16 July 2008. Also gray, inviting wool blanket of a quiet Saturday morning--but it's Wednesday, of course, as woman with floppy brown hair clambers out of sloping late-model white car, gum in the side of her mouth, hand loose in sweatshirt pocket as she fumbles with keys, eyeing the avenue up and down before bounding across on the diagonal...papers in hand, heading our way...
Or, a makeshift wicker corral somewhere on the Argentine plains--after Prilidiano Pueyrredón, whose attentive grasp of each costume gesture--the tilt of a panza de burra, or a good pair of calzoncillos...or the figure with lazo in one hand, leaning forward on the balls of his feet, a blur of charging cattle in the background, snorting, mountains of dust, pampa sun at midday...
It's about 1863--even before Mansilla's excursión into Tierra Adentro. To the Ranqueles, the Araucanas... Cacique Mariano Rosas... Baigorrita...el Indio Blanco...
At the ege of a world...
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