The Panhandle Priest
By Tom Brosman
Gustavo was a miner. He worked for a big company in Artesia, New Mexico below the ground. Gus loaded the rich silver oar into cars after the blasting crew had done its work. When 23 year old Gus rode the elevator 700 feet down to the mine floor each day, he felt the fresh air rushing past him as it was pumped down to the men below. There were 9 men on his crew. He was the newest man with three years of experience. At night, Gus would lift weights to make his body even stronger and to give his muscles more definition. On the weekends, he worked on his grandfather’s farm. His Grandfather, Juan Vega, had settled in Artesia 35 years before Gus was born on 700 acres that he bought with his life’s savings. The land Juan purchased was arid and lifeless. Juan was a visionary. With the help of his 4 sons, he used a surveyors’ transit and “shot” the meadows. The men performed backbreaking work, moving rocks and earth to make the fields perfectly flat. When they have finished, the meadows were flat and easy to
Irrigate. Juan located a large artesian well on his land and diverted the water to his crops. Within a few years, Juan was harvesting 5 crops of rich alfalfa per season from his farm. Juan grew wealthy and his family prospered. Gustavo was Juan’s favorite grandson and the old man worked the boy…like a dog. Gustavo learned how to drive a tractor before most boys learned how to ride a bicycle.
At 23, Gus was working his way through college. He had good grades, a fast pickup and a beautiful girlfriend name Juanita. She was prettier than the girls in the Mexican beer commercials and she followed Gus like a love sick puppy. On Saturday nights, Gus and Juanita would drive out into the desert in Gustavo’s pickup. Juanita would feel Gustavo’s big biceps and coo at the big miner. Gustavo acted as if it was nothing, but after a date with Juanita, he felt invincible. Juanita knew that he needed her adoration and it was her gift to him.
Gustavo’s grandmother, Maria, often cooked for the whole family at celebrations of birthdays and weddings. There were 37 people in the extended family, with 4 sons and 3 daughters and all of their families.
Of all the dishes that Maria cooked, Gustavo liked a very simple one the best. Maria would roast the long green New Mexican Chiles and wrapped them in fresh warm tortillas with a pinch of salt and sometimes with a slice of the white Mexican cheese.
Gustavo’s parents both worked in town and their home was on Valdez Street. Gustavo had just over a year of mining school left and with his BS degree, he planned on working for one of the big mines as a mining engineer. Mining was in his blood…more than farming.
On a crisp fall morning in October, Gustavo drove past his grandfathers’ alfalpha fields towards the mine for work. He clocked in and got a paper cup of coffee. The night shit was coming off work and Gus got in the elevator. He was often kidded by the other men about his good looking girlfriend and his shiny pickup. The men called him “Hercules”, because of his muscles and long black shiny hair. He joked back with them and the creaky elevator headed down into the mine. Their job that day was to work in a long narrow shaft with lots of debris on the mine floor and the ceiling was so low that the men had to stoop to walk. Gustavo loaded an ore car with the debris from the blasting. All of the men were well in side of the room of rock. Fresh air was constantly being pumped in and the miners all worked with lanterns on their hard hats. There was a loud crack as a seam of rock gave way above them and dumped its contents into the room. Gus scrambled for safety under a ledge. The room was filled with screaming and moaning and dust…then it was quiet. Gustavo and two other men were alive and called to each other. The rest of the crew had perished quickly. In the mine, big Claxton horns were going off in a red alert. Across the County volunteer firemen rushed from their day jobs as the alert came in and with fire trucks screaming, headed for the mind. Down, down into the dark mine went the men and equipment on the big yellow elevator to move the rock and shore up the timbers and try to save the miners. Gus sat in the dark hole, surrounded by his dead friends and tons of fresh ore and waited. The one person Gus thought about was Juan and how his grandfather had poured the best of his life into Gus. Gus did not want to die, but he knew the odds were not in his favor. He felt he would soon be crushed by more rocks coming down on him. Gus waited in the quiet of the death chamber. His family was Catholic, but Gus did not embrace the faith as they had. Gus did not consider himself a believer, but he made the sign of the cross. A soft light began to flood the chamber. Two forms appeared to him. He could not make them out in the light, but he knew that one was a priest and the other was the Blessed Jesus. The presence of the two beings assured him that he would live and Gustavo Chavez knew at that moment the path his life would take. Four hours later, Gus and two other men were brought to the surface. Six men had perished below. The funeral was packed with people. Juan sat with Gus on the front row of the Catholic Church in Artesia and listened to Father Morales speak. After the service, Gus asked the Father many questions about his life and work. Juan listened in astonishment and he remembered an experience he had had 25 years earlier, long before little Gussie had been born. Juan had received a vision while he was farming. He had been told by a reassuring voice that he would sire a strong bloodline and that one of his descendants would become a Catholic Priest of great renown. Juan Chavez had small hands. He wore a gold ring with the image of the Virgin Mary on the face of the ring. That day on his farm, he gripped the steering wheel of the John Deer tractor and as his tears flowed onto the big tractor, he thanked the Blessed Virgin Mary. Now, 25 years later, the promise to Juan was unfolding.
Gustavo said goodbye to his family and Juanita and went to the Jesuit School in Chicago to study to become a Priest. He took the vow of chastity and found it freeing as he applied himself to study the Holy Bible and help his fellow man. Juanita married Freddie, his cousin.
The next year, Juan was trampled to death by a big Angus bull. Gus went home to the funeral. It was not sorrow that Gus felt…Sorrow is for losses and Juan had invested his life in Gus and the young man was wealthy in spirit because of his grandfather.
Three years later, Father Gustavo Chavez graduated and was assigned his own parish. It was in a place where the people were good, but they had no tolerance for outsiders, particularly Mexicans. The small ranching community was all white. Father Chavez was introduced to the Texas congregation by Father Tim Johnson, who had pastored there for 30 years and was retiring. For eleven months Father Chavez tried his best to serve his flock, but they shut him out. No one came to confessional and he received hate mail and the doors to the homes of his parishioners were firmly closed to him.
On a hot sticky Saturday in the middle of summer, Gus was walking along a lake near Perryton, Texas, his home and parish. He was dressed in his black garb with his white collar. His shoes, though worn out, were polished. He was walking along a trail when a van came careening down the hill out of control. The van reached the bottom of the hill and went out into the deep water of Lake Texoma. In 20 seconds it was out of sight. Families were picnicking around the lake and witnessed the sight. The families stood transfixed watching the air bubbles from the van come to the surface. They heard a splash and 53 white skinned Texans along the shore watched a miner from Artesia, New Mexico dive into the water and swim down to the van. There was a woman inside the van who was struggling to get out. Her window was rolled down and Gus unfastened her seatbelt and pulled her through the window. He swam with her to the surface and dragged her to the shore where people were waiting. A rancher had called 911 and a siren could be heard in the background. The rescued woman screamed that her babies were in the back of the van. The big miner dove again into the black waters. Gus reached the van and tried to pull the sliding door back. The door had been damaged and would not move. The back door had no window and with a metal partition behind the back seat, the sliding door was the only door in. The Hercules of the mines of Artesia tried with all of his might but without budging the door. A second man swam in beside him and together the two strained at the door. There was a wrenching sound as Gus and the stranger literally pulled the door out of its hinges.
The second man had small hands and a gold ring with the Virgin Mary on its face. The two small girls inside of the van had lost consciousness.
Gus took one of the girls and the other man took the other one.
The men got the girls to the surface and Gus put an arm around the girls and carried them to waiting paramedics, who were standing chest deep in the water.
Gustavo had left his Priest’s garb on the shore and was in his underwear. A rancher’s wife put a blanket from a picnic table around the Priest’s shoulders and he covered himself with the blanket.
Fifty-three bystanders, five paramedics and 3 police officers witnessed the rescue. They did not see the second man but they did watch their priest that day. The wee girls lived and their beloved priest, Father Chavez, performed their weddings some 20 years later. On the banks of the lake that day stood a Texas rancher who was powerful in the community. His name was Harold Waterbury. He was not a churchgoer, but his wife Barbara was and she had given the young priest a cold welcome. Powerful men don’t point and they don’t yell…this man looked calmly at his wife and in a voice that carried across the waters of Lake Texoma, he told her that he expected the Father to be made welcome in Perryton. He told his wife that wherever the Priest went in Ochaltree Country, he was a friend of Harold Waterbury and a slight against the Padre was a slight against him. He told his dark haired wife that in all 53 years of living, the Padre had preached the finest sermon that Harold had ever heard…and the Father preached it in his underwear.
In all of Ochaltree County, things changed for the young Priest. Children loved him and they left baskets of flowers stacked on both sides of the door to his small apartment. In the next 47 years of service to his parish, he christened, married and buried his flock with kindness and dignity. The Name Chavez was held in great respect throughout the Lone Star State. Gustavo knew the secrets of the town. He was there in the pain and he celebrated in the joys.
Ten years after Gus had come to Perryton, on a Sunday morning, to a typical standing room only audience, Father Gustavo Chavez preached what parishioner Harold Waterbury considered to be the second finest sermon he had ever heard.
It was not a holiday or a festival Sunday. It was a normal Sunday in the life of his flock. The tall Mexican with broad shoulders and long black hair rose to address his congregation. He looked around at the ranchers and their wives, at the very poor and the very rich and he could not speak. Tears dropped onto his notes and he moved the notes aside. His flock was becoming worried about their beloved man and they waited. At last, the miner, the farmer, the priest, addressed his flock. He told them of his calling so long ago in the mines and of his grandfather. He told them that being their priest and hearing their secrets, christening their babies, burying their dead and marrying their couples was the calling of a king. He told them how grateful he was for them and how good they had been to him. The room was filled with powerful men and strong women, who had worked the land and endured its hardships. It was the adults that cried first and then the children. On the back row sat an old farmer with a gold ring with the emblem of the Virgin Mary and he smiled back at Father Gustavo Juan Chavez.
