Jim Kane - J P S Brown (36 page)

A woman's voice called them to supper.

They stepped into a spotless dining room. It's
white-washed walls reflected brightly the white light of the butane
lamp. The table was set with fine linen and shiny crystal and china.
Kane could imagine the trouble it had been for Pablo to pack that
stuff in to San Rafael on mules.

Pablo's wife came in and Kane was introduced to her.
She was a small woman with a tight, closed face and eyes that did not
see you. A perpetual stranger.

They ate dried beef fried, white cheese, fried beans,
black coffee, the thick, corn
gordas
,
tortillas, in the lamplight.

After supper they lay down between flannel sheets on
thickly mattressed cots covered with abundant quilts. They slept the
sleep of the ready-for-bed horseman, breathing the clean, dry, high
altitude of the Sierra Madre.

Pablo woke them in the darkness. The
guía
,
the first star that leads out the morning sun, had risen.

They wrestled with their clothes under the quilts,
stamped their feet into their boots, and went outside to wash in the
ice cold water Pablo poured from a pitcher for them. They could hear
the weak cries of the infant awake in the morning. The child almost
wasn't there.

Pablo's wife stayed in the kitchen during breakfast.
She never presented herself or spoke to them again."

While they were saddling their horses Pablo said,
"We've got a big Brahma bull we've been saving for Pajaro. He
probably weighs four hundred kilos and he is a lion for fierceness.
We've been trying to throw him to disinfect him of lice. He jerked
two mules down and gutted a good little horse. I want you to throw
him down for me."

"
I'll be happy to," Kane said.

The cowboys spread out and penned the cattle in a
corral. The gray bull with the black almond-shaped eyes, the black
hump, and horns like bananas, moved majestically, brushing aside all
before him as he eyed and smelled man.

Kane warmed the sorrel, galloping away from the
corral on the frosty ground. The horse always liked to buck in the
morning and the habit had kept him sound because Kane never did any
heavy work on him without warming him first. Kane took down his nylon
rope and tied hard and fast around the swells and horn of his saddle
as he rode up to the gate. Pablo slid back the gate poles and Kane
rode through.

"
Be careful. He's a meat eater," Pablo said
as he closed the gate behind Kane.

"Be ready to open that gate and we'll take him
outside to educate," Kane said.

The corral sloped steeply. Kane rode to the top side
and stopped his horse. The cattle milled quietly. The bull turned and
faced Kane from the bottom of the slope. Kane lifted the loop softly
and threw the flat, overhand "nightloop." It encircled the
banana horns and was jerked tight around them. The bovine, startled,
jumped straight up, stiff-legged, his big hump wobbling. Kane gave
him slack and followed him as he bucked toward the gate. "Open
it," he shouted and Pablo quickly complied.

The bull, unaware he was caught, charged toward the
gate. Kane wanted him to think he was escaping. You can't ever
out-stout them, you can sometimes out-prize them, you should always
be able to outsmart them. This was a policy Kane always applied to
the handling of Brahmas.

As the bull passed through the gate he jumped
sideways, kicked, and blew snot at Pablo. Kane followed the bull out
into the pasture and checked him once by stopping Pajaro and letting
the bull hit the end of the rope. Then he gave him slack again and
fell in behind him at a dead run. The big bull headed for the brush,
running like a racehorse. Kane spurred the sorrel up close, threw the
slack over along the right side of the bull and around his buttocks,
and drove the sorrel on by, reining to the left. When the big sorrel
horse, who weighed 1350 pounds, hit the end of the rope he was
prepared for the jerk of bull on rope. The bull's head was yanked
back to the right, the right horn was driven into the ground, the
hind legs and hips flipped on over and slammed into the ground. Then
the bull was spun on his side and dragged, all the air knocked out of
him, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Kane coiled his rope as he rode back to the bull. The
bull started quivering back to consciousness. A big, full sigh bathed
his lungs and the nostrils began to flare with breath, blowing loose
dirt and cleaning two little spots on the ground.

' Kane flicked the rope, loosening the tight band of
the loop around the horns. The bull kicked both hind legs and jerked
shakily to his feet. He threw up his head and shook his horns at
Kane. There was a big clod of dirt stuck on the end of the right horn
where it had been spiked deeply into the earth. The side of his head
and the smooth, loose hide of the right side were powdery with dust.

The bull shook his head again and backed away. Kane
started circling the bull just as he charged. Kane spurred the big
horse off the horn as it hooked at the horse's thigh. The bull didn't
have time to check his charge before Pajaro hit the end of the rope
and jerked him down again. This time only the front legs buckled
under the bull while the hind legs held him up and Kane dragged the
bull's nose in the frosty gravel.

"
You see, there's no SPCA here, bull. This is
designed so you might not enjoy horsemeat anymore, little bull,"
said Kane.

The bull stood again. Kane circled him once, wrapping
the rope around the hind quarters just above the hooks. As he passed
in front of the bull again he dropped the wrap below the knees and
rode off behind the bull pulling the rope under the front feet so
that it wrapped around the hind legs above the hocks. The head was
pulled back to the hind quarters and the hind legs were held up by
the pull and the bull went down again, trussed in a package for
Pablo's cowboys to bathe with insecticide.

"
When he gets up from there he'll be hunting a
friend," Kane said.

They let the bull up after drenching him with
foul-smelling solution and he walked sorely away to a corner of the
pasture to brood. The bull's big, leafy ears drooped. The strong
stink of the dip and the mud that stuck to him, the awful smell of
the man, and the brimstone taste of the violence that had been done
to him detracted from the strong opinion he had of himself and he
remembered his mother.

Kane led his horse back into the corral and by noon
they had sorted out the cattle Kane would buy and drive to the
railroad at Rio Alamos.

The
vaqueros'
wives
had prepared lunch. Pablo, Kane, Juan, and the cowboys ate underneath
a big mesquite tree in the lee of the corral. The women and boys were
rolling blankets and packing mules with the camp the cowboys would
use on their twenty-day drive to the railroad.

Kane looked up the hill. He could see Pablo's wife
sitting on the porch. She had pen and paper and it looked as if she
were writing a letter.

"
Your wife is nice, Pablito," he said.

"
I'm sorry we didn't have lunch at the house,"
Pablo said.

"My wife isn't feeling well and she has a lot to
do with the baby to care for."

"Babies are a lot of work. What can I bring your
wife from the States?"

"Only your safe return."

"
There must be something your wife would like to
have or that you would like her to have."

"Yes," Pablo said, looking away. "I'm
sure she would want your safe return."

Kane studied the serious young rancher. Pablo had
married a girl whose family worked hard for a modern Mexico. Her
family was bent on acquiring modern ways and modern comforts. The
girl had never worked with her hands, she had servants for that. She
had been kept indoors so that the sun would not darken her skin. When
Pablo had courted her in the closely chaperoned evenings she had
seemed unreal. The clear, nearly transparent skin, the gentle
manners, the finely tailored clothes on the innocent form, the
perfect, clean-lined woman form, had made a dreamer of him. He
dreamed with her of remodeling the hacienda at San Rafael. They would
build an airfield. They would have electricity. Television. They
would help the people. They would teach progress and industry and
sanitation. Nothing would be impossible for them for they had new,
modern ideas. The girl would make it all possible for she had spent
her life storing energy to make Pablo a good wife.

After the wedding Pablo
had taken her to San Bernardo, where they had mounted mules and
ridden the 70 miles across mountains, dust, and heat to San Rafael.
The girl had arrived so tired she had been sick for a week. She had
been married to Pablo for a miserable year now and she had only been
back to see her family, her own elegant little room in the dark cool
house, once, to have the baby. San Rafael still had no electricity,
no airfield, no toilet, no privacy. To her Pablo seemed dedicated to
remaining at San Rafael forever and she was sure he meant to keep her
there with him. No one helped her. Girls came from the ranches to
help but they were dirty and they soon disappeared. The baby cried
all the time. She was always being forced to do for some dirty riders
that came in from the hills. She had to pick up their filthy bedding
in the mornings. She was stuck on the least graced end of the world
with a man who did not want anything she wanted.

Kane was ready to leave. He began tightening the
cinches of his saddle on the sorrel horse.

"The big horse has already done a big day's
work, " Pablo said.

"Yes, he has, but work won't kill him. We've got
a long way to go," Kane said. "I'd better get started."

"
It is twenty-five leagues to San Bernardo.
You'd better stay the night and get a fresh start tomorrow,"
Pablo said.

"I must go. I have to be at the border before
noon tomorrow."

"
Let me loan you a fresh mount. It is the least
I can do for you after the schooling Pajaro gave my seed bull."

"
You can do that," Kane said.

"You can take the Macho Pardo, the brown mule.
He is the best mule on the hacienda."

"
You honor me, Pablo," Kane said sincerely.
The Macho Pardo of San Rafael was famous for endurance and good
sense. He was a
burrero
,
son of a stud horse and mare jackass, that rare; union that the
serrano
believes
produces the best saddle mule.

Kane took the rope off his saddle and walked with
Pablo and Juan down to the corral where the saddle horses and mules
were gathered.

"That one is the Macho Pardo," Pablo said,
pointing to a mule standing apart. He was solid brown with no white
or burro stripes anywhere on him. He had a small head with lantern
jaws like a stallion's. His chest was wide, his hind legs straight,
and he was high behind like a good horse. He was small. Kane figured
he wouldn't weigh over 800 pounds. Kane got his rope ready and
stepped into the corral. The little mule remained still, shot-hipped
and resting, but his ears wagged at Kane. Kane walked around so that
the other animals in the corral moved lazily toward the Pardo. The
mule kept his eye on Kane and remained facing him while the other
animals gathered around.

Kane lifted the loop gently and flattened it with a
snap of his wrist over his head. It opened with a sudden flourish in
the "houlihan". The mule didn't know he was caught until
the loop had encircled his head and neck and struck his shoulders. He
blinked his eyes in mild surprise when the loop settled. Kane stepped
to one side and flicked the rope up high on the mule's neck and
pulled the loop tight there. He pulled on the rope, causing the mule
to take a step so that he would know he was roped.

Kane walked toward the mules shoulder. Pardo became
increasingly more attentive as he watched Kane approach. The tips of
the dark ears nearly touched as he listened to Kane's voice and heard
Kane's step. Finally the wind of Kane's smell assaulted his nostrils.
He expelled the smell violently but it returned with the next breath
and the Macho Pardo of San Rafael scrambled backward in panic into
the corner of the corral. His backside touched the wall and he jumped
as though someone had prodded him with an electric hotshot. He ran
down the corral wall, straining against the rope Kane had braced
around his hips. The mule ran holding his nose high and away from the
man to keep the evil stink from entering the brain. He had no more
curiosity for this man.