Once Upon a Time in the Texas Panhandle

Colm earns the respect and admiration of both Texans and New Mexicans after someone reveals he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery in the Korean War. Upon his arrival in Glenrio, he was battling suicidal thoughts, but Marta Maria’s love becomes his saving grace.

In 1955, Sergeant Colm O’Gorman returns home to Mackenzie, Texas, by bus, having survived two wars: World War II and the Korean War. The trauma from these wars has left him feeling suicidal and has stripped him of his ability to love. On his way home, he stops off in Glenrio, New Mexico, where he meets Marta Maria Trujillo, the co-owner of the Santa Rosa Café. Similarly, her trauma from losing her fiancé on the beach in Normandy in 1944 has deprived her of the ability to love. Whether fortuitous or meant to be, their encounter initiates a healing romance.

Colm doesn’t get back on the bus; instead, he stays and helps Marta Maria run the café. They fall in love, marry, and have a child. The café, located on the New Mexico side of the state line, offers a welcoming refuge for a parade of solitary souls seeking respite from the oppressive Jim Crow laws and prejudicial attitudes rampant in Glenrio, Texas. Having witnessed the plight of refugees in Europe and Korea, Colm never turns anyone away. Putting lost souls to work in the café helps heal his trauma. The people he hires include a teenage girl who believes Colm is her father, a Black mother and daughter fleeing East Texas, a young cowboy in love with a Black girl, and a South Korean family who fled from the invading Communist Chinese.