Jim Kane - J P S Brown (18 page)

"
Three trips, three hundred pesos," Nieblas
said.

"
Take them then."

"
Pay me now."

"
I'll give you my check when you give me the
guía
," the Lion
said.

"
No checks. Cash. I want a rigorous accounting,
" Nieblas said.

"When you give me the
guía
."

"
I have to go all the way to San Luis to get the
guía
."

"
Fine. Stop and get the
guía
on the way to Rio Alamos. San Luis is right on your way. I'll pay you
as you deliver the cattle and the
guías
,"
the Lion said.

The tall man said no more. He turned and he and his
brother set about releasing the red bull. They had made a sale and
had kept their best bull. The deal was finished.

"When shall I expect you?" the Lion asked.

"
Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow, " Nieblas
muttered.

He and his brother were busy now. They paid no more
attention to the buyers. They got on their horses and rode into the
brush.

Kane and the Lion went back to Rio Alamos. Nieblas
did not come with the cattle that night. He did not come the next
day. He did not ever come.
 

15
The
Weaning

Crudo
means
raw, but when applied to the state of one's health, it means
hangover. Mexicans safer monumental
crudas
,
both physically and morally. They are inclined to give their crudas
the utmost respect and solicitousness. A man will excuse himself from
work because of a
cruda
in
the same way he would excuse himself because of a case of pneumonia.
He will get away with this excuse certainly, his employer was on the
same party. Mothers dote on their
crudo
sons.
Wives forget the smell of the foreign perfume the unfortunate brought
with him when he came home at four in the morning until after they
have doctored him back to good, sane existence.

When Kane had been in Rio Alamos several months Don
Eduardo Almada sent a messenger with word that he wanted Jim Kane to
come out to his ranch and bid on the cattle. The messenger said the
cattle were being rounded up and Don Eduardo wanted Kane to bring
enough money in cash to pay for a hundred head. He wanted 600 pesos a
head. If Kane didn't get out there the next day Don Eduardo was going
to sell to someone else. Kane wanted the Almada cattle. Almada seldom
sold big bunches. He, like most of the older ranchers of Southern
Sonora, only sold full-grown cattle and only enough of these to meet
the barest needs of his hacienda.

The Almada hacienda had been in operation one hundred
years. It had its own
mezcal
plant
and its own tannery. The dons that founded the ranch built miles of
aqueducts that brought water to the hacienda from all parts of the
ranch. The lumber of the original ranchhouse had been brought by ship
around the Horn from Yucatan. A hundred peons had worked the
mezcal
plant, tannery, and the 500 irrigable hectares of the
hacienda.

Don Eduardo did not inherit the ambition of his
forebears. He had worn out two wives and after the second wife died
he never remarried. He lived in a small house apart from the hacienda
with two big lazy sons. No one did much work anymore. The
vaqueros
milked the ranch cows and their women made
panelas
,
and cheese which they sold to make wages. Don Eduardo never paid them
a wage. Fences, doors, clothing were patched with rawhide. The
hacienda subsisted on beans and vegetables it raised,
carne
seca
, jerky, from deer or javalina or an
occasional beef (never its own), and corn tortillas.

Kane arrived at the hacienda at midmorning. The
cattle were in the corral just as the messenger had said they would
be. Don Eduardo was drunk and asleep on a cot in front of his shack
with a liter bottle of
mezcal
in
his arms. He was skinned up. His clothes were torn. His hair was
covered with dried blood. His face was covered by a scab that
extended from the top of his forehead to the point of his chin.

Kane found some vaqueros and they helped him work the
cattle. Kane waited until sundown for Don Eduardo to wake up. He woke
up mean. He said, "How long you been here,
cabrón
?"
He was suffering from the
cruda
,
the raw hangover. His hand was shaking so badly he couldn't open the
bottle. Kane told him he had cut the cattle and was ready to trade.
Don Eduardo didn't get up from his cot. He said, "My cattle are
worth six hundred pesos a head, take it or leave it."

He took a big swallow from the bottle and lay hack
down, groaning. The cattle were worth what he asked so Kane gave him
the cash for 96 cattle and told him he would send the trucks for the
cattle in the morning. It was already dark.

"
No," Don Eduardo said. "You'll take
them tonight. I don't want anything not belonging to me sleeping in
my corral." Kane had to go back to town, get the trucks, and
load the cattle out that night.

While the men were loading the cattle a vaquero told
Kane the cause of the skinned head, the selling of the cattle, and
the drunkenness.

Don Eduardo had a brother living nearby. He was the
poor brother. He had inherited only a small part of the ranch. He
lived more simply than Don Eduardo. He had no sons, no wife. He was
all alone. When he needed a little extra cash he stole something from
Don Eduardo and sold it. At the time Kane had bought the cattle Don
Eduardo had a fine patch of tomatoes and the poor brother was in the
habit of stealing a basket of the best tomatoes every two or three
days.

Don Eduardo's two sons, having nothing to do, one day
dug a six-foot-deep pitfall trap on the trail to catch the poor
brother when he came to steal the tomatoes.

The brother did not come as expected. Late in the
evening after the brothers dug the trap, Don Eduardo was coming down
the trail with a big load of
leña
,
firewood, balanced on his head. He stepped off into that trap. The
leña
drove him into
the bottom of the trap like a hammer. Much later that night when Don
Eduardo got home one son was lying in the doorway. The old man kicked
him out of the way and said, "Get out of my way,
mierda
,
manure," and went in the house looking for his bottle. The other
brother proceeded to tell his father about the trap. The longer the
brother talked the more he noticed about his father's skinned-up
condition. Don Eduardo stared at the brother until he shut up.

"
Yes,
mierda
,
I know,
mierda
,
because your beautiful trap just swallowed me," he said. "To
this level we have arrived.? You have nothing more to do than commit
atrocities against your own father, or your old uncle. I disown you
both. Tomorrow we begin to gather all cattle on this ranch.
Everything male from yearlings to ten-year-olds, if any, will be
sold. I will keep only my cows and my herd bulls. You will take the
money and remove yourselves from my sight. Go somewhere else to play
with yourselves. I don't want to be reminded of your worthlessness,
or mine."
 

16
Brahma

Garrett and March had not given Jim Kane an order for
cattle for several months. Kane's note at the bank was overdue again
when two steer buyers arrived in Rio Alamos, and sent word to Kane
that they would like to see him. He found them in the Alamos Hotel
having lunch. Kane knew one of them. He was Shorty Mulligan, a
little, sawed-of whiskey-voiced ex-racehorse trainer.

"Hello, Shorty," Kane said.

"Jim, how the hell are you? This is my partner,
Fats Potter."

Potter stood up. He was a big man with gray hair that
hung in his eyes from under his hat. The tail of his old work shirt
was out. He was not too fat. They shook hands.

"
Sit down and have something with us,"
Potter said. "I'm having a beer. I sure like this Meskin beer."

Kane ordered a beer and sat down with them.

"
I knew your father, Paul Kane," Potter
said. "Where is he now?"

"
I don't know," Kane said.

"I knew him when he worked for the Three W's
outfit in Arizona. I had a little old store at Divide. Your dad was
the best cowboy I ever saw. He couldn't stay away from the booze
though."

"
Were you at Divide? I don't remember you,"
Kane said.

"
You were a little shaver. That store was the
first business I had when I came from Arkansas. I was postmaster and
chief bootlegger too. Your dad was my best customer."

"What brings you guys to Rio,Alamos?"

"
Fats has a feedlot. He wants to stock some
Mexican steers. Terry Garrett said you could help us buy them,"
Mulligan said.

"
Don't try to buy a lot of them. I'll leave you
some money and you buy whatever you see that is good," Potter
said.

"
You can start by buying my cattle. I've got one
hundred forty steers out here," Kane said.

"
We only want cheap cattle," Potter said.

"
These won't cost you much. They are the
cutbacks I have left from this year's buying. I've been feeding them
for this market but you can have them if you like them."

They got in Potter's air-conditioned car and drove
out to Kane's corrals. Potter carried beer with him.

Potter bought 70 head of the cattle. He wouldn't take
the rest at any price. They were too thin and Potter wanted a
different type of cattle. Kane barely got enough out of them to pay
the bank.

By the time they started back to town, Potter was
getting drunk.

"
How's the girl situation in this town?"
Potter asked.

"
Same as nearly any town down here," Kane
said.

"
What do you mean by that?"

"
They've got a whorehouse."

"
Hell, I'm not going to no whorehouse. I want a
skin cover for my room."

Kane looked out the window at the hot day going by.

"
Hell, Kane, you are young and good looking. You
must have a hundred girl friends in this town. How about fixing two
old men up?"

"
There's a pimp at the hotel. He's always
available, Fats."

"
You ain't following old Fats at all, Kane.
Disease, man. Disease. You could fix us up better, I'm sure."

"
You won't have any trouble, Fats. Just show a
little blue fifty-peso bill."

"
Hell, you might as well make the fifty instead
of some Meskin pimp. Shorty, give Kane a fifty. What the hell, give
him a hundred so he'll do his best. "

"
Fats, I bet Jim has other business to attend
to. He don't need to entertain us."

"
Give him the hundred," said Potter. `

Shorty handed a 100-peso bill over the back seat.
Kane took it. He put it in his money clip.

"
Now I want two nice lookers. And clean, Kane,
clean. Get that, boy?"

"That pimp at the hotel is the best I ever saw.
You tell him early what you want and I'm sure you'll get the best
he's got. He gets the best talent in town," said Kane.

"
Look, I'm paying you to do it," said
Potter.

"
The very best I can do is introduce you to the
best pimp in town. He's the one I consult. Thanks for the tip,"
said Kane, laughing.

Potter drank beer and looked straight down the road.

After a while he grinned. "Yah, yah, yah, yah,
yah," he shouted as he steered the car into the hotel driveway.
"Shorty, find that pimp and send him up to my room. Kane you
come up and I'll pay you for those cattle."