Free Paradise Valley by Dale Cramer

a tall Texan, the biggest man in the room. He wore a strange-looking tan suit with wide lapels trimmed in a darker brown, a string tie with a clasp made of silver inlaid with turquoise and coral, and a hat with a flat brim and slightly rounded dome. Apart from the buckskin color and the narrow band proudly displaying the name Stetson, his hat looked an awful lot like something an Old Order Amishman would wear. Smiling, Marlon Harris seemed right at home, and indeed came across as the kind of man who would be right at home virtually anywhere.
    After the introductions were done, Caleb quieted the crowd as best he could, and began. Uncomfortable as he was with speaking before such a crowd, his discomfort was doubled by having to do it in English for the benefit of his two guests.
    “Brethren, what we come here to talk about today is our problem with the schools. I don’t like it, and I don’t think anybody likes it much that our kinder are made to go to the consolidated school every day, mix all the time with Englisher children, and learn things we don’t want them to learn. So last week when I found out about this land in Mexico” – he held up the brochure, though most had already seen it – “I’m thinking mebbe it is an answer to prayer. But I don’t know nearly so much about it as Mr. Harris here, who is from Texas and has been to see the land with his own eyes, so I’ll chust let him talk.”
    “Well now,” Marlon Harris said, rising to his impressive height, his booming voice a little overwhelming in the crowded living room. “Gentlemen, Avery here has told me all about your troubles with the schools in Ohio, and I’ve got good news for you. The government in Mexico couldn’t care less where your young’uns go to school. Or even if they go. In Mexico you can do whatever you like. You can run your own schools for all they care.”
    He rubbed his hands together, smiling a little too broadly. He had their attention now. “So let me tell you about this parcel of land for sale in Paradise Valley. I’ve seen it myself, and boys, it’s a peach. We’re talking about five thousand acres of rich black dirt at six thousand feet in the temperate belt of the lovely state of Nuevo León, the jewel of Mexico. You can grow wheat year-round on this place. The whole thing is flat as a cow pond and hardly a tree or a rock in sight – ready to plow, and so soft you could turn it with a boat paddle. And it’s yours for a mere ten dollars an acre.”
    He spread his hands and looked around the room. “Questions?”
    Caleb Bender looked around the room too, at the faces. Marlon Harris smelled of tobacco and cologne, and his flashy style made him look like a huckster, an outsider trying to sell them a bill of goods. Too many of them were already looking at him a little sideways, their arms crossed on their chests.
    At first no one even ventured a question, but then a man from down near Maysville, sitting in the back, raised his hand and cleared his throat.
    “Everybody knows Mexico is a hot, dry place, full of rocks and snakes. You can’t grow nothing but cactus. Why would a farmer want to go there?”
    Harris put on the patient smile of a schoolteacher, shaking his head. “Now, I’m gonna tell you the truth – yeah, some of Mexico is like that, in fact a good bit of it, especially in the low country, but we’re talkin’ about a mountain valley, high up in the Sierra Madre Orientals. Just wait till you see it! I’m telling you it’s an oasis, fellas, cool and green year-round.”
    There were skeptical glances. Jonas Weaver raised a hand.
    “How far is the closest produce market?”
    “Great question! Paradise Valley is about fifty miles from Saltillo, where they’ve got a real nice market. Now, I know that’s a long way in a wagon, but the good news is, they’re already drawing up plans to extend the rail line down from Saltillo to where it’ll run within a few miles of Paradise Valley. You can see it for