Jim Kane - J P S Brown (26 page)

"
¡As
í
me bajo yo!
" Kane said. "That is
the way I get off a horse." The girl did not say a word, showed
absolutely no expression. She had seen nothing and Kane was not
there. Kane looked away.

"
You are supposed to hold with your spurs on the
animal's sides and you are supposed to hold on with both hands to the
pretal
," Mariano
Piedras said, trotting up to Kane, shaking his hand, and laughing.

"
I don't know. I've never done this kind of
thing before," Kane said.

"
Yes. You would have better luck riding if you
held on with all fours."

"
Thank you for telling me. I'll try that
sometime."

"
They are not hard to ride once you learn a few
things about riding," Mariano said.

"
That was what I wanted to see!" Don Tomás
said, walking up and shaking Kane's hand. "Short but beautiful.
You spur, with fine rhythm, a dance on a bucking horse. This is the
second time I've seen the American style of riding. I enjoyed it very
much."

"I wasn't sure I had gone for a ride at all
until I hit the ground on this side of the arena. I never found
him,"`Kane said.

"
He is over there. The buckskin. He still wears
the
pretal
you used,
see?" Mariano said, still laughing.

The girl was still regarding Kane with the quiet,
yellow, coyote look that passed over the surface of him without
judgment or evaluation but missed no detail of him. Kane climbed over
the
barrera
into the
alley to join Juan Vogel and Don Tomás. The girl walked away and
Kane saw her join the other girls of the
escaramuza
at one of the trucks. He caught her quiet look several
times while she was there. `

"
Mariano will get the
pretal
for you," Don Tomás said. "He will
manganear
the buckskin. The
mangana
is the fore-footing loop.,)

Mariano mounted his little mare and stood her facing
the
barrera
about ten
yards away from the boards. He spun his loop in a show for the
people. All his concentration was on the dancing loop as he brought
it around on every side of the mare and above his own head. He dipped
it lazily, he tripped its pace, he slowed it, he raced it, he winged
it away and brought it back, all in time with the waltz,
"
Sentimiento
"
the
mariachis
were
playing.

Without breaking the rhythm of the loop, he signaled
Don Paco and his son, who were standing their horses near the
buckskin. They charged the buckskin and drove him around the
barrera
from Mariano's right. Don Paco whipped the buckskin from
behind with a long bight of his rope. The boy kept the bronc hazed
against the fence from the outside. Mariano quickened the pace of his
big loop, brought it to the ground behind his horse, rolled it end
over end like a big wheel around his right side, rolled it past his
horse's head to the
barrera
,
brought it back to catch the front legs of the buckskin as he was
stampeded past, pulled his slack, took his dallies, let the buckskin
run on by, stopped his dallies, and the buckskin did a cartwheel on
his front feet and slammed to the ground. The smiling
vaquero
of the chutes ran across the arena and took the
pretal
off the buckskin before he could get up.

Mariano and Don Paco and his son rode out of the
arena. Then a big fat
charro
marched into the arena. He carried a can of beer. Kane
had noticed him before. The man had been watching the
charreada
from the truck of the
mariachis
.
He had contributed much song to the fiesta. He wore a khaki
charro
outfit too tight for him. The cloth stretched tightly
over his pocketless buttocks. He wore a sombrero too small for him.
The brim of the hat was fringed with red and black artificial fur.
His adequate nose sagged like a bridge that was collapsing in the
middle.

"
¡
Ese Chato!
"
people called to him from around the ring. "
¡A
torear, Chato!
Let's fight a bull!"

"I didn't bring my cape. Besides that, I am
drunk, " Chato said to someone behind Kane and Vogel. The
vaqueros
at the chutes
had gone back to the corral and were busy there.

"
You have done nothing to contribute to the
fiesta today, Chato," Juan Vogel said to him.

"Didn't you see me in the
colas
,
the tails?" Chato asked.

"
We came too late for the tailing," Juan
Vogel. said.

"I mean the
colas
at the
mezquital
,
the tail of the line at the barbecue and the beer."

"We missed it. You must have excelled,"
Juan Vogel said.

"
The
colas
at
the free meat, the cold beer, and the music," Chato said.

"
I bet you hightailed it often to the
mezquital."

"
Hee, hee, hee!" laughed Chato pleasurably.

"
Here is your bull, Chato,".the smiling
vaquero
called from
the chutes. The gate opened and a white yearling Brahma heifer was
released into the arena.

"
Hee . . .Chato said when he looked toward the
chutes. The heifer charged the men in front of the chutes, clearing
the arena there. She looked up, saw Chato, and gathered her gangly
legs in a charge that gained lanky coordination as it progressed
across the arena toward Chato. Chato was defenseless. He now was
encountering himself repentfully in the center of an arena, drunk,
with a furious animal bearing down on him. Only a moment before he
had entered the arena to say an enjoyable hello to his friends. He
threw his beer at the heifer but kept hold of the can. The heifer
shied at the splash of foam that sprayed her and came on.

Chato threw the can of beer at her as she closed with
him. The can bounced off her head high into the air and Chato avoided
the first contact. The heifer turned back quickly. Chato swept off
his sombrero, stuck his buttocks out, and passed her by him with the
hat. He then ran to a gate in the
barrera
.
She came after him, butting at his heels. .

The gate of the
barrera
opened into the arena. It was partly open. Chato got
behind it and closed it to him in the face of the heifer. The heifer
slammed into the gate, banging the back of Chato's head on a board
over the gate. Now Chato's body was safe behind the gate but he had
left his head in the arena. It was held there by the board over the
gate and the top of the gate. His head was only six inches from the
head of the heifer.

Each time Chato tried to move the gate out toward the
heifer to free his head the heifer butted into the gate and drove
Chato's cranium into the board. She would look up into Chato's eyes
and try furiously to attack Chato's head. But she could not reach it.
Finally she stretched out her black tongue, splashed it against his
face, and bawled her hot, breathy voice all over his face in
frustration.

"
Chato," a heckler called from the crowd.
"Get away from there! She'll eat you!"

"
No, you are safe now, Chato. She has tasted
you," another called.

Finally the smiling v
aquero
roped the heifer and led her out of the arena, freeing
Chato. He stood in the alley rubbing the back of his head. Kane and
Juan Vogel walked over to see if he was all right. Chato bent over to
pick up his hat. The seat of his pants was split down the seam.

"
The bull let the air into your pants,"
Juan Vogel said to him. Someone handed Chato a beer from over the
wall.

"
Hee, hee, hee," Chato said. The
charreada
was over.
 

 
18
The
Dance

A n
ovio
is one betrothed or committed to very
stringent arts of wooing. To
andar de novio
,
to go as a suitor, is a dedicated occupation for any man stricken
with love, and the poor unfortunate may be at it for years before the
lady decides he has had enough. Decent
noviando
for many girls entails no less time than a
year. It entails the
novio's
visiting
the
novia
at her house
each and every evening without fail. This visit is called by the
novio, "
cumpliendo
,"
fulfilling his obligation to his beloved. It entails the exclusive
attention of the novio at all dances and formal gatherings of all the
best families of the acquaintance of the novio and the most privacy
the
novio
ever gets
with his
novia
is when
he goes with her and her chaperone to the dark movies. It entails
constant attention by the novio without hope of surcease but does not
require any, absolutely any, advances or favors of even the smallest
kind by the novia. Her duties are only to stay out of the sun so as
not to become browned by it and to look unobtainably desirable to the
poor
novio
and to be
very, very careful no one ever sees him touch her.

"You will stay for the dance," Don Tomás
told Kane while they were drinking whiskey and soda in the living
room of the main house of the Piedras hacienda.

"
I'd like to, but I thought I would look for
Juan Vogel and see if he is ready to go back to Rio Alamos,"
Kane said.

"You must stay. The day is gone now. We'll have
a few drinks of whiskey here and then my daughter is going to serve
posole
, a special meal
at any fiesta. After the
posole
,
the dance will begin. Anyway, Juanito won't be returning to Rio
Alamos tonight. He'll be occupied with strong drink and pretty girls
at the dance. You can go back to Rio Alamos to work tomorrow. Tonight
is time for festivities and you are my guest. Today is the feast of
Saint Patrick, the patron saint of my daughter."

Kane and Don Tomás were on their third double drink
when Adelita Piedras came into the room with the girls of the
escaramuza
. They
stopped to greet Don Tomás.

‘
'You did well today. Very well," he told
them. "Do any of you know Señor Kane?"

"We do not have the pleasure, Papá,"
Adelita said. She turned the coyote gaze on Kane. "Patricia
Adela Piedras at your service," she said, shaking Kane's hand.

"Jim Kane, your servant," Kane said.

Don Tomás introduced the other five girls and each
of them smiled and shook hands with Kane.

"
Are you going to change for the dance now?"
Don Tomás asked the girls.

"
Yes, Papá," Adelita said. "We will
excuse ourselves now. I have much pleasure in knowing you," she
said to Kane and all the girls repeated this and again shook hands
with Kane. They left the room on dusty, booted feet, their spurs
ringing.

Later the girls in their best dresses served the
supper of
posole
, a
stew made of meat from the head of a pork with boiled hominy. The
girls served two score guests who came to the Piedras dining room.
They kept the wine glasses full of red wine. They brought steaming
hot tortillas from the kitchen to replenish the stacks on the table.

Adelita and her sister, Margarita, wife of Juan
Vogel,welcomed each guest individually. Adelita was especially
attentive to Chato, who had managed to arrive just in time to get the
seat nearest the kitchen and by the fullest wine bottle. Guests left
the table as soon as they were finished eating so their seats could
be taken by others who were priming their appetites with drinks in
the front room. Kane left the table at the same time Chato did. He
was standing under the
portal
in
front of the house lighting a cigar when Chato walked out.