Lone Star Legend by Gwendolyn Zepeda Page A

carried it out to the dog’s water bowl. When he came back into the kitchen, he washed his hands
     methodically before taking two glasses from a cupboard and setting them on the table. Then, still silent, as if waiting for
     her answer but not in a big hurry to hear it, he went to the old, yellowed Frigidaire in the corner of the kitchen and removed
     a glass pitcher that had been draped with a piece of plastic wrap. It was filled with pale yellow lemonade and slices of lemon.
     It looked tantalizingly cold. Sandy realized she was thirsty and sat down gratefully, setting her bag on the chair beside
     her.
    The old man poured them lemonade and then went back to the refrigerator for another glass, this one full of plant stems and
     water. “It’s mint,” he explained as he pulled leaves from the stems and put them in Sandy’s glass. “It makes it taste better.
     Linda taught me that.”
    “Thank you.” Sandy took her glass and sipped. Her great-aunt had been right—it did taste good with the mint. “Do you…” She
     glanced at Tío Jaime, who was now seated and sipping his own drink, looking out the front door at his dog or maybe just looking
     into the distance at nothing. “Do you miss her?” she ventured.
    “Every day,” he said with a smile. And that was all.
    Sandy absorbed the gravity of his words. He had loved her great-aunt. It was obvious. And the way he’d said it, it sounded
     like the most natural thing and not subject to prying questions. She reminded herself that she was supposed to be on assignment.
     “The reason I came out here was that I work for a news Web site. I’m sort of a reporter.”
    “You’re a writer,” he said.
    “Right. And there’s been a report about a chupacabra in this neighborhood.” Tío Jaime snorted at that. Sandy went on, feeling
     foolish. “And I have to do a story about it. That’s my job. And I thought I’d ask you, since you live out here. Maybe you’ve
     seen… maybe you knew something about—”
    The old man laughed aloud then. “Maybe I’ve seen a chupacabra? M’ija, I’ve seen a lot of things out here, but a chupacabra
     ain’t one of them. I’m more likely to have seen a rabid dog eating one of my goats. Or some drunk running off the road and
     hitting one of them. Or a bunch of fraternity boys coming out here in the middle of the night and doing God knows what with
     each other in their underwear, and one of my poor goats getting caught up in the crossfire.”
    Sandy set down her glass and opened her bag, scrambling for her notebook. She knew good quotes when she heard them. But her
     hand landed on her camera first, giving her a better idea. “Really?
Have
you seen those things?” His answer almost didn’t matter. His words created good visuals.
    “I’ve seen that and worse in my years. All kinds of crazy things.”
    Sandy pulled her camera out of her bag. “Tío Jaime, would you mind if I interviewed you, and recorded it? With this?” She
     held up her tiny digital camera, wondering if he’d ever seen one.
    He glanced at it, bemused. “Sure, m’ija. Do whatever you need to do.”
    Sandy set up as quickly as she could, not wanting to lose the mood. She decided against holding the camera and, instead, quickly
     propped it on her bag on the kitchen table, using the view finder to make sure that it kept Tío Jaime’s face in frame. Once
     it was recording, she returned to their subject.
    “So you’re saying that it probably isn’t really a chupacabra killing goats around here—that it’s more likely a rabid dog or
     a drunken frat boy?”
    Tío Jaime laughed again. He didn’t look at the camera at all, but he did seem aware of it as he looked at Sandy. His voice
     picked up and there was an extra sparkle in his eye. “Hell, there’s no chupacabras around here. If there’s any chupacabra
     in this town, it might as well be
me
.” When he said this, his dog barked. Sandy quickly turned the camera to capture Cano watching them