With mesquite green eyes and hair that turned gold with desert blossoms in the spring, no wrangler from Sonoita to Tucson could look at Santa Rita without seeing everything that was magnificent about the Old West in her sky-blue eyes. At least that was true until the day a fellow came along from out of town. A fellow who saw something else. Call me Rosemont. He was as slick and worldly as Miss Rita was innocent and rough.
I stammered. I watched her grow over the centuries into the most beautiful mountain range in the West. And when the sun hits her just right, she can blow a hole through your heart a mile wide. He slapped me on the shoulder. A hole a mile wide! Tucson, can I be frank, sir? And get rid of those ridiculous butterflies in her hair.
Picture it. Hundreds of people working 25 years straight like ants stripping a carcass; stripping her as naked as the moon. A sponsor for a summer camp for orphans?
I dropped to my knees, scooping up every last one. I was shocked by his dismissive tone. Our drought is going to get He laughed. Trust me, old-timer. We got to get copper from somewhere, right, granddad? Neither do endangered wildlife, I thought to myself. Or riparian habitats. When a visiting mining executive hops out of one to inspect our pit. I love that joke! He waved more bills under my nose. Let me take her away from all this. They tore up the land around here from Bisbee to Jerome.
There were coins in the dirt for the miners and cash in the bank for the suits. And then they left, leaving behind ghost towns and scars on the land.
