“Plant your seed inside me,” the giantess Apache Widow told the lone rancher.
The Giant Widow of La Soledad de Arriba
In the year of our Lord 1887, in the dry, reddish lands of northern Chihuahua, where the wind carries ancient stories and the sun burns even memories, there existed a forgotten ranch called La Soledad de Arriba.
The owner, Don Crisóstomo Valenzuela, had been widowed twice and was already over forty-five, with a graying beard and eyes like extinguished coals.
He was a quiet man, but when he spoke he did so in a low voice, like someone afraid of awakening the echoes that sleep beneath the earth.
One October morning, when the dust resembled ground gold, a woman arrived at the ranch whom no one expected and whom no one would ever forget. They called her the giantess widow.
She was almost two meters tall, broad-shouldered like a pack animal, with hands that could crack a walnut between two fingers. She had worn strict mourning for seven years, ever since she lost her family in a border attack.
They say she carried the bodies alone to the Casas Grandes cemetery, walking forty leagues without stopping, without crying, her eyes dry and red from exhaustion.
From then on, she wandered from town to town doing hard labor: carrying pianos, lifting beams, shoeing mules. No one dared to look at her twice. No one dared to speak to her directly, but Crisóstomo Valenzuela did.
He saw her coming up the main road, riding an old mule, wearing a tattered straw hat and with a Winchester rifle slung across the saddle. The animal looked like a donkey next to her.
When she dismounted in front of the big house, the cowboys stopped working and stared in amazement. Even the dogs hid.
Chrysostom went out into the corridor with his hands in the pockets of his vest.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said, taking off his hat.
She looked down at him, like someone looking at a distant hill.
—I’m looking for a job. I was told they pay fairly here.
—I have plenty of work, but first I want coffee.
The giantess widow hesitated. No one had offered her coffee in years. Only distance or distrust; she accepted with a nod.
They sat down in the kitchen. She took up almost the entire bench. Chrysostom served her in a large pewter cup. She took it with two fingers as if it were a toy.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
—Gregoria. Gregoria Morales. But everyone calls me the giantess.
—I am Crisóstomo Valenzuela and nobody here is going to call you a giantess if you don’t want them to.
She let out a dry laugh, as if she had forgotten how to do it.
—Well, I’m used to it by now.
She started working the next day. She lifted logs that four men couldn’t move. She fixed the corral in two days. She scared off an animal that was eating the calves with a single, well-aimed shot.
The cowboys looked at her with respect and surprise, but she didn’t talk much to Crisóstomo, though she did talk.
One night, after a storm that left the sky as clear as crystal, Chrysostom found her sitting on the porch looking at the stars.
—Aren’t you cold, Doña Gregoria?
—I’m never cold.
He sat down two steps away.
“Do you know what the worst thing about owning a big ranch is?” he said. “It’s too big for one person.”
She didn’t answer.
—I have land, I have cattle, I have money saved, but I have no children. My two wives died without giving me any. And a man without children is like a tree without roots, he withers from the inside.