The Quiet Cowboy
A story from The Cowboy In You
I've been surrounded by Cowboys my whole life. God blessed me with that.
Cowboys come in all shapes and sizes: men and women, loud and subtle, reckless and refined.
But the apex, the version I'm still striving to reach, is the Quiet Cowboy.
You'd know one if you met one. No announcements. No posturing. Just presence.
I told you earlier: when you get married, look closely at your spouse's parents. Chances are, that's who they'll become.
I was blessed. My father-in-law was Antonio Cabrales.
The Quiet Cowboy.
Don Tony was Salvadoran, but raised in the U.S., his parents were diplomats. He studied agriculture in the States, then returned to El Salvador as a young man. An outsider, really. They told me his Spanish wasn't even that good at first.
But he had a way with people. Easy. Unforced. Instantly likeable.
He got married. Had five kids. Prospered. Bought a farm. Raised cattle. And then he set his sights on something impossible.
There was an island, Isla Teopán, in the middle of Lake Coatepeque. Untouched. Unspoiled. The Mayans had ruins there, they said.
He became obsessed with it.
It took him twenty years to buy it. Multiple owners. Endless negotiations. But he willed it into existence.
My wife and her siblings told me they would pray each night, for the family, the farm, and the island.
During the brutal Salvadoran civil war, most people fled. He stayed.
He looked after the farms of those who went into exile. Kept things running. Kept things alive.
One day, out checking on a friend's coffee farm, he came upon a roadblock. FMLN rebels. They stopped him, said they needed his truck, this was common, they'd take a vehicle, conduct an attack, then ditch it.
They didn't know he was the Minister of Agriculture. He'd left his bodyguards behind that day, which probably saved his life.
When they asked what he had in the truck, he said, "Some fruit from the farm. You want some?"
Didn't miss a beat. Didn't panic.
When they said they were taking the truck, he told them: "I need that back. I work out here."
He cut a deal. A few days later, they left it at an abandoned farm down the road.
And by God, the truck was there.
When I started my first business in El Salvador, he was there. These were hard times. Post-war economy. No money. No local connections. My own family didn't support me.
But Don Tony did. Every time.
He encouraged. He coached. He pushed me to go the extra mile, not with lectures, but with presence. With belief.
One night, before we were married, I came by to visit my wife. On the way in, I got into an altercation with a guy on the street. Stupid, so I let it slide. Went inside.
But the guy wouldn't stop. Banging on the steel garage door. Screaming. Threatening.
So I went down to deal with it. Don Tony came with me.
We stood on the wall, looking down at this guy. Both of us were armed, but his six-shooter was already out.
I started exchanging words. Told the guy if he didn't leave, I'd come down there and beat the hell out of him.
Don Tony didn't say a word. He just raised the six-shooter and started firing. At the guy's feet.
Then, without raising his voice: "Andate, baboso."
The guy ran.
My wife heard the shots. She knew I'd gone down. In her mind, someone was dead, either him or me. She screamed my name.
By the time she reached us, it was already over.
When my trouble with the feds started, I turned to him.
I told him: these guys aren't going away. There's no way to win. I might as well go up there and knock this out, even though I knew what I was walking into.
He looked at me and said:
"Greg, they don't want to put you in prison. They want to put you under the prison."
He understood how these systems work. He knew you can't beat an unbeatable foe. But he also knew I don't run from things. That's not who I am.
He didn't try to stop me. He just made sure I saw it clearly.
It was the week of Easter. We were at the island, the same island he'd spent twenty years acquiring.
I was sitting on the deck with the kids, waiting for him to arrive for the weekend. I saw my sister-in-law take a call. I could tell something was wrong.
The ferry operator just said: You need to come here.
Wouldn't say why.
I knew something was wrong. I grabbed the phone and asked him directly.
That's when he told me. The car, with my father-in-law, mother-in-law, driver, and maid, had gone off the ferry. They were underwater.
I sprinted down the path, through the woods, to our boat. My youngest son ran with me. I told him to stay, I knew what I was heading into.
By the time I arrived, my mother-in-law had surfaced. Eighty-seven years old. A survivor.
But five minutes passed. Then ten.
I knew we weren't rescuing anymore. We were recovering.
In El Salvador, in the country, when there's trouble, no cavalry shows up. You solve it yourself. Fast.
We located the car. Tied it up. Started pulling out the bodies.
First the driver. Then the maid. Then Don Tony.
I pulled him onto the boat myself. Made the sign of the cross on his back.
I couldn't stop thinking: How does a Cowboy go out like that?
He'd crossed that ferry a thousand times.
You never know what will happen.
The funeral was packed. People I'd never met. All with stories about the Quiet Cowboy.
He built his own sanctuary, an island we still visit most weekends.
You can only get there by ferry.
And every time I cross that water, I think of him.
I'm still trying to become what he was.
I haven't made it yet.
But I haven't stopped trying.
Watch for them. Learn from them.
And maybe, if you're lucky, become one.
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