Contrabando: Confessions of a Drug-Smuggling Texas Cowboy - Hardcover

Ford Jr., Don Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0938317857 ISBN 13: 9780938317852

Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press, 2004

Synopsis

Don Henry Ford, Jr. is a Texas cowboy, rancher and farmer. In the late 1970s, he was foreman of his father’s ranch and farm in West Texas along the Pecos River. The ranch was going broke. The bankers were knocking at the door. Don went to his Mexican hands, the same guys who were the connection for his own marijuana--smoking inclinations, and they directed him to their contacts on the other side of the Rio Grande. Soon, he was scoring some easy money and he was hooked. For the next seven years, he made his living as an outlaw, smuggling marijuana across the U.S./Mexico border in the Big Bend region. Millions of dollars passed through his hands. He did business with many of the big-name narcotraficantes of the era like Pablo Acosta and Amado Carrillo Fuentes. After being arrested and sent to prison, he escaped and lived for a year in rural northern Mexico, raising a bumper crop of marijuana and hiding out from the federales. Contrabando is a confession, but it’s also an homage to the Mexican paisanos and, indeed, to other outlaws north of the border who became Don Ford’s friends and protectors during his seven years as a smuggler.

Charles Bowden (author of Down by the River, Simon & Schuster, 2003) has written a remarkable introduction to Contrabando, giving an historical perspective to the never-ending “war on drugs” waged by the U.S. government.

In December 1986, the feds caught Don Henry Ford a second time. He was sentenced to 15 years in a maximum security federal penitentiary. He now lives in Seguin, Texas, farming and raising race horses.

About this title

About the Author

Don Henry Ford, Jr. grew up in West Texas on the ranches of his father and grandfather. His dream was to become a rancher and farmer, but as a young man, he became a drug smuggler and was eventually busted and sent to prison. He was incarcerated for 10 years. He now is a writer and a rancher, raising race horses in Seguin, Texas. Infamous journalist (GQ, Esquire, Harper's, etc) and non-fiction author of Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Family and Murder (Simon & Schuster); Juarez: A Laboratory of the Future (Aperture); Blues for Cannibals: Notes from the Underground (North Point Press); etc. Lives in Tucson, AZ.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Contrabando

Confessions of a Drug-Smuggling Texas CowboyBy Don Henry Ford

Cinco Puntos Press

Copyright © 2005 Don Henry Ford
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780938317852

Chapter One

The beginning

The year is 1980, and I am twenty-three years old. My Suburban floats over the road to Del Rio, Texas. Slightly over two thousand dollars in cash creates a bulge in my billfold. Some of it's mine -- some "borrowed" from hay sales at my dad's farm. So -- the money is my dad's. Or does it belong to the bank? Who knows? I justify taking the money -- after all, this is a business venture to save the farm, isn't it? And I'll pay it back with interest. I rent a cheap motel room and stash an ounce of marijuana and a couple of hundred bucks in the room before crossing the bridge that leads to Ciudad Acuña. I roll three joints. I smoke one before crossing the bridge and take two with me. I avoid the zona de tolerencia -- the red-light district -- due to previous bad experiences. A bar on the main drag catches my eye and I stop.

The cantina is small -- two pool tables and eight or ten tables hosting beer-drinking customers, even at this early hour. I order a beer and begin to play pool, sip my beer and breathe in the smoke of others. Within minutes, a young heavyset Mexican man about my age comes up to the table and challenges me to a game. We talk in Spanish. I've known Spanish from growing up and working on the farms and ranches and from my travels to Ecuador and Columbia with my father. We talk as we play -- each of us feeling out the other. I ask if he likes marijuana.

"Sure," he replies.

"Where can I buy some?" I ask.

"I know people. How much would you like?"

"That depends on how much it costs."

"How much it costs depends on how much you want."

"I need ten pounds."

At this, he perks up. "You have money to buy ten pounds?"

"Yes."

"On you? Here?"

"Yes."

"I can get it for you but not until later."

"How much later?"

"This afternoon -- today!"

We play a few more games of pool. My game, never very good, is worse than usual. He beats me again and again. I get tired of this and ask if he wants to go out and burn a joint. We smoke about half of the joint, passing it back and forth while driving around town. I put the rest of it alongside the other prerolled cigarette in the ashtray of my Suburban. Smoking the marijuana leaves me comfortable with my newfound friend. He directs me to the zona, insisting all will be well because he knows people. We walk into a bar and take a seat. He whispers quietly to several women and a young boy and then tells me he is making arrangements for a meeting with his suppliers.

We drive back to the first cantina. I park, at his direction, in the alley behind the bar. We enter and start playing pool again. By this time, the bar is filling with people, predominately older local types. I buy us another round. My friend glances at my open billfold. We play some more, and he continues to beat me at the pool table.

Two men enter the cantina, dressed in nice clothes and expensive black leather jackets, with slicked back hair and dark sunglasses, looking not unlike the Blues Brothers.

"Here they are," my young associate tells me.

He walks over as they take a seat and speaks briefly with them. He returns and we play another game. I am poised to win. I line up a shot on the eight ball, draw back the pool cue and stroke. The eight ball sails into the prescribed pocket. So does the cue ball.

"Damn!" I exclaim. The two men at the bar watch.

"Let's play another," my friend suggests.

I remove a couple of quarters from my pocket, insert them into the pool table and prepare to release the balls. Then I feel someone grab me from behind.

The son of a bitch!

One man struggles to hold me from behind. I fight -- many hours on the end of a shovel and loading heavy bales of hay have left me with a muscled body my fat Mexican assailant isn't able to control. I back across the room and slam him into the wall. He loses his grip and collapses to the floor. I step into the other man, eyes locked on the point of his chin where my fist will connect, like a big cat homing in on its prey. I see fear in his face. He backs up and whips out a badge, holding it up like a shield, or the cross of a frightened priest in the face of an approaching vampire. I stop short of hitting him.

"Police!" he yells, with a hint of panic in his voice.

I raise my arms into the air. The guy I slammed is up again and pissed off. He grabs one arm, his accomplice the other, and they hustle me through the back door and into the alley. They shove me against the wall and try to hit me in the abdomen. I repel them.

"I'll go with you, but not this way!"

"Get in your vehicle," one shouts.

I climb into the front seat of my Suburban. One of them gets behind the wheel. The fat guy rides shotgun. I sit between them.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask, fearing the worst.

"Jail."

"For what?"

The guy riding shotgun opens the ashtray and removes the joint-and-a-half.

That bastard set me up!

We drive to a police station. The building is small and made of adobe but a marked police car sits parked in front. At least they really are police. The alternative could be much worse. I've heard the stories.

They lead me into the building and into a small office containing a desk and two chairs, one behind the desk and one in front. They put me on the one in front. . . .

Continues...

Excerpted from Contrabandoby Don Henry Ford Copyright © 2005 by Don Henry Ford. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0938317857
• ISBN 13: 9780938317852
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240