Jim Kane - J P S Brown (10 page)

Had he penned Whiskey Talk? Had both the Mortgage
brothers been there? He couldn't remember for sure. Had he ridden
Pajaro this morning? Or had his penning of the colts been some days
ago before he had run onto these tracks. The hangover and the shock
of finding his paint burro and the hurrying fear for his horses had
eliminated the element of time for him. What had already happened
might still be going to happen. His bringing in of the horses might
have been dreamed some other time. Maybe if he ignored the back track
to the jeep he would catch the coward down here carrying his manly
pistol in its girl holster and make him eat it. He would have faith
that the tracks that returned to the jeep were not there, he would
believe the person was ahead of him and a miracle would happen, time
would disappear. Sooner and later would disappear. He would not be
too late to catch one of the killers. He had his rope. He would rope
the killer and drag him through the cholla. The person would know he
had not got away when he was being dragged through the cholla. `

Kane found the spot where the tracks turned back
toward the jeep and he became sane again. He sighed. He walked the
paint colt back to camp. Yes, his Pajaro was still there. All his
colts were. He had known it all the time. He unsaddled Warwhoop for
the last time. Warwhoop had graduated from Kane's school. Kane went
up to his camp and made his first cup of coffee of the day and lit
his first cigarette.

He went back and rode Mortgage Maker and Mortgage
Lifter, and all the new colts. One at a time he turned them out free
to the pasture after he had ridden them, unsaddled them, rubbed their
ears for them, and said good-bye to them. They had all acted like
gentlemen. He had not ridden back down the road by the tiny carcass
of Din. He was over his hangover now and he wanted to eat. He decided
he would ride Whiskey Talk in the corral only a few turns and stops
and backing-ups. Then he would be finished for the day, finished with
the colts, and finished with the desert ranch by Phoenix, Arizona.

Kane and Whiskey Talk were concentrating. They were
working well together. The colt was responding perfectly. What a fine
horse Whiskey Talk would be for Jimmy Keys! They made a turn by the
saddle house. A big tourist in an orange coat jumped up on the fence
and shouted "Hi there."

Kane had not been so startled he could have
controlled the colt for he had complete control of the colt up until
the sight of the tourist scared him. Kane was looking over his
shoulder at the big, ugly tourist when Whiskey Talk started bucking.
Whiskey Talk had never bucked before and Kane would never have
expected him to buck, but the colt was bucking very hard and he had
all he could do to catch up and start riding. The colt bucked into
the comer of the corral and Kane caught up with him but the colt
turned back so fast he slammed sideways into the corner and the toe
of Kane's boot caught in a square of hogwire and when the colt bucked
out Kane's bad knee popped like a rifle shot. The whole leg numbed as
though it had been shot off at the knee and then it hurt so much that
Kane could not believe the pain was true. He rode Whiskey Talk two
more jumps and bailed out and lay there clawing the dirt in the
corral and wanting to chew himself up. His leg lay out there like
something that didn't belong to him and he dragged himself to the
fence so that he could get up on his feet to try to stand on it. He
thought maybe if he stood up the leg would be reminded of its
function and when this first pain went away it would be all right.

The tourist had been jabbering and now Kane listened
to him.

"
Boy, what a wild one, what a wild one,"
the tourist was ,J shouting. "He sure bounced you off
beautifully, cowboy. I'd give anything to have a picture of that."

Kane pulled himself up on the fence. He was dizzy and
he had to hold on to the fence with all his might to keep from
passing out. He stuck his head through the boards in the fence and
pressed his chest down on the board under him. He began to feel very
warm and cozy in the head and he was sure he was passing out and all
his weight went down on the board and he rode the board far away. He
found a good place and when he started coming back he saw his hands
in the sun on the white board below him and he started feeling
better. He kept hanging there loving that board under him and
caressing the other board under that one as though the boards were
making the pain go away. Then he started to sweat nicely.

The tourist had come over and was standing near him.
Kane didn't want to move even though he knew the tourist was laughing
at the position he was in.

"
Boy, that was funny. The funniest, most
ludicrous thing I've ever seen. You with your hiney in the air like
that. If I only had a movie camera for that sequence I could make a
million dollars."

He came closer, laughing, enjoying life out West.
When he was in front of Kane, Kane reached up and got him by the
lapels of his orange suede coat and jerked him down and butted him
under the chin with the top of his head. This is one time I'm glad I
lost my hat when I got bucked off, he thought. The tourist collapsed
under the fence and Kane hung there groping for him but he couldn't
reach him and the tourist flopped out from under him and crawled
away. Kane hung there a while longer. He heard a car drive away.

When he tried to walk again he found he still could
put no weight on the leg. He crawled across the corral to the edge of
the saddle house and found a pickax for a crutch to help him to his
car. He had to clutch, brake, and accelerate with his good foot. He
could not move his bad leg. The gate at the highway looked like the
Rocky Mountains to him when he drove up to it. He had to unload the
leg, open the gate, load the leg and drive through, stop, unload
again and close the gate. He loaded again and drove to Frog's
Frontier Bar. He borrowed some ice to put on the knee before it
swelled. He had a shot of Old Crow for the pain. He asked Frog to go
and unsaddle Whiskey Talk and turn him out to pasture.
 
 

9
The
Sale

The day the Mexican mares crossed the border they
were shipped to an auction at Clovis, New Mexico. Very few people
came to the sale. The bad luck, the plight of the mares was such that
a hurricane of wind and rain was blowing the day the mares were sold.

Jim Kane, standing in a wind that took his breath
away, ` before he led the first mare into the sales ring to start the
auction, laughed because he was relieved the time of bad luck was
probably finished for the mares and he could start on something new
himself. Something new might offer him good luck, produce for him a
living. After all, win or lose, he was turning his mares over to
people that might not have bad luck with them. This sale would put
the cost of the mares for the new owner down where the owner could
see the real value of the mares. Kane knew that no one who braved a
hurricane to bid at this sale was going to give one penny more than
the stock was worth to him.

Jim Kane led each mare into the sale barn and paraded
her before three men who stood in the ring while the wind through the
overhead rafters in the high barn lifted and slammed at the loose tin
roof and drowned the auctioneer's voice.

As the little mares, the calicos, the sorrels with
gold flecks on them, the whites with black spots, the blues with
polka dots on their round and plump and white-blanketed rumps, went
through the ring, Kane's stake in the little ranch he wanted with the
nopal
in the clearing
went with them. The three buyers, bidding in accord and keeping the
price down by solemn agreement among themselves, had no way of
knowing that Jim Kane had lost his stake to them in bringing the
mares from Jalisco to Clovis, new Mexico. They only knew they were
making sure they'd get their dollar's worth and that was the only way
they liked to do business. They were kind to each other and each
other's dollar and were keeping all other considerations out of the
deal. They didn't let selfishness make them crazy bidders. One puffed
a pipe, one a cigar, one cigarettes, and all three calmly and evenly
divided the mares by quality and color. The man with the pipe took
fourteen head, the man with the cigar took fifteen, and the man on
cigarettes took fifteen. And Jim Kane took himself back to Frontera
without enough money to pay Eligio Gavilan the feed bill for the more
than three months the mares had been in his corrals.

Eligio was at his stool in the Montezuma Bar when
Kane found him.

"
¿Qué hubo
, Jim?"
Eligio said. "How did you do at the sale?" He didn't give
Kane time to answer. "Did you bring my little check?"

"
I brought a check. I don't have enough to pay
everybody, Eligio."

"
Ah, you make like the
tontito
,
the little dumb one, eh?"

"No, this time my calculations are correct. I
have enough to pay you or Will Ore or each of you half of what I owe
you and enough to pay the bank. But not enough to pay everyone all
the money I owe."

"
Why you want to pay Will Ore? Will Ore is your
friend. He can wait. Pay the bank and if you have any money left, pay
me.

"
Will Ore has been very good to you and me both,
Eligio."

"
Ah yes, Will Ore is a very good man, a very
good man. He will be glad to wait for his money for a friend."

"
Where is he, Eligio? His office phone doesn't
answer. His home phone doesn't answer."

"
He went to Magdalena. But he'll be back. Pay me
if you want to and I'll tell him when he comes back. He'll
understand."

"
Come on, Eligio. One roll of the dice to see
who I pay. I can't pay you both."

"
No, no, no, no. I don't like the dice. I always
lose at the dice and I don't like to lose. I am very unlucky. It's a
sin to gamble, you know that? A sin to gamble. No, no, no, no, no, I
won't gamble, it's a sin."

"
Only one roll," Kane said.

"
I am tempted but I'm not going to do it. Don't
tempt me anymore," Eligio said.

"
What shall I do then, Eligio?"

"
Don't ask me. I am merciless," Eligio
said, hissing his merciless.

"
Don't give me mercy, Eligio. Tell me what to
do."

"
Pay the gringos. I am a merciless man. I'll get
you when you come through my corrals. If you don't pay the gringos
they will stop you from doing business. I want you to stay in
business. When you come through my corrals with cattle I will cobrar,
demand payment. If you bring two steers I will
cobrar
one steer and an ear and the tail of the other. I am a
merciless man, a demon to
cobrar
."

"Thank you, Eligio."

"
You have style, Kane. I'll get the money. Only
promise me one thing. Please don't bring me any more diseased horses.
Stay out of the diseased horse business. The American veterinarians
are killing me with sanitation?

"
I promise, Eligio."

"
Good. I invite you to a brandy."

Kane drank the brandy with Eligio and paid for it.
 
 

10
The
Commission

The Cave across the border in Frontera, Sonora, was a
bar and restaurant which had once been a dungeon. The Cave had been
carved deep in the rock of a hill that dominated Frontera. The owner
of the Cave, an Italian immigrant, had bought it from the town of
Frontera, Sonora, soon after the First World War when that town had
moved its prisoners out of the Cave to a jail it had prepared for
them of brick and mortar. For many years the iron shackles and chains
on the walls of the Cave had served the Italians patrons as
conversation pieces. Now they were gone and the walls were painted
gold, its highest ceilings were painted the color of the sky and
electric stars blinked from them. A string orchestra played in the
dining room from noon until the Cave closed in the early morning and
diners had their choices of "The most extensive varieties of
foods and wines in r northern Mexico or the southwestern United
States." The food was very good and the Cave dining room was the
place where the people who made the two border towns their
headquarters went when they wanted elegance. The Italian, however,
had never effectively been able to control the black scorpions that
once in a while fell from the high ceiling of the Cave into the soup
of old ladies who came to Frontera on bus tours.

Jim Kane walked across the line to the Cave to have a
drink. The bar was crowded. A band of mariachis were standing in a
semicircle playing for a crowd of Americans in a booth. The bar's row
of booths was packed. Tourists high on margaritas, businessmen and
their wives from Arizona, uniformly undressed college children from
Tucson in Robinson Crusoe hats, danced in the space between the bar
and the booths with the loud trumpets of the mariachis in their ears.

Terry Garrett and Ira March, two cattlemen Kane knew,
were at the bar with two girls. They were having a nice time. Terry
Garrett's blond hair was hanging in his eyes from under his hat. Ira
March's hat was cocked on the side of his head. Garrett grinned out
of the side of his mouth at the girl by his side. The grin came out
of only one side of his face because a scar stiffened his face on the
other side. Ira March's grin, which showed no teeth and had always
reminded Kane of the rattlesnakes grin, if a rattlesnake could grin,
split his face like a scar. The two cowpunchers and the two girls
were hunched closely together over their drinks on the bar, intently
enjoying their conversation and their becoming intoxicated. One girl
looked as feral as an Aztec with her big, slanted eyes and
short,thin, hooked nose, and lips that were too full to be civilized.
The other girl sat up straight and handsome at the bar, her head
haughty and erect. The bare neckline of her black dress plunged out
of sight under the edge of the bar. A gold religious medal on a gold
chain adorned this naked area that she knew men liked to look at the
most. Kane stopped at the bar and Garrett saw him. Garrett squalled
as if the owls had hold of him. ‘