“Tahatan”

“Gilberto ran up to the old truck, which looked like something a clan of Oklahoma refugees might have been driving to California during the Dust Bowl, and met a face that instantly calmed him down. The driver was a Native American gentleman about seventy years old. Although the man didn’t say a word, the boy understood that he should climb into the rusty, battered, and bouncy old Ford. Although the aura of the man slightly intimidated Gilberto, he did study his face as much as possible without staring. It was a face that resembled a landscape. If one had taken a rugged section of the Western mountains and shrunk it down to the size of a human head, this man’s face might have been its twin. Three deep furrows in his forehead matched, in breadth and shape, his tight lips. His strong nose was perfectly shaped, as if sculpted by a master craftsman. Crow’s-feet at the edge of both his eyes might have been drawn by an inky marker. A rondure in the front of his chin bulged like a cue ball section.” (from “Palace of Perfect Wisdom”)