Jim Kane - J P S Brown (42 page)

"
Mierda
! What?"

"
No meal. The truck was gone when I got back."
The Lion roared with laughter.

That afternoon the Lion helped Kane find a thousand
acres of Wheat stubble. The fields were well shaded and had plenty of
grass on their irrigation ditch banks. Acres of wheat in thickly
bordered areas had been left intact by the combines. Kane was sure
his cattle would do well here during their quarantine period if he
supplemented the stubble with stronger feed.

The next morning Kane's lawyer arrived at the motel.
He was a young, slightly built, clean-cut boy just out of school,
very formal. He accompanied Kane to Espil's corrals. The troughs,
still, held more than half the hay Kane had fed the day before. The
cattle were full. Kane explained the cattle's problem as they
returned to the motel. The lawyer took off his coat and tie and sat
in the corner of the room with a news magazine when Espil came into
the room.

"
Espil. I'm taking my cattle out of your corrals
today," Kane said.

"
It is about the right time now although I think
we should wait until they rest up on a good feed before you move them
to my ranch."

"
Yes? Well they aren't going to your ranch after
all. I bought some wheat stubble for them."

"
What about my ranch?"

"
I'm not going to use your ranch, Espil."

"Oh, yes, you are. Your partner and I have a
deal. Those cattle stay with me until I hear from him."

"
You have no deal with my partner to feed those
cattle in corrals."

"
Yes, I have."

"
Let's see the deal."

"
What?" ·

"
Let's see your contract."

"We have no contract. We made a deal by giving
our word to one another. That is good enough for me, man."

"
Not good enough for me. The cattle go out of
there today. The cattle wear my brand. They are inspected here to me
and they go where I say they go."

"You are going to pay me what you owe for the
feed I've given the cattle before they take one step out of my
corrals."

"
All right. Let's see what the cattle owe you."
 
Espil opened a large briefcase, fixed a
pair of glasses on his nose and lifted out a sheaf of receipts. He
got paper and began adding the receipts. After the careful adding of
the numbers of the receipts he underlined the total and handed the
paper to Kane.

d "Only three thousand six hundred and three
dollars," he said.

Kane took the receipts. Most of them were from a
Norteña hay dealer.

"
Who is José Nolasco?" Kane asked.

''He is a feed dealer here in Norteña. A fine man.
An honest man. He is my compadre."

"
All right. I hope he gave you this paper cheap.
It was nice of you to feed my cattle so well. But I just can't pay
you one cent of the money you say you were out, because for one
thing, I don't owe you. We rented your ranch, not your corrals. We
had no agreement for you to feed hay in corrals. For another thing, I
just plain won't pay you because you never gave the cattle a third of
what you are charging me. I don't know how the cattle have stayed
alive."

"
You are mistaken. I fed them well."

"
How much did you feed? How many bales this last
week, for instance?"·

"
Three hundred bales a day."

"
How much did the bales weight?"

"
They are heavy bales from this region. They
weigh over one hundred pounds."

"
So you fed twenty-one hundred bales of alfalfa
hay this last week?"

"Yes."

"
And sixty thousand pounds of cottonseed meal
and hulls I sent you?"

"
What?"

"The meal and hulls I sent."

"
I fed it week before last."

"
I only sent it a week ago, Espil."

"
Well, yes. We fed that too."

Kane laughed. "Boy, Espil, muchacho, Espil, we
aren't playing marbles. You know how much I fed those cattle
yesterday?"

"
Mucho, mucho, too much. I saw the troughs still
full of hay this morning. Your alfalfa is bad, stemmy. They can't eat
it. You fed bad hay."

"
I fed three hundred bales yesterday. They weigh
forty-five pounds apiece. I fed six tons and the troughs are still
full and the cattle are full. You are saying you fed fifteen tons
early yesterday and the cattle were out of feed by 10 A.M."

"
Some days they fill better than other days.
These
corrientes
are
bad, bad class. They fool you. They are no good to anyone."

"My friend, no cattle can live with a thief.
Don't you think I can tell when my cattle have been starved?"

"
You don't know these
corrientes
.
Man, you are used to those good
gringo
Herefords. These Mexican
corrientes
will give you a lesson on how to lose money. "

"
You mean Mexican corral owners," Kane
said.

"
Well, pay me so you can take your cattle out of
my corrals. I don't want scorpions around my outfit anymore. They are
bad for my reputation." He handed Kane the receipts. .

"Use that paper to wipe with," Kane said. .

"Look,
gringo
.
I don't want trouble. I am an honest man and I don't like fights. If
you don't pay me right now I'll have to take you to the judge who is
my compadre also."

Kane's lawyer laid aside the magazine and stood up
briskly. He took a business card from his wallet, flapped the wallet
shut, and handed the card to Espil.

"
Manuel Escudero, licensed attorney, at your
orders," he said.

Espil scanned the card for a long moment. He removed
the glasses and looked blindly at the card. He put the glasses back
on and read the card again. He looked up at the lawyer and smiled.

"
Thank you," Espil said. "Armando
Espil, your servant."

"
Now," the lawyer said. "In case of
legal action in this problem, I must tell you, Se
ñ
or
Espil, we will demand against you for failure to feed the cattle and
for taking the cattle under false pretenses. That is, you pretended
to have a ranch which you did not have. And we suspect you will be
unable to deliver all of the one thousand and thirty head of cattle
that were shipped to you. In that case we may investigate further
into any transportation of cattle you have made within the last
month."

Espil smiled his best blue-eyed, tanned-face smile.

"
No trouble. That is what I said and what I
mean. If your ideas don't conform with mine, I bow to your better
judgment. Like any friend I want what is best for your cattle. Take
them tomorrow or anytime with my full consent. "

"Now," the lawyer continued. "We are
prepared to pay you a dollar a head for all cattle removed from your
corral for your care and any feed you might have given if you will
pay us the cost of any cattle that are missing from the one thousand
and thirty head."

"Six died. Kane saw the hides."

"
All right," Kane said. "I'll go for
six."

"Let's just call it even," Espil said. "You
don't owe me a
veinte centavo
piece. Let's just say I did you the favor from a good
heart."

"
You say it, Espil," Kane said.

Espil gathered his papers, folded them neatly into
his businessman's briefcase, put away his glasses, shook hands, and
left.

Kane took the lawyer to his private plane at the
airport and then went hunting with the Lion.

Kane and the Lion hired vaqueros and drove the cattle
to the wheat stubble the next day. Kane allowed the cattle to rest
and fill 10 days and then began castrating and doctoring warts and
ringworm. The brown-and-white spotted bull was in the first corral
full of cattle the men worked.

The Lion sat his horse in the corral and looked at
the brown-and-white spotted bull and laughed in a high mocking voice.
The spotted bull stood in a corner of the corral. His hip bones
jutted angularly. His head was low under the heavy horns. He had
started to move down the fence, had been blocked by the Lion, and
turned head and front legs back away from the Lion. But his hind legs
had been too weak to turn back and they had not changed course with
the rest of the bull. There they stood, still headed down the fence,
as though completely independent of the front quarters, waiting a new
command. And between them in all their majesty hung the cods a lion
was intent on acquiring.

"
Are you absolutely certain you want to castrate
this animal?" the Lion asked.

"
Of course," Kane said. "Why?"

"
I'm afraid it will unbalance him and his head
will fall to the ground. He is so weak he will never be able to pick
it up. Also with such an operation you could be in danger of removing
a portion of his brain."

"
Very funny. Just catch him for me. That is all
you are supposed to do. Not give so much advice."

"
Maybe you would like to dehorn him at the same
time. In that way you would not only be helping him to maintain his
balance but you would help take away the look of an insect he has."

"
What do you mean insect? That is a good, sound,
corriente
bull. He is
beautiful."

"
He looks like the cross between a scorpion and
an ant. Look at those horns. Exactly like the pincers of a scorpion.
Look at that tail end. It comes to a point. It protrudes and then it
tucks under. Exactly like an ant."

"
Ha, ha, ha, funny. Funny, " said Kane.
"Rope him."

"
But wait. I see now why you love him so. Those
bangs of shaggy hair over his horns and eyes. That long, dead hair on
his sides. Those skinny flanks. Those bright little eyes. He also
resembles a monkey. Could he be a relative of yours? A
pariente
?"

"
Of your mother,
¡Ya
basta tus payasadas!
" said Kane. "Enough
of your clowning!"

"
Heh, heh, heh," said the Lion. "We'll
see if he can be roped like cattle can be roped. If so I will concede
he may possibly be a distant relative to a bovine."

The Lion began to swing a big loop in his
reata
.
He swung the loop counter-clockwise to his side. The spotted bull
wavered out of the corner toward the center of the corral. The Lion
let go of the loop. It sailed open and arched to the bull. It landed
on the bull's hind quarters, caught them, and whipped under his belly
from the side opposite the Lion making a trap for the bull's hind
legs which he immediately stepped into. The Lion pulled out all the
slack of the loop catching the hind legs below the hocks. The bull
continued to shuffle along, the tied legs in the loop rubbing
together. The Lion dallied the
reata
around his saddle horn and rode away. The bull sat down.
His hind legs were held off the ground by the
reata
.
He lay over on his side giving no battle. A
vaquero
knelt on his neck and held one front foot while Kane
castrated him and scraped and iodined his warts and ringworm. When
all operations were completed and the animal was no longer a spotted
bull but a spotted steer, `Kane let him up. The steer walked slowly
over to join his mates in the corner of the corral. The scraped
circles where the ringworm had abided were naked and stained brown
with iodine. Kane took the two great testicles and put them in a
bucket of water.

"
Two kilos of
botana
,"
said the Lion.

"
Mucha carne
,"
said Kane. "He commences to produce. You see how happy he is
now?"

"
I was sure he was going to stand on his head."

"Well, you can see he did not. We only changed
his mind from love to grass."

Kane and the Lion made camp under a mesquite on the
edge of a dirt tank of water and stocked in provisions. The two men
worked happily together out of that camp.

One afternoon Kane roped a black bull to doctor him
for warts. When the bull hit the end of the rope he stepped falsely
and dislocated a shoulder. With only 30 days left in the quarantine
the bull would never get well enough to make the 200-mile train ride
to the border or the 1500-mile trip to Wyoming. Kane and the Lion
walked the bull to the shade of their camp and tied him to the
mesquite.

The Lion, savoring the fresh meat he would soon have,
gleefully sharpened his big butcher knife and cheerfully, gloatingly,
stuck it into the bull's throat. The bull was emptied of his blood in
a splash. The Lion held a bucket under the fountain of blood he had
opened and he kept the long knife in the throat, twisting the blade
to give maximum flow as the blood spilled out. The bull was emptied
of his life and became
insensate
in
less than a minute. The Lion took all the blood he could and set the
bucket aside. Then he stretched the bull out and skinned him and
butchered him on his own hide.