Ranchers under siege:

Pioneer family a half-mile from Mexico lives in fear of aliens, drug traffickers

Richard Puzzi Jr. gazes over ranchland that was homesteaded in 1906 by his great-grandfather; the family has tried to get out, but the land is impossible to sell

By Tim Steller
The Arizona Daily Star

DOUGLAS - That old uneasy feeling struck Richard Puzzi Jr. as he and his father walked north from the Mexican border toward their ancestral home.

``Do you ever get that feeling you think someone's watching you, and all the hair stands up on the back of your neck?'' he asked. ``You get it out here.

``You can't see them, but you know they're there,'' he said.

All too often at the Puzzis' home, a half-mile north of the border, you not only sense nearby strangers - you can see them, too. After nightfall, illegal entrants and drug smugglers crisscross the 400-acre property homesteaded in 1906 by Puzzi Jr.'s great-grandfather.

A group of illegal aliens trots across Arizona 80 at noontime near Douglas; many border crossers are harmless, but the Puzzis can't tell which ones are dangerous

In the daylight, a few smugglers and illegals just lie quietly and watch.

The atmosphere across Cochise County puts people like Richard Puzzi Sr. and his wife, Renee, who live at the family ranch, on edge.

The fact that rural residents like the Puzzis can't fully enjoy the beautiful sunsets - or even raise livestock on some property - understandably upsets them, said Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever.

``In a rural environment, privacy and property mean everything. If you don't have those, you have nothing,'' Dever said.

The Puzzis have set to work on trying to recover both. If they can't, they'll try one more time to sell the family ranch.

Family arrived in 1906

Cesare Puzzi came to this land about five miles west of Douglas in 1906 on the invitation of the mining pioneer for whom the town is named. James Douglas needed a stove built, so he hired Puzzi for that job, then took him on permanently at the copper smelter.

A boilermaker by trade, Puzzi homesteaded the property. Then he brought his wife, Leopolda, from Italy to live at the place, said Theresa Puzzi Murray, a daughter of Cesare and Leopolda who also lives on the homestead, in a separate house from Puzzi Sr. and his wife.

Leopolda Puzzi cried all night upon arriving at what was an isolated border ranch, Murray said. Then she fell in love with it and stayed until she died in 1982.

Richard Puzzi Sr. keeps a handgun by his side as he patrols the family's property, checking for damage.

In the meantime, Murray's brothers helped care for the property, raising cattle there and adding onto the original house.

After Leopolda Puzzi died, the family sold the property three times but ended up having the key handed back, Puzzi Sr. said.

The sales ``were finalized, but my uncle wouldn't keep anything that wasn't right,'' Puzzi said. ``Each time it came back for the same reason. Nobody could live here. The torment was absolutely terrible.''

Although large-scale illegal immigration is a recent phenomenon for most rural Cochise County residents, border crossers have plagued the Puzzis for years.

Apparently through some underworld tradition, migrants, thieves and druggies used the house as a staging ground during periods when it was unoccupied. They also continually burglarized Murray, who lives about a quarter-mile from the homestead house.

After more than 30 burglaries, Murray has surrounded her house with a chain-link fence topped with barbed and razor wire. The Border Patrol shows it to visiting dignitaries to illustrate the need for more border control.

Rural residents all along Cochise County's southern swath have come to share Murray's decades-old complaints. There are cut fences, littered properties and occasional break-ins.

Richard Puzzi Jr. completes a chat with Border Patrol agents. The agency sometimes has been a source of aggravation.

And there are the ubiquitous footpaths. That's what drives the Puzzis' neighbor, Larry Vance, crazy.

``There's trail after trail after trail,'' Vance said, driving along a dirt road near his property. ``How many people does it take to make all these trails?''

It all adds up to a sense of insecurity and violation that runs deepest among longtime residents. Frank Adams, who lives about four miles northwest of Douglas, used to leave the keys to his pickup truck in the ignition, but not anymore.

``I never even had a key to the house until a year ago,'' Adams said.

Rural residents have organized telephone networks to phone each other when they see illegal entrants nearby.

It isn't that they think the migrants necessarily mean harm. But they can't necessarily tell harmless border crossers from those who intend to break in.

Sue Ramirez discusses border residents' fears at a meeting of the Cochise County Concerned Citizens.

Ranch animals slain

Even those who don't break in cause problems for residents who want to raise animals.

After the last failed sale of the Puzzis' house, it was abandoned for a period. But Puzzi Jr., who has lived both in town and in the country, wanted to try ranching the property.

``I hated to see this old place derelict, and he wanted to be a cowboy. I wanted to preserve the heritage, so I thought it would be a good idea,'' said Puzzi Sr., 53.

In 1996, the family set to repairing Cesare and Leopolda Puzzi's old home for Puzzi Jr., 21, and his wife, Shannon. It wasn't easy - scavengers had ripped out everything valuable, from lights to pipes to copper wires. Vandals had broken windows, and illegal entrants had cut through fences.

``He was gung-ho to start with. He had horses and cows,'' the elder Puzzi said.

But then he started losing animals. Calves disappeared; dogs and a horse were killed. And Mexican cattle began appearing on the Puzzis' land, grazing until they could be returned.

The father and son have cleared the brush surrounding the house in hopes of making the property less vulnerable.

After a couple of years, Shannon was pregnant again, and they decided it was not working out. They sold the remaining cattle and moved near Elfrida, bringing the horses with them.

Puzzi Sr. might have tried to sell the property again, but his wife, Renee, wanted to give it a try. She had always lived in town and loved the idea of living in the country while continuing to run the Red Barn restaurant in Douglas.

Although retired from the Douglas Fire Department and thus free to move, Puzzi Sr. was dubious about taking up the challenge himself.

The Border Patrol's plans to open a station nearby convinced him. When Congress funds it, the station will be built about a half-mile down West Puzzi Ranch Road on property seized in a drug case.

Roads for Border Patrol's use

During Puzzi Jr.'s stay on the homestead, Puzzi Sr. had engaged a low-intensity conflict with the smugglers and migrants. The father and son cleared out the brush from the acreage surrounding the house, and they had begun clearing roads through the property for the Border Patrol to use.

After moving in on Christmas Day last year, the elder Puzzi escalated his take-back-the-land campaign, clearing more roads.

``We try to keep about an 80-acre area free and clear'' of brush and illegals,'' he said. ``The rest of the 320 acres is a donation to the cause. It's no good to me. All I do is pay taxes on it.''

While the crossings increased earlier this year, as they did across the county, the harassment slowed a little. Fewer young gangbangers came around looking to take back their hangout.

``It was a hard cycle to break, because a lot of them didn't know we had moved back out here,'' Puzzi Sr. said. ``Over the time, we've had the paint sniffers out here, and the stoned ones, and the ones with their tequila bottle, and every other thing in the world, going pretty crazy.

``You can't stop it all. But it went from a daily thing to every once in a while,'' he said.

Trouble with Border Patrol

What the Puzzis didn't count on was that the Border Patrol would become an aggravation, as well as part of the solution to their problems.

Among Puzzi Sr.'s tactics for taking back the land were patrolling the property at irregular times and taking shooting practice against the bank of a wash that runs through the center of the property.

The wash is conveniently located in an area crossed by migrant and smuggler trails. So he and friends took to shooting there in the afternoon and evenings, a practice that seemed to detour the traffic.

But twice, Border Patrol agents asked him to stop shooting there, even though he was doing nothing illegal, Puzzi Sr. said. The second time, he and his son were hauled out to the road in Border Patrol vehicles and presented to officers of the Cochise County Sheriff's Department and the Arizona Department of Public Safety as possible criminals.

``I was so upset, I was going to lock up all my gates and make them walk in,'' Puzzi Sr. said.

But his whole plan - the roads and the brush clearing, even moving into the house in the first place - were predicated on encouraging the agents to patrol his land. So he quit shooting in the wash and left the gates open.

That left Puzzi Sr. open to another form of Border Patrol bother. It became clear one recent afternoon when he and his son drove all over the ranch, including the border road.

Heading back toward home, they saw saw a man lying behind a roadside bush and slammed on the brakes. Up popped a Border Patrol agent.

``How you fellas doing?'' the agent asked, dusting himself off.

``Just checking out my property,'' Puzzi Sr. said.

Pleasantries exchanged, Puzzi Sr. drove off. But minutes later, he spotted another agent, standing on the roof of a nearby abandoned house, looking at him with binoculars. He concluded it was the trip to the border road, probably seen on a Border Patrol camera, that aroused their suspicions.

Still, that is part of the family property, so the Puzzis feel they have a right to go down there.

``The Border Patrol actually don't want us coming down on our ranch at all. They'd rather we stay out of here,'' Puzzi Sr. said.

``Going to get hurt''

While the number of migrants has decreased since March, the tension has not, many rural residents say.

``Somebody's going to get hurt'' is their oft-heard refrain.

In May, a man walked onto the Puzzis' property leading two dogs, then came inside the gate of the yard. He spoke broken English and ignored several orders to stop. Renee Puzzi was heading in for a gun when he finally left.

Earlier, a group of young Mexican men hid behind the Puzzis' barn. Puzzi Sr. and his son drew their weapons, but one of the young men reached behind his back, as if for his own gun.

Puzzi Sr. won't explain how that situation was resolved, but it was bloodless, he said.

``We can't sell it''

If their experiment in rural living works out, the Puzzis would like to put animals back on the property.

But if it doesn't, they could move back to town and try to rent out the ranch, perhaps.

``We know we can't sell it,'' Puzzi Sr. said. ``The only people that's ever offered us any money for it are drug dealers.

``If we're forced out, if we've fought our last fight and can't fight anymore, then we'll decide what we're going to do, but until that time we're going to fight,'' Puzzi Sr. said.