Jim Kane - J P S Brown (55 page)

30
The
Trago

Jim Kane did not take Adelieta Piedras back to her
father's house until early morning. He drove his car through the gate
of the clearing and up to the main house. He got out of the car and
walked the girl to the steps below the big, carved doors of her
house. Don Tomás . Piedras opened the doors.

"
Papá
, Jim Kane and
I went to Camauiroa," Adelita said quietly to her father.

"
Come in, Señor Kane," Don Tomás said. "I
have coffee made and I am about to have my trago."

The girl embraced her father and passed through the
door. She went up the stairs to her room without looking back at
Kane. Don Tomás pulled out a chair at the dining room table for
Kane. An oil lamp was lit on the table and a bottle of aged tequila
was by the lamp. Two short-stemmed goblets were by the bottle. The
long, high-ceilinged room was still cool from the night.

Don Tomás poured the two goblets full of brown
tequila.

"
I always have a strong drink of the good
tequila early," Don Tom
á
s
said. "I know you must like it too."

`'I do," Kane said. .

"
Someone has said the little swallow, the
traguito
, downed to
start the day with its warm companionship; before a meal to stimulate
the taste for the food; after a harrowing experience to replenish a
soul dangerously depleted by shock; or before an unpleasant
experience, to bolster the nerves, is an institution in Mexico, "
Don Tomás said. "A
trago
is
also collateral for friendship. To give a man a
trago
when you have one and can see he can use one secures
your friendship with him."

"This
trago
will be so appreciated? Kane said.

"
Of course we Mexicans at times set too much
store by our
tragos
and
perhaps we take them too frequently when we are troubled or happy. We
are inclined to humor our philosophies about the
trago
too much."

"This is better than the custom of my country of
being seriously afraid of the
trago
,"
Kane said.

"Still, your country has many fine customs.
Perhaps it would be better for us Mexicans if we did not indulge
ourselves with drink so completely."

"
I believe my country and my people are
beginning to take themselves too seriously, " Kane said. "In
all walks of life they tend to become overly impressed with
themselves and their talents for making money, their talent for
success."

"
Which causes me to bring up two questions about
yourself, Señor Kane. I should know better than to ask them of you
since I believe you are a good man. But, nevertheless, they are
questions I am bound by duty to ask you since I don't wish to see you
shot or to bring my sword down from the wall against you. Are you so
impressed with yourself that my daughter, Adelita, does not affect in
you a sense of love and honor? Or, my second question, are you so
unimpressed with yourself that you cannot believe my fine girl could
truly, sincerely, and deeply love you; or that possibly you believe
you are not the first man she has spent a night away from home with?"
The old man fixed the coldest, most analytically belligerent eye on
Kane that Kane had ever seen.

"
Wait," the old man said, relaxing when
Kane didn't squirm. "Let us drink our
tragos
first so that you may have time to think before you
answer and so that you will know I ask you this in all kindness and
friendship. If you can't answer, I want you to know you are dismissed
and bear us no obligation."

"
Don Tomás," Kane said. "I need no
strong drink to brace me before I answer you. I appreciate your
friendship but whether you are my friend or not I answer no to both
your questions. I love your daughter. I have never been able to
convince anyone that my goals are good ones. Up to now I have lefy
behind me, not enemies, but people who believed me to be worthless
and a failure because they did not understand what I was aiming for.
So if you don't understand what my goals are I won't blame you."

"
What are your high hopes, young man?" Don
Tomás asked.

"
My hopes are, to be a man and to be called a
man by everyone I love and by all who love me."

"
That is a fine answer. If it had not been so I
would have had to bring down my sword and would have been unable to
say no to Mariano's plan to shoot you."

"
I have a life to live before I take anyone's
daughter away from him."

"
Do what you have to do," Don Tomás said.
"God bless you.
 

31
Bullpen

The boots were off. The shirt was off. The belt was
unbuckled, and the Levis were off. The hat was laid carefully on top
of the pile of clothes and Kane stretched himself under the covers on
his bed. The Lion came into his room before he was asleep.

"
Don't be surprised! Don't run and try to
escape! Two secret policemen, friends of mine, are downstairs in
Teresita's kitchen waiting to take you in," the Lion said.

"
Don't be funny, Lion. I am just now getting to
bed. I'm going to sleep now, good night."

"I'm not joking. You'd better get up."

"Then why don't they come up here and get me if
they want me?"

"
I told them I would be responsible for you and
take you to the
comandancia
at eight o'clock when the Ministerio Público comes to his office."

"
Chavarin's Ministerio Público?" r

"
The same Ministerio Público."

"Well, if the Ministerio Público wants me, he
wants you too. Why does he want me?"

"I don't know. I wasn't with you all night last
night, remember?"

"
Now what do you think I did last night, Lion,
rob a bank?"

"¿
Quién sake? I
don't know everything you do," the Lion said innocently. "When
you left me here you said you were taking the girl home. Did she ever
arrive home?"

"
Of course. I just came from there. I had coffee
with Don Tomás."

"
¡Ay, hijo!
The old man. Are you sure the girl stayed at home when
you left there?"

"
Yes, I'm sure. Now stop your clowning and let
me sleep. "

"And she isn't making a lump in that bed there
now with you.

"
Of course not."

The Lion pulled Kane's covers off him.

"
Of course. The girl isn't here with you. But
you had better get up and drink coffee with me."

"
All right, since you won't let me sleep,"
Kane said. He dressed and went downstairs with the Lion. There were
no policemen in Teresita's kitchen.

At five minutes to eight o'clock the Lion finished
his coffee with noisy gusto and stood up.

¡Vámonos
," he said.
"Let's go and see what they want with you.

"
Where are you taking him, Lion?" Teresita
asked. "Let the man go to bed. He only just got home."

"
We have to go and bring the car in. It ran out
of gas early this morning when I went to see to the cattle. I left it
outside town," the Lion said. Kane sighed. He had half-believed
Chavarin's uncle, the Ministerio Público, wanted him.

"
Here," Teresita said. "Wait a minute.
I have a five-gallon can you can carry the gas in."

"Never mind," the Lion said. "There is
a big can where we are going."

The Ford was exactly where Kane had parked it an hour
before. They got in the car and the Lion said, "Surely they
won't hold you in the can, Jim. They probably only want to
interrogate you about something. They will release you as soon as
they have your statement on what you did last night. " Kane now
for the first time believed the Lion had not been playing a joke on
him. The Lion drove straight to the
comandancia
.

"
Go through that big door," he instructed
Kane when he had parked in front of the old building. Kane looked at
the Lion. "Aren't you going in with me?" he asked.

"
I'd better stay out here in case they want me
to move the car," the Lion said without looking at Kane.

Kane continued to look at him.

"
Bueno
,
you don't want the Ministerio Público to get me too, do you?"
the Lion asked. "Who would be outside to get us out of jail?"

"
Exactly. What in the world could I have been
thinking of? You are precisely right," Kane said and went inside
the stationhouse. A well-fed policeman in sweat-stained khaki and
large pistol belt stood behind a waist-high wooden fence that divided
the room in half.

"
Tell me," he said to Kane.

"
They tell me the Ministerio Público wants to
see me," Kane said.

"
Ah, yes. You are the one the secrets were
skulking after last night," the policeman said. "Sit down,
please."

Kane sat on a long slat bench. Two more police came
in with a very quiet-spoken, quiet-moving young man in
huaraches
.

"
This is the one that stole the young girl,"
one of the
huarachudo
escorts
said. Kane looked up in alarm but none of the police were looking at
him. They were all looking at the
huarachudo
.
The police behind the fence found a bale of papers and read from the
top page.

"
Are you Filomeno Amador Reyes?" he asked
the
huarachudo.

"
I believe so," the young man answered.

"`Are you married civilly and by the church to
Maria del Carmen Soliz?"

"
I believe so."

"
And on the nineteenth day of last month you
took Josefina, called 'Chepina', Garcia, aged fourteen years, from
her village of Batopilas, Municipio of Quiriego, to the ranch of
Pablo Amador, where you have held her until this
date?"

"I believe so."

"
Then you are the one who stole Chepina Garcia?"

"
I believe so."

"
Then you are going to jail for it because all
of these complaints are signed by your wife and the parents of
Chepina Garcia."

"
I believe not," the
huarachudo
said and turned and started smoothly for the door. The
two police grabbed his arms, pulled him over to the fence, and
handcuffed him there. A bull-necked, bald-headed, brown-faced, stocky
young man in a dark business suit came into the station. His new
shoes were freshly shined. His gold cufflinks held his clean, white
cuffs. He greeted the police and they all saluted him, fingers to
brow. He examined the bale of papers, asked the prisoner who he was,
and put the papers back across the fence on the desk.

"
Prepare the consignment papers for this man,"
he said to the police across the fence.

"
Si, Señor Ministerio,"the police said and
saluted. The Ministerio turned and went through the gate in the
fence. He said good morning to Kane when he passed. The police behind
the fence intercepted him at the gate and said something in a low
voice to him. The Ministerio turned to Kane and said, "
Pase
Usted
," and held the gate open for Kane
while he passed through. The Ministerio led Kane to an office on the
patio in the center of the building and asked Kane to sit down. He
sat behind his desk and perused his papers for a quarter of an hour
before he finally spoke to Kane.

"
Do you know Güero Chavarin?" he asked
Kane.

"Your nephew? I know him well," Kane said.

"I asked that you be brought here so that I
could help you settle your differences with the Güero in an informal
manner."

"
I was under the assumption the Güero and I had
settled our differences very informally last night," Kane said.

"
There are matters of personal injuries
inflicted by you on the Güero to be regulated. There are matters of
hospital and dentist bills."

"
These matters I believe were settled when the
Güero lost the fight he himself instigated."

"The Güero has made a complaint against you. He
is willing to drop any charges against you if you will pay his
hospital and dentist bills. When you drew blood from him it
automatically made you guilty under Mexican law."

"
I don't believe Mexican law is so unjust. The
man provoked the fight that resulted in his hurts. I'l1 not pay
twenty centavos to see him cured, nor would he have done so if I had
been hurt."

"You won't?"

"Absolutely not."

"
Correcto
," the
Ministerio Público said. "I only advise you it would be better
and easier for all concerned if you would pay the bills and settle
the matter."