For all anybody knows, night-shrouded ghosts might drift in and
out of the stone-slabbed houses still surrounding the plaza of La
Liendre. Nobody is there to see, night or day. All that stay in La
Liendre are these desolate houses and an utter lone- liness that
creeps over you. The only sounds you hear in this place today
may be the moan of the wind and the quarrelsome chatter of
birds.
Some of the houses were built tight against each other, after the
style of villages in Mexico. Other houses ventured off bravely to
their own patios and gardens. Cholla grows high inside the walls
that now have lost their roofs. Some roofs still fight off the
inevitable crush of time. Decaying chimneys protrude from these
like rotten old snags.
Sagging doors and glassless windows have abandoned the last
thought of protecting the nothingness inside. As if in a final
gesture of respectability, one house still preserves over its door
the dim letters POST OFFICE. But there'll never be another letter
to come or go from here. Yet in front of what once was a general
store a mailbox still hangs on hopefully.
In this old store, though, it's desolation. It's desolation in the
adjacent high-walled corral built of stone and adobe. Desolation
in the little crumbling church. Desolation spelled on the
headstones of graves around the church. Beyond the town's last
houses lies a large stone-walled cemetery, with a few graves
dating back not too far.
Down below town and cemetery Las Gallinas River idles along
quietly, unconcerned. Along its banks are the fields and pastures
that lured settlers here from the older settlements of the region.
These people brought with them an old culture which in part
came across from Spain. It has all come and gone within the span
of one century.
To get to La Liendre, drive eight miles east of Las Vegas on
State Highway 65 and 104, to State Road 67. Then follow signs.
and map to this lost village on the Gallinas.
.
out of the stone-slabbed houses still surrounding the plaza of La
Liendre. Nobody is there to see, night or day. All that stay in La
Liendre are these desolate houses and an utter lone- liness that
creeps over you. The only sounds you hear in this place today
may be the moan of the wind and the quarrelsome chatter of
birds.
Some of the houses were built tight against each other, after the
style of villages in Mexico. Other houses ventured off bravely to
their own patios and gardens. Cholla grows high inside the walls
that now have lost their roofs. Some roofs still fight off the
inevitable crush of time. Decaying chimneys protrude from these
like rotten old snags.
Sagging doors and glassless windows have abandoned the last
thought of protecting the nothingness inside. As if in a final
gesture of respectability, one house still preserves over its door
the dim letters POST OFFICE. But there'll never be another letter
to come or go from here. Yet in front of what once was a general
store a mailbox still hangs on hopefully.
In this old store, though, it's desolation. It's desolation in the
adjacent high-walled corral built of stone and adobe. Desolation
in the little crumbling church. Desolation spelled on the
headstones of graves around the church. Beyond the town's last
houses lies a large stone-walled cemetery, with a few graves
dating back not too far.
Down below town and cemetery Las Gallinas River idles along
quietly, unconcerned. Along its banks are the fields and pastures
that lured settlers here from the older settlements of the region.
These people brought with them an old culture which in part
came across from Spain. It has all come and gone within the span
of one century.
To get to La Liendre, drive eight miles east of Las Vegas on
State Highway 65 and 104, to State Road 67. Then follow signs.
and map to this lost village on the Gallinas.
.
| LA LIENDER |