Falcón family matanzas are a rough affair. A large and energetic coyote family of French origin, married into the local population starting in the mid-1800s. The current generation of Falcóns somehow took to pairing up with Mexicans from central Mexico who were steeped in their own traditions. As a result, the Falcón matanzas became a mishmash of local and pan-Mexican customs.
Instead of calmly leading in the beast and solemnly sacrificing it, they rope and hog tie it, shoot it with a rifle, and promptly hoist it up with a winch truck. No kind of thanks or prayer. Certainly no moment for truth-telling. Puro party.
Of course, this doesn’t mean famous truths are never told. For old man Carmen once told a truth for the ages.
Don Carmen Alanis was a rough and ready cowboy who’d grown old breaking horses and roping steers for more than 70 years. He came to be cateado as an old man because he spent most of his days on a horse and most of his nights sleeping in the wild next to a campfire. He walked bow-legged and hunched over, the right shoulder leading the left because it was broken more times. But his gate was always hurried, even at the age of 90. He wanted to do everything fast and move on to the next thing.
Lately he’d gotten to thinking that he might as well hurry up and move on to the other world because the present one, where he couldn’t ride anymore, was worthless. His wife grew so tired of him saying this that she wouldn’t contradict him anymore.
The couple lived alone next to the railroad tracks in a primitive but spacious one-room house with an expansive ramada where Don Carmen spent most of his time. As they’d married late in life, they never had kids. But because she was a Falcón, they always had a family event of one kind or another to attend.
He was normally a circumspect man, but that morning at the matanza, unprompted and much to everybody’s surprise, Don Carmen was moved to tell a remarkable truth.
“Last night, I got intimate with my wife,” be blurted out.
Nobody said anything, not knowing if they should be amused or embarrassed for Don Carmen.
“Simón. I said be still, woman. She said, ‘nonsense you despinchado old man,” Don Carmen
said.
“Pos she was surprised de amadres,” he went on.
Everybody around him was giving him side glances and looking around for his wife.
“Then what?” somebody asked.
“Pos nothing. I got up to mend a saddle,” Don Carmen said.
“She didn’t complain or get sick, old as she is?” another person asked, coughing to suppress a laugh.
“Nel, she just said ‘no you were despinchado?’” Don Carmen said.
“I told her I’m old but still useful,” he added.
“So she was happy about it?” somebody asked.
Everybody was either walking away or fighting hard to keep from laughing out load.
“Don’t know. ‘Get back in bed and go to sleep cuz the real matanza’s tomorrow’ was all she said,” Don Carmen replied.
