Where the White Doves Roost.

Senor Immaculate sweeps his front yard with a yellow-handled broom each time the sun comes up. He milks the Jersey, hauls each day's manure by wheelbarrow to the west end of the orchard, arranges it in tidy mounds, then scours the wheelbarrow with a steel brush and precious water from Lupe's grass-green garden hose. Then he waters both porches, the pig sty, and his white '57 Ford truck. "Ay, ay, ay," Lupe always yells out the kitchen window the moment he shuts off the water. "You gonna dry up the well!"

Senor Immaculate waves her voice away, finds a clean corner on his ironed red bandanna, polishes his gold tooth, and admires himself in the truck's outside rear-view mirror. All summer he irrigates his orchard from the Rio Grande, and on the first cold day he butchers the annual hog. He insists on corn tortillas, Chimayo chile, and sugar sprinkled over his cottage cheese. He speaks English to no one save Flora Feliz, his prettiest daughter who (!Gracias a Dios!) married a Duran, produced seven healthy bilingual grandchildren, all of whom love Senior Immaculate and giggle every time he leaves the outhouse door ajar so he can see the Sandia mountains--or when he tells them how someday he'll buy a new black suit and tired checkered tie and float up to Heaven in a hot-air balloon.