I won't be remembered. I have too many names to keep track of. John, Maria, Takansy. Mariano, he picks and chooses. It is John when he is feeling American, Marie when he is feeling Spanish and very Catholic. It is Takansy only when he does not take the time to stop and think of what he is that day. When he just is. I do not tell him of the power in a name; he knows. I do not tell him I want one, just one, and it isn't John. There are many things I do not tell him, this man with his wide grin and crows feet, this man whose name is whispered up and down the frontier.
He has made a name for himself in this corner of the world--they call him the Don Juan of the Big Thompson. I have a husband who will live long after he is dead--his name is a common thing. Everyone knows him, everyone comes to him for money and passage and ponies and whiskey. I sit quietly by in my rocking chair under the great oak and think to myself I am three women and none of them will outlive him.
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