Rio Conchos exits Mexico at Presidio and empties into the Rio Grande floodplain, it presents a much more favorable presentation as a river. Bona wanted to take a photo of the river she had heard about her whole life. We piled in, bought a Coors Lite, and stretched our legs. Alice and Sweetie sped past, not slowing down or caring about the dust they shared with us. Dust rushed toward us as we got back into the Acura. “Sonofabitch bastard,” Bona shouted, pointing her public finger at the rear of the disappearing Pathfinder. “Holy shit.”