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The Trans-Pecos is Texas at its wildest, and, though many of its creatures are secretive, the region stands out for the glorious diversity of its wildlife.

Órale, the onda this week of Caló is tando. It means hat, but not just any type of hat. It’s the kind of a hat you would wear to go dancing, that is, a broad-rimmed black fedora or a tightly knitted straw Panama. Either way, you strap a big feather on the side of your tando so it se watch de aquellas. What do you call a cap? A cachucha. A work hat? A sombrero. A porkpie hat? A tapita. Neither of them would do to throw chancla at the bule. Only a tando a toda madres will do.

At the threshold of Far West Texas, the Lower Pecos Canyonlands contain some of North America’s most remarkable rock art. Here, where the Pecos and Devils rivers join the Rio Grande, on cave walls, prehistoric hunter-gatherers painted more than 350 rock-art panels of a distinctive style.

The headline of this episode is a well-known word: calcos. To be sure, along the Río Grande, calcos is a general term. Work shoes and dance shoes are considered calcos, but not boots or chanclas. Of course, when you dance in calcos you are actually chancleando, but that’s another episode.

Right now, spring is announcing itself across West Texas in diverse ways.

Órale, this episode’s feature is about a very notorious word in Caló, pinche. It’s very misused, to the point that many people think it’s a curse word, as it’s often used in concert with curse words. Pinche itself isn’t a curse word, however. In both Iberian Romani and Rio Grande Caló, it merely means notorious, well-known, undeniable. When it’s used in conjunction with a curse word, the purpose of pinche is to aggrandize the curse, as in that pinche one-eyed truck wouldn’t start or el pinche show-off is at it again.

Órale, this is the last episode of the series focused on the Iberian Romaní Caló words that also circulate in Rio Grande Caló. And today we've got a surprise: lollipop. Candy on a stick. Everybody who knows Caló knows that’s what it means. But it originally comes from the Romaní specialty of candied apples, ayí poba. Of course, it’s a powerful image that allows for a wide spectrum of metaphors. In Rio Grande Caló it's used to reference everything from a hot love to a false promise—but not likely a candied or sugared apple on a stick.

The Devils River is frequently described as the most pristine river in Texas. Flowing where the Chihuahuan Desert blends into the Hill Country and the South Texas shrublands, it’s a luminous ribbon of water in an arid land. It’s also a hunter’s paradise, with a rich ranching heritage, and home to globally significant cave paintings. And it’s an ecological wonder, a last stronghold for aquatic creatures that have vanished elsewhere.

Órale, the onda in Caló this week is neta. In modern Spanish it means net, as in bottom line after negatives and positives are counted. In Caló, it stands for “what you really mean.” It’s a relatively new term in Caló. It’s a term you use to cut through rhetoric, jargon or double-speak. It asks for a summary and commitment as to where somebody stands on a given issue. “You say you don’t have a big problem with it, but I want you to tell me a la neta if you like it or not.”

Broken pieces of prehistoric pottery – known to archeologists as “potsherds” – are striking artifacts. As fragments of painted vessels, they vividly evoke Native American life, in both its aesthetic and practical dimensions.