CHALLENGE#33 for the week of 09-03-01

TRIO CHALLENGE: violin, straw hat, olive oil
QUOTE 1: "When ideas fail, words come in very handy".-- Goethe
QUOTE 2: "Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." -- W. C. Fields
QUOTE 3: "Love blinds us to faults, hatred to virtues." -Moses Ibn Exra

By Jo
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CHALLENGE#33 for the week of 09-03-01
TRIO CHALLENGE: violin, straw hat, olive oil
QUOTE 2: "Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." -- W. C. Fields
DISCLAIMERS: Fireworks and who knows... Cleo I suppose. Was up too late with the TV on.

~~~~~

As Montoya played his violin, his only audience was his prize roses in the courtyard. He would be having a brunch to welcome a new Don and Dona to Santa Helena and thought his guests would be pleased with musical accompaniment. It had been so long since he was able to take a few minutes to relax in the morning.

His solitude didn't last long. Grisham walked into the courtyard. Since the Colonel was in the middle of a stanza, he stood by the door with his hands folded in front of him to wait. Montoya's gaze caught Grisham's face and dropped the instrument to his lap and smiled tightly.

"What?" Grisham asked, caught off guard by Montoya's sudden stop, and smile.

Montoya stood and carefully placed his violin and bow back into the case and told Grisham, "Start every day off with a smile and get it over with. Now to business. Why have you disturbed my solitude?"

"Colonel, once again, there was not olive oil on the shipment this week."

Montoya sighed and smiled tightly again. The smile didn't feel right and he scowled instead. The Dons had been on his back about the lack of 'necessities' on shipments for a while, as if he was the one who loaded them himself. After going through the pros and cons of a maneuver on his part, Montoya finally told Grisham, "There is a crate in my warehouse. Slip it in, not so anyone notices you doing it, but let them have olive oil."

Grisham's eyes grew large. "You are opening your warehouse to the citizens of the pueblo?"

"They can have a crate of olive oil. One crate. And try to be discreet."

"Discreet is my middle name," Grisham said, to which Montoya cringed.

Montoya shut the violin case and motioned for a maid to come and take it away. He adjusted his uniform jacket and walked tall to the door of the courtyard. Grisham said, "What are you planning?"

"To take a walk through my pueblo. Care to join me after you slip the crate with the others?"

"Why are you giving up something from your stash, Colonel?"

Montoya whirled around and walked back into the privacy of his courtyard and explained, "I have many, many things to deal with Grisham. I have a Viceroy from hell breathing down my neck, I have a thief with a sword that the peasants love, I have an aunt still suffering from a hangover upstairs, I can not find my cat, I did something to annoy Lucy again, and I have a Capitan who second guesses me. My plate is full. The last thing I need are senoras rioting over the lack of olive oil."

"Yes, Colonel. I understand completely."

"Will wonders ever cease?"

Montoya walked to the square of the pueblo to mingle with the denizens, and to his surprise, the crates of the latest shipment wasn't the top attraction. There was a long line of men and women leading to a small tan tent set up by the fountain. "What is going on over there?"

Grisham said, "A new arrival that came with the shipment."

"There is a new arrival to Santa Helena and I was not notified immediately?"

"I don't think this woman is anyone you'd be interested in, Colonel. She's not noble, at all."

"What is this woman doing in my square?"

Montoya walked by the line of people toward the front of it and saw the placard pinned by the tent flap. "Adivina" it read. Montoya groaned. "A fortune teller?" He shook his head. "That is all I need."

Montoya walked into the tent to see a woman dressed in what appeared to be a nightgown with large colorful flowers in the fabric. Her black hair was wrapped in a turban with a jewel that had to be fake pinned in the center. Her long fingernails were painted a fiery red as she flipped tarot cards over on the table. A man leaning close to hear every word she said. They both looked at the Colonel when he entered. Montoya shook his head when he spotted the overturned straw hat half filled with reales on the floor beside her foot. They can come up with reales to get their fortune told, but they can not pay their taxes.

The woman said in Jamaican accented Spanish, "You must wait your turn, Senor. There is enough Cleo to go around."

"I am Colonel Montoya, military Governor, not Senor. What do you think you are doing?"

The peasant who was getting his fortune read couldn't look Montoya in the eye, and ended up just leaving. Cleo said, "Wait Senor, I am not finished. There is so much more that I see for you."

Montoya said, "What I see for you, Senora, is jail time if you do not cease and desist this illegal operation this very moment."

"I am providing a service, Colonel," Cleo said with great respect. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at him. "Hm."

"What?"

"I see great things for you, Colonel. Grab a chair, sit, listen. Cleo has much to tell you."

"And it will cost me how much?"

"Only one reale. Cleo is not a thief, I only need to be compensated to keep myself in business."

Montoya motioned for Grisham to complete his task to make the denizens happy and debated on whether to take a seat or not.

~Jo