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Tilda, or Charlie Underwood as she was known to her legion of dedicated readers, grew in popularity with each novel she published.  On the heels of Turquoise and Tombstones came Sharpened Arrows, Shattered Dreams about a woman who lost her husband in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.  Captured by his killers, she eventually became integrated into the tribe.  Her marriage to the great warrior Claw of the Bear pushed the boundaries of conventional literature of the 1950s, but then so did Tilda’s own lifestyle.

Her friendship with Georgia blossomed into something that would have raised eyebrows in Fort Stockton.  When Tilda’s children came to Santa Fe or Taos for a visit she put them up in the La Fonda Hotel and treated them to all the sights and sounds of Santa Fe, but never fully explained the subtle nuances of her new life.  By the time Canyon of Regret was published, she was firmly ensconced within the burgeoning community of artists that had taken up residence in Santa Fe and Taos.  Many miles were amassed in the 1940 Buick Super Sport coupe traveling between the two enclaves.  The Spartan Manor Model 25 never left its slip at Roll-In Trailer Park.

One morning Tilda and Georgia were having breakfast at The Pantry with Jackson Pollock, J.D. Salinger, and Elia Kazan, Elia having taken the train to Santa Fe on a mission to get Tilda to sell him the rights to Never a Navajo for a full length motion picture.  As she asked him whether or not it was his intention to film the picture in Technicolor, she noticed out of the corner of her eye a Devco milk truck from the Vitamilk Dairy swerve in an attempt to avoid missing an old gray-faced stray mix and plowed right into the driver’s side of her Buick coupe parked out front.

The result was threefold: an unemployed Devco driver, a mangled mutt that would forever walk with the same gait as John Wayne, and Tilda’s need for a new car.  The Buick was a total loss.

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Tilda made her way to Aztec Chevrolet to look at a new ’57 Bel Air coupe with its swooping fins and artistic anodized gold trim.  She could have easily afforded a Cadillac, but her Fort Stockton roots instilled a sense of practicality even the financial success of being a best selling author could not exorcise.  Walking towards a Coral Mist Bel Air, her gaze was immediately diverted to a Turquoise and Snowshoe White Cameo pickup and there was no question in her mind what she’d drive back to the Spartan Manor.

The color of the truck reflected the title of her first novel, Turquoise and Tombstones, and the practicality and rugged good looks made it the perfect choice.  She had a hitch put on the truck and within weeks was pulling the Spartan Manor to a newly purchased two hundred acre ranch in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

The gatherings taking place there became legendary.  Stories of Tilda behind the wheel, Nat King Cole riding shotgun, and Dinah Washington riding between them pouring drinks as the Cameo bounced over the trails, a drunk Gary Cooper and Ernest Hemingway taking shots at imaginary sidewinders on the horizon.  Neither could’ve hit a buffalo if it had been sitting next to them on the wood planked floor of the fiberglass flanked bed.

Tilda lived her best life, finishing her days writing in the Spartan, pushing limits in her Cameo.  When she passed at 89, her ashes were spread in the Palo Duro Canyon, where tradition dictated tossing memories over the edge, for the wind to carry them as far as they could go.

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