One of our local ranchers decided to turn his hunting lodge into an event space (for rent). It’s Instagram perfect (a small lake, grazing cattle and view stretching clean across the valley). Anyways, the rancher hired me to design the place. The landscape plan is ready, it is time to plant, so off we go to the nursery. At this particular nursery, you have to stop at the gate, call the big house, and the owner drives down, unlocks the gate and lets you in. This nursery man has a unique process for planting trees, and they are full grown, at least 20 feet or more tall. The rancher and I walk the property, select 40 trees and call the nursery man, who comes down to conduct business.
This rancher may look white, but he is not. His family acquired their land through a Spanish land grant and managed to hold onto a thousand acres for 400 years. The nursery man hurts himself and curses in Spanish and the two men start conducting business in Spanish. We’ve got to get these trees in the ground, and I ask the nursery man if his workers are available for hire.
Long. Long. Long. Pause.
The nursery man just stares at my neck. When I realize what he’s looking at I stare right back. Out of the blue, he tells us he’s from Argentina. No you’re not, I shoot back. He stares at me again (he is glaring). He nods, glares and says, I’m from Germany and you know what that means, don’t you? His tone of voice is impossible to describe. I look at my client and he has no frigging idea what is going on. I tell the nursery man, “you want five thousand for those trees, we’ll give you $3,000. and we are taking 50 trees, and you are delivering them to the ranch – that’s the deal, take it or leave it.” The nursery man took the deal, the rancher reached in his pocket and handed him cash. We pick out ten more trees and leave.
On the drive back to town, the rancher asked me what was going on. He’s a fucking Nazi, I replied, he’s been hiding in Argentina and now that fucker’s here.
I will never forget that Nazis tone of voice, or the way he looked at me. He must have been in his late 70s, and I've never seen anyone who aged so hard, he looked like rock.
